BRING THE RAGE FOR JIMMY MUBENGA, JOY GARNDER NEVER FORGOTTEN

MORALES WANTS TO INTERNATIONALISE THE STRUGGLE AGAINST RACIST IMMIGRATION LAWS IN NORTH AMERICA

"We will express it at all the forums, and we are going to

launch an international campaign with the Chiefs of State

and the social movements (against the Arizona law),"

Morales said

Bolivian President Evo Morales Tells Obama

‘Stop Deporting Immigrants’

NEW YORK – As heads of state gathered here to attend the United

Nations General Assembly, Bolivian President Evo Morales ended a

speech at Hunter College on Monday by calling on President Barack

Obama to stop “expelling” Latin American immigrants who are trying to

eke out a living.

“Here there’s a lot of talk about policies that aim to expel

immigrants,” he said. “There are deep asymmetries between countries,

between continents, so of course our brothers in Latin America come

here to improve their economic situation. But our brothers who come

to the U.S., to Europe, to survive, to reach a better station in

life, they are thrown out. What kind of policy is that?”

Morales’ message: “I call on President Obama to halt these policies

that aim to deport the Latin American people here, because we all

have the same rights.”

President Morales was at Hunter to promote his biography, recently

translated into English. But he closed his speech with a few select

words for the American president. “I was convinced a black man and an

indigenous man were going to work like a pair of oxen for the whole

world,” said the indigenous Morales. “It doesn’t make sense that one

discriminated party would discriminate against another.”

Morales’ biographer, Martin Sivak, spoke warmly of the Bolivian

President, with whom he traveled for two years to write, Evo Morales:

The Extraordinary Rise of the First Indigenous President of Bolivia.

Evo Morales was born to a poor indigenous family in the high plains

of Bolivia, and grew up to be a union organizer who represented coca

farmers. His rise to power was characterized by fierce opposition,

including detention and torture in Bolivia, and more recently,

ridicule abroad, where he has been called a puppet of Hugo Chavez.

His policies have sought to nationalize natural resources and basic

services, and The New York Times described his diplomatic

relationship with Washington as “tense.” In an 2009 article, the NYT

said it “might be the worst in the hemisphere, except for the one

with Cuba.”

His biographer described Morales’ political career and recounted

episodes which reveal the sense of humor of the man he chronicled. “I

heard him say to a waitress, ‘I would even drink poison from your

hands,’ after she asked him if he liked coffee or juice. I listened

to him lecture on the difference between llamas and people.”

At first, Sivak, a young man from Argentina, was exhausted by trying

to keep up with the Bolivian president’s rigorous schedule. “Morales

predicted I wouldn’t be able to handle the pace of his life as

president but that I should give it a try,” Sivak said:

“After the first week I had altitude sickness and I was hooked up to

an oxygen machine in a pharmacy in La Paz. The schedule, which

started at 5 o’clock in the morning and ended at 12 o’clock at night,

had included 22 airplanes and helicopters and more than 40 events in

places that do not appear on school maps. President Morales enjoyed

asking the pilots to do pirouettes because he knows how scared I am

of small planes.”

In a more serious tone, Sivak said Morales’ landslide victory (64% of

the vote) in the last presidential election “deserved a more complex

read” than the one it earned from critics of the Bolivian regime, who

said it stemmed simply from Morales’ support base in the indigenous

community, which makes up more than 60 percent of the population.

Sivak said, “I was deeply moved with what I saw in these years [...]

The decline of power of the old elites that ruled the country for so

many years and the resurgence of the poor majorities.” He urged

people in the U.S. to view Morales as a leader in his own right–more

than just an extension of Chavez who has “emotional ties” to the

indigenous community.

Bolivian president asks Obama to reject

controversial immigration law

LA PAZ, Aug. 5 (Xinhua) -- Bolivia's President Evo Morales Thursday
asked U.S. President Barack Obama to reject a U.S. immigration law
because it discriminates against Latin Americans.

In a letter to Obama, Morales warned the U.S. president against the
consequences of the immigration law adopted by the U.S. state of
Arizona in April.

Morales said the United States is a country of immigrants, who
contributed to its development and economic power.

He also urged Obama, the first African-American U.S. president, to
avoid past historical mistakes like racial segregation or slavery in
the United States.

"We will express it at all the forums, and we are going to launch an
international campaign with the Chiefs of State and the social
movements(against the Arizona law)," Morales said.

The Arizona law makes it a crime to stay in the United States
illegally and empowers local law enforcement to check the immigration
status of people suspected of staying in the country illegally. It
also creates misdemeanor crimes for harboring and transporting
illegal immigrants.

WORKING CLASS ASIAN PEOPLE STRUGGLED AND STRUGGLE ON IN BRITAIN - SONS OF MALCOLM BIG-UP ASIAN DUB FOUNDATION

RÉVOLTES DES JEUNES GRECS ET DES JEUNES FRANCAIS

Mêmes causes, même combat, et pourtant…

Le Grand Soir
ROSA-ROSSO Nadine

Trois ans après les banlieues françaises, c’est au tour des villes grecques de flamber. Il n’est pas difficile de trouver des similitudes entre les deux phénomènes. L’étincelle qui a mis le feu aux poudres, est la mort d’un jeune ici, de deux là, dans le cadre d’une intervention policière. Et l’absence de perspectives économiques, sociales et politiques de la jeunesse est devenue plus qu’une évidence dans notre monde frappé par une crise profonde du capitalisme.

Ce ne sont pourtant pas les similitudes qui interpellent aujourd’hui mais bien la différence de traitement, en particulier par les partis de gauche, de la révolte des jeunes.

Que dirait-on aujourd’hui d’un président de parti communiste qui déclarerait, à propos des jeunes Grecs : "Que les choses soient claires : incendier des voitures, des écoles, des bâtiments, des entreprises, c’est de l’autodestruction. Il n’y a rien de bien à dire de ces actions. Elles touchent d’autres travailleurs des mêmes quartiers et cités. Elles touchent le peu de biens sociaux qui subsistent encore dans ces quartiers. Et elles touchent surtout la solidarité entre tous les travailleurs qui sont frappés par le raz-de-marée néolibéral" (1). C’était pourtant la teneur générale de la plupart des propos "de gauche" à l’égard des jeunes Français. Aujourd’hui rares sont les condamnations des révoltes de la jeunesse grecque. Le ton général est à l’analyse des causes et à la compréhension. Les organisations syndicales grecques n’ont pas renoncé à leur action de grève et de manifestation au beau milieu des journées d’émeute. Il ne viendrait à l’esprit de personne de reprocher aux jeunes de briser la "solidarité entre les travailleurs". Au contraire, dans plusieurs pays européens, de grandes coalitions de gauche se forment pour appeler à soutenir la révolte des jeunes Grecs.

La crise financière a bien sûr fait voler en éclat la sacro-sainte confiance dans ce système d’exploitation qu’on nous présente depuis vingt ans comme le seul possible. Elle a ouvert les yeux et préparé les esprits à l’hypothèse récemment impensable que la seule solution soit au contraire d’y mettre fin.

Mais au-delà de cette évolution récente des mentalités, la différence de traitement à l’égard de ces deux jeunesses ne doit-elle pas aussi être attribuée à un mal persistant au sein de la gauche ? A savoir son incapacité à considérer les jeunes des banlieues françaises autrement que comme des "jeunes de l’immigration", dont il faut par définition redouter le communautarisme, le manque d’esprit civique et l’absence de solidarité de classe ?

Dans son article « La crise financière, et après ? », l’économiste François Morin écrivait il y a peu qu’un scénario de rupture brutale pouvait être envisagé. Il émettait l’hypothèse d’une « explosion sociale violente dans plusieurs pays, tenant à la baisse du pouvoir d’achat et au chômage de masse », et qui pourrait avoir « des effets de contagion à une large échelle ». Les jeunes Français des banlieues, victimes plus tôt, en raison de la discrimination raciste, de la baisse du pouvoir d’achat et du chômage de masse, ont-ils eu le tort de se révolter trop tôt ? Ou est-ce plutôt l’incapacité de la gauche à percevoir, comme elle le faisait jadis, dans la situation faite à ces jeunes, l’annonce du sort réservé à l’ensemble des travailleurs ?

Au lieu de reprocher à ces jeunes de briser la solidarité des travailleurs, ne faudrait-il pas inverser la façon de poser le problème ? Et le poser ainsi : combien de temps encore les responsables des partis et organisations de gauche, y compris syndicales, attendront-ils pour organiser la solidarité du mouvement ouvrier encore structuré avec cette jeunesse populaire que la précarité, la dérégulation des modes de production, la relégation dans les quartiers ont isolée ? Bref, pour la considérer, sans préjugés, comme partie intégrante du monde du travail ?

On ne pourra pas faire l’économie de ce débat car dans toutes les grandes métropoles du monde capitaliste, la part des travailleurs issus de l’immigration ne cesse d’augmenter. Une mobilisation sociale de grande envergure, capable de renverser réellement la vapeur et d’imposer une alternative politique réelle, ne sera possible que si la gauche résout cette question essentielle.

La révolte des jeunes Grecs et le soutien qu’elle recueille laissent espérer que les mentalités sont profondément en train de changer sur le vieux continent et que le temps des idées et des pratiques nouvelles est enfin arrivé.

Nadine Rosa-Rosso

(1) Peter Mertens, 16.11.2005 Solidaire (France : pourquoi les banlieues flambent)

FRANCE FAILING MUSLIMS CITIZENS

In France, Prisons Filled With Muslims
By Molly Moore
Washington Post Foreign Service
April 29, 2008

SEQUEDIN, France -- Samia El Alaoui Talibi walks her beat in a cream-
colored head scarf and an ink-black robe with sunset-orange piping,
an outfit she picked up at a yard sale.

After passing a bulletproof window, El Alaoui Talibi trudges through
half a dozen heavy, locked doors to reach the Muslim faithful to
whom she ministers in the women's cellblock of the Lille-Sequedin
Detention Center in far northern France.

It took her years to earn this access, said El Alaoui Talibi, one of
only four Muslim holy women allowed to work in French
prisons. "Everyone has the same prejudices and negative image of
Muslims and Islam," said Moroccan-born El Alaoui Talibi, 47, the
mother of seven children. "When some guards see you, they see an
Arab; they see you the same as if you were a prisoner."

This prison is majority Muslim -- as is virtually every house of
incarceration in France. About 60 to 70 percent of all inmates in
the country's prison system are Muslim, according to Muslim leaders,
sociologists and researchers, though Muslims make up only about 12
percent of the country's population.

On a continent where immigrants and the children of immigrants are
disproportionately represented in almost every prison system, the
French figures are the most marked, according to researchers,
criminologists and Muslim leaders.

"The high percentage of Muslims in prisons is a direct consequence
of the failure of the integration of minorities in France," said
Moussa Khedimellah, a sociologist who has spent several years
conducting research on Muslims in the French penal system.

In Britain, 11 percent of prisoners are Muslim in contrast to about
3 percent of all inhabitants, according to the Justice Ministry.
Research by the Open Society Institute, an advocacy organization,
shows that in the Netherlands 20 percent of adult prisoners and 26
percent of all juvenile offenders are Muslim; the country is about
5.5 percent Muslim. In Belgium, Muslims from Morocco and Turkey make
up at least 16 percent of the prison population, compared with 2
percent of the general populace, the research found.

Sociologists and Muslim leaders say the French prison system
reflects the deep social and ethnic divides roiling France and its
European neighbors as immigrants and a new generation of their
children alter the demographic and cultural landscape of the
continent.

French prison officials blame the high numbers on the poverty of
people who have moved here from North African and other Islamic
countries in recent decades. "Many immigrants arrive in France in
difficult financial situations, which make delinquency more
frequent," said Jeanne Sautière, director of integration and
religious groups for the French prison system. "The most important
thing is to say there is no correlation between Islam and
delinquency."

But Muslim leaders, sociologists and human rights activists argue
that more than in most other European countries, government social
policies in France have served to isolate Muslims in impoverished
suburbs that have high unemployment, inferior schools and
substandard housing. This has helped create a generation of French-
born children with little hope of social advancement and even less
respect for French authority.

"The question of discrimination and justice is one of the key
political questions of our society, and still, it is not given much
importance," said Sebastian Roche, who has studied judicial
discrimination as research director for the French National Center
for Scientific Research. "We can't blame a state if its companies
discriminate; however, we can blame the state if its justice system
and its police discriminate."

As a matter of policy, the French government does not collect data
on race, religion or ethnicity on its citizens in any capacity,
making it difficult to obtain precise figures on the makeup of
prison populations. But demographers, sociologists and Muslim
leaders have compiled generally accepted estimates showing Muslim
inmate populations nationwide averaging between 60 and 70 percent.

The figures fluctuate from region to region: They are higher in
areas with large concentrations of Muslims, including suburban
Paris, Marseille in the south and Lille in the north.

Inside the prisons, El Alaoui Talibi and her husband, Hassan -- a
rare husband-wife Islamic clerical team -- are struggling to win for
Muslim prisoners the same religious rights accorded to their
minority-Christian counterparts. Hassan is an imam. Samia has
received religious training and can counsel the faithful, but under
Islamic practices she cannot become an imam. The prison system has
only 100 Muslim clerics for the country's 200 prisons, compared with
about 480 Catholic, 250 Protestant and 50 Jewish chaplains, even
though Muslim inmates vastly outnumber prisoners of all other
religions. "It is true that we haven't attained full equality among
religions in prisons yet," said Sautière, the national prison
official. "It is a matter of time."

In recent years, the French government's primary concern with its
Muslim inmate population has been political. French national
security officials warned prison authorities in 2005 that they
should work to prevent radical Muslims from inciting fellow
prisoners. A year later, the French Senate approved a bill giving
the country's national intelligence agency broad authority to
monitor Muslim inmates as part of counterterrorism efforts.

Prison authorities began allowing carefully vetted moderate imams
into prisons in hopes of "balancing the radical elements," said
Aurélie Leclerq, 33, director of the Lille-Sequedin Detention Center.

Hassan El Alaoui Talibi, 52, who moved to France from Morocco as a
student, is the national head of France's prison imams and typical
of the kind of moderate Muslim figure the French government seeks
for its prison system.

El Alaoui Talibi delivers his Friday sermons with carefully chosen
words, he says. He avoids politics and other subjects that might
seem remotely inflammatory. He sticks to counseling convicted drug
dealers, murderers and illegal immigrants in matters of faith and
respect.

But not all the Muslims at Lille-Sequedin share those moderate
views. Last year a disgruntled inmate blared a taped religious
sermon into the prison courtyard. Prison officials deemed its
message inflammatory and sent the prisoner to solitary confinement.

El Alaoui Talibi described years of struggle to win even modest
concessions from prison directors. He recalled the first prison
visit he made, a decade ago: He was forced to wait an hour and a
half to meet with inmates. "If I hadn't been patient, I would have
left," said the soft-spoken former high school teacher who became a
prison imam after seeing so many of his students get in trouble with
the law for petty offenses and end up hard-core criminals after
prison stints.

Today, working in France's newest prison -- the sprawling, three-
year-old Lille-Sequedin center -- the El Alaoui Talibis say they are
more accepted than some Muslim colleagues at other prisons. Prison
officials rejected requests by The Washington Post to visit some of
the system's older, more troubled prisons.

On a recent Friday, Hassan El Alaoui Talibi, a man with soulful eyes
and a beard with the first hints of gray, made his way with a
reporter through the men's wings, collecting prisoners' notes from
mailboxes shared with Catholic and Protestant chaplains. At one
point, several new inmates returning from sports practice surrounded
him, requesting personal visits. He scribbled their names and cell
numbers on a scrap of paper.

Many of the Muslim inmates in this prison just west of Lille are the
children and grandchildren of immigrants who were brought to the
northern region decades ago to work in its coal mines.

El Alaoui Talibi moved on to a small room overlooking a tiny garden
courtyard and tugged at prayer mats stacked in a closet beside a
rough-hewn wooden cross. Every other Friday, he transforms the room
into a mosque for some of the male Muslim faithful of the prison.
One of his most frequent sermon topics is food.

"He tells us not to throw away prison food just because it isn't
halal," or compliant with Islamic dietary law, said a 33-year-old
former civil servant, a man of Algerian descent who attends the
twice-monthly prayer meetings. French prison rules prohibit
journalists from identifying inmates by name or disclosing their
crimes.

The refusal of prison officials to provide halal food, particularly
meat products, is one of the biggest complaints of Muslim inmates
across France and has occasionally led to cellblock protests.

For many years, prisons have allowed Muslim prisoners to forgo pork
products -- and statistics tracking prisoners who refuse pork is an
accurate barometer of the Muslim population in a prison, according
to researchers. But cutting out pork is a long way from the full
halal regimen. Only recently, did the prisons stop using pork grease
to cook vegetables and other dishes.

"If you want to comply with your religion, you don't have a choice --
you have to become vegetarian," said the convicted civil servant, a
compact man who works in the prison library. "We have access to a
prison store with two halal products: halal sausage and a can of
ravioli."

Prison officials say it is too expensive to provide halal
meals. "We'd like to buy fresh meat, but we can't," said Leclerq,
whose prison office is decorated with plush bears.

Muslim inmates said they sense other religious snubs. Christians are
allowed packages containing gifts and special treats from their
families at Christmas, but Muslims do not receive the same privilege
for the Ramadan holy days. "We're careful not to call them Christmas
packages because Muslims would ask for Ramadan packages," Leclerq
said. "We call them end-of-the-year packages. We can't use a
religious term or some people get tense."

Hassan El Alaoui Talibi said the French prison system has made
progress since he began his ministry a decade ago. Last year the
government set guidelines for all prisons to follow on religious
practices, rather than allowing directors to arbitrarily set their
own rules.

Prison imams met with Justice Minister Rachida Dati last month with
a list of continuing requests, including more imams and training for
prison guards to help them better understand religious differences.

A 31-year-old woman of Algerian descent with a youthful face and
black, wavy hair tied carelessly in a ponytail welcomed Samia El
Alaoui Talibi on a recent morning with double kisses on the cheeks.

"Arriving here was a nightmare," said the woman, one of about 150
female inmates. "I was crying, I couldn't believe I was here.

"Then I saw this woman wearing a head scarf," she said, smiling
toward Samia. "I could tell she was here to help me. I call her my
angel."

Researcher Corinne Gavard contributed to this report.