Let us be clear, as the three main political parties jostle with each other as to how far they can ratchet up their racist political agendas, it is not the BNP that are waging imperialist wars in order to plunder loot from beneath the soil of other peoples countries; it is not the BNP increasing police powers at home; it is not the BNP waging war on the working-class both here and internationally; it is not the BNP that have locked up 30,000 immigrants in immigration prisons; in is not the BNP bragging about how many people it has deported; it is not the BNP boasting about how many people it will deport to their deaths; it is not the BNP that have cheated the tax payer through financial corruption; it is not the BNP who are attacking asylum seekers, refugees and economic migrants with racist, deeply oppressive laws supported by cheer leader lackeys in the media who spread myth after lie after myth. It is the Labour Party.
Pointing out the contradictions and gross hypocrisy of those activists and Labour-Left MP’s that care more about protecting narrow class privileges and who steer potentially revolutionary anti-imperialist campaigns into the arms of Labour Party counsellors and MP’s is a task that requires an ongoing vigilant analysis if a serious democratic grass-roots movement that can fight racism and fight imperialism is to be built.
This is crucial. While those on the Labour left or their Labour allies call for tactical votes for Labour in order to keep the popular racism of the BNP out, they cover up for Labour state racism and play into the hands of the fascist BNP, who adopt a socialist veneer that tells the white working-class that Labour has deserted them in favour of the middle-class while simultaneously stooping to gutter racism. The net result is that in calling for tactical votes for Labour, they deceitfully disguise the fact that Labour has always looked after the better off sections of society and is and has always been a thoroughly racist party, prepared to do what ever it takes to protect British Imperialism.
Campaigning against racism is “safe”; as long as you blame racism and do not explain racism. Playing the blame game, pointing self righteous fingers at the working-class and relegating racism to the level of individual racist comments on the bus or the popular racism of the EDL or the BNP will do nothing to fight racism and fight imperialism effectively. An international class based analysis must be developed. Racism is a middle and upper-class ideology. It is a ruling class ideology. The Prime ministers, Presidents, politicians, news paper editors, journalists, corporate business bosses, the leaders of the police and army, the civil service - the state - are all middle and upper-class and all act in the defence imperialism. Racism divides working-class people. Racism had poisoned the working-class.
That is why making the connection between racism abroad and racism in this country is important. It is right to make the link between attacks on Muslim people in oil rich lands with racism against Muslims in Britain; of course it is not about religion - it is about economics. Relegating the conflict down to the level of religion is what the imperialists do in order to side step the economic arguments about capitalism, imperialism and Zionism - at the same time this makes it easier to terrorise Muslim communities in England in order to turn the wider population against them, convince them that it is indeed about religion, play in to the hands of bigots and terrorise the Islamic community from becoming militantly anti-racist and anti-imperialist. Labour Left and Trade Union motions in support of the Palestinians is one thing, but how about leaving Trade Unions that are still affiliated to the thoroughly racist, deeply oppressive, anti-working class, capitalist, imperialist, Zionist Labour Party in the first instance?
It is essential to make the link with racism at home and racism abroad, just like solidarity against apartheid South Africa had to be linked to the fight against racism within Britain or attacks on the catholic Irish nationalist community in the North of Ireland and the hounding of Irish people in England in the 1970’s and 1980’s was also essential - and we must also do the same with attacks on asylum seekers today. Britain cannot justify its invasions and occupations of other countries or support for the murder of the Palestinian people by the terrorist state of Israel, without racism in this country too.
In this regard we must never forget the role of the police force. The UK Police Force are the enemies of the working class; they are racist; they are the 'army' of the ruling class on the streets - don't believe the neighbourhood watch propaganda, glossy news letters and sympathetic BBC police drama's. Remember the fallen that have been persecuted, hounded and slain for scores of decades because they are working-class or because their political opinions challenge ruling-class hegemony; or because they are the wrong religion or colour or creed. How many more people must die at the hands of the cowardly police, protected by batons, hand cuffs, shields, helmets, padded uniforms, reinforcements, the government of the day and hirelings in the media?
NAZI Germany didn’t become fascist over night. We must be aware of the totalitarian tip-toe. There are more CCTV cameras in this tiny country than anywhere else on earth, and the police are using drones to fly above our towns and cities, the same drones being used in Afghanistan as British soldiers murder there way across that country, just as British soldiers have unleashed murder upon large swathes of the middle east, displacing people and creating asylum seekers. Soldiers are not heroes.
Some of the problems that asylum seekers face are practically the same as the British working-class: lack of decent pay, secure long term employment, poor housing conditions, crumbling school buildings and a deteriorating health care system, where usually only the more professional middle-class have the confidence to ensure that they receive the treatment want.
Working-class people face high levels of unemployment whilst asylum seekers are forbidden to work; working-class people live in poorly maintained council housing whilst asylum seekers are housed in areas targeted for demolition. Added to this, the apartheid National Asylum Support Service system was set up in 1999 to replace statutory benefits and local authority provision for asylum seekers, because of that, asylum seekers have been compulsorily dispersed around the country and given meagre benefits – whilst not being allowed to seek employment. These racist measures by the Labour Party deliberately work to segregate asylum seekers from British working-class people, preventing any unity to overcome the problems both groups of people face. This goes unreported in the corporate media.
Refugees are seeking asylum as a result of the consequences of British, American and other western countries exploitation, this parasitism leaves devastating effects on the local environments as well as the civil and political infrastructures of those countries. This then leads to internal conflicts; murderous militias armed and funded by British companies; civil war, poverty and starvation. This is racism, and this is imperialism. That is precisely what the UK, EU and US continue to peruse and why vital natural resources such as gold, silver, tin, copper, cobalt, gas, oil, land and even water are being sucked from other countries by capitalist bandits and imperialist pirates, leaving farm land and rivers environmentally ruined and populations devastated and living in misery in what were once bountiful countries. Today, we are witnessing this racist plundering imperialism in its most brazen form in countries such as Afghanistan and Iraq - where British racism and imperialism is displacing tens of thousands of people whilst at the same time discriminating against people fleeing such conflicts.
The ruling class then scapegoat asylum seekers, refugees, economic migrants and white working-class people for the problems they create, problems such as unemployment, homelessness and a deteriorating welfare state, the very things that effect the vulnerable the most - problems created by bloated blood sucking capitalism; a classic ruling-class tactic, blaming the weakest, most vulnerable people in society for the problems created by the wealthiest.
Therefore, we must expose the Labour Party and its allies for their historical reactionary role within the working-class, acting as a brake on any potential revolutionary movement by deflecting attention onto small grotesque groups like the EDL and the BNP, effectively covering up for state support for capitalism, imperialism and Zionism. Any serious anti-racist anti-imperialist movement would crush alienated swaggering screwballs like the EDL and the BNP very quickly. This offends those who consider themselves anti-racist but still spin illusion about old and new Labour: to which the response should be that it is ridiculous for anyone to think that its is totally inappropriate to be exposing the Labour Party and its support for capitalism, imperialism, Zionism, Israeli apartheid and racism at an anti-racist demonstration or meeting.
Therefore, let us not forget the Palestinians around the globe, the Palestinian Diaspora, the largest asylum seeking community in the world, numbering millions of people; ethnically cleansed from their land by genocidal acts of terrorism committed by Jewish Zionists in the 1940’s; even being squeezed from their land before that barbaric, racist, colonial settler ideology of Zionism was ever thought of and scribbled onto a page, as far back as the 1880’s infact. The conflict in Palestine is not just weeks or months or years or decades old - it stretches back to the 19th century.
I make the point again, the British ruling class, its multinational companies and its Labour government support countries like Israel because Britain is an imperialist country. Britain depends on the exploitation of other countries for its massive wealth. That is why we can enjoy what is left of the welfare state in our country, own mobile phones and drive petrol guzzling cars. This provides us with a standard of living that makes our lives comfortable. We need to recognise where that wealth comes from and attack it; only then can we build a world based on mutual assistance.
There has not been one mention in the media of the help socialist Cuba has given to devastated Haiti, even though socialist Cuba is a small and blockaded country. Approximately 400 doctors and healthcare workers are helping the Haitian people free of charge. Cuban doctors are working every day at 227 of the 237 communes of that country. On the other hand, no less than 400 young Haitians have been graduated as medical doctors in Cuba.
However, in the midst of the Haitian tragedy, without anybody knowing how and why, thousands of US marines, 82nd Airborne Division troops and other military forces have occupied Haiti. Worse still is the fact that neither the United Nations Organization nor the US government have offered an explanation to the world’s public opinion about this relocation of troops. There's a lot of people giving money to help Haiti, and a lot of media coverage of the west’s aid effort, but no talk of why Haiti has suffered so badly; no talk of the fact the 60% of buildings in Port au Prince, the city that was hit, were poorly constructed and even unsafe in normal conditions; no talk of why Haiti is such a poor country; no talk of how there are over 10,000 US troops in Haiti apparently to stop looting; how aid has not yet been distributed; no talk of the long history of exploitation by the US and France. Yes, the US government has promised aid but that in no way amounts to what they have took over the years. This is imperialism. Haiti of course needs short term aid right now, but that doesn't answer why it is poverty stricken or solve the problem in the long term.
What the US is doing now amounts to military aggression, one commentator said that the victims have been turned into criminals, and if Haitians don't have a say in the relief effort then what is happening is simply a take over. The US wants to open up and expand markets and force more poverty onto the people of Haiti. Fidel Castro said: “There can be no other form of cooperation worthy of being described as cooperation than fighting in the field of ideas and political action in order to put an end to the limitless tragedy suffered by a large number of nations such as Haiti.”
And it is not just our wealth that depends upon racism and imperialism; it is our limited democratic freedoms, which also come at the expense of those suffering in Palestine, Iraq, Afghanistan, Africa and South America. As long as Britain can profit from racism and imperialism, as long as a relatively high standard of living can be provided in Britain, as long as the British people can be bought off, then the ruling class will have no need for fascism, particularly when they have so willing a volunteer in what is the Labour Party to fulfil that role anyway.
In the Middle East, Israel plays a crucial role in maintaining British and American exploitation, by acting as the attack-dog of Britain and the US in their attempts to dominate that region. Therefore, it is the duty of all of us in Britain to stand alongside the Palestinian people in their heroic opposition to imperialism; to stand by all those both here and abroad that are fighting racism and fighting imperialism.
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