The Socialist Issue 221

THE KILLING of thousands of innocent civilians in New York, Washington and elsewhere in the US has caused horror and revulsion among ordinary working people worldwide.

The suicide tactics of the attackers are condemned and opposed by socialists. Such tactics can never advance the struggles of oppressed nationalities or working-class people anywhere across the globe. In fact the immediate results of such action could be to weaken working-class solidarity as governments in the West whip up the mood for revenge on those who are blamed for carrying out the attacks.

Inevitably, as on 11 September, it will be the workers, the oppressed and dispossessed who pay the price for what the US leaders and commentators describe as an ‘act of war’.

Whilst no group has claimed responsibility as The Socialist goes to press, and Osama bin-Laden is rumoured to have denied involvement, the US government is certainly preparing to revenge these horrific attacks. With leading politicians correctly pointing out that this is a more devastating attack on US imperialism than Pearl Harbour, a US government (particularly one led by Bush) will inevitably have to be seen to do something in the face of such an assault.

Attacks

The attacks will be seen as huge turning point for world capitalism and will have immense consequences for the world politically and economically, apart from the devastating effect it will have on the lives of tens of thousands of people in the USA and indeed worldwide.

As we go to press share prices have plummeted and the price of oil and gold have increased dramatically - a recognition of the scale of the crisis that international capitalism feels it is facing.

Following Tuesday’s horrendous events there will certainly be an escalation of the Middle East crisis, which is likely to see the US and other imperialist powers more directly involved and could lead to all-out conflict in the region. Unfortunately, it is likely to result in further assassinations and reprisals against the whole Palestinian population on behalf of the imperialist powers.

Israeli premier Ariel Sharon has indicated that he sees this as a green light to intensify action against the Palestinian masses and he will draw on US support - either directly or indirectly - to carry out wider repression in the region.

Inevitably in the immediate aftermath, large sections of US workers will temporarily acquiesce in whatever actions the previously unpopular, reactionary President Bush takes.

Pandemonium

And the pandemonium following the scenes of carnage engulfing New York and Washington after Tuesday’s suicide attacks have led to a wider panic about the implications of the strikes.

Immediately following the aircraft crashes into the World Trade Centre and Pentagon - potent symbols of world capitalism’s financial and military might - share prices, which had been falling dramatically in previous days, fell further. The price of oil rose by $2-$3 a barrel reflecting anxieties about increased instability in the Middle East - the likely source of the ‘terrorist’ attack.

The air strikes led to an immediate state of national and international crisis, which will provoke further questioning of the authority of capitalism’s rulers. Government and financial services were paralysed in the USA and stock markets in other advanced capitalist countries dropped dramatically or were suspended following the attacks. Even if capitalism manages to stabilise matters in the short term the medium and long-term effect will be to deepen the underlying economic crisis.

Imperialism's "revenge"

No doubt Bush and Western imperialism will step up their drive against Islamic ‘terrorism’ in retribution. The co-ordinated ‘assault on America’ will lead to co-ordinated US state action to hunt down and get ‘revenge’ against Islamic groups, regardless of whether they were involved or not.

It is also possible that a witch-hunting atmosphere could develop in the United States and elsewhere against Arabs, Muslims or others suspected of associations with terrorist states or groups.

This could also be used against any radical groups that challenge the capitalist system.

It is also conceivable that governments will use these attacks to ban anti-globalisation protests or restrict demonstrations against their capitalist system. It is very likely that the anti-globalisation protest in Washington at the end of this month will either not go ahead or be banned.

Blair found the bombings a convenient way of avoiding criticism of his privatisation plans at the TUC and has immediately used the opportunity to step up security. Whilst many workers will initially accept such measures - as was the case in Britain in the early 1970s with the adoption of the Prevention of Terrorism Act after events in Northern Ireland and Britain - such measures do not stop the threat of such attacks and have been used against those on the Left and the labour movement generally.

Bush and Blair

Imperialist politicians like Bush and Blair, however, bear a huge responsibility for the policies which have led to global instability and now bring terror onto the streets of the USA. These imperialist powers have pursued policies which have led to the deaths of thousands in the Middle East and throughout the globe.

President George W Bush’s father, the other President Bush, was the world leader who used a war in the Gulf to assert his ‘New World Order’. That new order ushered in the era of globalisation, which has impoverished and alienated billions.

US imperialism’s dominance of the globe has brought increased instability, tension and turmoil to every corner of the planet. Combined with the absence of a mass movement of the working classes and oppressed, this has led some to pursue extreme and futile methods, such as the suicide tactics which led to the carnage in New York and Washington.

Imperialism's policies have antagonised millions around the world. US Secretary of State Colin Powell had said in May this year:

Oppressed People

US and Western leaders talk sanctimoniously about acts of ‘evil’ terrorism but gloss over their own acts of terrorism - military, politically and economically - against oppressed people around the world.

The attacks show that despite all the armoury of the world’s only superpower they are powerless and unable to protect their own citizens in the face of determined suicide attacks. The inability of the imperialist powers to find a settlement to the crisis in the Middle East, combined with the incapacity of the Palestinian leaders to offer a way forward for the Palestinian struggle, has led to increasing use of suicide attacks as a tactic.

Whilst the suicide bombings have struck terror into the heart of Israel and America, they are not capable of bringing forth a successful resolution of the Palestinian conflict. Nor will they deter US and other world leaders from continuing with their policies of state terror and economic exploitation.

Among the lessons that workers internationally will draw from these terrible events is that the imperialists, like Bush and Blair, cannot offer any resolution to the world’s conflicts. But neither can the tactics of the fundamentalist terrorist groups offer a way forward to the long-suffering peoples of the Middle East.

Workers

Furthermore, as well as adding to the panic on the already jittery world capitalist markets the events will confirm to large numbers of workers worldwide the instability of the global capitalist system.

At some stage these events could be a further trigger to exacerbate the economic woes of world capitalism.

Capitalism, at its most naked is a system of conflict, civil wars, wars, poverty, starvation and insecurity for the mass of people on this planet. It is the oppressed people of the world - whether workers in America or Palestinian youth - who pay the price of capitalism’s inability to resolve the crises their system creates.

It is the oppressed people of the world who can provide a solution to this era of global crisis by uniting to end the rule of the capitalist system and establish a socialist world where the horrors and insecurity of imperialism’s so-called New World Order are abolished once and for all.

World Recession Looms

"VERY HAIRY and very scary" was how one London fund manager described the stock market after the FTSE 100 plunged to its lowest level for three years. "There is panic in the market and about what consumers will do. It is feeding on itself".

Manufacturing in Britain is now in its fourth recession in ten years. According to one UK economist "there is as yet not even a hint of a let-up in the pace of decline". In the past few months, output of telecoms equipment has declined by 50%, of mobile phones by 25% and of PCs by 13%.

A recession will have a devastating affect on the jobs, conditions and lives of working-class people, if we let the bosses try to make us pay for their crisis. At the same time, public- sector workers face the ongoing threat of privatisation.

Marconi epitomises the crisis of overproduction/over capacity manufacturing is facing (see page 3 for further details). In one year its value has plummeted from £30 billion to £800 million. Losses of £5 billion are expected this year – one of the biggest collapses in corporate history. Marconi’s creditworthiness is now at junk status.

Only a few months ago that commentators were confidently predicting that Britain would escape any fall-out from the US economy decline. Now it’s clear that recession has not only hit manufacturing but is spreading to the service sector.

Last month demand for private-sector services fell for the first time in two and a half years. British Airways announced "sustained job losses ahead" and 20,000 jobs are expected to go in the City as a consequence of the stock market decline.

Banks and insurance companies have been some of the hardest hit by share falls, as fears grow that loans won’t be repaid by Marconi and other telecommunication companies.

Consumer spending is still holding up in the retail sector, but for how long? With shares nose-diving and job losses escalating across the economy, a general recession is imminent.

"The markets are now staring into the abyss" wrote the Financial Times. "The bad news is spreading from the US and Japan to Europe and from the manufacturing sector to services".

A bigger than expected rise in unemployment last month sent US shares tumbling. Commentators who were forecasting a recovery just around the corner are now admitting that a recession seems unavoidable.

As a strategist at HSBC bank put it: "The main fear is that deteriorating job prospects will finally start to undermine consumer confidence, which is the only thing standing between the US and recession."

Some optimists hope that further US interest rate cuts will turn the economy around. But, the Federal Reserve Bank has already cut interest rates by seven times this year with little effect. Even if it were able to engineer a small recovery (which seems increasingly unlikely), the underlying problem of excess capacity and falling profits remain, threatening a prolonged and deep recession or even slump.

The rest of the world is in no position to bale the US economy out. Argentina, Mexico and much of Asia are already in recession. Japan is on the brink of recession after ten years of virtually stagnant growth, and output is slowing much faster than expected in Germany and the Euro zone.

According to the Economist: "The most striking aspect of the current slowdown is that it is more widespread than in previous world slumps in 1975, 1982, and 1991".

A world recession will have a radicalising affect on many workers and young people. As well as battles to defend jobs, many will begin to question a system which cannot even guarantee a job or the basics of a decent life - increasing the anti-capitalist mood and the potential for a socialist alternative.

Action not words to defeat privatisation

EVEN BEFORE a recession, opposition to Blair’s privatisation plans are growing. Polls show that a majority of people think that schools and hospitals should be provided entirely or mostly by the public sector. In one poll for the GMB union, 24% of Labour voters would not vote Labour next time if Blair goes ahead and privatises key public services.

Union leaders, at the TUC, have been forced to voice the mounting anger against privatisation. Dave Prentis, general secretary of UNISON, threatened industrial action if members’ pay and conditions were undermined through transfer to the private sector. Bill Morris of the TGWU, warned that this issue could even bring Blair down.

While the public-sector unions are demanding that New Labour retreat from privatisation, the bosses of companies looking to rake in profits from health, education and other sectors, are complaining Blair’s plans don’t go far enough.

Blair will continue to be hemmed in from both sides. In order to placate the unions before TUC and Labour Party conferences, he’s tried publicly to soften his tone and appear more conciliatory. But behind the scenes he’s determined to push ahead with his agenda.

A recession will mean lower tax receipts and increased spending on unemployment benefits, intensifying pressure to push the boundaries of privatisation even further.

In words the union leaders can sound angry and even radical. Translating that into effective action is another question. They will mount token protests; at a local level they may even be forced to sanction industrial action. But they are likely to resist national, co-ordinated strike action, which is the only way to decisively defeat privatisation. However, faced with determined and organised pressure from public- sector workers, they could be forced to go much further than they want in organising action.

Public-sector workers need to organise now to prepare for national action. The broad lefts in several public- sector unions have come together to organise an anti-privatisation conference on 24 November. This is an important step forward. The conference can lay the basis for an effective co-ordinated fightback against privatisation and Socialist Party members and supportersneed to build now in the workplaces and communities to make it a success.

Scrap Fees! Restore the Grant!

FOUR YEARS of New Labour government has left Higher Education in crisis. Several former polytechnics face fines from HEFCE (the higher education funding council for England) for failing to recruit enough students.

Amrita Huggins

On their election in 1997, Labour announced its aim to get 50% of young people through university and promised funding to do so. Much of this funding, however came from the tuition fees (introduced by Labour in 1997) and money saved from scrapping the maintenance grant!

The £1,075 yearly fees and the prospect of £15,000 to £20,000 of debt is forcing thousands of students to drop out of college and preventing many more thousands from going altogether.

Labour's elitist education policies are an attack on working-class people. It's the less prestigious colleges that have suffered the worst shortfall of students; Humberside, Lincolnshire and De Montfort universities have closed campuses in an attempt to save money.

The teachers' union in higher and further education, NATFHE, predicted hundreds of job losses from struggling colleges such as Luton, which is to make 98 lecturers and staff redundant from so-called 'non-viable' subjects.

Ministers try to play down the effects of the tuition fees and loans system, saying that the shortfall of applications is due to 16-year-olds from low-income families leaving education.

Might that be because young FE students aren't entitled to financial support and are forced to rely on their parents and anything they can earn from part-time work?

It's up to all students whether at school, college or university to fight against the cuts, fees and privatisation and for a living grant.

The government has been forced to scrap fees in Scotland and Wales and to rule out top-up fees, but only under pressure from students and because thousands are unable to pay fees or refuse to do so. 2,400 students at the University of the West of England had still not paid at the end of last term.

We are building the campaign of mass non-payment of tuition fees and, if non-payers are threatened by their college, defending the students with protests and occupations. By uniting with education workers and trade unions we can win the fight for a publicly funded and democratically controlled education system.

Growing Crisis in Higher Education

THOUSANDS OF university places are going unfilled because students can no longer afford to go to university. Meanwhile some universities’ futures hang in the balance because of lack of funding.

Many universities and colleges are planning brutal cuts in courses, staff and facilities. Several campuses have already closed in the last 12 months. Higher and further education in Britain is in crisis and the education of many thousands of students and young people will suffer as a result.

Over four years of New Labour, education policies have not just failed to alleviate the problems facing education in Britain, they have compounded the crisis. The introduction of tuition fees and the abolition of the grant in particular have had devastating consequences.

Across Britain, young people are being denied their basic right to a free education. Thousands have been left without the means to pay for university. After fees were introduced and the grant was abolished, applications to university collapsed.

Between 1996-7 and 2000-01 the numbers of undergraduates studying in Britain for their first degrees fell by 48,100. Applications fell most dramatically amongst more disadvantaged groups, such as black male students.

Meanwhile, levels of debt amongst graduates spiral upwards. 73% of students are in debt. 17.6% estimate their debts will have swollen to £9,000 by the time their studies end.

Fees have been massively unpopular from the day their introduction was announced. Working-class and middle-class people alike understood what they would mean.

Even Tony Blair is reported to have raised the idea of scrapping the current system of fees, so few friends do fees have, particularly amongst students. Blair seemingly said that canvassing during the election showed fees the most unpopular policy "on the doors."

The position of fees has become more untenable the longer they have existed. High levels of non-payment and drop-outs, concessions by the Scottish Parliament and Welsh and Northern Irish assemblies, have all successively undermined them.

Tuition fees have not just had repercussions for the many young people deterred from going to university by the cost. Falling numbers of students means less income for universities, which in turn means worse education for those at universities.

The poorer new universities, in particular the ex-polytechnics, are especially badly hit by tuition fees and the abolition of the grant.

THIS FUNDING crisis bears out what the Socialist Party said when fees were introduced. The government claimed that fees would provide more money for higher education, but we said this was entirely false propaganda. It was a means of cutting government funding to universities.

Funding per student has actually fallen since fees came in; by 2.5% from £4,820 in 1998-99 down to £4,700 in 2001-02. Universities UK estimates that by 2004, they will need at least £900 million more a year.

Cuts could be more widespread than for many years as the effects of fees are felt. In London alone, at least eight universities plan redundancies this year.

South Bank University for instance, which has had an 11% fall in applications, is making 70 redundancies. The University of East London, where applications are down by 8.2%, is planning cuts of £800,000.

However, while many poorer universities are struggling to survive, some richer universities look to ideas like top-up fees to increase their income.

Due to the massive opposition to tuition fees, the government has pledged that it won’t change the law to let universities charge their own top-up fees. However, this does not rule out the sort of U-turn we’ve come to expect from New Labour.

Neither has it stopped the deluge of propaganda in favour of top-up fees from the likes of the Russell Group (the ‘top’ 21 universities) and other advocates of top-ups.

Many advocates want to go further than that. They favour the virtual privatisation of education. In fact, this is big business’ true agenda for higher and further education. They see rich pickings to be made from taking over and running many aspects of these sectors.

Internationally, the GATS agreement proposes the same. This international deal aims to get rid of ‘barriers’ stopping multinationals taking over state-run services.

Business also wants a two-tier education system. It wants an elitist, well-funded university sector for a rich minority. But for the majority it wants an education system geared towards providing skills for use in their sweatshop factories and call-centres.

The capitalists see no reason for paying for a university system that is free and accessible for all, out of their profits. Most jobs on offer under British capitalism are low-paid and casual. When this is the case, reason the capitalists, why educate working-class young people to degree level?

It is this, capitalism’s over-riding concern for profit at the expense of the working class and middle class, that’s to blame for the crisis in HE and FE. It is why, when many millions of pounds of profit is made every day in Britain, thousands are denied an education because they cannot afford it and courses are being axed.

HOWEVER THERE is a reaction taking place in society, particularly amongst young people, against the rule of big business. We have seen the growth of anti-capitalist protests, with participants numbering hundreds of thousands.

Many students as well are involved in these. This is also likely to translate into active opposition to the big business agenda in education.

Opposition among students to tuition fees and the abolition of the grant has the most potential to translate into a national movement. The annual NUS demonstrations against student hardship has grown over the last three years. Last year’s numbered 30,000, the biggest in a decade.

This opposition is likely to increase as students and their families feel the effects of recession in the next year or so. At the same time fees are being increasingly undermined for all the reasons mentioned already.

The prospects for fees look more shaky than ever. The Socialist Party will continue to build the strategy of mass non-payment of the fees in order to force the government to scrap them and reintroduce the grant.

As many students as possible must be encouraged not to pay fees this term. If enough people refuse to pay, the fees system will be made unworkable. That is the best way to defeat them.

But non-payment must also be backed up by mass action, demonstrations and occupation. Wherever a non-payer is threatened with penalties for not paying, we will help build mass protests and other action to force universities to allow them to stay on their courses.

Unless this strategy is built around the country, many more of the thousands of students who cannot afford to pay the fees will be kicked off their course. Mass non-payment and action can stop this happening and defeat fees for good.

However, with crisis brewing in the higher and further education sectors, it will not just be fees that could prompt students to take action. At universities across Britain it will be necessary to fight cuts and redundancies. Strike action is likely over cuts at some universities, so it will be important for students to support this industrial action in defence of education.

Rent too is an important issue. A number of universities are intent on increasing the cost of living in student halls of residence.

Already rent strikes are being proposed at Goldsmiths college in London where rents are increasing by 5%. At Durham University rents will rise by £200 this year, while Sheffield University is raising rents by 3.95% against much student opposition.

WHILE SOME individual students’ unions organise good campaigns on these issues, unfortunately nationally the NUS and the students’ unions are abdicating their responsibility to defend students’ education against attacks such as fees and cuts in services and staff.

Every year thousands of students, too poor to pay their fees, drop out while their ‘leadership’ refuses to launch a serious campaign of non-payment or even demonstrations and protests against the fees. Universities make massive cuts while students’ unions don’t even lift a finger in protest.

Nationally this is largely because the NUS is controlled by sympathisers and members of New Labour, who want to avoid a conflict with the government. Also few students’ unions are led by people with a genuine commitment to defending students. Instead they see the sabbatical posts as something to look good on their CVs.

At a national level, the majority on the NUS national executive (NEC) are attempting to carry out massive cuts in the NUS budget, including job losses in the NUS itself threatening the existence of student-led liberation campaigns which have been relative strongholds of the Left.

These cuts won’t just weaken the NUS structures and its potential to defend students. It’s also an attack on democracy within NUS, long under attack from the New Labour majority on the NEC.

It is vital that a broad campaign is built in NUS, amongst students fighting back against fees and on other issues, which can win a new leadership for the student movement.

The Socialist Party argues for a conference, ideally in the autumn term, bringing together students from across the country to fight for a new leadership, against the cuts in NUS and for genuine democracy in the students’ union movement.

We also need to build Socialist Students societies up and down the country. These can build a fighting opposition to fees and cuts as well as discussing and spreading the ideas of socialism in the universities and colleges in order to provide an alternative to capitalism.

THE SITUATION outside the Holy Cross primary school has developed into an ugly stand-off as community leaders talk about trying to settle the conflict. At root, this conflict is about redefining boundaries between Catholic and Protestant areas, which is further polarising the communities as Northern Ireland Socialist Party member PETER HADDEN explains:

Working Class Must Unite Against Sectarianism

THE GRIM and shocking scenes outside Holy Cross girls school are a reminder of the danger of sectarian conflict becoming much more widespread. They also serve notice of how bitter and vicious such a conflict could become.

Most people in the north, Catholic and Protestant, have been stunned by the sight of young school girls struggling through a tunnel of riot police, stones and verbal abuse just to get to school.

Even if the situation outside the school dies down for a while this is one of those incidents that will have lasting effects. It has already hardened attitudes and deepened the sectarian polarisation.

There is also the possibility that some incident or atrocity, a protester or perhaps a child being killed, could trigger other protests and that the violence could spread. The death of 16-year-old Thomas McDonald, run over by a woman driver who chased him in her car after some sectarian incident at the troubled White City/Longlands interface, is an example of how things could get escalate.

WHAT IS happening outside Holy Cross follows a summer of widespread sectarian attacks which by now have touched almost every area across the North.

The Ulster Defence Association is behind much of this violence, hiding under flags of convenience like Red Hand Defenders which fool no-one. They are responsible for the pipe and blast bombings, including the bombs thrown outside Holy Cross and ominously for the sectarian killing of two young people, one of whom turned out to be a Protestant.

But the sectarianism is not all one way, despite the misleading attempts by some nationalists to portray it as such. Sinn Fein recently published a centre page in An Phoblacht listing the attacks on Catholics. This is a deliberately one sided approach ignoring the attacks that have also taken place against Protestants.

This violence is intensifying just as the political process is reaching an impasse. The one-day suspension of the Assembly was to allow another six weeks for the parties to come up with an agreement. Then we had the revelations about IRA involvement with FARC guerrillas in Colombia.

Their arrests may not have damaged Sinn Fein’s standing in Catholic working-class areas but have made unionists more insistent on decommissioning as a precondition of a restart for the Assembly.

The clock is ticking on the six week deadline for a deal and instead of progress we have had the protests at Holy Cross. As time passes a deal becomes less likely.

ALL IN all, this paints a very gloomy picture. The peace process has never done anything more than bring politicians together at the top. On the ground, in the working class communities, there has been no reconciliation or integration but just the opposite.

Can anything be done to reverse the slide to sectarian conflict? The situation may be difficult but it is by no means lost. The majority of people, Protestant and Catholic, are against a return to conflict and want the paramilitary ceasefires to stay in place or be restored.

While the working class is divided more than ever in terms of where they live, they are still largely united in the workplaces. Where struggles have taken place, for example on wages, conditions, cuts and privatisation, working-class people have stood together and have rocked the sectarians in the Assembly. The victorious struggle by term-time workers is one example.

This unity needs to be built upon so that, instead of being divided, Protestant and Catholic workers can stand together against sectarianism as well as against health cuts, low pay and on other social issues.

That this is not happening is not because working-class people would not be prepared to stand together but because there is no leadership offering them a way to do so. In the past the trade union movement played a key role in challenging sectarianism. Community organisations also helped in this.

Now, instead of offering a lead the present trade union leadership has buried its head in the sand. The unions have joined with the employers, churches and others in the inept and little heard of ‘G7’ and play no independent role in fighting sectarianism. Many community organisations are likewise not independent of the conflict but act as covers for various paramilitary interests.

There remain however many genuine activists in the trade unions and in the broad community movement who are repelled by what is taking place and want to find a way out.

These people need to come together to begin to build an alternative to sectarianism. There is an urgent need for a united movement of the working class to oppose all sectarian attacks, to defend workers against intimidation and to combat the poverty that is now common to Protestant and Catholic workers and which is the underlining factor fuelling the conflict.

World Crisis Deepens

After the carnage in the USA:

World Crisis Deepens

Attacks

Pandemonium

Imperialism's "revenge"

Bush and Blair

Oppressed People

Workers

World Recession Looms

Action not words to defeat privatisation

Scrap Fees! Restore the Grant!

Amrita Huggins

Scrap tuition fees. Build mass non-payment.

Reinstate the student grant. Free education for all.

No to exclusions! Re-register all second and third years.

Join Save Free Education.

Growing Crisis in Higher Education

Kieran Roberts

Government cutbacks

Fighting back

New movement

Working Class Must Unite Against Sectarianism

Sectarian attacks

Workers’ solution

The Socialist 14 September 2001	World Crisis Deepens
World Crisis Deepens	After the Carnage in the USA: THE KILLING of thousands of innocent civilians in New York, Washington and elsewhere in the US has caused horror and revulsion among ordinary working people worldwide.
World Recession Looms	"VERY HAIRY and very scary" was how one London fund manager described the stock market after the FTSE 100 plunged to its lowest level for three years.
Action not words to defeat privatisation	EVEN BEFORE a recession, opposition to Blair’s privatisation plans are growing. Polls show that a majority of people think that schools and hospitals should be provided entirely or mostly by the public sector.
Scrap Fees! Restore the Grant!	FOUR YEARS of New Labour government has left Higher Education in crisis. Several former polytechnics face fines from HEFCE (the higher education funding council for England) for failing to recruit enough students. Growing Crisis in Higher Education
Growing Crisis in Higher Education	THOUSANDS OF university places are going unfilled because students can no longer afford to go to university. Meanwhile some universities’ futures hang in the balance because of lack of funding.
Working Class Must Unite Against Sectarianism	THE GRIM and shocking scenes outside Holy Cross girls school are a reminder of the danger of sectarian conflict becoming much more widespread.