On April 27, comrades of the Revolutionary Socialist Movement (RSM) in Nigeria, got their hands on our new newspaper! They already intervened in a pre-May Day rally and are getting ready for the intervention in the May 1st demonstrations. Producing a paper in the horrible conditions faced by the workers and the poor in Nigeria is a very important achievement by itself. Socialist Voice was produced with the aim to bring the ideas of revolutionary socialism to wider layers of Nigerian workers and youth. Today we publish the editorial note of Socialist Voice.
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Socialist Voice is the official newspaper of the Revolutionary Socialist Movement (RSM). The paper is published in print and is also available online via the website www.revolutionsocialist.org and in PDF format.
Socialist Voice aims to provide political analysis of events as well as reports from workers and youth struggles, in communities and social movements, work places and factories, schools and universities. It will also provide international news and analysis.
Socialism is an idea which is more than timely, given the barbarism of capitalism all over the world. The thirst for socialist ideas as an alternative to capitalism is now in discourse in large parts of the world. But pro establishment media, firmly in the hands of the ruling class, will of course hide this, in the same way as they refuse to give a voice to working people. The establishment media are sheer propaganda tools in the hands of the ruling class, defending the policies of the rich, hiding and justifying the harsh realities of living under capitalism, distorting the truth.
We therefore need your support to build our own independent working-class media, produced by and accountable to ordinary people fighting for social change.
Socialist Voice will not only tell the story of frontline struggles breaking out, from the point of view of struggling workers. We will also provide the socialist analysis, strategy, and tactics needed to fight and win concessions. We will try to intervene in the struggles that take place and build mass solidarity campaigns amongst the broad population. Our aim is to help mobilise the working people against the government’s anti-poor and anti-working-class policies, for improved living conditions and a better wage, for proper Education and Health for working class people and the new generation and, ultimately, for the socialist transformation of Nigerian society.
Socialist Voice will also devote time and space to provide socialist education to our readers. Its articles and columns will strive to educate in socialist ways of thinking, in the history of our movement and in the theoretical ideas of Socialism. We will aim to encourage solidarity and commitment to the movement and provide the vision of an alternative society. There will be “lessons” in every part of the newspaper, especially for workers, youth and masses in struggle.
Socialist Voice will aim to awaken the working class to fight for its own emancipation. We repeat Karl Marx’s aphorism: “Workers have nothing to lose but their chains. They have a world to gain.”
Socialist Voice is also internationalist. We work with co-thinkers, revolutionary socialists, in many countries and on all continents, fighting for socialist change internationally and not just on a national basis. Workers have common interests irrespective of national origin, language, color, religion, etc. The ruling classes try to use differences between workers in order to divide them – that is how nationalism, racism and sexism have come about and are used by the ruling class, particularly the far-right wing parties, to divert the anger or despair of different sections of the working class against each other. We fight against all these manifestations of the exploitative character of the capitalist system.
We fight against war, which is predominantly the result of imperialist interventions by the stronger capitalist countries against weaker nations, particularly against semicolonial countries. We support the national rights and the right of self-determination of suppressed national minorities. We support the demands of struggling masses all over the globe, for a better life and for democratic and national rights, as we have seen in the last few years in dozens of cases all over the planet.
These are what Socialist Voice is standing for. We aim to make Socialist Voice an informative, educating, inspirational newspaper which endeavors to expand the discussion around the growing wave of resistance against the establishment.
Those who are writing for Socialist Voice are involved in community struggles, in the socialist movement and in socialist initiatives. We want to promote Socialist Voice as a “mouth piece” for the working class and the mass movements.
We would like to bring home to our readers that even their minimal involvement in the fight against capitalism is of major importance in the epoch that we are passing through.
With your solidarity and support, the socialist movement can continue to fundamentally reshape working class politics throughout Nigeria in the years ahead.
