students concerned about poverty in the global south and inspired by/sympathetic to the anticapitalist movement arriving at freshers fairs in london colleges over the last few weeks may well have been attracted to a stall belonging to one people first society, which organises homework clubs for inner city children and trips to development projects around the world.
the first page of the well designed brochure which many such students will have picked up proudly declares "people first society is a promising new society that seeks to place people at the centre of development. it promotes activities that provide a deeper understanding of human beings and their needs, activities that link theories to actual practises and open possibilities for alternative means of change" and goes on to boast that the society already has over 500 members at LSE and SOAS and will this year be expanding to other colleges such as UCL, Imperial, Kings and Oxford universities
on page two, however, the brochure takes on a more sinister tone: "putting people first to fight poverty - the world bank" reads the title. and further down the page - "ABOUT THE WORLD BANK: the world bank is the world's largest single source of development assistance to reduce poverty globally"
page three is even more sinister. it features an interview with a member of the society - "university years need not remain a battle of negative energies! we can still be optimistic, and practise good judgement, putting people at the best place possible in any given circumstances. whilst at LSE, i lived in ashwell house, and i came across writings of the blessed josemaria escriva, the founder of opus dei, an organisation within the catholic church that encourages people to live a fully christian life in and through their jobs and occupations."
[incidentally ashwell house is one of the two halls of residence in london controlled by opus dei. they say so on their webpage www.ashwell.dircon.co.uk - go there and check if you don't believe me (i know this might all be sounding like a nutty conspiracy theory - believe me i wish it was nothing more than that) also the email address for the society given on the brochure is @ashwellhouse.co.uk and all their meetings seem to take place there]

for those of you who've never heard of it, opus dei claims to be a legitimate organisation within the roman catholic church (and strictly speaking it is which shows what a fucked up outfit the rcc is but i digress) but is in fact a scary secretive brainwashing outfit, like an ICC or church of scientology that only targets catholics. it is also notoriously right wing - its founder the aforementioned cursed (well blessed by some punk rocker in a silly hat but cursed by vast numbers of ordinary catholics like myself) josemaria escriva was a facist (and unlike some that's not a label i use lightly).
much more information on opus dei can be found at the opus dei awareness network site www.odan.org also lots of testimonies from former members on www.mond.at/opus.dei/

clearly we have to do something about this. as it is many people who might well have been involved in or close to our movement will now be exposed to the cynical, lying propaganda of our oppressors, and a few of these may well suffer the far worse fate of being recruited by this evil organisation
i have a few concrete ideas for ways in which we can take action. (if anyone else has any suggestions then please comment on this article and say so)

1)if you are a student (or if you know anyone who is) be vigilant - look out for posters put up by these people and take them down. if they try to set up a society in your university, approach the student union and get them dissafiliated (all student unions should have strict regulations to protect their members from the activities of cults, so all we should have to do is convince the student unions that opus dei is a cult. which of course it is.)

1b)and while you're at it (for those of us in london), get the student unions to remove all refences to the two private halls of residence in the capital which opus dei owns from their accomodation lists - if nobody applies to live there they'll have difficulties running the things... [the halls in london are ashwell house (all female) and netherhall house (all male). if anybody knows of opus dei halls of residence outside london please say so and people can target those as well]

2)also in the colleges we need to befriend people in genuine development societies so that if "people first" turn up and try to get involved in some joint activity with them we can warn them of the danger

3)in the longer term (and this is something everyone out there can help with, not just students) we need to make sure that we the genuine anticapitalist movement has enough of a presence at freshers fairs and in the colleges generally to attract all those people who would otherwise end up with only people first society for company.
(oh and perhaps as a first step towards this we could all stop bickering among ourselves - surely i'm not the only one to see the irony in the fact that one lot of people have of late been accusing another lot of something stunningly similar to the process i've been describing above, when all the while the real thing was going on beneath all of our noses...)