By RT Correspondent
ISLAMABAD: Speakers at a function organized in connection with International May Day on Tuesday emphasized the need of collective efforts for the welfare of working-class and suggested a collective movement in this regard with non-traditional groups to expend its scope. The cultural event near the Quaid-e-Azam University campus in connection with of International Workers Day, was organized by People’s Rights Movement (PRM) in which other progressive political organizations, intellectuals, students, professionals and workers of the twin cities participated in large numbers. The event included revolutionary hymns, performances by local Potohari and Punjabi musicians, a short play on the alienation of workers and students prepared by PRM activists, and speeches on the current problems confronting the working class. Speaking on the occasion, Aasim Sajjad of PRM said that Pakistan is currently in the grips of a nationwide movement of lawyers, but, despite the grievances of the working class, youth and many other sectors of society, the movement has not been politicized and transformed into a nationwide struggle for change. He said that this is the outcome of two decades of the State’s political engineering due to which students, workers, intellectuals, professionals, artists and all other political and cultural groups are now alienated from one another and paralyzed by a feeling of helplessness. He said that in the present political environment, there is a fresh chance of such linkages being built again, and May Day represents the perfect symbolic start of such a regeneration of progressive organic politics. He urged the hundreds of students, workers, intellectuals and professionals present on the occasion to recognize the need for a collective struggle against “dictatorship” and the ravages of the capitalist system. Speaking on the occasion, Shahram Azhar of the Communist Mazdoor Kissan Party (CMKP) pointed out that the fragmentation of the working class in Pakistan explains the ability of the government to reinstate the 12-hour working day. He reminded the audience that it was to secure the 8-hour working day for which the heroic workers of Chicago gave their lives on May 1st, 1886, and if the working class and its allies in Pakistan do not organize themselves, the ruling class will continue to eat away at the rights and freedoms of the workers that have been secured throughout the past 150 years due to the struggle of successive generations of workers. Other speakers highlighted the need for the working class movement to expand its scope and include the struggles of non-traditional groups such as katchi abadi dwellers, fishing communities, and those displaced by mega development projects. The historical marginalization of women within the working class movement was also highlighted that amongst the fastest growing sectors of the informal labour force are home-based women workers who are subject to unimaginable exploitation due to the sub-contracting system. Among the many revolutionary poets whose hymns were sung on the occasion were Faiz Ahmed Faiz and Habib Jalib while the play presented depicted the contradictions rife within the ruling class at this time and the opportunity for the working class and its allies to build a movement for change.