[if the individual is outside ing out a…]

Scan page 8

if the individual is outside ing out a useful task. But the at the time. the Home booklet would have been strength"A Window on Soweto" by Joyce 104, Newgate St., This gives a straight- book Forward autobiographical account of life in the black township of Soweto-an account which cannot fail to reveal the exploitation, which, although it exists inally capitalist society, is so blatant und extreme in South Africa.

Sikakane briefly outlines the roots of the apartheid system and the pass laws-the purpose of which is made clear by a statement made by the Afrikaner Nationalist Party when it came to power in 1948:

TEMPORARY "All the Bantu have their permanent homes in the reserves ind their entry into other areas and into the urban centres is merely of a temporary economic reasons, Hature and for • She effectively describes the zonditions which black workers dave to face as a result of apartheid ind economic exploitation.

As an unmarried mother herself, sikakane describes the double oppression which women workers lave to bear in South Africa. lince the average wage is too low o even feed. a family, married vomen have to work-under even vorse conditions than the men.

SHUNTED

Without effective means of birth Pontrol, their only child care lacilities consist of shunting children around the town to grannies'-untrained childminders. ¡ If none are available, children ipend the day locked in a room with some scraps of food. and a potty.

However, Sikakane is confused in the demands she puts forward. Instead of seeing the importance of demanding improved working conditions and child-care facilities to release women from their double oppression, she wants 'normal family life -in other words improved wages for men, so that women don't have to go out to work, and can fulfil their 'natural' role of mother and domestic labourer.

This shows one way in which, although this book is a usefu class analysis, and offers no answers to the question of how the struggle of the black working class can be strengthened.

Political organisations such as the African National Congress and the South African Students Organisation are rarely mentioned and their policies and outlook are never discussed.

Sikakane left South Africa in 1973, so she cannot give a firsthand account of the uprising of June last year.

However, she fails to assess the importance of the Soweto events at all, and only mentions the demonstrations in passing on the last page. Her last sentence perhaps sums up what the whole book lacks-she concludes:

"There is no improvement in the ghettoes of South Africa and no progress until the whole apartheid system is removed."

The book should have emphasised that the struggle is not merely against an apartheid system, but against a capitalist system, and it should have given some idea of how that struggle can progress.

Aid Fund, Schoolchildren in Soweto This booklet shows how the Prevention of Terrorism Act (PTA) forced through Parliament in 1974. by the then Labour government, is in fact the legislated seal of approval on systematic police terror directed against the rish population in Britain.

The PTA's specific purpose is to intimidate, terrorise and crush the Irish republican movement and its struggle for a united Ireland free of British imperialism.

The authors. draw the parallel between the centuries-long struggle for Irish liberation and the struggles now erupting among black workers in Southern Africa for the overthrow of white racist rule.

In each case the naked military force used by imperialism to maintain its control is backed up by brutal political repression of all forms of opposition.

The booklet shows the scale on which police Gestapo-style operations continue against Irish workers.

So far almost 2,500 people have been arrested under the PTA. 1,900 of them have been detained in police custody for up to seven days; and while only 100 people have. been charged in court with offences, an equal number have been deported-in cases "blacked out" by the bourgeois press.

The Act ensures that if the police cannot complete their harassment and intimidation of their "suspect" in 48 hours they have only to apply to the Home Secretary to extend detention for five days more. So far no such request has ever been refused.

And if the "suspect" is unlucky enough to be picked up at an airport or port, additional regulations enable the police to hold them without charge for up to 12 days.

The PTA allows the police, where they cannot find evidence to back up a criminal prosecution, to apply for an order to have a person removed from the country, The only people safe from such actions are those who can prove they have lived here for 20 years or who were born in Britain and stayed here all their lives.

The only appeal allowed is to the Home Secretary himself. Lawyers are not permitted. And the charges are not revealed to the accused And Britain itain-an analysis of the Prevention of ple Against the Prevention of Terrorism Price 15n Reviewed hu Tim Ronare Price 25p. Reviewed by Jim Rogers.

specified in the Act. So far no other organisation has been banned outright. However, it is also now an offence to encourage any form of support for a banned organisation.

This power is identical to that granted to the South African "Minister of Justice" under the "Anti-Terrorist Law" of that country-a law which has been publicly condemned by the major trade unions of Britain." (P. 11)

It goes on to list a whole series of case histories of victims of the Act, showing the scale of operations of the Special Branch.

One man, Albert O'Rawe, was deported because he was unable to deny having once been in the IRAin 1943!

Accounts are included of the way trade union action has successfully freed people from detention and forced the lifting of deportation orders. On the other hand, the pamphlet details cases of the fascist National Front taking advantage of the Act to play on anti-Irish prejudice and hound Republicans and Republican sympathisers. Terrorism Act (PAPTA)-who carry labour movement bodies.

the campaign by holding a Tribunal on Repression to be held at ber 19, to consider evidence on persecution of Irish people in Britain and Ireland.

sion to the military repression in AL EE+HOSENSA The authors show correctly that simply to denounce the outrages carried out against innocent individuals under the act is not sufficient to fight it.

"The PTA operates in Britain as a supplement to the work of the Army in Ireland. They are two methods by which the British government attempts to destroy republicanism, not only as an armed. movement, but also as an expression of the long-held desire for a free united Ireland."

It outlines the beginnings of a campaign throughout the trade union and labour movement to expose the Act and its provisions, to organise leafletting and pickets of police stations wherever arrests take place under the PTA, and to prevent arrests in workplaces.

The booklet provides much useful material, though presented in a enmewhat renefitive way It is the work of a group called People Against the Prevention of the sponsorship of a number of PAPTA are planning to develop Conway Hall, on Saturday Novem In taking up the British dimenNorthern Ireland the group is carry-

----- pull-quotes -----

description of the apartheid system it does not present it in terms of a