Oasis' Noel Gallagher meets Ken Loach CENTRE PAGES - PLUS 'LAND AND FREEDOM' REVIEW, KEN LOACH INTERVIEW 28 October 1995 5 FF • $1 • 2DM 1500 lire • 30BF• f1 THE LARGEST march in American history, is how one marcher described the Million Man March on Washington on Monday, October 16.
Over a million black, mostly working class men, and a few join the protest against racism and the huge cuts in welfare being carried out by the Republican dominated Senate. Across the country, those who could not attend, stayed away from work and school to take action locally.
Led by Louis Farrakhan, of the Nation of Islam (NOl), it was backed by an array of black organisations and leaders including Stokely Carmichael's All African Peoples' Revolutionary Party, Jesse Jackson, civil rights pioneer Rosa Parks, author Cornell West, writer Maya Angelou. singer Stevie Wonder and many more.
Bigger even than the great march led by Martin Luther King and without any support from beral whites it represented a massive expression of anger, solidarity and power by the oppressed. Everywhere committees sprang up to organise it and on the day black people debated the way forward for black liberation. Trains carrying marchers to the National Mall were turned soviets". said "each carriage SN 0951-8657. Published by Socialist Nation of Islam Minister Louis Farrakhan addressing hundreds of thousands on 16 October 'Day of Atonement' elected a chair and anyone who • in America, opposed it, as did wanted to speak was given a the whole of the rest of the left chance, each offering their including the SWP (US) and ideas on the way forward, from the ISO, sister organisation of religion to socialism". the British SWP. "A Million Man March in the wrong direcWrong Direction? tion' they said, pointing to the contradictory character of the But other organisations stayed away: the NAACP (Na- politics of the NOI, including its pro-capitalist, sexist and hotional Association for the Admophobic programme. vancement of Colored People)
The sole left group in the US refused support, although to support the march wassomany of their youth councils Ocialist Action. They. explained built it. The national co-ordinathat, despite Farrakhan's proChavis, former head of the gramme of black capitalism, because the overwhelming NAACP. fired a year ago for majority of African Americans attempting to forge links beare working class any mass tween the twg organisations.
Angela Davis, a former munity automatically tends to leader of the Communist Party *trigger an anti-capitalist dyFOT namic. Along with large numbers of black people they supported the march without giving support to the NOI.
The march opens up a new situation in the US. Blacks are under attack in a myriad of ways. Affirmative action programmes in education are being reversed; cuts in welfare and the $250 billion off Medicaid - in a country where the top fifth control four-fifths of wealth and income - hit black people, especially women and children, the worst.
The O.J.Simpson trial revealed what all black Americans know (and most black Britains too) that the racist police will fabricate evidence to convict black people. In the on N4 2UU, 0 1995. All rights reserved. tapes LAPD officer Fuhrman described how they routinely arrest without reason. destroy evidence that would exonerate defendents, plant evidence, beat confessions out of them and give false testimony - "testilying' they call it. Only Simpson's wealth enabled the evidence to be contradicted. The $300 allowed poor defendents for forensic investigation means they are usually found guilty.
Leadership
Last October 250,000 marched in Los Angeles against state legislation to deprive immigrants of health and welfare rights. This October thousands of students and teachers have been protesting against decisions to repeal alfirmative action programmes -in Berkeley. San Fransisco State, UCLA and elsewhere.
The Million Man March is then coin the culmington of & lot of recent anger and activity and the opening of a new situation. We should not sow illusions in Farrakhan, nor the NOT: his interests are not ours. Both Farrakhan and Jackson will try to turn this mass revolt back into the Democratic Party: Farrakhan in return for more federal contracts to supjects: Jackson for positions in the Democratic Party. The mass registration of black people as Independents will lead to more black city mavors but no real change where it counts.
However the unity and solidarity achieved, Farrakhan's call for everyone to join local black-organisations, including the NAACP, the very numbers mobilised, will make it difficult to deluse the potents power i has triggered.
Farrakhan stepped into a vacuum and has taken the leadership of black America: it is of no use to stand aside and say We dont like your programme. The battle for ideas and leadership is now one. To abstain is to leave the movement to pro-capitalist forces; to engage is to try and win for socialism those who will gain most from it - the poor, the working class and the oppressed.