Hail May Day, the Day of International Working Class Solidarity and Struggle

Statement of the Manitoba Regional Committee of the Communist Party of Canada (Marxist-Leninist), May 1, 2002

For 112 years the international working class has been celebrating May Day as a day of international solidarity and struggle. During this time many victories have been won and many defeats have been suffered, but the struggle of the working class and oppressed people for emancipation, independence, peace and security continues.

The International Situation -- The U.S Drive for World Domination

During the past year a number of significant developments have occurred. The United States has used the excuse of the September 11 events to justify a fundamental shift in its foreign policy. That policy, which formerly used the threat of military action to back up economic and political domination of other countries on the basis of neo-colonialism, has now become a policy of old-style colonialism based on military aggression and occupation.

Although many commentators lay this change in policy solely at the feet of the Bush administration, in reality it reflects a much more profound and general failure of the neo-liberal agenda of trade liberalization. Confronted with growing opposition to the structural adjustment programs of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank, U.S. imperialism has been increasingly forced to abandon the trappings of "democracy" and opt for straightforward military solutions. September 11 provided the Bush administration with a convenient cover for its militarism in the form of the "war on terrorism", but that facade is beginning to wear thin and more and more people are beginning to see the U.S. policy for what it is - a policy of imperial conquest. Bush has made it clear that Afghanistan is just the beginning of this new imperialist war, with several other countries, starting with Iraq, to be its next victims.

The government of Israel has also taken advantage of this new atmosphere of naked militarism to destroy whatever was left of the Middle East peace process and push ahead with its agenda for the creation of a Greater Israel and the eventual expulsion of all Palestinians from Palestine. The entire world is reeling from the images of Jenin, Bethlehem and Ramallah, from the pictures of Palestinian captives executed with their hands tied behind their backs and of civilians buried in the rubble of their homes bulldozed by the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF). Yet Ariel Sharon, utilizing both the logic and words of the Nazis, claims that only "terrorists" were killed by the IDF and that the Palestinians are to blame for all of the violence in the region. He claims to want peace, but even before his military campaign to destroy the Palestinian Authority and the infrastructure of Palestinian society has been completed, the illegal construction of new Israeli settlements in the occupied territories has begun.

Canada -- The Betrayal of the Nation

During the past year, the Canadian government has intensified its anti-national stance, abandoning any pretense of an independent foreign policy and increasingly sacrificing the sovereignty of the nation to the narrow economic interests of the ruling capitalist elite. The Chretien government was quick to jump on the U.S. war chariot and has sent Canadian youth to Afghanistan to die on behalf of George Bush and the billionaires who put him in power. It was quick to harmonize its security laws with those contained in the American Patriot Act, despite the fact that doing so violated the civil liberties of Canadians.

The Chretien government has also continued to provide its unconditional support to the Israeli Zionist regime, despite the fact that Israel flouts international law, defies repeated resolutions of the United Nations Security Council and continues to commit war crimes and crimes against humanity.

It is becoming increasingly apparent that the Canadian government is back-peddling on its decades-old independent policy towards Cuba. It refused to support a Canadian businessman being prosecuted in the U.S. for selling medical supplies to Cuba and has yet to issue a statement condemning his conviction for this "crime", despite the fact that the U.S. laws under which he was charged violate international law and Canadian sovereignty. In fact, only a few days later the Chretien government co-sponsored a U.S.-written resolution to the UN Human Rights Committee condemning Cuba for supposed human rights violations. A few days later George Bush announced that he would not impose restrictive duties on imports of Canadian durum wheat at this time.

Other than a few feeble words of protest, the Chretien government has also done nothing in response to the imposition by the Bush regime of punitive duties of 29 percent on imports of Canadian softwood lumber, an act which has thrown over 20,000 Canadian out of work and has cost the Canadian economy billions of dollars. On the other hand, Chretien was been quick to discount any threat to Canadian sovereignty from an American decision to place the "defence" of North America entirely under American command. Only those who have a very narrow definition of sovereignty could interpret such a move as infringing on Canadian sovereignty, Chretien claimed. Chretien's "broad" definition of sovereignty apparently does not include defence of Canadian territory and borders, defence of Canadian airspace, defence of the Canadian economy, nor the defence of an independent Canadian foreign policy. What aspects of Canadian sovereignty are included in Chretien's definition are anyone's guess.

While the Chretien Liberals are abandoning Canada's sovereignty at a historically unprecedented rate, the Canadian Alliance, which constitutes Her Majesty's Official Opposition, is demanding on a daily basis that it speed up the process and get rid of whatever scraps of independence we retain. It is calling for complete integration with the United States economically and militarily. There are also calls from the Canadian Alliance and elsewhere for a common currency (i.e. the U.S. dollar), as well as integrated customs and border security. In other words, both the governing party and the official opposition are advocates of abandoning building and consolidating the Canadian nation in favour of an economic, political and military merger with the United States.

This policy of continentalism, which in an earlier day was contemptuously dismissed as treason, is not supported by those Canadians that these parties claim to represent. Far from it, support for an independent nation of Canada, with an independent economy, independent domestic policy and independent foreign policy, is stronger today than ever before. However, that sentiment is not reflected in the editorial pages of most major newspapers, nor in the programs of the mainstream political parties. What is lacking is a voice for the sentiment of the Canadian people for a nation of their own, a standard-bearer of the movement to build the nation.

It has become clear that such a standard-bearer cannot be found within the existing mainstream parties, nor within the economic elite which they represent. The capitalist class owes allegiance only to profit and it no longer needs the trappings of an independent country to achieve that. Only the working people have both a desire and a need for a sovereign nation. It is only within such a nation that they can find their own identity and it is only within the political arrangements of a modern nation that they can exercise their sovereignty as human beings.

The Growing Resistance Movement and the Necessity for a Nation-Building Project

Just as in Canada, on a world scale there is a growing gulf between the positions taken by governments and the demands of the people they claim to represent. Within the United States there is a growing popular movement against the policies of U.S. imperialism, especially against its continuing war in Afghanistan and its unconditional support for Israel's military occupation of Palestine. Over 100,000 people participated in the April 20 anti-war mobilization in Washington D.C. alone, with tens of thousands more demonstrating in other American cities. In Europe, anti-war demonstrations of hundreds of thousands are becoming commonplace, with the main focus becoming support for the Palestinian people.

In Canada, as well, there is a growing movement against imperialist war and in support of the just cause of the Palestinians, with thousands of people protesting in the streets over the past couple of weeks. This movement is also increasingly merging with the movement against neo-liberal capitalist globalization.

This growing popular movement is reaching a critical juncture. It must decide whether it is content to remain a protest movement, a movement to influence the decision-makers or whether it wants to use its increasing numbers and unity to effect real social change. The former is a dead-end road; the latter will open a path for advance.

In order to become an effective vehicle for social change, this emerging movement must give rise to institutions of popular democracy and culture - decision-making assemblies, newspapers and research institutes. It must put forward a political agenda and program of action around which it can mobilize the vast majority of Canadians who still believe in the vision of a free, independent and democratic Canada. In other words, this movement must become the standard-bearer of the great national project which Canadians are demanding. That project is the key to the future of the Canadian working class and people and the greatest contribution that the Canadian people can possibly make to the cause of the international working class and to those people everywhere who are fighting against exploitation and oppression.