Editorial, A FIGHTING AND FESTIVE DAY, in LAW ANIMATED WORLD, 15 May 2015, Vol. 11, Part 1, No. 9 issue

A FIGHTING AND FESTIVE DAY

No words suffice to hail this historic day of working class struggles, full of sacrifices and ordeals, that gradually led to each and every human right we the masses in its posterity enjoy today in international and domestic law spheres. The heroic martyrs of Chicago – Engel, Fischer, Parsons, and Spies – who were hanged or rather ‘strangled to death slowly’ on the gallows, who fearlessly swung singing the Marseillaise, the then international revolutionary anthem, and Lingg who preceded them by suicide, can never be forgotten and indeed it did eventually happen as Spies was reported to have shouted in his last moments, “The time will come when our silence will be more powerful than the voices you strangle today.” Their sacrifices for the movement demanding eight-hours working day have not gone in vain and in every civilized country of the world it has become a norm, and often also a rule, and further shortening of the working day as also declaration of a longer weekend holidays have been progressing due to the concerted agitations of the toiling masses on whose labor and creative talents this entire modern economy is, and is being, built to ever majestic proportions. The resolution of the International Social Democratic Congress 1904 at Amsterdam declared: “The International Socialist Congress in Amsterdam calls upon all Social-Democratic Party organizations and trade unions of all countries to demonstrate energetically on May First for the legal establishment of the 8-hour day, for the class demands of the proletariat, and for universal peace. The most effective way of demonstrating on May First is by stoppage of work. The Congress therefore makes it mandatory upon the proletarian organizations of all countries to stop work on May First, wherever it is possible without injury to the workers.” And this was to be a step in the struggle for empowerment of the masses everywhere. So, it is very apt and essential that 1 May be and is celebrated the world over as the international working day – as a day of liberation, of festivity and of struggle of the masses. Thereafter, in course of time, the May Day has been declared a public holiday in several countries and in our country too; but, unfortunately, our Courts, which still seem to be steeped in the mire of feudal culture in this matter, neglect this historic occasion deliberately though they so easily shut themselves down on many an undeserving occasion. Well, eppur si muove… §§§