To Haripur and teaching trade unionists

Monday 6 December, Multan to Haripur via Islamabad
The plane is late. I chat with a mobile phone company sales exec. Nowhere are call rates lower than in Pakistan with fierce competition for market share. 100 million phones in a population of 170 million. Even the poorest communities use them. The bonded labourers use them to organise. After a couple of hours, my companion gives up waiting and goes back to his office.

It’s a couple of hours drive from the airport to Haripur in what used to be North West Frontier Province, NWFP, and now is Khyber-Pakhtoonkhwa, KPK. It’s a middle sized industrial town, a few hundred thousand, swollen with a hundred and fifty thousand Afghan refugees on the Grand Trunk Road that runs from Calcutta to Kabul. Though the city looks gerry built - the parallel with Manchester in 1844 holds good with mess everywhere – it hasn't got the dust of Multan and Karachi.

Tuesday 7 December, Haripur

The course is hard work with a group of 25, all sitting on cushions round a room that is just large enough, mostly experienced trade unionists, a good mix of factory workers, e.g. textiles and cooking oil and office workers and also the secretary of the rickshaw drivers union. On the second day, we start the course with a little recruitment activity in which people take turns to try to recruit each other and they thoroughly enjoy it. I was afraid that, as older activists, they wouldn't want to do this sort of thing but I was quite wrong. We are working in the Labour Resource Centre with a local NGO. The activists are on the left and, of course, doing far too much. Yesterday evening they arrived having driven from a flood devastated area where they are working on a project restoring schools. The leading figure is Qamar, big, bluff and not afraid to take on the authorities. He spent ten days in jail not so long ago, false charges arising from a demo. Not so different from Bolton perhaps.

Today, I’m interpreted by Zahud, a very senior local trade unionist, first active in the movements of the 1960s, and an authority in these parts on labour law. He speaks very precise and traditional English. The much younger Tariq, with various admin and finance responsibilities, was only occasionally there. Last night, though, he accompanied me for a walk. We are on the edge of the city, so there are small fields growing wheat, watered by a new local irrigation system. The young donkey sitting in the dust apparently likes sitting in the dust and may be someone’s pet. Walking past a flour mill, two young workers come out, one with hair caked in flour. They can just about earn the minimum wage of 7000 rupees a month (about £2 a day), filling 25 and 50kg bags at 4 rupees a bag. The job runs round the year but, like 95% of workers, they have no letter of appointment, no social security card and no job security. Technically unlawful, the workers accept this with resignation as most employers ignore almost all labour laws.

The best moment, perhaps, comes talking about the huge differences between Britain and Pakistan; Britain’s wealth came from the pillage of the Raj (applause). But, in Britain today we have rich and poor, ruthless bosses and victimised trade unionists, just as they do. A number of questions follow including if it is true that old people live in special homes. By the end, things were lively and the last session overruns with a poem by the national poet, Allama Iqbal, which most people join in, singing softly. As we leave, one of the class comes up and says it was so good, he thinks I must be a Muslim.

Multan, city of saints and beggars and mangoes

Saturday 4 December
Munaza, lawyer, political and human rights activist and much else is organising the course here. We have a little time this afternoon so she kindly takes me to a saint's tomb, a shrine, as large as a house, octagonal with a green dome, candles burning outside. I take my shoes off to enter the inner sanctum with two tombs, the saint and his wife. There's an outer cloister with over a dozen smaller tombs. Beautiful carved roof beams. Quite a number of pilgrims, some beggars but no crowd. Some elite cops are outside, there have been bomb attacks on places like this and Muharram, the holiest time of the year for Shiites, is approaching in a couple of weeks. Security is being stepped up. Men riding pillion on motorcycles will be banned.

Sunday 5 December
Interesting day's teaching a mixed group of ten experienced local trade union leaders, together with ten intense, care worn brick kiln workers, quiet much of the time and then suddenly bursting with laughter when someone makes a good point.

In the evening I’m invited to supper by a progressive lawyer, Akram Bhatti, who owns a large orchard of a thousand mango trees, fifty five different varieties. All covered in a thick dust, as is everything here where it so seldom rains. His house has a beautiful, cool, walled garden. Immaculate, lots of elegant plants and a large collection of cacti of all size. It’s his hobby, he says. At the end of the evening I’m asked to plant some new item to commemorate my visit which is tricky as there isn’t much light but a young gardener helps me.

I’m introduced to his five children, 5 to 14, all model students. They do a fifteen hour day I term time: up at five, school at eight, home at four, two hours with private tutor, followed by three hours homework. The eldest two in their mid teens, Petam and Wasim speak English hesitantly but well. They have an exam every month in all major subjects, just like German schools. Their father is keen for them to become medics which he reckons is the only profession where they will be free to choose what they do and not be beholden to a boss. The food is good, the conversation flows but I never find out if there is a mother.

Lahore High Court and with Umer to the fort and Badshahi mosque

Friday 3 December
Setting off this morning for a very short early stroll round my hotel, having gone a hundred yards or so, I find myself walking into the Lahore High Court. All brick, it’s vast, a fine example of Victorian gothic.

Full of smartly dressed lawyers, whose 2008/9 battle against first the dictator Musharraf and then the new president, Zardari, to get the Chief Justice Iftikar Choudery reinstated is one of the few real victories for democracy we’ve seen here in years. They had to demonstrate again and again, often, despite their smart suits, being savagely beaten police using latti, five foot batons. Despite the building crawling with police, staffing electronic security doors and new, elegantly designed small watch towers on the perimeter wall - Lahore has seen some awful suicide bombings in the last eighteen months – there is an air of brisk efficiency.

Late morning and early afternoon is spent with the bright young comrade Umer, who is interested in ideas. We agree to walk and talk around the Lahore fort, and then, next to it, to the Badshahi mosque and finally, with the little time left, we have a curry on the roof of an old courtesan’s house, now restaurant, overlooking both fort and mosque. The only hassle is from a nasty young plain clothes ISI (intelligence) officer who tries to get Umer to tell him who I am and why I’m going to the mosque. It is amazing, and quite shocking that it doesn’t seem to occur to him that I’m visiting this fantastic building as a tourist. Rather, as the only ‘gora’ (white person) in sight, I’m viewed with suspicion. The mosque is simply breath taking, one of the great buildings of the world. The architect cleverly laid out a huge courtyard in front of it, so everyone has to see the mosque as a whole on entering.

Our conversation ranges from why in the early modern period; merchant capitalism takes off in Europe and not in the much richer and more powerful regions of India and China to how to be active as a socialist. Umer wants to set up a socialist community. I argue that the efforts of the great utopian socialists Fourier and Robert Owen all failed, no island of socialism in a hostile world is possible and that the community has to be a community of activists, a revolutionary party. Umer has avoided being a student so far, organising his own reading (from Marx to Nietzsche), being an activist – in an old style communist party - and traveling. He’s been to the north, visiting a Maoist village replete with red flags and chanting, surrounded by villages with Islamist flags and chanting, all extremely poor, none of them a model for anybody. Next year he plans to become a student, perhaps in Canada.

A school, a press conference and by bus to Lahore

Thursday 2 December
Up early to visit Raja Wajid’s school. Rana Wajid is a philanthropist, well off with time on his hands. It’s literally his school; he owns it, the Webster Grammar School, a franchise. Lots of bright coloured paint but, as far as equipment, is concerned all very spartan. Thirty middle class pupils, aged 4 - 10, with five teachers and a head, all women, in a large house. Over a cup of tea in the head’s office, I'm asked to give tips which I politely try to avoid. Public education is a scandal. It gets 2% of GDP , much of which is wasted or stolen. Not surprising when the military gets 40% of the state budget and, international debt repayment not much less.

Day Two of the textile workers course starts with how to get unity between men and women, a real discussion which the women in particular appreciate. At lunch time, we dash to a press conference, four or five journalists coming to talk about the jailing of the four workers after the July protest over wages – they demanded 17% and got 13% - inflation is now over 15%. The charges include “terrorism”, a measure of the ability of employers to bribe the police and get false charges laid. There’s also Chaudhry Tahir, LQM secretary from Jhang, a nearby city, who faces fake charges of attempted murder, theft and more. Against this the union has only its numbers but the experience is that when you get enough people properly organised, you can beat this kind of bullying. Chaudhry is proposing a long march from Jhang to Lahore, 130 miles, to the house of Shahbaz Sharif, chief minister of the Punjab, brother of Nawaz Sharif, former prime minister, and organise a hunger strike outside it. It sounds over the top but the brothers need votes and are full of populist rhetoric at the moment.

After that back to finish course and, together with Tariq, take the Daewoo bus back to Lahore, very comfortable - there’s a stewardess on the coach - and very punctual. Security is tight, our bags are checked before we get on the bus and once we are seated, each of us has our photo taken.

With textile workers and a pre-wedding celebration

Wednesday 1 December
Today with twenty or so mainly hosiery and garment workers, day one of a two day course. After a bumpy start with half the class - the women - arriving late, and then the usual nervousness as people slowly get used to being asked to do things in the class, like talk to each other and give reports, everyone starts to enjoy themselves.

We’re in the city’s large and tasteful art centre. There is a hideous ceremony outside with boy scouts saluting dignitaries (whom they’ve been waiting for, standing to attention, for over an hour). It’s the opening of an exhibition of school children’s art work about helping flood relief victims with the motto ‘Charity brings cheer’. The director of the centre, a thoughtful looking man in his sixties, appears. Tariq tells me he’s been in the job 17 years which means he’s politically skilled, able to survive all the political upheavals, using his position to keep in with all the “influentials” as they are called here. You have to know their weaknesses, Tariq says.

It’s a wonderfully determined and spirited group of mainly young workers on the course. The reports people give of what happens at work sound straight out of Engels. The illegally low wages, 5,000 rupees a month (about £10 a week), instead of the legal minimum wage of 7,000, often paid as much as or more than a month late, forced overtime at single time (the law says it should be paid at double time), twelve hour shifts, seven day weeks, harassment of women workers (there is a new law against sexual harassment here, though no reports yet of it making any impact), no first aid facilities, no masks to protect from the dust, no ear protectors to shield from the noise. And these are big factories, usually with hundreds of workers, sometimes thousands. So far there hasn't been any successful unionisation (though there is one company, Interloop, that follows the law, a model employer, a 'New Lanark'). Very interesting to have women students wearing the niqab taking a full part in the course including giving reports from their groups .

We are visited on the course by the weak looking Director of the Labour Department and his nasty looking deputy. Labour Departments have a reputation for taking bribes from employers but can be pressured e.g. by organising demos outside their offices. We are polite but give some tough questions making it clear that we aren't going to rely on him to get our rights, challenging them on the outrageous suspension of inspections of workplaces, ongoing for some years now. My suspicion is that they are here to see how confident the students are and wondering when this is going to turn into a much bigger movement.

In the evening, spent in the home of one of the organisers where I am given some wonderful food, I find out that many of the women had worked a night shift till 5am and then got some sleep before coming. At the end of the meal, Tahir, my host, suggests we go to a wedding. Or rather a Mehndi, a kind of stag night, the night before the actual wedding. A five minute walk brings us to a crowd of young men with music from two drums and a flute where we meet the serious looking groom, perhaps in his late twenties and his (male) friends and also Aslam from the LQM. The groom looks stressed. We enter a courtyard, with a colourful flat sided and topped marquee to give it atmosphere. I sit with Tahir and Aslam, among perhaps a hundred men, more coming in all the time. A large man offers me a drink from a stainless steel jug. As always, I politely decline water unless I’m 100% sure it’s OK. A moment later someone else accepts and then briefly I see the whiskey bottle that’s filled the jug. . Aslam declines as well, but most accept. Looking at the young men dancing, at least one is seriously drunk. The music switches from drums and flute to Indian disco and three keen dancers show off their synchronized routines . Suddenly, there’s a very loud crack and then another, a handgun being fired in the air. I persuade Tahir we need to be fresh for tomorrow and we leave. Tomorrow Aslam tells me that after we leave the police arrested four people, releasing them after a couple of hours.

Working with the LQM in Faisalabad

Sunday 28 November, Lahore to Faisalabad
A quiet day ending with a two and a half hours drive from Lahore to Faisalabad, the ‘Manchester of Pakistan’ with up to half a million textile workers. It’s a straight flat road into the setting sun across the dusty but fertile Punjab plain, through small towns and past a few very large factories. Wherever there is water, there is an explosion of green.

The next two days are with the power loom workers union, Labour Qaumi Movement, LQM, followed by two days with a group of home based and other informal sector workers. Late on Sunday we talk with a couple of LQM activists about what they’ve been doing over the last year and what we are going to do on the course. This includes battles between a thousand strikers and the police in July. Four members are still in jail. They come up with the idea of electing me as their international representative. I explain I’m honoured but there is already a global union federation of textile, leather and garment workers. Perhaps we could organise a trade union link on May Day between Faisalabad and Manchester.

Monday 29 November, Faisalabad
Fifteen or so senior LQM officers on the course but very few women. The LQM has about 20,000 members, almost all on insecure jobs without proper contracts. Many own their looms, working in their own homes as subcontractors. Before we start, I’m given a letter written by Samina, secretary of the LQM’s women’s section. Her mother has suddenly died and the funeral is today.

Our first activity is writing the history of the union over the last 12 months, picking the most important events, a strike over pay, with demos and battles with the police, a campaign against power cuts (which stop them working) and another against the bulldozing of people’s houses, a different group works on each one, putting a summary on a flip chart. They’ve won all these battles.

Then we are joined by six women, all home based workers. At first they say little and then a woman glove maker, working at home, makes a passionate speech about how they are robbed day in, day out by the middlemen, who pay 5 rupees (4 pence) for sewing a dozen pairs of gloves, an hour’s work. She goes on to explain how some of the women have had to lie to their husbands about what they were doing today so they could come on the course.

This evening, relaxing with Tariq and Aslam, LQM secretary, I find how the LQM has the respect of at least some of the employers. Suddenly, the chair of the power loom employers, Waheed, appears in the hotel. Excellent English, elegantly turned out and most polite, he stops for twenty minutes or so to pay his respects, show how keen he is “to have good relations with the LQM and tell us how grim the future looks, especially for small power loom workers.

Teaching and talking politics in Lahore

Saturday 27 November, Lahore
The students starting today come from a range of industries, home-based women workers, small factories employing both men and women and the brick industry. They’re in various organisations: the Labour Resource Centre, the Organisation for Women’s Rights and the Bonded Labour Liberation Front. This last is the brick kiln workers who are traditionally locked into debt slavery, passed on through the generations, possibly the most exploited workers in Pakistan. Bonded labour is now illegal but, as always, the problem is getting the law implemented.

As the participants shake off their nervousness , the course takes off and there’s a lively finish to the day discussing women’s oppression and how to fight it, with the men in one group and three groups of women.

This evening, Rizwan, editor of a smallish magazine with a serious interest in socialist theory, comes and we go for a cup of tea in Anarkali an old street now mercifully pedestrianised, full of cafes in the very centre of the city. A little later we are joined by first two and then more students. Anarkali is the traditional meeting place of the left, artists and the intelligentsia. It was once one of the great cultural centres of the Indian subcontinent but repression by military dictators and the rise of Islamic militancy, usually encouraged by politicians, has reduced it to a shadow of what it was. We drink lots of delicious Kashmiri tea, flavoured with almonds and finish agreeing that we will have a meeting tomorrow on ‘Education, capitalism and the student revolt in Britain’.

Sunday 28 November, Lahore
The facilities for teaching in the basement of the hotel are basic but OK. By far the worst problem is when the imam in the mosque across the road starts the midday prayers making a horrible noise through an ugly set of loudspeakers. Today we do 'The Great Money Trick taken from a chapter in Robert Tressell’s famous 'The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists, in which the hero does a role play with his work mates to explain how capitalism works, using bread and penknives and pennies. No pennies or rupee coins available so we use sweets and spoons instead of penknives.

The evening is with a dozen or so leftist students, in a student flat cum office in a suburb somewhere in this vast city with well over five million inhabitants. . All the papers here, including the Urdu ones, have front page colour photos of students and police confronting each other in Whitehall, they are keen to talk about the new movement in Britain. As often happens here, we finish with a long and useful discussion about basic socialist ideas. I get back to my hotel on the back of a motorbike courtesy of Irfan with two stops en route to meet with leftist friends of his, old and young, sitting at the roadside or in a café.