Articles by Sam King

Issue 40 - November-December 2012

By Sam King

Santiago – Overthrowing the Chilean government, in the manner of the Egyptian or Tunisian uprisings, is not the immediate aim of Chile’s massive student movement, but that is what large sections of it would like to do.The powerful and sustained mass student movement grows out of the impact on education of capitalist economic policies pursued under both the 17-year military dictator

Issue 34 - August 2011

By Sam King

In just five months, Egypt’s Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF) has used up the good will it generated in January and February when the army high command did not attempt to crush the protest movement that forced Hosni Mubarak from power.

Issue 33 - June-July 2011

By Sam King

The international capitalist media have largely ignored the tumultuous developments in Egypt unfolding under the pressure of a massive movement for change. Most coverage since the resignation of former president Hosni Mubarak on February 11 has been uncritical reportage of “sectarian” violence.

Issue 32 - May 2011

By Sam King

More than a million people filled Cairo’s Tahrir Square on April 8 in the biggest show of strength from the Egyptian mass movement since February 18, when a similar number celebrated the fall of dictator Hosni Mubarak.

Issue 31 - April 2011

By Sam King

If “Labor Party” makes you think of right-wing parties like the ALP or the British Labour Party, the Labor Party in the Philippines (PM from its name in Tagalog) will be a refreshing surprise. Unlike those parties, the PM is a home for revolutionaries and trade union leaders who put up a fight against their bosses.

Issue 30 - March 2011

By Sam King

I’ve never understood how people could sit up at night watching TV sport on the other side of the world. But I sat for hour after hour watching live coverage of the Egyptian revolution unfolding.

By Sam King

Melbourne police have dropped charges against two Revolutionary Socialist Party (RSP) activists involved in a dramatic protest against Australian racism on January 26 last year. The protest received extensive media coverage in Australia and around the world, especially in India.

Issue 29 - February 2011

By Sam King

The apathy and racism inherent to most mainstream “Australia Day” (Invasion Day) events was dealt a blow by activists from the Revolutionary Socialist Party on January 26 in Melbourne.

Issue 28 - November-December 2010

By Sam King

John Cleary was an active member of the Builders Labourers Federation in the 1970s before becoming an electrician, delegate and member of the Electrical Trades Union. He was an ETU organiser for 12 years until 2001. Since then he has been active in solidarity with Venezuela and Colombia, including organising and participating in seven solidarity brigades to Venezuela.

Issue 27 - October 2010

By Sam King

The Revolutionary Socialist Party has announced it will stand Van Thanh Rudd in the seat of Derrimut in Melbourne’s western suburbs. The seat is home to large working class and migrant communities. In 2006, Jorge Jorquera stood in the same seat as a candidate for Direct Action, a socialist group that has since merged with the Revolutionary Socialist Party.

Issue 26 - September 2010

By Sam King

On June 20, 2009, in Melbourne, Sam King was riding home on his bicycle. When trying to pass the Retro Cafe in Fitzroy, he was pulled off his bike, bashed, handcuffed and jailed. Two of the 25 witnesses to the assault were themselves bashed for questioning the police perpetrators. One was also jailed. The other, an 18-year-old woman, was hospitalised with face wounds.

By Sam King

The Revolutionary Socialist Party’s campaign to run Van Rudd against Julia Gillard and Hamish Chitts against Kevin Rudd was a clear step forward for the profile of revolutionary socialist ideas among working people in Australia.

Issue 20 - March 2010

By Sam King

An Australian company has a significant but little-known role in the creation of the world’s largest mud volcano, located in the densely populated Sidoarjo district of Indonesia’s East Java province.

Issue 19 - February 2010

By Sam King

At least 164,000 Tamil men, women and children were being held in military internment camps – without access to humanitarian agencies, independent monitors, media or local civil authorities – when Stephen Smith, Australia’s foreign minister, visited Sri Lanka on November 9, according to the UN High Commissioner for Refugees.

Issue 15 - September 2009

By Sam King

The National Network for Women’s Liberation (Jaringan Nasional Perempuan Mahardika – JNPM) is an Indonesian women’s liberation organisation consisting of local women’s committees, coordinating bodies and women’s sections of labour, student, peasant and urban poor organisations committed to the liberation of women.

Issue 12 - June 2009

By Sam King

At a May 21 mass meeting of more than 400 trade union leaders in Bolivar City, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez and labour minister Maria Cristina Iglesias resolved to nationalise six strategic industrial companies.

Issue 10 - April 2009

By Sam King

The museum-style artwork called Economy of Movement – A Piece of Palestine that was located in a subway under Melbourne’s Flinders Street train station contained two framed explanations of its centre piece – a stone, resting on a glass pedestal. The first frame explained: “The stone exhibited is from East Jerusalem, Israel (occupied Palestinian Territory).

Issue 7 - December 2008

By Sam King

Thousands of factory workers blockaded the Padalarang highway in West Java causing traffic to back up 10 kilometres along the road for four hours on November 24.

Issue 4 - September 2008

By Sam King

This year’s May Day demonstrations in Jakarta took on a special significance because they came 10 years after General Suharto was forced by mass street protests to resign as Indonesia’s president. The May 1 marches were followed by another lively round of protests on May 21, the anniversary of the day Suharto fell.

Issue 3 - August 2008

By Sam King

Yogyakarta – An estimated 20,000 Indonesian farmers from 10 villages will be displaced if an Australian company proceeds with a proposed iron sand mine. The venture would span some 22km of coastline of the Kulon Progo regency in the Yogyakarta Special Region, on the south coast of Java.