Obituary
Bret Smiley (1950-99) Canadian Trotskyist by Barry Weisleder
Bret's father, Donald V. Smiley, was a much-published professor of political science. Bret enrolled at the University of British Columbia, but academic completion of his first year was discarded in favour of intense involvement in the newly emerging student movement.
Bret participated in a student sit-in and takeover of the UBC Faculty Club (where his father happened to be a member), protesting its restrictive membership policy. In 1967 Bret was one of over 100 students arrested at a free speech sit-in at nearby Simon Fraser University.
Bret moved to Toronto in 1969-70, where he plunged into the radical student movement and eventually into the left wing of the labour-based New Democratic Party. The co-op house he shared with close friends on Hepbourne Street, in downtown Toronto's west end, became renown as a meeting place and orga-
Al Majdal#1 (March 1999)
The new quarterly bulletin for the promotion of a just solution to Palestinian residency and refugee issues.
Al Majdal replaces the BADIL bulletin Article 74, the last issue of which (no. 26) was published in December 1998.
Al Majdal will serve as a platform of communication between Palestinian refugees and all those internationals and Israelis-who, based on the painful lessions of the Oslo process, have taken up the challenge of working for Palestinian refugee rights and a just peace in the Middle East.
The first issue of the bulletin includes the following: Call for the Establishment of Palestinian Land Commission (Salman Abu Sitta) • nizing centre for left wing NDP and labour activists.
It was here, according to a former house-mate, that Bret became an avid reader of New Left Review, and other
Marxist, including specifically Trotskyist, literature. Ernest Mandel's classic
"The Leninist Concept of Orgamade a profound impression An extremely articulate speaker with a powerfully synthetic intellect, Bret moved into positions of leadership in the left-wing nationalist Waffle movement of the NDP. At the same time he played an important role as educator and organizer of a regroupment of mostly young radical socialists inside the Waffle, the NDP Youth and among activists at the University of Toronto campus.
In 1972 Bret joined the League for Socialist Action, section of the Fourth International in the Canadian state, and participated in the leadership of a minority tendency which was expelled from the LSA in 1973. Together with a core of student activists (Old Mole group) and Waffle veterans (the Red Circle), the ex-LSA militants founded the Revolutionary Marxist Group in the Summer of that year. Committee of the RMG, and on the Editorial Board of its (nearly) monthly newspaper the Old Mole. RMG candidate for federal Parliament in 1974, and helped to lead its international solidarity, anti-social cutbacks, strike support, and anti-racism campaigns.
Bret was a prolific and skilled polemicist, and wrote extensively on questions of socialist strategy, the nature of the Canadian state and society, the Quebec national question, the NDP, the Labour movement, the student movement, other social struggles, as well as on international politics and strategic issues.
The RMG, and its Quebec-based counterpart the Groupe Marxiste Revolutionnaire, became sympathizing organiNew Palestinian & International Inititative for Palestinian Refugee Rights-background materials and suggestions for action towards: Empowering Palestinian refugee initiatives and NGOs • Lobbying for UNRWA funding • Advocacy for the Palestinian Right to Restitution (including BADIL petition) • Update: Palestinian Refugees in Lebanon • "Our Visitors" • Poem from Palestinian Refugee Children in Lebanon • Call for Mobilization towards the Israeli High Court Decision on ID Card Confiscation on 22 April 1999 • Jerusalem ID Card Confiscation: Data for 1996-1998 • Update: Palestinian Residency Rights under the PA Al Majdal#1 will be distributed to all subscribers to the previous bulletin Article 74. New subscribers please contact: badil@baraka.org or tel/fax. 02-2747346. (Annual subscription fee: US$20 or equivalent).
zations of the Fourth International in the mid-1970s. Bret represented the RMG at the World Congress of the F.L., and served on the International Executive
Committee of the global movement.
In 1977, the LSA, RMG and GMR fused to form the Revolutionary
Workers' League/Ligue Ouvriere Revolutionnaire. Within two years, the fusion was crisis over issues of work place orientation, NDP and governmental policy, and general strategy.
In 1981 Bret was part of an exodus of a number of veteran leaders and activists from the RWL. He moved from Toronto to Hamilton, 50 kilometers west, and worked for more than a year in the coke plant at Stelco's steel mill. He then transferred far north-west to Edmonton, Alberta, where he lived for the next 17 years in political and personal isolation
He launched a band that performed occasionally on weekends, until the equipment was stolen. His subsequent work as an unskilled labourer (mostly furniture moving, truck driving and roofing jobs), did not alleviate the downward spiral. Poverty, alcoholism, and physical decline proceeded to take a high toll on his health. In recent years he pulled himself together, but in 1988 was diagnosed with lung cancer.
In his final months he reestablished contact with his former comrades, dissapointed to find that several had abandoned political activism. He said that he was "no longer a Marxist", but his keen interest in our analysis of the political situation and in our practical activity, particularly inside the labour movement, seemed to refute the claim
He played a seminal role in rejuvenating Canadian Trotskyism, linking it to and drawing sustenance from the youth radicalization of the 1960s and 70s, and stimulating a wide range of debates on revolutionary strategy and programme. * Barry Weisleder is the Editor of Socialist Action newspaper, published in Toronto, Canada. well read
A very incomplete review of the radical press International Viewpoint #310 April 1999 35
The following websites provide useful background on the Kosovo crisis and related information Kosovo sites Kosovo Information Agency
Includes documents of the Kosovo Liberation Army (UCK)
www.kosovapress.com/ Out There News
Reports from Kosovo's frontlines, interviews with Kosovar pacifist leaders, photos of the destruction and historical background. www.megastories.com/kosovo/index.htm Kosova Crisis Center www.alb-net.com/ Kosova Humanitarian Aid Organization www.khao.org/ Freedom for kosoua!
www.kosovainfo.com/ Serbian sites Radio B92
The backbone of the independent news service in Yugoslavia. Although banned, Radio B92 is still live on the web, with breaking news in English.
www.b92.net Against NATO attacks/ in Support of Yugoslavia
This Serb site provides an immediate responses to various Serbian and international news reports, a timetable of the day's air raids, photos of the destruction in Kosovo and a child's plea for peace.
www.beograd.com/nato
Other Serbian anti-NATO and antiwar sites include www.crisisweb.org/ www.yutarget.com
A constantly updated webcamera with pictures of Belgrade's bombed streets is at:
www.inet.co.yu/kamera/
Foreign sites
Institution for War and Peace Reporting
This is one of the few places to find dispatches, translated into English, from dissident journalists within Serbia and Kosovo, along with other good commentary.
www.iwpr.net 36 International Viewpoint #311 May 1999
ZNet
A page of up-to-the-minute articles regarding the current bombings. The lead piece by Noam Chomsky puts the entire situation into context, and other pieces posted include Andre Gunder Frank, Dave McReynolds, Diane Johnstone, Stephen Zunes and Michael Albert.
www.zmag.org Common Dreams News Center
Provides breaking news and views for progressive-thinking Americans, with ample information on the crisis in Kosovo, including maps and breaking updates from various news services.
www.commondreams.org/kosovo/ kosovo.htm Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting
FAIR's coverage of the war in Yugoslavia includes "Rescued from the Memory Hole: Background of Serb/Albanian Conflict."
www.fair.org Help B92
This group has been founded to try to insure the distribution of relevant information. It is named in honor of one of Yugoslavia's most important media entities, Without immediate financial support, this last source of independent news for the inhabitants of this region is endangered. A fundraising campaign is underway, with the objective of sending money and equipment to B92 and other independent radio stations in Serbia and Kosovo.
http://helpB92.xs4all.nl helpb92@xs4all.nl. BBC News Online