But to admit the just rights of the Palestinians nation does not mean that we have to ignore the equal rights of the Israeli nation for their own self-determination. For the moment, umortunately, Ine most prominent resistance group, Fath, is still avoiding this problem by talking about the Israelis not as a nation but as a relipious minority. This is one of the weakest points in Fath's programme, and it is for their refusal to admit the existence of an Israeli nation, as a separate entity from both the Palestinian Arabs. on the one hand. and the world Jewish community, on the other, that them in your paper (see M. Machover and Said Black Dwart No. 19)
There has been of late. however, an evolunon withing te ralestiman movements. Ine Popular Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PDFLP), was the lust raiestiman resistance movement to speak of the Israelis as more tnan a rengious group. In an interview with a leader of the PDFLP, published in Rouge (No. 32, 29th September 1969), they spoke about an "Israeli national culture". When, in an article in Le Monde (27th January 1970) Nayef Hawatmeh of the Political Bureau of the PDFLP said "we have to build a real Democratic State, which will be part of a great Arab socialist federation, where the power, all the power, will be exercised by workers councils, councils of poor peasants and soldiers. The constitutional form of this new state is not important; it can have the structure of a federation or of a confederation, like the Yugoslav or Czech type. " (my translation).
For the tust time an authoritative voice speaks of the speaken she is and Palestin andere struggle of the Palestinians must be seen in this light. Only movements which ugnt for the rignt of Palestinian self-determination, without at the same time, denying that right to the Isreali nation can call themselves authentic socialist. Mike Whine Israel Palestine Committee students Union.
City of London Polytechnic, Moorgate, E.C.2.
Dear Sir, The two gentlemen who chose to put the case tor the Ford Convenors I am sure helped neither their cause or the cause of the Ford workers by their cynical comments.
Jock Macrae querulously complains that groups like I.S. and Solidarity tend to attack the convenors and works committees but later on he tells us:"It's better to have a well-planned. well-organised meeting with all vour own people ready to say the right things and do the right things and vou're in?
Does it occur to him in his egotistic "generalship" unal te average man on the foor is a democrat? He does not want a "wellplanned meeting with Macrae's "own people" saying the'right things". He wants free discussion between platform and rank and file and not a "well-organised" meeting to enforce whatever policy Macrae may think I and my fellow-workers have attended two of Jock Macrae's last mass meetings. At the first we dutifully filled in question slips and "In these schools the younger generation of workers and peasants were not so much educated and drilled in the terests of that bourgeoisie. the ere trained in such a way as to b useful servants of the bourgeoisie, able to create profits for it without disturbing its peace and pleasure. Lenin, October 1920.
As a London Electricity Board apprentice, I soon realised that apprenticeships are a way that working class youth are exploited and used as cheap labour. This is evident from the moment you sign four year of your working life away in an indenture to the LEB. The pay is the lowest in the country and the conditions are like an institution. Their training course is reminiscent of a prison cell block, with clear floors, rules and regulations, and the usual establishment posters about clean health, clean body, and tidyness. When you join the board you are kidded into believing that you are to be trained in a worthwhile job, and at last get away from the school room attitudes. In the welcoming speech, the apprentice supervisor tells everyone that they are now young adults and they will be treated as such. When he has finished you are photographed and labelled with a number. and a file is started. When the Government passed the legislation making the age of majority 18, told me that the LEB does not recognise this and they are not prepared to at the moment. This of course complies with their policy ol treating us as adults.
Al work there is usuallv an electrician. a mate and an apprentice. Now they are doing away with the mate: - that leaves the electrician and the apprentice. The apprentice. who gets t8. lOs. a week, would then be dong she wre onto aged thing in the cheap labour the work of a mate got £16. The LEB market. A good percentage of the new recruits are skinheads, who are being indoctrinated into thinking that they are being trained in a skilled job, but really anyone could be an electrician on the Board with a year's training Then why four years on low pav? It's obvious. Many apprentices feel that the wages saying "what can we do. But can anyone honestiv live on to. lOs. a week, especially as many people now leave home and need money tor a hal and tood I got out because I realised that as an malviadar coure not ugat sometaing so big But dissatisfaction is growing and soon the more than individual protest.
ALL POWER TO THE LEB APPRENTICES.
The Black Dwarf March 7 1970 Page 5 to the grievances of the people. Now when the people see these just demands put forward and then they see the Government unable or unwilling to meet these demands, then it becomes very reasonable to them to start dealing With the alternatives. We