World At a Crossroads:

Fighting for Socialism in the 21st Century

April 10-13 (Easter), 2009

Sydney

International speakers from:

VENEZUELA, ARGENTINA, CANADA, PAKISTAN, INDONESIA, MALAYSIA, PHILIPPINES, TIMOR LESTE, INDIA, AUSTRALIA …and more

(initial list of speakers below)

 

April 10-12, 2009

Sydney

Venue: Sydney Girls High, Cnr Anzac Pde & Cleveland St, Surry Hills, Sydney, NSW, Australia

 

For more info and to book your tickets:

Email: dsp@dsp.org.au  or sydney.resistance@gmail.com

Phone: (+ 612) 9690 1230

Visit: www.WorldAtACrossroads.org

 

 

 

A conference that brings together socialists and progressive activists from around Australia, Latin America, Asia-Pacific and North America in dozens of panel presentations and workshops over four days to discuss the urgent questions of our time, including:

 

* The capitalist economic crisis: Putting people and planet before corporate profits
* Stopping global warming: Social change, not climate change
* Emerging alternatives to capitalism: The Venezuelan revolution and anti-imperialist rebellion in Latin America

* Crisis in the Middle East: Resisting imperialism and war
* Organising to fight for a better world: Building mass movements, alliances and left parties

* and more…..see below for more info on panels and workshops, or visit www.WorldAtACrossroads.org

 

Initial list of international speakers:

 

MICHAEL LEBOWITZ, Venezuela & Canada - Reknowned Marxist economist; researcher at the Centro Internacional Miranda, Caracas, Venezuela; author of  Beyond Capital: Marx's Political Economy of the Working Class, winner of the Isaac Deutscher memorial prize (2004).

 

REIHANA MOHIDEEN, Philippines - Chairperson of Transform Asia, a gender and labour institute, Party of the Laboring Masses (PLM) International Department.

 

IAN ANGUS, Canada - Founder of the Ecosocialist International Network; editor of Climate and Capitalism, Marxist historian; and writer and activist on environmental issues.

 

LUIS BILBAO, Venezuela & Argentina – Marxist journalist and author, central participant in the construction of the mass United Socialist Party of Venezuela.

 

KAVITA KRISHNAN, India – Former president of the All India Students' Association (1999-2006), Central Committee member of the Communist Party of India (Marxist Leninist); editor of Liberation.

 

PLUS: Roger Annis, Socialist Voice and Haiti solidarity in Canada; Daphne Lawless and Vaughan Gunson, Socialist Worker-New Zealand; Tomas Freitas, Luta Hamutuk, Timor Leste; Nelson Davila, Venezuelan Ambassador to Australia; and representatives from the People's Democratic Party in Indonesia, the Socialist Party of Malaysia and the Labour Party Pakistan.

 

Topic streams include:

 

GLOBAL ECONOMIC CRISIS

Capitalism's crisis and socialist economic alternatives

Capitalist economic crisis: Its impacts and responses in South-East Asia

Models and experiences of public and social ownership

The history of anti-capitalist activism during economic crises

Understanding Marxist economics

Recessions, jobs and workers' control

 

GLOBAL WARMING & ENVIRONMENTAL CRISIS

Achieving a just transition to environmental sustainability

Constructing a red-green alliance to save the planet

The social roots of the climate crisis

Working for green unions in the 21st century

Food and water crisis: Capitalism, agribusiness and the food sovereignty alternative

Climate refugees and the "overpopulation" debate

Climate change solutions: What role for the market?

Sustainable cities: The social versus the individual

Constructing a red-green alliance to save the planet

 

LATIN AMERICAN REVOLUTION: ALTERNATIVES TO CAPITALISM

Latin America: Revolt, revolution and socialism in the 21st century

Building popular power: Workers' control, communal councils and the United Socialist Party of Venezuela

50 years of the Cuban Revolution

A history of Central American revolutions: Cuba, Nicaragua, El Salvador

Defeating capitalism and counter-revolution: The struggle for socialism in Venezuela

Latin American integration: Anti-imperialist cooperation or regional capitalist development?

Evo Morales and Bolivia's Indigenous revolution

 

CRISIS IN THE MIDDLE EAST: RESISTING IMPERIALISM AND WAR

What solution to the crisis in the Middle East?

The world after Bush: Obama and US imperialism

Who are Hamas and Hezbollah?

The undeclared war against Pakistan

Israel - An apartheid state

Iraq and Afghanistan; The US' unwinnable wars for oil

War on terror or war on Muslims?

 

LEFT UNITY: ALLIANCES, MOVEMENTS AND REVOLUTIONARY ORGANISATION

Building socialist parties in the 21st century

Theory and practice of left unity in Australia and internationally

Socialists in parliament: Constructing left electoral alliances

The crisis of social democracy

Stalinism, Leninism and the legacy of the Russian Revolution

 

AND MORE, INCLUDING ...

Australia's radical history

Why be a Marxist today? Introduction to Resistance and the DSP

Women's oppression and liberation

Australia's black history: Struggles for Aboriginal rights

Same-sex marriage rights

Marxism and nationalism

Reports on the people’s struggles in Asia, Middle East, Latin America, Africa and Oceania

 

Organised by the Democratic Socialist Perspective and Resistance

Sponsored by Green Left Weekly