World View 1983

Scan page 4

OF SOLIDARITY

= yew pumpruet j'um ire sulunor rurum jor sournern AMCa l Solidarity. 90p plus 20p postage. available via Socialist . Organiser, 28 Middle Lane, London N8 8PL. of the Jesuits in Central America - replying to accus ations that his society was practising revolutionary Marxist subversion' Many Catholic priests in Central America fully sympathise with movements like the Sandinistas and the FMLN; many of their bishops feel that it is prudent to distance themselves politically from the US-supported dictatorships. In this situation, the aim of the Pope's visit in Central America has been to strengthen the most conservative wing of the Church.

INCREASING repression against opponents of the regime in Zimbabwe has this week escalated into a full-scale clampdown. "Four black townships in Bulawayc ...' were sealed off by government troops", , reporred the Guardian on Tuesda! 8th, as "detentions, beatings and house-to-house searches" continued.

The repression is directea mainly against supporters of Joshua Nkomo's ZAPU, and rustified by allegations that cher are in league with South Africa. Whatever the Tuch of that, the campaign stainly serves to strengther. = nex post-independence →: as the black ass ine Mustine rigitis against black workers. Colin Foster reviews "World View 83" NOT every reader, suppose, will find 'World View 83' as useful as we do at the Socialist Organiser office. Whenever there is a news item to cover in a country which we don't know much about (and that happens pretty often!), this book is our best convenient source of up-to-date background information.

But _any activist concerned to base their views and arguments on hard fact could hardly spend £6.95 better than on this book.

First World View was first published in France, in 1982: An English 1982 edition came out later. The 1983 edition has been prepared jointly by Maspere in Paris and Pluto Press in London.

The core of its 500 pages is a country-by-country, or region-by-region, survey of the world. For each major country or region there is a brief article, from a radical left point of view, on recent developments; a map of the region; economic and social statistics (including such information as countries' main suppliers and customers, not usually available in such summary compilations); some basic political information; and recommendations for further reading.

Other useful features are world statistics (the leading mineral producers, the hundred largest industrial corporations, etc.), and a chronology from July 1981 to June 1982.

Improvement

I would have a few suggestions for improvements. Much of the first 150 pages is given over to brief articles on recent issues in world politics. The selection of issues is too haphazard to make this section useful for reference, and the articles are too brief to make it useful for anything else. should be scrapped.

Addition

The country/region surveys come . under three separate headings (hot spots/major countres/ regions, and' this makes reference awkward. They should be put together in a single consecutive list.

Finally, a really valuable addition to the country surveys would be a brief chronology of (say) the last ien years' major events in each country This must have opened the way for the CDU/CSU to tar the SPD with the 'anti-industry' brush of the Greens.

The SPD awkwardly tried to combine an appeal to young voters sympathetNora namnalot fram tha fonin lict Gam SPD, and some West German revolutionaries have been trying to develop links with the SPD Left and with trade union militants.

Those are beginnings to build on in the struggle to come.

A QUESTION • 90p Bob Fine Lawrence Welch

Scan page 5

no.123 March 1983 Page

----- pull-quotes -----

Trade Unlons da.