University and College Union (UCU), Britain

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Britain: The Lecturers’ Union and the Betrayal of the Intellectuals – The anti-imperialism of amoral idiots

Many certainties about global politics were transformed on February 24 2022 when the Russian Federation began a genocidal imperialist invasion of Ukraine, a country in the heart of Europe with a population of 44 million people. The imperialist invaders have forced at least seven million people out of their homeland. This was a seismic shock to many parts of the existing international anti-war movement, which failed to see this catastrophe on the horizon. In itself, that is not a problem. The future cannot be foretold with perfect accuracy, we only have 20-20 vision about the past.

But, what to do?

Readers of this blog will be aware of activities sponsored by Irish Left With Ukraine (ILWU) and the heroic work of Ukrainian activist and academic Yuliya Yurchenko.

This is her take on the behaviour of the British “Stop the War Coalition”, which has parallels in Ireland and other parts of the globe :

Yuliya Yurchenko, a Ukrainian senior lecturer in Political Economy at the University of Greenwich, described the attitude of the ‘anti-war’ left, “who somehow manage to simultaneously recognise Russia’s right to ‘defend its interests’ while denying the right of Ukrainians to defend their very lives or assert their national self-determination”, summing this up memorably as “the anti-imperialism of amoral idiots”.

These issues have erupted inside a British trade union, the University and College Union (UCU) which has a reported membership of about 120,000 people https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/University_and_College_Union . The report below makes for often ghastly reading. All the same, effective left-wing solidarity with Ukraine is essential – we urge readers to engage.

Article Source : https://www.europe-solidaire.org/spip.php?article66925