Posted on 18. June 2017 by RCIT Britain

cropped-cropped-dokument-1-seite0015.jpgFree Nasser Zefzafi and all other political prisoners! Long Live the Popular Protests in Morocco!

Statement of the Revolutionary Communist International Tendency (RCIT), 13.06.2017, www.thecommunists.net

 

 

 

  1. The arrest of Nasser Zefzafi, head of the Moroccan social protest movement Al-Hirak al-Shaabi (Popular Movement), by authorities has provoked a series of mass demonstrations in that country. These protests are focused in Morocco’s northern Rif region – mostly populated by the Rifian Berbers (also called Amazighen) – and in particular the port city of al-Hoceïma. The regime justifies the arrest of Zefzafi by accusing him of “interrupting an imam’s sermon” at Friday’s prayer in a mosque! Since then, several other activists from Al-Hirak al-Shaabi including political opponents of Zefzazi like the “moderate voice of the movement,” El-Mortada Iamrachen, have been arrested as well. The current leader of Al-Hirak al-Shaabi, a 36-year old female activist and mother of four, Nawal Ben Aissa is, like many others, also threatened with imprisonment. From the arrests and threats of arrest, it is clear that the Moroccan regime intends to smash the protest movement.

 

  1. The Revolutionary Communist International Tendency (RCIT) expresses its full solidarity with the mass protests taking place in Morocco. They constitute a continuation of the protests which began on 28 October of last year in al-Hoceïma, after social media spread the tragic story of Mousine Fikri, a fishmonger crushed to death inside a garbage truck when he tried to prevent the destruction of a truckload of his fish confiscated by police.

 

  1. The RCIT fully supports the demands of the popular movement like its calling for the punishment of those responsible for the death of Mousine Fikri in addition to that of other protestors, demanding the annulment of the martial law in the province of al-Hoceïma, and an end to the criminalization of small peasants for the cultivation of cannabis.

 

  1. The general background of these mass protests is the Arab Revolution which began in 2011 and which encouraged popular uprisings against the reactionary regimes in many countries, as well as the ongoing increasing impoverishment of large sectors of the Moroccan masses. While the official unemployment rate stands at 9–10%, in fact only about 42% of the working age population has a job. According to official statistics, 38.8% of urban youth had no job in June 2016. To this must be added the long-standing discrimination of the Rifian Berbers in the north of the country.

 

  1. As we have already explained in our statement on Morocco published last year, in order to defeat the reactionary regime and its “Makhzen” (as the “deep state” is called in Morocco), it is urgent that the popular movement raise its consciousness and its level of self-organization. We call upon the workers, youth and poor peasants to found local action committees in the workplaces, schools, universities and neighborhoods. These committees should organize regular popular assemblies and elect delegates in order to create an acting leadership for the struggle. These delegates should also coordinate the struggle on the national level. As one can see, even the traditional, religious, moderate voices like El-Mortada Iamrachen are threatened by the state apparatus. Therefore, not a single significant success will be achieved by the movement if it doesn’t cultivate strong self-organization.

 

  1. At the same time, activists should put pressure on the trade unions as well as the leaderships of opposition parties and compel them to support these protests with their significant material resources. Activists should, however, be careful not to hand over control of the movement to the official leaderships of the trade unions. In addition, activists must not give any political support to the opposition parties. Activists should fight for a revolutionary orientation of Al-Hirak al-Shaabi. It is urgent to take steps in building a revolutionary organization that arises from the movement, one that is directed towards becoming a genuine revolutionary party of the workers and the urban and rural poor.

 

  1. The RCIT calls upon activists to link the protests against the murder of Mousine Fikri with a perspective envisioning the overthrow of the reactionary regime and the establishment of a workers’ and peasant government based on popular councils and militias. Moroccan activists should also link the struggle in their country with the ongoing popular struggles against dictatorships and injustice in other countries. It is important to fight for the release of all political prisoners and to fight for the end of the persecution of political activists! We repeat that the struggle of the Moroccan workers and peasants is part of the ongoing Arab Revolution along with the heroic struggle of the Syrian people in its revolution against the tyrant Assad, the resistance of the Egyptian people against the regime of General al-Sisi, the steadfast struggle of the Palestinian people, as well as many other examples.

 

The RCIT sends its greetings to all Moroccan revolutionaries and calls them to join forces with us in the international struggle for a socialist future!

 

* For the forming of action committees in the workplaces, schools, universities and neighborhoods!

 

* For a united front of all forces to protest against the murder of Mousine Fikri!

 

* For a public employment program, against social cuts and for democratic rights!

 

* For a workers’ and peasant government based on popular councils and militias!

 

* For a single Intifada of the workers and peasants – from Al-Hoceima, Rabat, Idlib, Tripoli and Cairo to Jerusalem!

 

 

 

International Secretariat of the RCIT

 

 

 

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For the RCIT analysis of the Arab Revolution, we refer readers to our numerous articles and documents accessed from the Africa and Middle East section of our website: https://www.thecommunists.net/worldwide/africa-and-middle-east/. In particular we refer readers to the following documents:

 

RCIT: Following the Murder of Mousine Fikri: Solidarity with the Mass Protests in Morocco! 13.06.2016, https://www.thecommunists.net/worldwide/africa-and-middle-east/morocco-mass-protests/

 

RCIT: World Perspectives 2017: The Struggle against the Reactionary Offensive in the Era of Trumpism, Theses on the World Situation, the Perspectives for Class Struggle and the Tasks of Revolutionaries, 18 December 2016, Chapter IV. The Middle East and the State of the Arab Revolution, https://www.thecommunists.net/theory/world-perspectives-2017/part-4/

 

RCIT: Revolution and Counterrevolution in the Arab World: An Acid Test for Revolutionaries, 31 May 2015, in: Revolutionary Communism No. 36, http://www.thecommunists.net/theory/theses-arab-revolution/

 

 

 

About RCIT Britain

What the RCIT stands for Revolutionary Communist International Tendency (RCIT) The Revolutionary Communist International Tendency (RCIT)is a revolutionary combat organisation fighting for the liberation of the working class and all oppressed. It has national sections in a number of countries. The working class is composed of all those (and their families) who are forced to sell their labor power as wage earners to the capitalists. The RCIT stands on the theory and practice of the revolutionary workers’ movement associated with the names of Marx, Engels, Lenin, and Trotsky. Capitalism endangers our lives and the future of humanity. Unemployment, war, environmental disasters, hunger, and exploitation are all part of everyday life under capitalism as are the imperialistic oppression of nations, the national oppression of migrants, and the oppression of women, young people, and homosexuals. Therefore, we want to eliminate capitalism. The liberation of the working class and all oppressed is possible only in a classless society without exploitation and oppression. Such a society can only be established internationally. Therefore, the RCIT is fighting for a socialist revolution at home and around the world. This revolution must be carried out and lead by the working class, for only this class has the collective power to bring down the ruling class and build a socialist society. The revolution cannot proceed peacefully because a ruling class never has nor ever will voluntarily surrender its power. By necessity, therefore, the road to liberation includes armed rebellion and civil war against the capitalists. The RCIT is fighting for the establishment of workers’ and peasants’ republics, where the oppressed organize themselves in councils democratically elected in rank-and-file meetings in factories, neighbourhoods, and schools. These councils, in turn, elect and control the government and all other statue authorities, and always retain the right to recall them. Authentic socialism and communism have nothing to do with the so-called “socialism” that ruled in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, and which continues to do so in China and Cuba, for example. In these countries, the proletariat was and is dominated and oppressed by a privileged party bureaucracy. Under capitalism, the RCIT supports all efforts to improve the living conditions of the workers and oppressed, while simultaneously striving to overthrow this system based on economic exploitation of the masses. Towards these ends, we work from within the trade unions where we advocate class struggle, socialism, and workers’ democracy. But trade unions and social democracy are controlled by a bureaucracy perniciously connected with the state and capital via status, high-paying jobs, and other privileges. Thus, the trade union bureaucracy is far from the interests and living conditions of its members, based as it is on the top, privileged layers of the working class – a labor aristocracy which has no real interest in replacing capitalism. Therefore, the true struggle for the liberation of the working class, the toppling of capitalism and the establishment of socialism, must be based on the broad mass of the proletariat rather than their “representative” from the upper trade union strata. We also fight for the expropriation of the big land owners as well as for the nationalisation of the land and its distribution to the poor and landless peasants. Towards this goal we struggle for the independent organisation of the rural workers. We support national liberation movements against oppression. We also support the anti-imperialist struggles of oppressed peoples against the great powers. Within these movements we advocate a revolutionary leadership as an alternative to nationalist or reformist forces. While the RCIT strives for unity of action with other organizations, we are acutely aware that the policies of social democrats and pseudo-revolutionary groups are dangerous, and ultimately represent an obstacle to the emancipation of the working class, peasants, and the otherwise oppressed. In wars between imperialist states we take a revolutionary defeatist position: we do not support either side, but rather advocate the transformation of the war into a civil war against the ruling class in each of the warring states. In wars between imperialist powers (or their stooges) and a semi-colonial countries we stand for the defeat of the former and the victory of the oppressed countries. As communists, we maintain that the struggle against national oppression and all types of social oppression (women, youth, sexual minorities etc.) must be lead by the working class, because only the latter is capable of fomenting a revolutionarily change in society . Therefore, we consistently support working class-based revolutionary movements of the socially oppressed, while opposing the leadership of petty-bourgeois forces (feminism, nationalism, Islamism, etc.), who ultimately dance to the tune of the capitalists, and strive to replace them with revolutionary communist leadership. Only with a revolutionary party fighting as its leadership can the working class be victorious in its struggle for liberation. The establishment of such a party and the execution of a successful revolution, as it was demonstrated by the Bolsheviks in Russia under Lenin and Trotsky remain the models for revolutionary parties and revolutions in the 21st century. For new, revolutionary workers' parties in all countries! For a 5th Workers International to be founded on a revolutionary program! Join the RCIT! No future without socialism! No socialism without revolution! No revolution without a revolutionary party!
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