Wednesday, April 12, 2017

Religious Instruction in State Run Schools


Self proclaimed Maltese Patriots in an Islamophobic stance


The Communist Party of Malta believes that the controversy that is going on in Malta right now about the teaching of Islamic Religion in state run schools is a xenophobic, nationalistic, and a hysterically religious fervour which amounts to a fascistic attitude, that without hesitation the Party condemns. 
The Communist Party of Malta deems that that Maltese state should be secular. As State and Church should be separate entities. If so then there would have been  no obligation for the state to offer religious instruction classes in state run schools. However reality in Malta is quite different
The Self Government constitution of 1947 was drawn up by an assembly made up by the political parties and all the NGO’s that existed then. This assembly decided that Malta should be a Secular state, but the Government that was elected subsequently decided otherwise and declared Malta as a Catholic state. This has obliged subsequent Maltese Governments since then, to provide religious instruction in state run schools. The Maltese Constitution also provides a clause that does not allow any discrimination on racial, colour, and religious bases
In Malta today live Maltese citizens that belong to other religious denominations, such as Islam and other faiths. This obliges the Maltese state to provide them also with religious instruction in state run school according to their religious believes. A case already exists where civics classes are held for the children that their parents object that they should be given religious instructions
The Maltese Communist Party praises the position taken by the Maltese Government and also the Catholic Hierarchy for it’s’ support towards the solving of the problem of Islamic religious teaching to Maltese students that are of that faith.


Sunday, April 2, 2017

Statement of the EUROPEAN COMMUNIST INITIATIVE on the 60th anniversary of the Treaty of Rome


However many celebrations the EU organizes on the occasion of the 60th anniversary of its establishment, it cannot hide its imperialist character, its anti-people mission. The EU was not created in order to serve the interests of the workers but those of big capital. The goal of its establishment and criterion of the EU's strategy is the perpetuation of capitalist exploitation, the servicing of the competitiveness of European capital and its need for very cheap labour power without rights. For this reason, it has been demonstrated in practice that the celebrations about the prosperity of the popular strata which accompanied the founding of the EEC, the establishment of the EU and EMU, not only did not have any real basis for the peoples, but on the contrary conceal the full-scale assault against the workers'-people's rights. What had been won by the workers through harsh class struggles and the pressure exerted by the USSR and the other socialist countries are being taken back. In any case, it is no accident that the EU plays a leading role in anti-communism, the distortion of historical truth, the provocative identification of communism with the monstrosity of fascism.
The political line of the EU thrusts the burden of the crisis onto the workers and along with the measures it implements for the recovery of the capitalist economy and the increase of the profitability of capital, stepping on the ruins of the workers'-people's rights.
With this as the goal, new anti-people measures are being implemented and the mechanisms that support EU capital with new privileges, tax exemptions, subsidies are being multiplied in order to reinforce it at the expense of its international competitors e.g. USA, China, Russia.
In the environment of the sharpening of the competition over energy resources, their transport routes and the control of the markets, the European monopolies play a leading role in imperialist interventions against Syria, Ukraine, Iraq, Libya etc. in order to impose their interests in regions of strategic importance. The EU and the governments of its member states further reinforce their military preparation through the European Defense Union, the Euro-army, the enhanced cooperation between the EU and NATO, the arms race, facts that bear witness to the strengthening of the danger of a generalized military conflict.
In the same reactionary direction, the EU and its member states intensify their mechanisms of repression, surveillance, profiling and intimidation of the peoples, with the basic aim of impeding the activity of the labour-people's movement.
The peoples must be vigilant. They must not shed their blood in the wars for the interests of the imperialists, the major victims of which are the refugees.
The working class, the poor popular strata in Europe have acquired a great deal of experience over the years; the only way forwards is to call the EU into question.It is being demonstrated that the EU is neither eternal nor inevitable. Whatever scenario is adopted "regarding the future of Europe", the peoples will suffer heavy losses.
The European Communist Initiative (ECI) calls on the peoples to struggle and reject both the longstanding supporters of the EU, social-democrats and liberals, and also those that continue to sow illusions in name of alleged "fundamental principles of the EU that were later lost " or the of the anti-worker "acquis communautaire", like the forces of the Party of the European Left.
At the same time, the ECI stresses that they must struggle to decisively isolate the managers and reserve forces of capital, such as the so-called eurosceptic, nationalist and fascist forces, which sloganeer with their positions about the EU and in practice aim to keep the people trapped in every country in the capitalist development path, seeking to undertake themselves the management and perpetuation of the capitalist system, representing sections of the bourgeois class.
The working class, the peoples of Europe have the strength and can reinforce their struggle, fight for the recovery of the losses suffered during the crisis and in general the satisfaction of their demands on the basis of their needs, to come into conflict with the monopolies and the exploitative system, to chart their own path for their own power and economy which will serve their interests and satisfy their contemporary needs, to be liberated from the shackles of the EU and other imperialist alliances.The future of the peoples Europe is socialism, the only real way out of capitalist barbarity.
The peoples must come into conflict with capitalist exploitation in a mass and organized way, must strengthen the struggle against the EU and NATO.