by Gary Duffy in Sydney

"The most important thing in the Olympic Games is not to win but to take part, just as the most important thing in life is not the triumph, but the struggle. The essential thing is not to have conquered, but to have fought well."- So reads the creed of the Olympics.

The Olympic Games in reality has shown itself to be one bottomless trough for the rich and sporting elite. The 'Olympic Family' is far more interested in greed than the creed of sporting valour.

An extra $140 million was recently handed over by the NSW government for the Games. This has boosted the total cost of the Games to almost $6 billion, including Government and private sector costs. About $2 billion of this coming from the NSW Government and $530 million from the Federal Government.

The $140 million was handed over to ensure a "quality of Games Australia deserves and the world expects", according to NSW Olympic Minister Michael Knight. A pity the same reasoning does not apply to health, education, community sporting facilities and other essentials of social infrastructure for working class people and their families.

It is no wonder that civil rights have to be trampled on to protect this bottomless trough for the rich and sporting elite. Some of the measures to be used include barring peaceful demonstrations near stadiums, no t- shirts with messages allowed and people being searched for food not produced by companies sponsoring the Olympics.

Calls have been made by Aboriginals people for a tent embassy in Bi-Centennial Park and for a campaign for a justice and equal rights. Unions should be supporting these calls and using the opportunity of the Games to protest against unfair treatment of workers, particularly Aboriginal workers and against the unjust laws inflicted upon them. Unions should also use it as an opportunity to demonstrate that mass defiance of unjust laws can render them useless. This will be a useful lesson for current and future industrial relations law.

Socialists encourage sport, so despite their elitist nature we do not aim to stop the Sydney Olympics. We intend to take part and participate in the protests that will be surrounding it.

The National question-the division between peoples on the basis of race, religion, nationality etc-is a growing issue for socialists. In Fiji and the Solomon Islands the nationalism that united the various ethnic groups and tribes into one nation has been undermined by the inability of the central state to provide for peoples' living standards. The result has been clear for all to see. All over the world the national question is becoming more acute, especially where the socialist forces of working class unity are weak. This feature aims to explain the marxist approach to this issue.

A group of people united by a common language, territory , culture and kinship.

Under feudalism, before capitalism entered the scene of history in Europe, there were no nation states as such. What later became Italy, for example, was a hotchpotch of fiefdoms and regional kingdoms united only by a common language. One of the features of the capitalist (bourgeois) revolutions against feudalism was the assimilation of peoples into nations and the creation of nation states. The breaking down of regional barriers and a unified national taxation and legal system was essential for capitalism to develop. The ideology of nationalism went along with this process.

This was at a time in the 19th century when capitalism was still in its progressive phase. But even then Marx and Engels were sensitive to the domination and subjection of countries and minorities by the ascending capitalist states. "The English working class will never be free until Ireland is freed from the English yoke", explained Marx.

Soon capitalism expanded beyond its nation state beginnings and capital began to spread to the rest of the world. The export of capital to the less developed countries meant that their political and military domination was further cemented by an economic enslavement to these mighty capitalist states. The age of imperialism had begun.

The imperialist powers created caricature states in Africa, Asia etc of those in Europe. Often artifical boundaries were imposed by imperialism that stored up problems for the future. In pre-independence days, the struggle to wrest free of the control of imperialism acted as a unifying factor and helped develop a national consciousness in colonial countries.

Today this national consciousness has broken down to varying degrees as capitalist countries in the Third World cannot break free from the economic domination of the West. National confidence by the local ruling class has been all but destroyed and replaced by corruption and brutality to stay in power. Bitter conflicts between the dominant ethnic group and other groups feeling left out ensues. At its most extreme, this leads to wars, mass displacement of peoples and genocide.

The growing problem of the national question and the decay of capitalism go hand-in-hand. The problem ebbs or flows in inverse proportion to the level of class struggle, the great unifying force. For example, a movement of the Fijian working class would erode the basis of ethnic division and deal a blow to the racist.

Lenin, the leader of the Russian Revolution, described Tzarist Russia as a prison house of nationalities-57% of its peoples were non-Russian. He argued that without a correct approach on this issue the Bolsheviks would not have been able to lead the working class to power in 1917.

The creation of nation states helped develop capitalism and take society forward in the past. But today, modern productive techniques have far outstripped the limitations of national boundaries. Globalisation is a fact of life in the financial markets and to a lesser extent in other industries. Socialists fight for a world plan of production to replace the anarchy of capitalism; that is of production based on private property and the nation state.

To this we need unite amongst workers of all backgrounds and of all countries. Bourgeois nationalism is an attempt by the capitalists to divide worker against worker, and build a false unity between the oppressor and the oppressed in every country.

For the most advanced section of workers an appeal to internationalism and class solidarity will cut across the national issue. But it is not enough for the majority. Socialists must be the best fighters against the national oppression and support the rights of all minorities, including the right to self-determination ie the right of a national minority within a state to secede from that state and establish itself as an independent nation.

Nationalism has two forms today. The nationalism of the oppressor (Hitler's German nationalism, similar to today's Indonesian nationalism which denies democratic rights to West Papuans or Aceh etc) must be 100% opposed. On the other hand, the nationalism of the people of Timor is a force of great historical change. Even within the latter, however, there are class differences. The Timorese elite want independence so they can replace Indonesian oppression with Timorese oppression. Yet the workers, youth and peasants of Timor see independence as a way to improve their lot.

A marxist programme supports all that is progressive in national movements but offers no measure of support to their backward features. Essentially, this is a negative programme. We are against suppression of nationality, culture, language etc. But we do not promote any particular of nationality, culture or language over any other. The aim of this largely negative programme is to say to those who look to nationalism as a solution that it is the working class who are the only real guarantors of their national and democratic rights as well as their economic liberation. Its intent is not to promote nationalism, but to open up class divisions in national movements, to develop class unity and to promote the class struggle.

The right to self-determination means basically the right to secede from a state. Marxists do not apply this right to each and every minority but to historically evolved communities, who have a distinct sense of national identity and who have or could have the territorial basis to realise themselves as a nation.

The issue of whether or not such a state would be economically viable is not relevant. No small state is independently fully viable in this age of globalisation. If this were to prevent us from guaranteeing the right of self-determination it would cut us off from subject nationalities discussing secession. As Leon Trotsky put it: "workers (in the dominant state) must pitilessly denounce the violence of the bourgeoisie of the ruling nation and in that way win the confidence of the proletariat of the oppressed nationality.

Any other policy would be tantamount to supporting the reactionary nationalism of the imperialist bourgeoisie of the ruling nation against the revolutionary democratic nationalism of the petty bourgeoisie of an oppressed nation." (article, The Progessive Character of Catalan Nationalism", 1931) Our task is to pose to these peoples how only a socialist planned economy, and a real alliance with their worker allies in neighbouring countries to spread socialism, can take these societies forward. There is more chance for these discussions when you have the ear of the oppressed nationalities.

Ironically the possibility of greater unity between workers in the oppressor state and workers in the oppressed state are higher when the former actively support the national rights of the latter. At every stage we advocate direct workers' unity between different countries even as we may at times support separation eg Yes to independence of East Timor from Indonesia, but also Yes to greater and greater contact, support, organisation and solidarity between workers in East Timor and Indonesia. No to separation, federalism, division in the workers' movement. To give another analogy, socialists actively defend the right of people to practise their religious beliefs while at the very same time actively opposing religious ideas and explanations. Where a nationality is under foreign armed occupation, the right of self-determination is a clear cut case. Where it is a question of a national minority within the boundaries of an existing centralised state, Basques and Catalans in Spain for example, the question is not so straightforward.

Here we hesitate before becoming proponents of independence and point out its pitfalls. But at a certain stage if the oppression makes independence extremely popular amongst the minority group, we have to support self-determination. There is no magic formula for all situations. The key is the effect the stance taken would have on the class struggle and the unity of the working class. The issue of Indonesian domination of East Timor is clear-cut. We supported the democratic right of East Timorese people to become independent. Further, we advocate a socialist East Timor as part of a socialist federation of the region. Only a socialist East Timor can end the continued economic exploitation of the masses.

The national question is more complicated in Fiji. One aspect of it is that right wing Chiefs in the West Fiji have called for the breaking away of that region from the national state itself. This richer part of Fiji fears the economic consequences of the recent coup. They have won a certain level of support from the sugar farmers and workers in the West-both Indian and indigenous Fijian. We believe the main task now is for the trade unions, Labour Party and all workers and poor peasants in Fiji to be united around a programme of equality for the two ethnic groups, land reform, nationalisation of the main industries and socialism.

In order to cut across the cynical use of regionalism by Chiefs and right-wing politicians we could include support for greater autonomy within the central state for the regions. If the labour movement fail to provide any answers in Fiji in the next period, the situation will get worse. The demand for separation will grow and we may be forced to support this in order to stop a civil war. Again truth is concrete and a change to our position would only occur after a careful weighing up of the balance of class forces, the level of ethnic division, and the perspective for the class struggle.

The method of Lenin on the national question has nothing in common with that of Stalin, whose role was as the brutal suppressor of national rights and cultures, even of whole nationalities. Similarly, socialism is not the same as the bureaucratic, dictatorial caricature that existed in Russia and Eastern Europe. That offered no appeal, no model to which the working class could look. Today in China we see the so-called Communist Party regime trample over the national rights of ethnic minorities as in Tibet and Inner Mongolia.

Neither capitalism, nor the crumbled failure of Stalinism, offer any solution to the national problem. But the very idea of building a genuine socialist society-that is a very different thing. Socialism means taking the major industry and all key services into public ownership and running them democratically with need replacing profit as the motive. It means noprivileged elite, only the right of people themselves to manage their own affairs. It means creating an international brotherhood and sisterhood, a unity based on respect of difference and in which all national and minority rights would be guaranteed. It is the unity of the working class, built in the struggle for such a society, which will solve the national problem around the world.

Lenin -

• The Right of Nations to Self-Determination, 1914.
• Draft Thesis of the Communist International on the National Question, 1920.

Trotsky -

• "The Problem of Nationalities" from Trotsky's History of the Russian Revolution.

CWI -

• The National Question, Peter Hadden
• All available from the Socialist Party