Morning Star North Region Conference November 2009
Working of a Third World
Country Communist Party
Presentation of Prof.
Nazir Tabassum on behalf of SAPF UK & NWP Pakistan
Meruth Conspiracy Case, commonly known as Case of Indian
Communists was filed against the trade unionists, workers and leaders of the Communist Party of
India in 1929 by the then British Indian Government. The trail spread over four
long years. Both the prosecution as well as the defence made full use of this
case for their respective propaganda and publicity. On one hand the defendants
made political speeches in the court room in order to propagate the aims and
objectives of the Communist Party of India. On the other hand, Mr Longford
James, the prosecution lawyer made full use of his rhetoric against the
international communist movement and dubbed them as the enemies of religion.
Throughout its history, Imperialism has been luring and
enticing the clergy in its favour by propagating that communism is godless and
thus enemy of the religion.Communist
parties of the Third World including Pakistan have been facing all this
successfully. In Pakistan
the general elections of December 1970 were contested on the basis of Socialism
versus Islam. The Islamists were given a crushing defeat. But the situation
today is very different. With the demise of the Soviet Union and as a result of
long honey moon of United States
with the Islamic fundamentalists, in connivance with Saudi Arabia, the Pakistani society
has become the most intolerant society.
It is not only the tribal belt bordering Afghanistan
where Islamic radicalism is posing a problem. Islamabad,
Rawalpindi, Peshawar,
Lahore and Karachi
and even the villages of the entire Pakistan are engulfed by this
intolerance. The US-Saudi-Pakistan connivance provides funding as a result of
which there are 5,459 mosque schools in Punjab, 2,843 in North Western Frontier
Province, 1,935 in Sindh, 1,193 in Fedreally Administered Northern Areas
(FANA), 769 in Baluchistan, 586 in Azad Jammu Kashmir (AJK), 135 in Federally
Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) and 77 in Islamabad Capital Territory. The
Ministry of Education estimates that 1.5 million students are acquiring
religious education in 13,000 mosque schools. These figures appear to be way
off the mark. Commonly quoted figures range between 18,000 and 22,000 mosque
schools. The number of students could be correspondingly larger. These mosque schools produce only the prayer
leaders or the azaan criers. Each needs a new mosque. And, as here in UK, there is a
continuous mushroom growth of mosques and a new mosque school with each new
mosque. What they crave for is complete segregation of sexes, covering the
women in a tent-like garb, shouting at the women who don’t wear a veil, banning
the music etc.
Islamisation of the state and polity has been the policy of
the ruling class, because it is a classic strategy for preserving their
interests from the wroth of the working class. The irony of the fate is that
both the ruling class and the US
are under attack from the religious militants.
The situation in Pakistan is directly affecting the
British people of Pakistani origin.Here
in UK
we are facing the same intolerance. It is the prayer leaders of the mosques who
hold sway over the people. In this background, we decided to organise a forum
of our own from which we could raise our voice against what is going on. South
Asian Peoples Forum is an organisation of left-oriented, progressive-thinking
persons of the Pakistani, Kashmiri, Indian, Bangla Deshi, Sri Lankan and Nepali
origin. We are non-partisan in character. We are working to create awareness
among the people that today there is no such thing as religious war or Jehad
going on in the world. It is the war of the rich against the poor. The rich
countries of the First world are pitched against the poor of the Third World in order to usurp their natural resources.
The United States
is deceptively giving it the name War against Terrorism. The poor people of the
Baluchistan Province of Pakistan are deprived of their natural resources. The
richest gold and copper reserves in the district Chaghi of Baluchistan are
being exploited by a Chilean-based multi-national firm. Today the landless
tillers of Pakistan are
toiling without getting square meals, while hundreds of thousands of acres of agricultural
lands are gifted to Saudi
Arabia for corporate farming.The richest coal reserves in Thar of Sindh
Province are lying unexploited while coal is imported from Australia on
exorbitant rates to be used in the Steel Mills of Karachi where billions of
fraud has very lately been unearthed.
Thus US-Saudi-Pakistani connivance has created such a
situation in Pakistan
that neither the politicians nor the common man is concerned about the real
issues of that country. In such a situation, you can very well imagine that
that the task of leftist parties becomes very difficult. But in spite of all
that we are not disappointed. We are very much hopeful.
Abid Hasan Minto, President of National Workers Party of
Pakistan has said:
“The ruling elite and the establishment are unable to meet
the gigantic challenges posed by the global economic crisis and the tide of
extremism. The advancement in science and information technology has changed
the mode of production and social relationship and the neo-liberal economic
system has posed new questions about the status of working class. Therefore, it
is the need of the hour to redefine things and generate a broad-based movement
taking all white-collar working class into our fold and offer an alternative
political platform to the people. Marxism is a social science, not a religious
belief. Thus the progressive political workers should update their knowledge of
Marxist thought with the developments in the fast changing world.”
We are actively engaged in forging unity among the leftist
parties of Pakistan.
Already three major leftist parties such as National Workers Party, the Workers
and Peasants Party and the Communist Workers and Peasants Party have merged
into a single whole. Negotiations are going on with two more parties and it is
expected that by the beginning of the New Year they will also agree for the
merger. It will be only then that a name will be given to the resultant party. An
eight member committee is preparing the main political document for
unification.
At the end let me refer to the 11th International
Meeting of the Communist and Workers’ Parties, held in New Delhi, 20-22
November 2009 to discuss on “The International capitalist crisis, the workers’
and peoples’ struggle, the alternatives and the role of the communist and
working class movement’’ which concludes as:
“We, the communist and workers’ parties coming from all
parts of the globe and representing the interests of the working class and all
other toiling sections of society (the vast majority of global population)
underlining the irreplaceable role of the communist parties call upon the
people to join us in strengthening the struggles to declare that socialism is
the only real alternative for the future of humankind and that the future is
ours”.
