Athens Meeting 19-20 June 2003, Contribution by CP of
Finland
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From: SolidNet
http://www.skp.fi , mailto:skp@skp.fi
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by Tiina Sandberg

FIGHTING AGAINST NEW WORLD ORDER BARBARITY

At first glance it may seem that Finland, as a affluent
western country, is a country that benefits from the new
economical possibilities created by globalization. The
telecommunications company Nokia has become an
international success story and thanks to the cheap raw
materials and labour from developing countries, Finnish
consumers appear to have more buying power than ever.

For most people these developments appear to be positive.
However, what is the price that ordinary people will pay
for globalisation? Several areas of industry, which have
traditionally been important for Finnish economy, have
already been destroyed by the multinational companies
taking over these areas and moving the production to
countries with lower labour costs. At the moment a major
part of the production of the information technology
industry has moved to Eastern-Europe and Asia, where the
costs of labour are lower than in Finland.

As markets seek for cheaper production and higher profits
they are on the move towards the Eldorado where production
will be free of costs and the profits bigger than ever.
Capitalists are also using the expansion of the European
Union to accelerate the dismantling of social systems. This
happens also on the inner markets of the union. All of this
creates a major challenge in strengthening the
international solidarity of workers so that they do not
fight among themselves over crumbs from the master's table.

The markets work on their own logic. The fundamental idea
of this logic has not changed since the Das Kapital by
Marx. Also Lenin was able to predict the development of
imperialism quite accurately, based on the situation of the
early 1900�s. Today money is being made from money and it
is concentrated in the hands of fewer and fewer. The power
of financial capital has increased. At the same time, on
national and local level democracies, which were mainly
created as a result of working class struggle, has become
degenerated. This is happening as multinational companies,
the IMF, the World Bank, the WTO, the Nato, the EU and
other similar institutions have increased their might. This
has created a situation where - for most of the people - it
is harder to find out, where and by whom the really
important decisions are made.

This development has strengthened the markets in a way we
have not seen before. However, at the same time it has also
crystallized the fundamental problems of capitalism. These
problems are now clearer than ever. This has brought us to
the situation where more resistance against capitalism is
taking place. These movements against neo-liberalism are
not based only on the traditional left- right polarisation,
but it often criticises capitalist globalisation the same
way and using similar ideas to communists. Many of these
movements criticise the logic of capitalism and the power
of multinational companies. Most of these movements have
also actively resisted the imperialistic policies of the
United States, especially during the war on Iraq. The
Communist Party of Finland has more and more co-operation
with these movements. The members of our party are actively
taking part in the work of trade-unions and civic
movements, such as the Peace Committee of Finland, Attac of
Finland, Friends of Earth and other nongovernmental
organisations.

Despite the fact that we share many goals with this
anti-globalisation movement, there are also those in these
movements who resist co-operation with communists.
Sometimes this happens because of prejudges of new people
joining the movement, sometimes because of ideological
competition inside this movement, but some of this
resistance may be explained as a reaction to the work of
trotskyites and other groups that have tried to
aggressively take over these organisations.

The anti-war movement has experienced a renaissance and is
very similar to the resistance against the War in Vietnam.
The sympathy that people showed to the United States after
September 11th has disappeared after US attack on Iraq and
the support of US policy in other countries is now lower
than ever. The reasons America presented to justify the war
against Iraq, has widely been questioned. The new doctrine
of pre-emptive wars - presented by the regime of George W.
Bush - is worrying people as well as the fact, that the
Charter of the United Nations and international law are
ignored. The leaders of America are pretending to be
defenders of peace and democracy, but the majority of
people are able to see them striving for international
hegemony and trying to steal the natural recourses,
especially oil, of other nations. The common statement of
over 60 communist and other left parties against US attack
on Iraq is one example of the international co-operation we
should develop.

The one-centred world order, formed after the collapse of
the Soviet Union, has opened the way for more ruthless
policy of power by the United States government. In the
name of this so called war on terror, have some other
governments as well tried to justify war and violence,
among others Israel's occupation of Palestine territories
and Vladimir Putin's war against Chechens in the Russian
Federation. "The war on terror" has been provoking new
desperate and violent fundamental reactions. These
movements have been used by the US and some other
governments to justify new aggressive attacks. This has led
to a situation where the amount of aggression is increasing
and may expand in ways no one is able to predict.

"The war on terror" has also been used as an excuse for
attacks against democratic rights of citizens. America
claims to be "The land of the free," but from a European
point of view, US citizens have remarkably low protection
under the law from authorities in their own countries. It
is possible now, to hold terror suspects for an unspecified
time and US citizens are in many cases categorised
according to their ethnic backgrounds, political
convictions and other similar reasons.

Dear comrades,
Global capitalism is a threat to the whole world.
Globalisation that has been accumulating the amount of
capital, has at the same time been widening the gap between
the rich and the poor. This has been happening inside
countries as well as globally. Also the right of people to
take part in national and local decision making have been
substantially degraded. Movements that are critical towards
globalisation are labelled as terrorist, to justify the
violence against anti-capitalist movements . This has
become obvious on several occasions. During demonstrations
in Gothenburg police opened the fire against demonstrators
and in Genoa paramilitary forces killed young Carlo
Giuliani. These occasions prove, that the ruling class does
not hesitate to use violence to defend its position, if
needed.

The environment has also paid a price for capitalism. The
accident of the oil tanker Prestige was an example of this.
The lack of the security on the Prestige was well known,
but the profits from the oil transported by this ship
obviously counted for more than the risk of a serious oil
catastrophe. When the accident then took place on the coast
of the Spain, no one was willing to take responsibility for
protecting and cleaning up the environment. The owners of
the Prestige had been taking the benefits of tax havens and
sailing under a flag of convenience in order to avoid both
social and environmental responsibilities.

In the Thesis, laid out by the Congress of the Communist
party of Finland, we stated the following: "Those taking
the responsibility for human life, culture and nature have
not only the right but also the obligation to rise to
oppose the capitalist logic of profit seeking leading to
destruction. The alternatives to the future of humankind
are barbarism or socialism. A global ruin can be prevented
by nothing but a new kind of civilisation, which is not
based on the subordination of people and nature, nor on the
exploitation, inequality and violence."

In Finland, the majority of the people were against
America's attack on Iraq, but the government was not
willing to take a clear stand against the war. This,
despite the fact that the Social Democratic Party and the
Left Alliance were taking part in the coalition government
together with the conservative Coalition Party. During the
parliamentary elections in March, the Coalition Party
suffered a defeat, but the new coalition government by the
Centre Party and the Social Democratic Party is continuing
the same politics and has adopted the ideas of the new
world order of the United States.

More people than before have become aware of the threat of
the aggressive US war policies and participate the peace
movement, taking part in marches and being active in
organisations, many of them for the first time or again
after many years. For example the number of new members
joining the Finnish Peace Committee started to increase
already during the war in Afghanistan, but after USA's
attack on Iraq this number has increased dramatically.
Especially young people have been active. Even so, they are
not the only ones, also middle aged are more active than
before.

At the same time as the general interest on politics among
people has decreased, the popularity of different civic
movements has increased. This has created a situation where
we are witnessing a new rise of democratic movements. One
example is the Finnish Social forum that was held this
spring for the second time in Helsinki. Communists took
active part in this forum. We believe that activating
people to defend their democratic rights is a prerequisite
and a way to increase their class consciousness and to
develop true civil society.

The majority of Finns are willing to keep our country
outside of military alliances, but the government is
continuing the same policy as its predecessor and tries to
lead us on two tracks towards military union. One track is
the militarisation of the European Union and the other is
more and more close co-operation and integration to the
NATO in the framework of the Partnership for Peace
programme. The most alarming fact is, that all these
decisions have been made nearly unanimously in the Finnish
parliament. These decisions has been supported also by the
Left Alliance, the Green Party and the Centre Party.

The Communist Party of Finland is against the proposed
Constitution of the European Union. The Constitution would
give more power to undemocratic bodies of the EU, decrease
the possibilities of small member countries to influence
and even take part on decision making and would militarise
the Union. The question of developing the common defence of
the Union is not a matter of defence, but the about
intervention troops and the readiness to use these military
forces even without the mandate of the UN Security Council.
According to the draft of the Constitution and the
agreements with NATO, the EU military force will be
developed to be compatible with the Nato and used in
co-operation with NATO. Obviously militarisation of the EU
is not an alternative to the imperialist policy of power
led by the USA, instead, it will turn the EU in to the
"European pillar" of the NATO.

The Communist Party of Finland supports the initiative to
have referendums about the EU Constitution in each member
country. In this campaign, we co-operate with the
Alternative for the European Union movement. This movement
is a politically non-aligned organisation that is uniting
anti-EU forces and other defenders of democracy and
military neutrality in the upcoming elections for the
European Parliament.

We, the Communist Party of Finland, stress the fact that
defending the benefits and rights of the majority is now
more than ever connected to the struggle against
neo-liberalism, the European Union, NATO and imperialism.
The key elements of this struggle are to combine the state
of worker class consciousness, support for democratic
movements and creating solidarity in order to create a tool
for changing the way of policy and to increase the
influence of the working class.