Skip to main content

Amjad Al-Jawhary of the Iraq Freedom Congress on Labor Express tonight...


Amjad Al-Jawhary has paid a high price for his efforts to organize workers in Iraq. In 1995, Amjad had to flee Iraq and the regime of Saddam Hussein, because of his union organizing work. He took up residence in Toronto Canada, but Amjad stays in close contact with his comrades in Iraq. He travels there frequently, and acts as one of the few voices in the west for the for the Iraqi labor movement.

I aired an interview with Amjad on the Labor Express radio program in June 2005, as the representative of the Federation of Workers Councils and Unions of Iraq (FWCUI) and the Union of the Unemployed in Iraq (UUI). He talked on that program about his many years of struggle - first against the Bathh regime, and than against the U.S. occupation forces - to establish a secular, progressive, democratic nation. Since 2005, the Iraq Freedom Congress (IFC), which includes the aforementioned groups, and many other unions, women’s organizations and student groups, has taken up the leadership of this struggle against religious fundamentalism, ethnic sectarianism and the devastating U.S. military occupation.

The IFC states their mission quite clearly in their founding statement…

“IFC has been formed to encounter the civil abyss in Iraq. Presently, the fabric of the civil society in Iraq has been torn apart under the US occupation and the domination of the Islamic, tribal and political gangsters. People of Iraq have been caught between the two poles of world terrorism of our time- the US state terrorism and the political Islam – forcing their mental and physical well-being to the verge of destruction.”

I interviewed Amjad once again yesterday – this time in the wake of yet another attack on the IFC by U.S. occupation forces. Amjad is now also the IFC’s representative in North America. The interview will air in two parts. The first will be broadcast on tonight’s episode of Labor Express Radio (March 2nd). The second will be aired next week (March 9th). But you can hear the full, largely unedited version of the interview right here…

http://www.archive.org/details/AmjadAl-Jawhary1

In a time of war like now, it is incumbent on workers in the aggressor nation, to reach out in solidarity to the workers of the nation under attack. Workers solidarity is our own defense against the aggressive impulses of the ruling class of all nations. It is our only hope for a peaceful world. Please support the working people of Iraq and perhaps together we can under this brutal farce perpetrated against both our peoples…

http://www.ifcongress.com/English/

http://www.no-ifs.org/

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

The occupation has ended but the struggle goes on…

The occupation of La Casita at Whittier was brought to a close tonight. The Whittier parents are declaring victory in the battle of La Casita as Ron Huberman’s office put in writing today the guarantee not to demolish the field house and to lease it to the parents group at $1 a year. However the war is far from over… The issue of the library is yet to be resolved. CPS still insists that they can find space inside the school building for the library. The parents insist there is no space in the school and that the library should be located in the field house. The parents insist that Huberman and Alderman Solis already agreed that TIF funds would be used to complete the repairs necessary at La Casita. Huberman’s letter today did not make this clear. A half block away from Whittier is the abandon police station on Damen which has sat vacant for several years. The parents say that Solis promised them that the build...

R.I.P. UAW…

OK, I realize those are harsh words, but I can’t help feeling real sadness today as I read reports of what the UAW agreed to in its settlement with GM. As I am sure you have all heard already, the strike was ended today (after just two days), with the announcement by Gettelfinger that a tentative agreement had been reached. The exact details of the agreement won’t be known till at least late this week, when the members vote to ratify (or not) the contract. You can listen to audio of Gettelfinger’s announcement here… http://www.uaw.org/ Now I am not saying we should relish the idea of a long strike. Strikes are always much harder on the individual worker than they are on their corporate bosses. No one wants a long drawn out strike that leads to workers losing their homes, pulling kids out of college, sinking deeper into debt, etc., etc., etc. Let me say right of the bat, even though I have been a labor activist for 15 years, I have never myself had to endure the pain of a strike. But I ...

Financial Crisis Brings Historic Opportunity…

www.whatnowtoons.com Wow, what a difference a few weeks can make. Less than a month ago, every mainstream mass media outlet, U.S. politician, economic analyst, and probably the majority of average citizens would still have been singing the praises of the unfettered free market. Regulation was still a dirty word and privatization was still equated with efficiency and prosperity. Granted, the sand had already begun to shift under this ideological edifice of 30+ years. The sub-prime mortgage crisis and the bursting of the housing bubble had seriously shaken the confidence of some in the system. I had mentioned repeatedly on Labor Express Radio over the Summer the glaring contrast between the soaring gas prices we experienced here in the laissez-faire fuel market of the U.S. as compared to the low and stable prices maintained by the state oil company of our neighbor to the south. But none of that seemed to really change the mainstream belief in this country that free markets solve all prob...