of Socialist Challenge readers in South London are urged to campaign. The next meetall Wing is on 6 September, 7.30pm at North Peckham Civic Centre, Old Kent Road, Information etc from: Janet Maguire, ECG Dept, Guys Hospital, London SE1. Tel 01-407 7600 ext 3164. taken against cuts in your arent Unless you send reports to Socialist Challenge, readers know. A FULL train-load opponents of the Corrie anti-abortion Bill to join the TUC demonstration in London on 28 October. That was the proposal from a meeting held by the National Abortion Edinburgh on 8 August.
Nearly a hundred people attended the meeting, which raised a collection of £185, including £100 from a single supporter.
Margaret Wilson, the only woman member of the General Council, spoke in a personal capacity, explaining that the social conditions in which many working class women live all conspire to deny them childbirth.
of Scottish Campaign in pregnancy.
Two Scottish TUC'S demonstration.
the right to choose Dr Nadine Harrison, a founder member of Doctors for a Woman's Right to Choose, said that Corrie's proposals would effectively make it impossible for working class women to obtain termination at any stage of out of anti-abortion amendments have come from Scottish MPs, so the STUC will hopefully publicise Edinburgh NAC'S plan to book a train for the October *What the Royal Commission report on the NHS holds in store for abortion, page 2.
Socialist Challenge 16 August 1979 Page 5
alist Challenge 16 August 1979 Page 6 ON Bri and ofi the sen mil Uls ma Irel lary par
MORE the barricades went up treets of Belfast and Derry last Once thousands strated the unquenchable spirit stance which ten years of military occupation has been to defeat. es, stones, burning buses lets — were fired at the symbol ed which the British Army has for the Catholic minority in ith of Ireland. It was ten years week since those troops were to the streets, supposedly to eace to the North of Ireland 'protect' the Catholic HAEL FARRELL, a leading of the Irish revolutionary organisation Peoples Dey, here recalls what it was like ust 1969 and tells the inside I bow the Catholie ghettos of barricaded themselves off for h, keeping out both the Royal an to take their neous termination At that time was only rong has 8,000 (s).
people of Republicans the Defence big. business, up Defence of was totally and by they had wanted to keep out - the politicians, Father Padraig Murphy, and Tom Conaty, an ambitious and right-wing Catholic businessman.
Eventually such people controlled the Central Defence Committee. And because there were no mass meetings to discuss the demands, began to water them down and to negotiate deals government. changed and a lot of propaganda impossible.
headquarters in Sinn Provisional and "polițics of the barricades.
issue could appeal.
strengthened with the the CDC the populal delayed although bloodshed became alca Fein (this was into and paper.
A censor lasses. defeated by I nere were le Secondly, while the radio and paper supposedly voiced the policies of the Defence Committee, these changed from day to day as the right wing their positions and continued their negotiations military and the government. Again we didn't fight as hard as we should — but by then there was no structure through which we could have carried the struggle to the end of September, withdrew from running the Citizen latter had been rendered ineffective anyway by high powered jamming equipment brought in by the British On 3 October we produced the first issue of a new, uncensored paper of ghettoes their first real experience of their power and of self-organisation. For a few weeks they had held the British Army and the RUC at bay, organised to defend their own streets media to voice their aspirations and Free Belfast should have some of the significance for Ireland that the Paris Commune and the 1905 Soviet had for the Bolsheviks in Russia. The way forward was pointed, the type of organisation which was required for a successful revolution was shown. Free Belfast showed the remarkable power of the masses united and organising lies in developing that sort of mass mobilisation again, on a wider scale and in the factories as well as the streets. But it will only succeed if we learn the most important lesson of Free Belfast: to put our faith in the never b self-appointed leader. ships answerable to secret negotiations, but only by the no-one or will of the people
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