O for Organisation
It is not the best or most popular ideas that hold the most sway in society, but rather the ideas of those who have the most power. We know the state machinery of capitalist nations is built to serve the ruling capitalist class and perpetuate their ideas. This doesn’t mean that there is no room […]
Party Profiles: New Zealand Labour – A Marxist Critique
The New Zealand Labour Party has the leadership of New Zealand’s working class. Five trade unions are affiliated to the party, including E tū, the largest private sector union. Labour has been polling for some time now as the most popular political party, and has been either the largest party in parliament or the second […]
Why Students? ISO Campus Strategy
We, the International Socialist Organisation of Aotearoa (ISO), do not believe students are inherently radical or agitational, or that their education automatically makes them critical of capitalist society and therefore open to socialism. Academic institutions are generally closed off from the people who have the most to gain and the least to lose from a […]
Rising Fees, Declining Allowances, Climbing Debt: Aotearoa Student Struggles in the 1990s
We can learn much of value from the student struggles of the 1990s for the student struggles in the second half of the 2020s against high fees, inadequate provision of student allowances, and rising student debt. General Context – Rapid and Comprehensive Implementation of Neoliberalism The background to the big student struggles of the 1990s […]
The Colonial Reality of Palestine (and the Two-State Solution)
There are truths that societies often find difficult to confront, and among the most elusive is the recognition of oneself as a coloniser. Throughout history, colonialism has rarely been perceived as such by those who practiced it. It was cloaked in the language of civilising missions, divine promises, or national rebirths. Yet the patterns repeat: the arrival of settlers, the displacement of Indigenous peoples, and the claiming of land under foreign notions of entitlement.
Quebec’s 2012 Student Strike and What We Can Learn From It
In March 2011, the Executive Council of Quebec, led by Liberal premier Jean Charest, proposed a hike in university tuition fees. Over the five years between 2012 and 2017, annual fees for Québécois students were to rise from C$2,168 to C$3,793, a 75 percent increase. Over the rest of 2011 and into 2012, students responded […]
The Need for Independent Student Unions
Universities are an invaluable tool of the capitalist class in preparing the next generation of skilled workers imbued with capitalist ideology. And yet, this offers students no protection from a continual barrage of fee rises, attacks on their education, and deterioration of living conditions. As university education becomes more and more essential to finding work, […]
Refugees: Spotlight on Capitalism
“Say It Loud, Say It Clear, Refugees Are Welcome Here!” The rallying call has been heard from Wellington to Sydney to Ottawa to London: a statement of invitation that goes beyond simple acceptance to suggest a real potential for sharing living spaces, resources, and experiences. Such a call touches at the edges of a long-dreamt […]
Borderlands: Internationalism in a Time of ICE and Fire
At the University of Auckland, right next to the city campus library, is a large stone wall. At eighty-five meters long, the stretch of basalt rock is the remnants of the Albert Barracks, a British military installation constructed by Waikato Māori and British engineers during the late 1840s and finished in 1852 to assuage Auckland’s […]
One Nation, Pauline Hanson, and the Rise of the Far Right
In a May poll, One Nation rode a global wave of support for the far Right, surging ahead of all other Australian parties. What is One Nation? Who is its leader Pauline Hanson? How can we compare this to Aotearoa New Zealand? And what can socialists do to fight the rise of the far Right? […]
