Lebanese activist visits the UW on national tour

Lebanese socialist Ayisha Zaki will make the UW her 12th stop on her U.S. college speaking tour. Although this is Zaki’s first time speaking in the United States, she plans to highlight issues on the forefront of U.S. national news, including energy policy, the Iraq War and the government’s role in society.

Socialist Alternative, an international Marxist organization, arranged Zaki’s tour, which started Sept. 22 at New York University.

“It’s been going very well in terms of the discussion, in terms of ideas and questions and making important points,” said Zaki, who lives in Beirut, Lebanon and is a member of the Coalition for a Workers’ International Lebanon.

Member of Socialist Alternative-UW chapter, Bryan Watson, said the Alternative decided to invite Zaki to speak after seeing polls before the credit crisis that rated the Iraq War as the most important issue to Americans.

“We think it’s important for students to have an international perspective on the War,” said Watson. “It’s [also] important to show that women can play leading roles in society, it’s not just men.”

Zaki spoke with The Daily over the phone from Minnesota Oct. 3, after her speech at the University of Wisconsin.

Q:

You said that the recession, or forthcoming recession in the American economy will affect the workers the hardest. Do you think that this will cause the American middle class, blue-collar folks, to pay more attention to those who are struggling like them in places like the Middle East?

A:

I think a section of the American middle class will definitely be affected by this recession. Their living standards will be driven down and they’ll become part of the working class … Of course there will be an international consciousness developing on that, considering that people will be hit hard on the personal level and be able to relate that to others … When you’ve got people losing their jobs in the war and not able to get jobs again or get very low-pay jobs with insecure jobs, casual work, they’ll be insecure, exploited. They have no regulations because the country is driven by business now, like Iraq.

Q:

What do you think of Sen. McCain’s position that we should reduce government services and perhaps try to install private social security and things like that in America?

A:

I think it’s quite clear that the first to pay the price for it is workers, and by reducing government funding for services or so on, means that in order to save the profits of the bosses they cut services and make workers pay for them … People become redundant — meaning that the recession is being paid for by workers, they make workers pay for that recession, which is something the Republicans are responsible for. The ruling elite are the ones that pulled this country, or pulled the world really, into a recession because of the chaotic, unplanned economy of making profits as much as possible as soon as possible.

Q:

Do you support any presidential candidate in the United States presidential election?

A:

I don’t vote here obviously, but as a socialist I make a stand to support a vote for Nader as a protest vote firstly against the two big business parties, he’s willing to break away from the two-big-business-party convention that people have here — they have no alternative to vote for. I think Nader needs to do more than just stand in elections. I think with the profile he has and with the massive opposition to the war, disenchantment, impoverishment of ordinary people and workers in America, he has the bulk of responsibility to call for the formation of a new alternative party: an organization in which workers, ordinary people, activists, environmentalists, anti-war people, anti-racist people, anyone who’s against the system, should be able to take part in that organization.

Q: I heard a recording of your speech a couple days ago. You said you live in a section of Lebanon where power is often cut for 12 or more hours a day. Can you tell me if living there is inspiring to you to support socialism and to organize?

A: People are very angry at the war, at the fact that there are power cuts, this is all about oil, and the masses are deprived of their own natural resources. But at the same time it’s also a question of how do you develop society to protect the environment and the planet. So we’re not in favor of the oil being pumped out of the planet in order to provide electricity … of course living in an area which suffers from power-cuts, in an area which suffers from war — it’s a bloody war, for oil for profit-making oil industries — you can’t help relating the two issues and you can’t help drawing socialist conclusions. You have to fight for social society which is democratically planned where people have democratic ownership and management of industries where you can have long term planning. You don’t plan day-by-day to have profits.

Q: American college students, who may not work at all, how do you think they can most effectively help this cause?

A: First of all, many of them are facing the effects of a system that is profit driven in their own lives, whether it’s because they have to pay high college fees [or] because they have to buy books. They have to earn a living, they have to have a job aside of their studies. And they have other responsibilities and lots of pressure from society where they can’t actually enjoy being students and live their [young] years … From the position of a working class college student … they see the system has nothing to offer to them, they have to keep struggling all their lives with out having decent wages, without having decent services … I appeal to college students, just like I appeal to ordinary people around the world, to link up struggles, to actually organize locally but link up globally. That rhymes actually.

Reach reporter Roselle Kingsbury at news@dailyuw.com