HAPPY BIRTHDAY CJA!

The spark of the largest grassroots direct action movement in a decade, the Criminal Justice Act, is one year old. Happy anniversary. Other struggles come and go, but the fight against Michael Howard's little crowd-pleaser has become a fight for our very own cultural identity. Now that our skin and bones have effectively become the front line in the war on political and social dissent, the choice of whether or not to stand and fight is arbitrary.

Justice?, like most of the anti-CJA groups, no doubt reached its zenith just before the Bill became law and it's doubtful we'll ever reach those dizzy heights again . But was it ever just about the CJA? Wasn't it about bringing people together at places like the Courthouse, Justice?'s most successful squatted community centre? This not only acted as a springboard for SchNEWS, Conscious Cinema and a million other dreams and ventures, but got people off their arses, thinking about things for the first time, doing things they would normally never do, talking to people they'd never usually talk to. Showing just what we can achieve without the politicians and bureaucrats - creating a so-called DiY culture, but a culture which always seems to flourish when people are under threat or in struggle.

And is Justice? really about getting the CJA repealed - end of story? Please write to your MP and sign our petition ... we don't think so.

As political parties lurch further to the right the vacuum becomes ever more clearer for us to fill. Direct action gets results but it isn't just about being against things. It shouldn't just be about single issues but challenging the whole way society runs:

And all of this about having fun, being yourself and breaking out of the work-consume-die mentality that is killing the planet. So what of the future? One year on, there is a vision, a mushrooming of positive solutions. We need to work towards sustainable lifestyles as well as fighting back.

Merseyside is seeing an escalating wave of industrial action. In the last few months dockers, fire-fighters and residential care-workers have taken industrial action over worsening terms and conditions at work.

Nearly 500 dockers are entering their fifth week on strike. The Port Authorities who made a tidy 35 million last year have been trying to smash the unions power for some time. They want a seven-day week, three-shift day with no union recognition! The 'wildcat' strikers - triggered by an almost random sacking of five workers -have had no money, no official backing from their union and so no strike pay. However, they have organised themselves so that hundreds turn out for regular mass meetings and rotas ensure pickets at six gates into the docks 24 hours a day.

In October all 500 sacked workers attempted to return to work with signed legal documents drawn up by the Transport and General Workers Union (TGWU) but were met with a massive police presence who threatened them with the new 'illegal trespass' laws. However under an 1848 by-law dockers are allowed to go into the docks as far as the water - so the police then changed their tune and said it was 'unsafe' to enter with such a large crowd!

On Tuesday Ken Saro-Wiwa, one of the main activists against Shell Oil's destruction of the Ogoni Lands in Nigeria, was given a death sentence.

The Ogoni land, is one of the most polluted places on the planet, with fountains of oil pouring into villagers' fields, contaminated water, leaking pipelines, pools of sulphur and drainage problems. Shell were allowed to do this because oil is Nigeria's biggest commodity. It accounts for 90% of its national revenue and 50% of the oil extracted is by Shell. Kens brother, Dr Owens Saro-Wiwa said "The land is so devastated environmentally that fishermen and farmers cannot sustain their lives." The Ogoni are forced to import goods to live. They have no choice but to take direct action to save their land and their whole way of life.

Ken belongs to the Movement for the Survival of the Ogoni People (MOSOP), who began a campaign against the destruction and complete burnout of their land 5 years ago. Their aim was to force the oil giants to repair the environmental damage done and to increase the share of the oil revenues to the 500,000 Ogoni people. MOSOP's continual protests eventually forced Shell to halt its operations in the middle of 1993. The demonstrations continued and the Nigerian millitary began using mobile 'kill and go' police to attack them. Ken was framed for the murder of four Ogoni - two of whom were his in-laws and another two who were his close friends. It was alleged that he did it because they sold out to the millitary but the trial was purely politically motivated and the millitary used bribery and harassment to deter witnesses for Ken.

Now he faces death - a verdict condemned by Amnesty International and other human rights groups and people from all over the world. When news reached England 35 Reclaim the Streeters getting nowhere outside the motor show, invaded the Nigerian Embassy smashing windows, pouring red paint everywhere and doing a banner drop. There were 16 arrests under the Public Order Act.