Indonesian NGOs raise a laugh

Frustrated by the lack of decision-makers’ response to the needs of the poor, NGOs in Indonesia captured the media’s attention at the opening of parliament by presenting each representative with a gift – an ear-bud to help them clean out their ears so they could hear the cries of the poor. The publicity and fun generated by this action raised the public’s attention to the issues in an effective way.

Gandhi demonstrates the power on non-violent action

A non-violent revolution is not a program of seizure of power.
It is a program of transformation of relationships
ending in a peaceful transfer of power.
Mahatma Gandhi, 1942

The Mahatma (Great Soul) gave a new meaning to non-violence. He said that anything gained through violence was not worth having.
Born Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi in Gujarat, India in 1869, he qualified as a lawyer in England before practising in South Africa. South Africa, which was notorious for racial discrimination, gave Gandhi the insults which awakened his social conscience. He refused to remove his turban in court; he was thrown out of a first-class railway compartment; he was beaten for refusing to move to the footboard of a stage-coach for the sake of a European passenger; and he was pushed and kicked off a footpath by a policeman. During a farewell party before he was to sail for India, Gandhi noticed in the newspaper that a bill was being proposed that would deprive Indians of the vote and stayed to fight for Indians rights in South Africa. This marked the start of a number of years of non-violent protests including refusing to register, burning registration certificates and breaking of unjust laws. As a result of these actions, Gandhi was arrested on numerous occasions and sent a total of 249 days in South Africa jails, many of them doing hard labour.

From the beginning of his life as a protester, Gandhi was directed by his deep religious convictions. He believed that violence was always wrong.

Gandhi returned to India in 1915. There was a great poverty among the Indians too. The British were ruling India harshly, taking taxes that the people could not afford, preventing Indians from ruling their own country, discouraging their industry and using force to control the people. Gandhi started out his protests by home-spun khadi in order to encourage self-sufficient village industries and thus help alleviate poverty in India. He used this time to learn more about workers suffering and exploitation leading to his first of many arrests in India.

Appalled by the suffering, Gandhi called for an economic boycott and on April 6, 1919 all Indians stopped working for a day. Several more acts of non-violence followed. In October 1920 at the annual Indian Congress, 14,000 delegates enthusiastically agreed on non-cooperation with the British and to end untouchability. Gandhi promised that non-cooperation would bring about self-government.

Gandhi travelled throughout India addressing mass meetings, and imported fabrics were burned. When the Prince of Wales (Edward VIII) visited Bombay in November 1921, protests degenerated into mob violence with looting. Some policemen were beaten to death. In three days of riots, 58 Bombay citizens were killed and four hundred were injured. Gandhi went on a fast to end the violence and in December the arrests began. By the time Congress met in the last week of 1921, there were 20,000 in jail. Some nationalist patriots urged rebellion. Although Gandhi believed that cowardice is worse than violence, he still believed that nonviolent action is better than both. Six thousand delegates approved Gandhi's resolution for civil disobedience of all government laws, especially those banning public meetings.

In March 10, 1922 Gandhi was given his only judicial trial by the British. At this he explained, "In my opinion, non-cooperation with evil is as much a duty as is cooperation with good." He was sentenced to six years. He was in fact released after 22 months after he had an appendectomy.

On his release he said that if Indian had not gain independence by 1930 it was time for war. It had not. On January 26, 1930 he asked people to celebrate Independence Day, and he proclaimed a manifesto that India must sever its connection with Britain and attain complete independence. Gandhi announced an eleven-point program that included reducing land revenue by fifty percent, abolishing the salt tax, prohibiting alcohol, passing a tariff to protect against foreign cloth, enacting a coastal reservation bill to help Indian shipping, revaluating the rupee, reducing military expenditures by at least fifty percent, reducing salaries of civil servants by half, releasing all political prisoners except for murder, abolishing or controlling the Criminal Investigation Department that was targeting Congress, and issuing firearms for self-defence under popular control.

The war started with the tax on salt. Salt can be taken from sea water but in India all salt was made and sold by the British government who made money out of it. Gandhi said the salt belonged to India and that he would break this law.

First, he asked to discuss the issue with the Viceroy, the head of the British government in India. The Viceroy refused, thinking it was unimportant. Then, on 12 March 1930, when he was sixty years old, Gandhi set out with his followers to march 322 kilometres from his home to the sea to make salt. For twenty-four days the people of India and the rest of the world followed his progress. The anticipation was intense. On 6 April, with thousands of onlookers Gandhi walked into the sea and picked up a handful of salt. This act of defiance was a signal to the nation. All along the coast of India people made salt illegally. He wrote, "I want world sympathy in this battle of Right against Might." A month later Gandhi was arrested and tens of thousands had been put in prison.

Gandhi and the people of India spent many years engaging in civil disobedience and protesting before the British finally left. They continued to march, to refuse to cooperate and to stretch British resources by allowing themselves to be imprisoned.

Finally India achieved success in 1947 when the British gave up their rule and India became independent.

 

Workers Fight for Rights in Free Trade Zone, 2004

More and more textile plants in North America are closing their doors and shifting production to low-cost factories in the South that labour activists call ”sweatshops”, and Haiti's minimum wage is the hemisphere's lowest. A union's fight for higher wages calls into question the “race to the bottom.”

As accusations of union-busting fly, labour bodies like the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions (ICFTU) are protesting.

Grupo M, the largest employer in the Dominican Republic, where it has 13,000 workers in 24 plants, built the free trade zone and the first two of a dozen projected factories there with a 12 million-dollar loan from the World Bank's International Finance Corporation (IFC). Although international mobilising forced the IFC to include language in the loan about respect for workers' rights, CODEVI has been the site of labour strife almost since it opened.

SOKOWA (Union of CODEVI Ouanaminthe Workers) organized a massive one-day strike that was almost universally respected by workers. ”We want decent salaries, better working conditions and collective bargaining,” organiser Georges Augustin said. Workers regularly work a 55-hour week with no overtime pay, and that most employees earn 12 and not 20 dollars. “A plate of food outside the plant costs 25 gourdes (almost one dollar). If you eat twice, that's most of your salary,” Augustin explained. ”When you are trying to make people do what's right, you have to go all the way.”