March 6, 2003: Greetings for International Women’s Day on 8 March 2003
Dear friends and comrades,
On behalf of all comrades of the MLPD, I would like to convey heartfelt and militant greetings from Germany for International Women’s Day on 8 March 2003.
These are eventful and moving times in which we are celebrating the international day of struggle for the rights and the liberation of women. On the instructions of British and US-imperialism, G.W. Bush and Tony Blair are provoking an acute risk of war and are threatening world peace. The German government is currently declaring its opposition to this war. That must be welcomed. But the motives lie in its own power-policy interests and strategies for dominating the Near and Middle East region.
Yesterday I received a letter from Faten from Palestine. She writes, "Where is the worldwide conscious? The world is watching as we are being killed, humiliated and degraded. And the war on Iraq has not even yet begun. May god be with us – what will they be doing to us in the shadow of the war?"
Today the working-class and women’s movement in all countries has a global commitment. The masses are the decisive factor in the course of history. It is encouraging to see how an international peace movement against a war on Iraq is growing. On 15 February 2003, 17 million people around the entire globe demonstrated for world peace. Women are becoming active in the interests of the future of the families and especially of the children of the world.
After the collapse of the Soviet Union, people like George Bush promised a "peaceful new world order". But today’s world is being shaken by crises and the threat of war, by a political disorder greater than ever before. This is the result of the reorganization of the international capitalist production since the beginning of the 1990’s.
The workers and the peoples of the world have brought forth wealth, technical progress and global communication. But under the dictate of international finance capital, their living conditions are being increasingly called into question in the entire world. The women of the world bear the main burden in the daily struggle to cope with everyday life and to survive. While imperialism promises them democratic equality, in reality, it intensifies the double exploitation and oppression to the utmost.
But with the reorganization of international capitalist production, an international industrial proletariat, an international working-class movement, a worldwide women’s movement, an international rebellion of the youth have arisen and, with these, the force for the liberation from imperialism.
In the struggles for labor, water and education, against sexual exploitation and feudal-patriarchic oppression, in the struggle against the Iraq war, the international women’s movement has already developed into an important force.
Women’s lives are very hard – and it is often just as hard to understand the complicated relations of worldwide economy and politics. The MLPD therefore feels it is very important to promote the development of a mass movement for understanding the far-reaching changes in imperialism. We are currently publishing the new issues of our theoretical organ Revolutionärer Weg , "The Reorganization of International Production". It is also appearing as a book entitled "Götterdämmerung over the `New World Order’" In mythology "Götterdämmerung" (the twilight of the gods) signifies the decline of the old, outlived world order and the emergence of a new liberated society. The comparison with today’s conditions is intentional!
Because we are very interested in a lively international discussion with you, we are already working intensively on translating the book.
In the women’s movement in Germany, we will be active on March 8th for world peace and for developing the consciousness of the women’s movement and organizing it as a part of an international movement for the liberation of women and for socialism.
We are very interested in your situation and your struggle on March 8th. Please give us reports. We hope that we will all succeed and strengthen our bonds worldwide.
We embrace you in deepest sympathy!
Monika Gärtner-Engel
Speaker for women’s policy
of the Central Committee of the MLPD
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