Mass demonstrations have exploded across Europe to block everything for Gaza.
This call came first from the dockworkers of Italy, in solidarity with the Global Sumud Flotilla, which was attempting to bring aid to Gaza. The dockworkers said, “if they touch the flotilla, we will block everything, not even a single shipment will pass through.”
Now that Israel did intercept the flotilla, the workers are putting words into action.
The main trade union confederation in Italy has called a general strike for Oct. 3. War materials en route to Israel have already been stopped at multiple ports.
The accumulated anger against the genocide and the complicity of Western governments has been unleashed. The dam has burst.
People across the world can feel that mass action is needed. Hundreds of thousands have also come onto the streets in Spain, France, Greece and more, also trying to shut down society. The students across the whole Spanish State also launched a student strike on Oct. 2.
This is the way forward: mass mobilization, strikes, blockades, and a coordinated workers’ boycott.
Canada and Quebec have yet to join the movement. We need to bring that same spirit here: fight like the Italians, and block everything.
- Spread the student strikes. Divestment now.
Students in Quebec have already voted to strike on Oct. 6 and 7 against the genocide.
If students show that ordinary people can take matters into their own hands and strike to end their campuses’ complicity in genocide, workers can be emboldened to do the same in their workplaces. This is what we really need to fight the war machine.
Now it is up to the student union leaders to take this energy, use their resources and mobilizing capabilities and spread the strike across Quebec and Canada.
By organizing a campaign of postering, flyering, educational talks, and meetings on all campuses, the student leadership can turn the Oct. 6 and 7 strikes into a viable jumping off point to escalate this movement and involve the workers.
- We need a workers’ boycott of Israel. Union federations must declare a Hot Cargo edict.
Without the working class, nothing moves. That’s the power we need to harness for Gaza. The New Brunswick Federation of Labour has already adopted a resolution to declare any goods headed to Israel as Hot Cargo — meaning it won’t be touched or shipped.
The leaders of all the main unions across Canada, starting with the Canadian Labour Congress, must declare a Hot Cargo edict now. The same goes for Unifor, which organizes transport workers, and the dockworker union locals, represented by ILWU and ILA. The workers can ensure that not a single bolt or bullet makes it to Israel.
- No trust in the Liberals. Only the working class can end the genocide.
What have the Liberals done for the last two years, while hundreds of thousands of Palestinians were killed? Sent arms to Israel. Repressed and brutalized our movement. Then ‘recognized’ Palestine after helping the Israeli state turn it into a graveyard.
No more appealing to the wolves in sheeps’ clothing. This only hurts our movement by making people see enemies as friends. Only we, the workers and youth, have the will and the power to stop the genocide. We must rely only on our own forces.
The movement in Italy has shown the power of workers’ mass action. With only a few days of blockades and strikes, they have already begun to throw a wrench in the Zionist war machine. This — not empty gestures from politicians — is what can actually end the genocide.
- Overthrow the warmongers.
The complicity of ‘our’ government in genocide is not an accident. It is an expression of their imperialist interests. No atrocity is too much for them as long as it helps them exploit and profit.
That’s the logic of imperialism. And it’s hurting us here at home, too. Carney has announced a massive increase in military spending to reach the 5 per cent of GDP target. To do this, he will make workers pay through austerity. Apparently, there’s money for bombs and bullets, but not for basic social services.
So long as this system stands, neither we nor the oppressed of the world will be free. To end the genocide in Gaza, to end all imperialist atrocities, and to secure the dignity of our own lives, we need to overthrow the warmongers; we need to overthrow capitalism. We need socialist revolution.
