Socialist Action launched at Hong Kong meeting

Need for a new campaigning socialist force linking democracy and grassroots' struggles with an alternative to capitalist mayhem

Dikang, chinaworker.info
 
4 July 2010. This date will be remembered for the founding of a new and youthful political organisation in Hong Kong: Socialist Action. Eighteen people attended a meeting in Mong Kok to hear what Socialist Action is organising and fighting for. Newly founded Socialist Action is activly taking part in local and international struggles and will maintain close relations with radical party League of Social Democrats (LSD) and the internatioanl socialist organisation - Committee for a Workers' International (cwi).
 
Moderator of the meeting, Local youth Jaco, stated what all of us already know - that HK politics is at a turning point, the Democratic Party has betrayed its self-proclaimed ideals and Functional Constitutencies will continue. Bureaucracy and capitalists are colluding to monopolise political and economic power in Hong Kong. For everyday people, the gap between the rich and the poor is widening. In order to enhance working class consciousness and link the democratic movement with workers' struggle, we launched Socialist Action. 
 

"In Bangladesh the minimum wage is just HK$182 a month for some textile workers," said Vincent Kolo, one of the invited international VIP speakers at the meeting.

"This picture of a policemen beating a child labourer from Bangladesh's textile industry is enough to make anyone a socialist," said Kolo. "This is the reality of capitalism today!"

The meeting outlined the views of Socialist Action on the struggle for democracy in China and Hong Kong and what measures were needed to end the crisis of capitalism. During the discussion there was a lively exchange on the question of nationalisation and the need to take the major companies and banks under the democratic control of the workforce and population as a whole.
 
"If we fight for democratic control over government, how can we not fight for democratic control of the economy? The tycoons wield far more power - over jobs, economic prospects and pollution levels - than Donald Tsang or any Chief Executive," said Vincent.
 
The successful meeting ended with one new member signing up. It followed a widely publicised protest action against Cafe de Coral with Long Hair, demanding a HK$33 minimum wage, earlier the same day.