Below are articles written by all our contributors. If you wish to view articles written by just one contributor, please click on their name (under the article title).
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Victoria Brittain
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This article, by Respect National Council member Victoria Brittain, appeared in Pambazuka News
Desmond Tutu was absolutely right to fly into Kenya and throw his moral authority behind efforts to resolve the dramatic crisis that other outsiders are misjudging so badly.
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Salma Yaqoob
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Of all the words written about the split in Respect, the least
important are those dealing with who did what at some meeting or
other. Of much more interest are those articles attempting to provide
some political explanation of these events.
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George Galloway
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George Galloway, Respect MP for Bethnal Green and Bow was a friend of Benazir Bhutto for more than twenty five years. He was on air at Talksport when news of the attack on Ms Bhutto came through. He will discuss the crisis in Pakistan on his next show, Friday 28th, at 10pm.
"Benazir Bhutto is yet another martyr from a family whose tragedy would have taxed Shakespeare himself. Her father, both brothers and now she have been murdered one way or another whilst serving Pakistan. Zulfikar Ali Bhutto the founder of the Pakistan Peoples Party was hanged by the military tyrants who have sucked Pakistan’s blood since its foundation.
"Her brothers, Shahnawaz was poisoned, and Mir Murtaza was gunned down in much the same way as she now has been herself. I have no doubt that Benazir has been murdered by the dictatorship of "president" General (Retd) Parvaiz Musharraf. The professionalism of the assassination, the way in which the killer managed to get within pistol range of the opposition leader, the decoy "suicide bomb" story.. all point to the intelligence apparatus of the dictatorship being involved in the crime.
"But it is worse than a crime, it’s a blunder. A terrible wave of violence and extremism will now sweep and perhaps break Pakistan.
"I was lucky enough to be Benazir’s friend from the time she arrived thin, bleeding from her ears as a result of ill-treatment in the Rawalpindi jail in the early 1980s. I was with her when she became the first elected woman leader of a Muslim country in 1988, with her too when she was twice deposed with western collusion and in her long exiles. She was the bravest woman I ever met, bright brave and beautiful. I planned to be with her on the campaign trail from January 2nd. I am broken hearted that I will never see her again." |
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Articles by other authors
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No-one would have wished for the unfortunate divisions that have
occurred over the last four months but, nonetheless, we have reached
the year end in very optimistic mood. Gordon Brown s brief bounce has
ended in a dramatic splat with his government now trailing the Tories
by 15 percentage points. Meantime doubts remain about Old Etonian
bully boy David Cameron and about the anonymous clone Nick Clegg.
Polls continue to show enormous opposition to the war in Iraq and any
threat of war against Iran. Privatisation remains deeply unpopular.
Even the Financial Times is calling for the nationalisation of failed
bank Northern Rock and there is a lot more economic trouble in the
pipeline. This is the context in which there remains an enormous
space to be filled to the left of New Labour.
Following the terrific Respect Renewal conference in the middle of
November which had 371 people attending over the day, we have held a
very successful meeting in Tower Hamlets in the last four weeks,
selecting our candidates Councillor Abjol Miah and George Galloway MP
to fight the two Tower Hamlets seats in the next General Election -
now not likely by the way until May 2010. We have also held a very
successful meeting in Newham with our three councillors and George
Galloway. In Birmingham selection of candidates is under way for the
May elections when we are very confident we can elect at least one
more councillor to the council chamber, making it a clean sweep in
Salma Yaqoob s Sparkbrook ward. Elsewhere there have been Respect
meetings of members more optimistic now than they have been for many
months. And we have attracted some very important students to our
ranks.
We also produced the first edition of a new monthly Respect paper
which has gone down tremendously well and of which we sold over 200
on the Climate Change demo in the pouring rain! We have an excellent
new website under development. Both of these are the product of the
new enthusiasm and energy we have begum to tap from our previously
neglected members.
We are now drawing up plans for a comprehensive speaking tour with
George Galloway, Salma Yaqoob, Ken Loach and others to tour key
cities and universities in the New Year. And we are going to
thoroughly review all our options for the Greater London Assembly
elections in May.
It is for these reasons and more that we are therefore looking
forward to putting our recent problems well and truly behind us and
making dramatic progress in 2008.
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George Galloway
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George's column covers the continuing chaos in Kosovo, and the prospects for the London GLA elections in 2008
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