Socialist Alternative’s Socialism conference got off to a flying start in Sydney today. More than 300 people are participating in lively discussions of everything from Australia’s history of radical unionism to historical materialism, from gender and sexuality to and the fight against racism in Australia today.
The conference is taking place at the University of Technology in central Sydney and will continue tomorrow. It is the first time Socialist Alternative has held such an event in Sydney. Conference organiser Josh Lees said: “It’s been fantastic. The numbers are beyond anything we expected. There is obviously a lot of interest in discussing left wing ideas here in Sydney.
“One of the highlights was the panel of fighting racism in Australia today. It brought together Ken Canning, who was involved in founding the Redfern Aboriginal Tent Embassy, Rahaf Ahmed, a frontline fighter against the wave of Islamophobia sweeping the country, along with several other speakers.”
Ken Canning, who spoke to a packed theatre, pulled no punches in attacking the savage racism of the Abbott government. “Tony Abbott has declared war on Aboriginal Australia. He is not misguided; he is intentionally committing genocide against our people”, he said.
“The media do not report what is going on in this country. They do not report that last week an 8-year-old Aboriginal boy killed himself rather than be removed from his country.
“If you continue to remove Aboriginal people off their land they will die. I will not mince words. I accuse the prime minister of murder. When the intervention [into Northern Territory Aboriginal communities] happened, they knew what was going to happen. People died.”
Suicide rates among Indigenous people increased 500 percent after the intervention, Ken said. “We need to all join in the fight. Aboriginal people are only 3 percent. We need everybody in it.”
Rahaf Ahmed gave a moving account of way Islamophobia is impacting the Muslim community. “In current day Australia we see a programmatic violation of human rights and freedoms. Anti-terror laws have led to the systematic oppression of Muslims” she said. “Police invite camera crews to police raids on Sydney Muslims’ homes – raids where officers punch, kick and spit on Muslim youth, ripping off the covers of their usually veiled mothers.”
Giving people the opportunity to hear speakers like Ken and Rahaf debunk the lies and distortions of the establishment media is one of the reasons the Socialism conference has been organised.
But the conference is also about drawing the links between different struggles and the system of capitalism that underpins the wide variety of injustices in the world.
If you are in Sydney and missed out on day one of the conference, you can still attend tomorrow. The stream of sessions “Marxism 101”, which provides an introduction to socialist ideas, will continue, as will a range of other discussions and panels.
Asked what the highlights of day two were, Josh Lees said: “The big issue in the world at the moment is what’s happening in Greece. Tomorrow morning we’ll be discussing the crisis and the huge class struggle that is going on against austerity in the lead up to tomorrow’s referendum”.
“We’ve also got a closing panel which features Danny Cain, a militant unionist on the wharves in Western Australia, alongside Socialist Alternative national student organiser Sarah Garnham.”
So if you missed out today, get down to UTS from 10am tomorrow, Sunday 5 July.
