In 1989, tests were carried out on pregnant women in one of the big hospitals. One in ten women tested positive. The government campaign is very moralistic; "don't have sex, say no" and in favour of have formed a lesbian caucus and are fighting for its recognition.
The fact is that the roles of most women in South Africa are those of mother and wife. They don't see themselves as taking the lead in politics. But the Coalition
SOUTH AFRICA seems to be drawing in women at the grassroots who have been out there working on their own, and hopefully we are seeing a trend to form an organization which does not only pass resolutions but also acts on them. * monogamy and sex within marriage. After George Novack: 1905-1992 all sex is only for procreation, so what is all this fumbling around? GEORGE Novack, a leader of the U.S. Socialist Workers Party
They also hand out free condoms at all (SWP) since the mid 1930's and a founding member of the Fourth family planning clinics, but there is no International, died in New York City July 30, after a brief illness. He education about the condom. In terms of was 86. Novack was a prominent figure in numerous defense comthe South African situation women are in mittees during six decades of political activity and the author or edisuch a submissive role that there is no time tor of some fifteen books on history and philosophy. to negotiate the use of a condom. A lot of Born in Boston on August 5, 1905, Novack attended Harvard rural African women come to the cities. University from 1922 to 1927. With the onset of the Great DepresTheir explanation of how sex occurs is that sion, he was drawn around a circle of radical writers and acadethe woman sleeps on the floor, while the mics, associated with the Menorah Journal, that included Herbert man sleeps on the bed. When the man Solow, Clifton Fadiman, Diana Trilling, Sidney Hook, and others. In wants sex he gives her a kick and when it's the early 1930's Novack wrote for the New Republic and the Nation over she gets back down onto the floor. and became active in the Scottsboro and other defense cases The women say "where in all of that am I through the National Committee for the Defense of Political Prisogoing to introduce the condom?" There is no discussion about it. In 1933 he joined the Communist League of America, predeces-
There is also the tradition that a woman sor of the Socialist Workers Party, attracted to its response to the must prove she is fertile before she can tascist victory in Germany that year. He remained in the SWP until find a husband. A lot of young girls are his death, serving on its National Committee from 1940 until 1972 pressurized into having sex and getting Novack was for many years a writer and editor for the Militant pregnant. If she does have a child, and newsweekly, the magazines New International, International Sociaespecially a male child, her future is gua- list Review, Intercontinental Press, and other socialist publications. ranteed. There is no education around that; As secretary for the American Committee for the Defense of the posters all say "be good girls and don't Leon Trotsky, Novack was part of the delegation that met the Rus-
Asian revolutionary leader in Mexico when he arrived by ship in
AIDS is a disease which affects Black January 1937 for his last exile. Later that year, Novack helped heterosexuals and the government is not organize the International Commission of Inquiry headed by John really concerned. There was one hostel for Dewey that convened in Mexico to investigate the charges against terminally ill AIDS patients but it had to Trotsky in the Stalin regime's Moscow trials. The commission found close for lack of funding. Another was opened in a very conservative area, but the Novack then served as the national secretary of the Civil Rights residents petitioned and lobbied and fire- Defense Committee, which mobilized opposition to the federal bombed the house of the priest in charge government's first Smith Act indictments in 1940. The trial ended in
December 1941 with the conviction of James P. Cannon, Farrell until the plan was abandoned.
Many domestic workers are forced to Dobbs and 16 other leaders of the SWP and Minneapolis General wear gloves and are being taken for tests Drivers union for their antiwar activities. They served from twelve to without their consent. There is a shelter where women have come saying: "I've In subsequent years, Novack played a prominent part in many worked for this family for 30 years and other civil liberties fights, from the McCarthy period through the then I tested positive and they sacked me." SWP's civil suit against spying and disruption by the FBI and other These women have no insurance, nothing government agencies filed in 1973. Novack was a plaintiff and and probably do not know how to do any- architect of that suit, which ended in 1986 with a federal court ruling thing other than domestic work. They have no legal recourse. This is one of the issues Novack's books, mostly published by Pathfinder Press, include we have worked with the domestic wor- Understanding History, Democracy and Revolution, Pragmatism versus Marxism, Empiricism and its Evolution, The Origins of Materialism, America's Revolutionary Heritage and Polemics in Marxist • What is the state of the South Philosophy. His works have been translated into Spanish, Turkish, African women's movement? Greek, Gujarati and other languages.
The women's movement in South Africa Novack lived most of his adult life in New York City. He also is just starting. The literature we get from, lived in Minneapolis (1941), Detroit (1942-43), Los Angeles (1951for example, the US doesn't apply. A 53), and Paris and London (1951-53). National Women's Coalition has recently His wife and collaborator, Evelyn Reed, author of Women's Evobeen formed which we hope will include everyone from the lesbians to the domestic workers. The ANC women are dominant — they are well organized and vocal. We the charges baseless.
eighteen months in federal prison.
favorable to the plaintiffs.
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27 # 234 International Viewpoint
Racist attacks shake
The caving in of the SPD leadership is a disaster. This it has done not only on asylum, but also over the involvement of German troops in United Nations intervention units. Briefly summarized: the SPD will do its bit to increase the production of refugees while at the same
AUGUST 25, 1992 will go down as a notorious date in recent German history. On that day some 2,500 fascists and a jubilant crowd of thousands of onlookers succeeded in forcing refugees to leave their hostel in Rostock in East
Germany.
On the same day, leaders of the opposition Social
Democratic Party of Germany (SPD) in spite of resistance from the party rank and file, made it known that they would support government-proposed amendments to the constitution to restrict asylum rights, thus making it possible for the change to gain the two thirds majority in parliament required for a constitutional change to become law.
DAVID MULLER
T WAS just a year ago that Nazis found themselves able to force the closure of the local immigrant hostel in Hoyerswerda. Even before that the rightwing parties in the government coalition, the Christian Democratic
Union (CDU) and the Christian Social
Union (CSU) had started to make asylum an electoral issue.
However this time the spirits they have raised have escaped their control with militant neo-fascists using the racist atmosphere to launch violent actions such as in Rostock. For the first time since the downfall of the Nazi regime they have been able to influence German politics through sheer terror.
Bourgeois politicians and the CDU controlled regional government of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, which is responsible for Rostock and its policing, at first refused to take the violence seriously.
This was shown by the fact that on
August 25 there were only six police to confront over 200 armed Nazis; units of border guards stood idly by, since they were not given the order to intervene.
Some 60% of those arrested were antifascists who had tried to come to the aid of the refugees.
Lack of will
The press and politicians talked of the
"helplessness" of the police. In reality, it was simply a matter of a lack of will.
As if by magic, the same police chiefs and politicians were able to overcome their helplessness on August 29 when
3,000 elite police were on hand to control
28 the anti-fascist counter-demonstration, making over 90 arrests.
The racist outlook of bourgeois politicians and police chiefs aside, the initial inactivity also had a precise political motive in the form of the campaign for a change to the constitution's provisions on asylum. Furthermore, the racist tide is useful to the government as a way of distracting attention from its own lack of
It was thus no surprise to find establishment media and politicians deploring the "violence of left and right" (meaning that they do not want to see the emergence either of an independent, action-oriented fascist movement or still less of an energetic anti-fascist movement) alongside a swell of "understanding" for the Nazis and those that applau-
The establishment united front has talked mainly about "the problem of stopping the flood of asylum seekers" Meanwhile CDU and SPD security experts have taken the opportunity to call for the creation of a 1,000 to 2,000 strong special police unit. It is not difficult to guess who will be this unit's real target. The Nazi terror has thus led directly to a stronger state — aimed at the left.
All the measures which the state claims are aimed at dealing with the Nazi threat represent concessions to the far right programme and will in fact work to the Nazis' advantage; the refugee hostel in Rostock will be vacated, the article on asylum in the constitution changed and the state strengthened. The Nazis can and have greeted this victory: five to ten attacks on refugee hostels have been taking place daily in Germany.
time preventing them from coming to Germany. Some SPD chiefs are toying with the thought of a grand coalition. But the basic cause of the collapse is the integration of the SPD bureaucracy into the bourgeois state apparatus and their lack
The SPD no longer has any alternative to the conservative fog as it did at the start of the Brandt era in the 1960s. The collapse of Stalinism in a rightward direction has not had such a big impact on the SPD as on the Stalinist and Stalinist-influenced left. Nonetheless, the Social Democrats has retreated step by step before the rightwing offensive.
There have been some resignations and signs of opposition, especially among the Jusos (Young Socialists), but the latter are scattered and it does not seem that enough support can be found to force an emergency congress. Those that resign from the SPD will probably either drop out of activity or turn towards the Greens. Socialists will try to draw such people into active campaigns against racism and militarism.
### Counter-demonstration
The counter-demonstration in Rostock had very broad support, ranging from the local branch of the DGB trade union confederation to the anarchistic autonomists. The turnout of 20,000 showed that the radical left remains able to mobilize more people than the far right.
However the demonstration also revealed a dangerous split. Some of those in the reformist spectrum see the masses as inherently racist and are therefore ready to consider proposals for tougher controls on immigration.
The other problem comes from the radical side where many who are (correctly) ready to directly confront racist ideology and organize militant opposition are unwilling to address social questions. This is not to suggest that committed racists are going to change their views because of social demands.
The point is, however, to present a clear left alternative built around a consistent anti-racist struggle for full legal and social equality for all and a movement of immigrants and refugees which takes up demands relevant to all workers. If such an alternative is not built, "foreigners out" will become the political programme for an increasing number of people in Germany. *
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GERMANY Germany