our movement in Turkey, and to collect money to support their struggle. A campaign against the Turkish goverment's war drive is also now on the agenda.
Dirty dealing
Millions of other workers are due to strike by February and March, but they now face the prospect of all industrial action being banned, with the Gulf war being used as the excuse.
This explains why a major element in the strikes has been a strong anti-war sentiment in defiance of President Ozal's plans for a preemptive strike on Baghdad by which he is hoping to demonstrate just how good a friend he is of George Bush, and to overcome his domestic unpopularity by becoming one of the strategic thinkers of Turkish history.
"We want to be invited to the victory banquet, not to be on the menu", says one of Ozal's colleague, hinting at the imperialist aspirations of the Turkish government for a slice of the post-war Middie East, which are embarrassingly obvious.
Moreover, the circumstances of war and confusion provide the government with a rare opportunity for a decisive suppression of the "Kurdish intifada" in south eastern Turkey.
Free Turkey!
Turkey is now at the crossroads either to political freedom or bonapartist dictatorship, and the latter possibility has been reinforced by the threats of war.
All the social democrat and leftist union leaders have already declared that if President Ozal drags the country into the imperialist war in the Middle East, they will once again sup port the demands from below for a general strike.
In short, the Turkish labour movement's growing realisation of its strength after a decade of restrictions represents an important challenge to the govemment's war drive.
In contrast with the pseudo patriotic slogan to "Free Kuwait" workers of Turkey have developed the slogans of "Free Palestine, Free Kurdistan, Free Turkey!" SOCIALIST OUTLOOK no 30, February 1991
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