256/YOUR MONEY OR YOUR LIFE!
objectives. To do so would give ideas to other movements elsewhere;
that element of 'the news' represents a danger for the capitalist class.
On those rare occasions, however, that the media do honestly relate
the intelligence and scale of a movement, there is a tremendous accel
erating effect on the mobilisation itself. The best recent example is
that of the French strike movement of December 1995, which elicited
such a wave of sympathy that the media could not play things down.
By relaying this sympathy so far and wide, the media sparked a
broadening of the movement.
Struggles have not declined in number, there has even been an
overall increase in proportion to the growing number of attacks. Yet
a persistent sense of isolation is one of the most cumbersome
problems encountered by movements of resistance. One of the most
pressing tasks for progressives is to break down these walls of
isolation and work towards a convergence of struggles.
Given the small number of decision-makers on a world level and
the generalised drop in living conditions that they are imposing
around the globe, the struggle of landless peasants in Brazil is at one
with the struggle of Volkswagen workers against their multinational
company. The struggle by Zapatista indigenous peoples for dignity in
the rural areas of Mexico is at one with the strike of American UPS
workers. The struggle by hundreds of thousands of Indian farmers
against G ATT and the WTO is at one with the 'sans papiers' (undoc
umented immigrants) movement in France. The struggle by South
Korean trade unions to defend their social gains is at one with the
campaign by grassroots Christian communities in Congo-Zaire for
the cancellation of Africa's debt. The struggle of the Thai population
against the implementation of a Draconian austerity package is at
one with the popular mobilisation in Belgium against political and
legal institutions unable to halt the sexual trade in children. The
struggle of Algerian women is at one with the people's tribunals in
Argentina that denounce the country's illegitimate debt. The
struggle of Nicaraguan students is at one with Greenpeace
campaigns for the environment. And the list goes on.
Indeed, the struggle of workers at Renault France is at one with the
struggle of their colleagues in Belgium. French Renault workers took
a giant step forward when they organised active solidarity with their
Belgian counterparts. The strategy of multinationals consists of neu
tralising workers at one production site by attacking their colleagues
at another. The struggle of Renault workers in different European