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| Sasha Brydon |
"Comrades,
There was an article in the May 1st edition
of the Morning Star which read: “May Day is the day to restate the cause for
justice.” This can be summed up simply as, justice for our class. Justice which
must be fought for every day, not just on the 1st of May.
We must resolutely reject attacks on our very humanity
by governments and capitalists both at home and abroad. At home we have seen
the introduction of the disgraceful system of Universal Credit, we have seen
further privatisation of our health service, and we have seen attacks on pay toward
public sector workers who are doing more and more work with fewer resources.
Especially in Aberdeen, as we have seen with the cutting of 329
full-time-equivalent staff from the local authority.
Internationally we have seen the governments of Viktor
Orban in Hungary, Jair Bolsonaro in Brazil and Donald Trump in the United
States ruthlessly attack the rights of their working people and prop up
reactionary regimes across the world.
We stand here, hand in hand with the working people of
the world to reaffirm our rights against faceless reaction. We stand with those
resisting imperialism wherever it can be found; be it Cuba, Korea, Venezuela,
Syria or Palestine. Only the people of a country can determine the course of
that country, no outside force can determine it for them.
I will conclude by calling upon you to challenge those
who oppose progress. We must remind them with our collective voice that we
could destroy the ivory towers they sit on. We have unmatched power; we must
use it to change the world."