Music interview by Louise Nousratpour
Thursday November 26, 2009
The Morning Star
Aruba Red's fiery rebel music hits like a refreshing blast of briny sea air, dissipating the stale, insular celebrity-obsessed atmosphere that passes for today's pop culture.
Named after a Caribbean pirate legend, Red, born Natascha Eleanor, released her self-titled debut album last year.
She is justly proud of having put together the record herself, albeit with a smidgeon of help and a load of inspiration from her socialist father, and 1960s Cream superband bassist/vocalist Jack Bruce.
"I was lucky enough to work with some of his close friends in New York when I was recording the album," she says, while emphasising that "I'm doing my own thing and my music is very different from his."
A unique London sound with a strident political message, Aruba Red's album fuses reggae, hip-hop, soul and jazz into an exquisite feast of progressive vibes.
Eleonore describes her music as "hard-hitting. It embodies all the different styles and experiences that define who I am."
The album, available on iTunes as well as CD and LP, has received rave reviews and her track Struggling which features big reggae artist Jah Mason made the top 10 in Jamaica.
Back in Blighty, the twenty-something singer/songwriter has impressed audiences from Glastonbury Festival to Abbey Road Studios.
And her no-nonsense lyrics and soulful vocals struck a chord with revellers at last year's Love Music Hate Racism carnival.
Her intelligently crafted lyrics address social issues ranging from the vapidity of consumerism to modern-day slavery, racism, and wars, linking seemingly abstract global injustice to our daily struggles.
"As ever, dark forces seek to divide us by race, colour or creed, so I want to highlight how we are not so different.
"Injustices are the only thing we have to fight against - we mustn't allow ourselves to be weakened, split up into different single issue campaigns or skin colour.
"Unity is the thing. As long as we fight each other we're not going to fight against the real problem - the system that exploits us all."
In the song It's Time Now, she deals with the lingering effects of British colonialism, singing: "Africa, all our motherland, forced to beg from the hand that enslaved her."
Eleonore damns the British government's failure to make amends for its central role in the genocidal transatlantic slave trade and criticises school history education as too "eurocentric.
"My friends from Africa feel frustrated when their hugely diverse, beautiful continent is yet again represented in the tired old terms of war, poverty or charity," she says.
"I understand it is difficult to squeeze a comprehensive study of world history into a busy curriculum, but I do believe that because we live in an ex-colonial ruler we should at least be taught about the effects that that has had on the rest of the world.
"In 2009 hundreds of millions of people are going hungry in Africa, India, Latin America and the Middle East.
"It is important that young people here are informed and know about the often destructive role that Britain has played - and continues to play."
She explains that the spine-tingling Rebel Soldiers track is inspired by the anti-war movement.
"I'm funding bloodshed with the taxes I pay, so come my friends let's light a candle for those we help murder in freedom's name," Eleanore sings.
Giving voice to a sentiment that is silently shared by millions, she says that, while happy to pay taxes "so that our health service works and our streets are kept clean it is hugely frustrating to know that the money is also being used to effectively kill people."
She salutes Lance Corporal Joe Glenton, who was arrested earlier this month for refusing to go back to Afghanistan.
"We need to wake people up to the sacrifice he has made for standing up - he hasn't taken the easy way out. Some US soldiers are also refusing to fight."
Recalling the way in which the government sent troops into Iraq in the face of massive public opposition embodied in the peace march of February 2003, Eleanor wonders how democratic Britain's supposedly liberal representative political system really is.
"I remember marching against the invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan and it's very difficult to know what to do when all the peaceful means have been exhausted," she sighs.
She is adamant that the campaigning must continue.
So where does her political inspiration come from?
"My father has a very left-wing outlook - his parents were very active in the Labour Party," she explains.
"I remember he took me on a march against the first Gulf War when I was very young and he taught me about apartheid in South Africa."
Her Glaswegian grandparents, who tried to settle in Canada in the height of the McCarthy era, were branded communists and forced back to Scotland.
"The political activism has always been strong in my father's family. I always thought I'd be writing articles or books, but at the moment it is coming out through my music."
Her new single Light Up, Light Up features top Jamaican reggae artist Jah Cure and will be released in the new year.
"It's my first proper debut single release so I'm really excited about that," she says eagerly, adding: "I am developing my writing skills to try to appeal to a wider audience on an emotional level. But I still want to be part of a certain political movement and push the truth forward."
Through her music, she is voicing her discontent with the injustices done in her name and hopes that it will serve as a "historical documentation" to let future generations know that "we are not OK with what's happening and we will not be silenced."
• Aruba Red will be performing at the Big Chill House (257-259 Pentonville Road, London N1) at 7pm this Sunday (Nov 29). Tickets £3. For more information visit www.bigchill.net/house
Take message to wider community, urges charter chairwoman
Louise Nousratpour
Sunday November 8, 2009
The Morning Star
The Charter for Women must widen its appeal beyond trade unions to engage more women and young girls, its steering committee chair said on Saturday.
Urging action at the Communist University in Croydon, Sharon Allen said that as an RMT union learning rep she had visited many schools and "it is depressing to hear that some young girls, affected by the media, aspire to ensnare a rich celebrity or appear on Big Brother.
"And they don't see the relevance of unions in their life because of a lack of job prospects."
And among wider society, Ms Allen said, many believe that women in Britain have already achieved equality.
"This is why we must take the reasonable demands of equal pay and equal opportunity outlined in the Charter for Women into the wider communities, not just trade unions," she stressed.
"I attended a Women's Institute meeting recently to promote the charter there because that is where most rural women - albeit middle class - are organised.
"When I told them about the pay gap, they were shocked," she revealed.
Ms Allen also urged activists behind the People's Charter not to ignore equality issues as "52 per cent of those people are women who suffer daily oppression.
"The two are inexplicitly linked because you cannot have social justice without addressing the injustice suffered by more than half of the population."
Sunday November 8, 2009
The Morning Star
The Charter for Women must widen its appeal beyond trade unions to engage more women and young girls, its steering committee chair said on Saturday.
Urging action at the Communist University in Croydon, Sharon Allen said that as an RMT union learning rep she had visited many schools and "it is depressing to hear that some young girls, affected by the media, aspire to ensnare a rich celebrity or appear on Big Brother.
"And they don't see the relevance of unions in their life because of a lack of job prospects."
And among wider society, Ms Allen said, many believe that women in Britain have already achieved equality.
"This is why we must take the reasonable demands of equal pay and equal opportunity outlined in the Charter for Women into the wider communities, not just trade unions," she stressed.
"I attended a Women's Institute meeting recently to promote the charter there because that is where most rural women - albeit middle class - are organised.
"When I told them about the pay gap, they were shocked," she revealed.
Ms Allen also urged activists behind the People's Charter not to ignore equality issues as "52 per cent of those people are women who suffer daily oppression.
"The two are inexplicitly linked because you cannot have social justice without addressing the injustice suffered by more than half of the population."
Left 'can learn from miners' strike'
Louise Nousratpour
Sunday November 8, 2009
The Morning Star
The left must draw lessons from the 1984 miners' strike and their "exemplary sense of unity" in order to mount an effective fightback against today's attacks on workers, a veteran of that struggle insisted on Saturday.
Durham Miners Association general secretary Davey Hopper gave a stirring account of the miners' titanic battle during an emotionally charged session at the Communist University in Croydon.
He hailed Arthur Scargill as "one of the greatest working-class leaders" and laid the blame for the tragic defeat squarely at the feet of the TUC and Labour leadership who he said had "betrayed" the miners.
"We appreciated unions' financial support at the time, but what we really needed was solidarity action," he said.
The consequent destruction of the industry in mining communities has left a new generation of young people "with no job prospects and vulnerable to fascist propaganda," Mr Hopper warned.
He described the "squalid conditions, the degradation, the drug abuse and the crime" still plaguing those communities, adding: "The biggest employers in Durham and neighbouring Oldham is now the territorial army - war is what our youngsters are left with."
Mr Hopper argued that the miners' defeat weakened the working class as a whole and paved the way for the anti-union laws and the rise of new Labour.
"We must learn the lessons and act upon them," he stressed. "That means taking solidarity action with workers who fight for their jobs in today's crisis."
The Morning Star's political correspondent at the time Andrew Murry agreed.
"The miners' strike exemplified the collective sense of unity, discipline and self sacrifice - human qualities which we must revisit to advance in today's struggles," he said.
He criticised the Communist Party for "trailing behind a reformism approach" during the strike, adding: "It must now step up to show political leadership and challenge class collaberationism."
Sunday November 8, 2009
The Morning Star
The left must draw lessons from the 1984 miners' strike and their "exemplary sense of unity" in order to mount an effective fightback against today's attacks on workers, a veteran of that struggle insisted on Saturday.
Durham Miners Association general secretary Davey Hopper gave a stirring account of the miners' titanic battle during an emotionally charged session at the Communist University in Croydon.
He hailed Arthur Scargill as "one of the greatest working-class leaders" and laid the blame for the tragic defeat squarely at the feet of the TUC and Labour leadership who he said had "betrayed" the miners.
"We appreciated unions' financial support at the time, but what we really needed was solidarity action," he said.
The consequent destruction of the industry in mining communities has left a new generation of young people "with no job prospects and vulnerable to fascist propaganda," Mr Hopper warned.
He described the "squalid conditions, the degradation, the drug abuse and the crime" still plaguing those communities, adding: "The biggest employers in Durham and neighbouring Oldham is now the territorial army - war is what our youngsters are left with."
Mr Hopper argued that the miners' defeat weakened the working class as a whole and paved the way for the anti-union laws and the rise of new Labour.
"We must learn the lessons and act upon them," he stressed. "That means taking solidarity action with workers who fight for their jobs in today's crisis."
The Morning Star's political correspondent at the time Andrew Murry agreed.
"The miners' strike exemplified the collective sense of unity, discipline and self sacrifice - human qualities which we must revisit to advance in today's struggles," he said.
He criticised the Communist Party for "trailing behind a reformism approach" during the strike, adding: "It must now step up to show political leadership and challenge class collaberationism."
People's Charter 'a lifeline for Labour'
Louise Nousratpour
Sunday November 8, 2009
The Morning Star
Growing fascism and discredited neoliberal policies can only be combated by the broadest possible mobilisation around the People's Charter, speakers at Saturday's Communist University urged.
The modern-day charter, now TUC policy, was a "lifeline" to Labour at the looming general election, activists said.
And there were calls for the TUC leadership to draw lessons from its past and challenge MPs to back the charter if they want the millions-strong support of unions.
Reading an extract from the 1905 TUC conference minutes, John Hendy QC recalled how the organisation had issued an ultimatum to candidates of the day to support the historic Trade Disputes Bill or forfeit the working-class vote.
"Just over 50 candidates passed that test, of which 30 were elected at the 1906 general election - enough to make the Bill into Act that year," he said. "Why can't today's TUC adopt the same approach with regards to the charter?"
Speakers stressed that the six-point document was a way for millions of working people "to speak with one voice" at a time of economic crisis, mass unemployment, cuts in public services and growing fascism.
Investment in council housing, a fairer tax system, a publicly run financial system and an end to the current wars are some of the modest demands outlined in the charter, for which campaigners are aiming to collect one million signatures.
Young Communist League (YCL) general secretary Joanne Stevenson highlighted the importance of mobilising the young as they made up about 40 per cent of the unemployed.
She reported that the YCL had recently adopted an associated Youth Charter and called for investment in "real apprenticeships with job guarantees" and free education for all.
Rather than demonising young people, Ms Stevenson said, the government should address anti-social behaviour through investment in youth clubs and decent housing.
"And stop army recruits in our schools," she demanded.
Speaking from the floor, former YCL leader Gawain Little argued: "The TUC and Labour leadership will only act when there is grass-roots pressure. So let's take the charter into the communities and wherever there is a strike picket or a local campaign against academies, council privatisation and hospital closures."
Campaigners in Scotland have organised a Scottish Parliament lobby for later this month, while charter committees are being set up across the country.
The date of the People's Charter conference is November 21 at the Camden Centre, London.
Sunday November 8, 2009
The Morning Star
Growing fascism and discredited neoliberal policies can only be combated by the broadest possible mobilisation around the People's Charter, speakers at Saturday's Communist University urged.
The modern-day charter, now TUC policy, was a "lifeline" to Labour at the looming general election, activists said.
And there were calls for the TUC leadership to draw lessons from its past and challenge MPs to back the charter if they want the millions-strong support of unions.
Reading an extract from the 1905 TUC conference minutes, John Hendy QC recalled how the organisation had issued an ultimatum to candidates of the day to support the historic Trade Disputes Bill or forfeit the working-class vote.
"Just over 50 candidates passed that test, of which 30 were elected at the 1906 general election - enough to make the Bill into Act that year," he said. "Why can't today's TUC adopt the same approach with regards to the charter?"
Speakers stressed that the six-point document was a way for millions of working people "to speak with one voice" at a time of economic crisis, mass unemployment, cuts in public services and growing fascism.
Investment in council housing, a fairer tax system, a publicly run financial system and an end to the current wars are some of the modest demands outlined in the charter, for which campaigners are aiming to collect one million signatures.
Young Communist League (YCL) general secretary Joanne Stevenson highlighted the importance of mobilising the young as they made up about 40 per cent of the unemployed.
She reported that the YCL had recently adopted an associated Youth Charter and called for investment in "real apprenticeships with job guarantees" and free education for all.
Rather than demonising young people, Ms Stevenson said, the government should address anti-social behaviour through investment in youth clubs and decent housing.
"And stop army recruits in our schools," she demanded.
Speaking from the floor, former YCL leader Gawain Little argued: "The TUC and Labour leadership will only act when there is grass-roots pressure. So let's take the charter into the communities and wherever there is a strike picket or a local campaign against academies, council privatisation and hospital closures."
Campaigners in Scotland have organised a Scottish Parliament lobby for later this month, while charter committees are being set up across the country.
The date of the People's Charter conference is November 21 at the Camden Centre, London.
Israel boycott steps up a gear this week Sunday 08 November 2009
Louise Nousratpour
Sunday November 8, 2009
The Morning Star
Two of Britain's biggest supermarket chains will be targeted in a "week of boycott action" to highlight their continued sale of produce from illegal Israeli settlements, solidarity campaigners have announced.
Waitrose and Morrisons will be the main focus for action this week in protests organised by the Palestine Solidarity Campaign (PSC) and coinciding with a week of action called by the Palestinian grass roots Anti-Apartheid Wall Campaign.
The Palestinian-based coalition has called on supporters to launch a week of global mobilisation against "the walls of apartheid" in the West Bank and Gaza from today.
Actions in Britain will include demonstrations and pickets outside Waitrose and Morrisons and mass co-ordinated phone calls to the headquarters of both stores on Wednesday.
Sarah Colborne of PSC said: "We are specifically targeting Waitrose and Morrisons as they have so far failed to engage in serious discussion with us.
"The PSC are hoping that they will take a principled position and stop stocking goods from illegal settlements."
In a statement, Waitrose insisted that the produce it sells from illegal Israeli settlements in the West Bank is grown on farms where a "Palestinian and Israeli workforce have worked side by side for many years."
Refuting the supermarket's claims, Ms Colborne noted: "There is no equality.
"Palestinian workers are forced to work in the settlements because their own economy has been destroyed by the Israeli occupation," she said.
"The settlements are built on stolen land and are irrigated by water stolen from the Palestinians. Palestinian children as young as 12 work on settlement farms."
Palestinian workers in Israeli settlements earn less than 50 per cent of the minimum wage and sometimes as little as five US cents an hour, according to Israel/Palestine-based employment rights organisation Kav LaOved.
They receive no holiday pay, pensions or sick pay and require work permits which can be rescinded if they complain about conditions or ask for a pay rise.
In September, the TUC conference voted to support a campaign of boycott, sanction and disinvestment, targeting Israeli goods as well as companies which benefit from Israel's illegal occupation of the West Bank and Gaza.
The resolution was a culmination of a wave of motions at individual union conferences this year in anger following Israel's war on the Gaza Strip in January, which killed 1,314 Palestinians.
Sunday November 8, 2009
The Morning Star
Two of Britain's biggest supermarket chains will be targeted in a "week of boycott action" to highlight their continued sale of produce from illegal Israeli settlements, solidarity campaigners have announced.
Waitrose and Morrisons will be the main focus for action this week in protests organised by the Palestine Solidarity Campaign (PSC) and coinciding with a week of action called by the Palestinian grass roots Anti-Apartheid Wall Campaign.
The Palestinian-based coalition has called on supporters to launch a week of global mobilisation against "the walls of apartheid" in the West Bank and Gaza from today.
Actions in Britain will include demonstrations and pickets outside Waitrose and Morrisons and mass co-ordinated phone calls to the headquarters of both stores on Wednesday.
Sarah Colborne of PSC said: "We are specifically targeting Waitrose and Morrisons as they have so far failed to engage in serious discussion with us.
"The PSC are hoping that they will take a principled position and stop stocking goods from illegal settlements."
In a statement, Waitrose insisted that the produce it sells from illegal Israeli settlements in the West Bank is grown on farms where a "Palestinian and Israeli workforce have worked side by side for many years."
Refuting the supermarket's claims, Ms Colborne noted: "There is no equality.
"Palestinian workers are forced to work in the settlements because their own economy has been destroyed by the Israeli occupation," she said.
"The settlements are built on stolen land and are irrigated by water stolen from the Palestinians. Palestinian children as young as 12 work on settlement farms."
Palestinian workers in Israeli settlements earn less than 50 per cent of the minimum wage and sometimes as little as five US cents an hour, according to Israel/Palestine-based employment rights organisation Kav LaOved.
They receive no holiday pay, pensions or sick pay and require work permits which can be rescinded if they complain about conditions or ask for a pay rise.
In September, the TUC conference voted to support a campaign of boycott, sanction and disinvestment, targeting Israeli goods as well as companies which benefit from Israel's illegal occupation of the West Bank and Gaza.
The resolution was a culmination of a wave of motions at individual union conferences this year in anger following Israel's war on the Gaza Strip in January, which killed 1,314 Palestinians.
Proud to be at the grass roots
Interview by Louise Nousratpour
Friday November 6, 2009
The Morning Star
Sitting in the cosy study of her modest home in the heart of Tower Hamlets, one of the poorest boroughs in Britain, talking animatedly with mug of coffee in one hand, fag in the other, Anita Halpin does not fit the caricature of the dull union bureaucrat, abstracted from the lives of ordinary people.
Though she has held, and still holds, many senior positions in the trade union movement and the Communist Party, she proudly describes herself as a lay activist and explains that her decision to stand down from the general council this year is to spend more time with her local union and party branch.
"I'm seeking nomination as NUJ delegate to the next TUC congress. It will be nice to be back on the conference floor," she smiles, revealing that it's been 20 years since she was a first-time delegate.
At this year's TUC congress Halpin won a prestigious gold badge for services to the trade union movement, an achievement which she is typically modest about.
"I have to take it to the jeweller because it is designed for men. It has a stickpin for ties," she says, encapsulating the prejudice that she has had to contend with in order to receive the award.
Halpin became the third woman president of the NUJ in 1994, when the rest of the executive were all male. And she is the only woman treasurer in the union's 100-year history.
But her election in 2001 was no token gesture to gender equality. She has turned round the union's dire finances in the past decade "from an overdraft of £3 million to a subscription income of £3 million," she declares proudly.
Little wonder she has just been re-elected as treasurer.
Though progress has been made to shake off the "male, pale and stale" image, the movement is still far from being truly representative of women and minority workers who are often the lowest paid and most likely to suffer discrimination.
Halpin is particularly excited about TUC equality conferences - LGBT, women, and disability - now being motion-based and she hopes the young members' forum will soon be given the same democratic right.
"This provides lay activists with a greater democratic voice and has boosted representation. It is their voice that should be heard, not only the men in grey suits whose speech are written by, presumably, NUJ members working in some communication office somewhere."
One of the greatest gains of recent years, the minimum wage, was first adopted by the sisters at a TUC women's conference some years before Labour made it law in 1999, Halpin notes.
"That was in response to Thatcher's decision to close the wages council which regulated low-paid industries.
"I wasn't attending TUC women's conference then, but the evolution of the arguments must have come from discussions around how to protect low-paid workers, who are mainly women," Halpin observes.
She regrets some sisters' tendency to shy away from accepting nominations and thereby achieve progressive change.
"Many fewer women accept nominations to union positions than men do - if for no other reason it has to be a problem of confidence and feeling 'I can make a difference.'
"Women have an equal right to be nominated and they should exercise that right by equally accepting that nomination."
Halpin believes that a truly representative movement is crucial to win the fight against voter apathy and the fascist menace.
The work, she insists, must start at grass-roots level, using the straightforward, progressive policies outlined in the People's Charter - now TUC policy - and the Charter for Women.
"Abstention is a very dangerous thing. That is how the BNP got votes in the north-west - they polled fewer votes than the previous election," Halpin notes, adding: "We must build our local trade councils as well as party and union branches."
Reaffirming her confidence in the electoral strategy outlined in the Communist Party of Britain manifesto, the British Road For Socialism, Halpin is crystal clear that the trade union movement must pull out all the stops for a Labour victory at the looming election.
The Thatcher years, she remembers grimly, "knocked the guts out of a whole generation of workers.
"Following Lenin, the British Road to Socialism acknowledges the special relationship between the trade union movement and Labour, albeit a social democratic party or even worse than that now."
Halpin is well aware that many recoil at the thought of voting for a warmongering government. For her, the Labour Party is not sacrosanct or above criticism but it is simply where the bulk of the organised workers are politically represented.
A new workers' party, she believes, could only emerge from "the trade union movement, whatever the evolutionary solution is going to be.
"Disaffiliating lock, stock and barrel from Labour would just cut the ground from under our feet."
Ultimately, she says, "an artificially constructed left coalition without a groundswell of trade union support" will get nowhere.
Halpin believes that, in the first instance, unions must use the power of their affiliation fee "much more radically."
This, she argues, can be done through the trade union parliamentary co-ordinating group, launched at the TUC last year and including affiliated and non-affiliated unions.
"I don't like this 'them and us' situation. We can overcome this division through the TUPCG, which provides a co-ordinated lobbying voice within Westminster."
Halpin is respected even by those on the right for her unstinting commitment to the working class and her consistent internationalism.
She believes that the labour movement must overcome its fear of being branded anti-semitic and adopt an unequivocal position on the festering injustice that is occupied Palestine.
No-one can accuse her of being anti-Jewish. Her grandparents Alfred and Tekla Hess were persecuted by the nazis and were forced to emigrate to England in 1938.
Halpin describes her early politics as "instinctively anti-fascist" due to her father Hans making a conscious decision to relay the family's tragic history to his young daughter.
"I learned my politics from my parents," she explains. "They were anti-fascist refugees from nazi Germany. Most refugees decided to assimilate and not tell their offspring anything about the history. Maybe because it was just too horrendous.
"But my father, a Marxist art historian, was sufficiently political to think it was his duty to tell me what had happened."
Today a new generation of activists faces the same fascist menace in a new suit.
At a time when the Establishment parades Nick Griffin's ugly politics on our screens in the name of "freedom of speech," the working-class movement cannot afford to be divided or ignore the issues which give rise to fascism.
This threat needs to be countered and it's up to people on the left to adopt some of Halpin's enthusiasm and build the confidence that they can make a difference after all.
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