Emancipation & Liberation

by Jim Aitken

Each night last week
I have caught his eyes
pleading for
support and understanding

Daily detainees
for being himself
saying the wrong things
that he thought were right

Speaking out of turn
his essential self
expressing himself
amid hostile glares

As they shout him down
detain him further
for interfering
with assessments

The new addiction
of a sick system
screaming to be free
from doses of tasks

And of pointless tests
that control them all
mould them for the workplace
like work-house before

I think of Hegel
the dialectic
of master and slave
neither of them free

Both suffocating
from the prescription
to avoid real thought
and open windows

Some of Jim’s writings are in From the Front Line of Terror, published by the Stop the War Coalition & the Palestine Solidarity Campaign. £3 from SPSC, Peace & Justice Centre, Princes St., Edinburgh, EH2 4BJ.

As the Scottish Executive launches its official anti-racism poster campaign, Mary Ward provides an alternative, but more effective, way to beat racism.

Scotland one nation many cultures! the official message is emblazoned on billboards across Scotland in the attempt to convince the chattering classes that the Scottish Executive is tackling racism. We can hide behind this glossy veneer and pretend that racism is something which is a problem in England and that Yildiz Dag, Surgit Chokaar and Dungavel detention centre for asylum seekers are mere blips in a happy picture that would not be out of place on the cover of Watchtower. The Race Relations (Amendment) Act 2002 came into effect on 30th November 2002. This is quite a significant piece of legislation which could have an effect on local authority workplaces, particularly to our practice in schools (if anybody bothers to put it into practice) and Jack McConnell Scotland’s First Minister has proposed the introduction of a law to make religious hatred an aggravated offence.

The Scottish Executive is convinced they are playing their part in eradicating racism in Scotland.

The annual STUC anti-racist rally took place on 30th November 2002 in Glasgow and although the numbers were down on the previous year, the platform was adorned by Margaret Curren (Scottish Justice Minister), Bill Speirs (STUC General Secretary) and Shona Robison (SNP MSP) showing that the rally continues to have the support from the highest levels within the Scottish political establishment. There is probably more going on in raising the questions of racism and sectarianism than there has been for many years in Scotland.

Capitalism: the true cause of racism

Yet there is something rotten at the very core of this official anti racism. It is the result of years of safe, white, liberal multiculturalism. It is complacent misguided and ultimately useless. Of course I would agree that racism needs to be tackled at a multitude of levels: in the streets, workplaces, communities and schools but we are in the process of seeing the buck being passed – racism is portrayed as the fault of the poor, working class and needs only to be tackled at that level. There is no real understanding of institutional racism and even when that is acknowledged, the solutions are based around sorting out individuals concerned.

The true cause is clearly the result of the capitalist system which rejoices in dividing the working class along ethnic and religious lines. Its real roots lie in the heart of the establishment itself. The ‘officials’ refuse to consider that government legislation and rhetoric on asylum seekers fosters racism. They refused, at the anti-racist rally, to discuss Dungavel detention centre for asylum seekers or to recognise that the justice system under Labour has failed the Chokaar family and many more victims of the system.

Across Britain, black deaths in police custody are swept under the carpet and families are left broken-hearted looking for answers and justice. Black people are eight times more likely to be stopped by the police than non black people and meanwhile the killers of Stephen Lawrence, and Surgit Chokaar walk the streets taunting the bereaved families.

We need to look at how we, on the revolutionary left work to defeat, not just the racists, but also the official non-racists who disarm the movement.

Just over one year ago, (December 2001) the report into the race riots in Burnley, Oldham and Bradford was produced. The report was an indictment of multiculturalism which did not encompass anti-racism. Far from communities being assimilated into a happy Christmas card melting pot, it was found that the communities operate on the basis of parallel lives. In other words separate development. In other words, apartheid Britain.

All official bodies from the police to local councils were slammed and in an effort to show the fair handed (or institutionally racist) nature of the report itself, so were the inward looking Asian communities. Blunkett’s response was incredible. He demanded that the Asian families learn to speak better English. He of course missed the point that these were British Asians in these conflicts. Their English was as good as yours or mine and they believed they were defending their communities against the fascist BNP.

This, however, must not be seen as Blunkett supporting racism. On the contrary, he is giving the only type of response available to these official anti-racists – blame the individuals and miss the culpability of the system in creating the problem.

The establishment cannot tackle these problems in other than a reactionary way. Hence we have this year the wide promotion of One Nation values and citizenship, which are at the heart of the new legislation, alluded to earlier. We see the attempt to establish forced multiculturalism and assimilation from above. Meanwhile the BNP continues to find electoral support not from neo Nazis but from working class women and men who turn on their neighbours because of the failures of official multiculturalism and endemic institutional racism and the failure of the state to address issues of poverty, poor housing and alienation.

Le Pen & the French presidential elections

The European situation last year added an interesting dimension to the problem with the defeat of Jean Marie Le Pen in the second round of France’s presidential elections. Millions of French people took to the streets to show their opposition to the ideology of the leader of the French National Front. The best the left could do with this anger and militancy was to secure the re election of Jaques Chirac, (the lesser of two evils approach?). Chirac of course would never be the prisoner of the left. On the contrary, he immediately began to appease the right through security measures relating to immigration controls. But at least he was officially anti-racist!

The SWP suffers from this distorted logic in its front organisation the ANL. Julie Waterstone, full timer in the SWP famously, at a series of ANL meetings, showed how united fronts must guard against popular frontism. She told the meetings of an incident where people joined an ANL protest even though they were against asylum seekers because they hated Nazis more. Julie saw this as a positive development. The ANL logic is vote for anyone as long as they can defeat the BNP. The same logic, which defeated Le Pen and put back Chirac.

The idea that this will lead to the defeat of racist ideas is patent nonsense just as Blunkett’s English speaking classes are nonsense, just as the one nation approach is nonsense. The ANL is useful in mobilising, particularly young people, to confront organised Nazis but it provides no political agenda which can take working class people forward. The ANL has a great appeal for anyone with a genuine desire never to see the rise of fascism again but it is a mistake to think that if we get rid of these nasty people in jack boots then we’ll all be sorted. Generally, where the neo Nazis have raised their heads in Scotland they have been met by working class direct action – not always led by the ANL! Communities in Edinburgh, Glasgow, Dundee and Aberdeen have taken on this scum (whether it appeared in bovver boots or suits) and sent them packing.

But with another BNP councillor elected in Yorkshire in January 2003, what about the working class people who are voting for them? As capitalism fails the working class, Blair cannot deliver anything better than the Tories did before him. Where does the independent working class revolutionary alternative come from? Certainly not from the cross class collaboration of the ANL.

The hysteria surrounding asylum seekers in Glasgow threw up an endemic racism which has nothing to do with Nazis and requires a different way of fighting. Racists in Britain are seldom stereotypes of Hitler or even Nick Griffin. In fact, many people with racist ideas would have nothing to do with Nazis in any form.

The hard thing to come to terms with, particularly on the left, is that racism is found in us, our friends and family and our workmates. To think it is confined to a small group of boneheads is a very dangerous illusion. Even the Scottish Executive recognises this!

The truth about asylum and race is not being taught in our schools and certainly does not permeate even our officially anti-racist media.

Establishing a culture of fear

Having watched Michael Moore’s powerful and analytical film, Bowling for Columbine, it becomes clear how the sustained permeation of a society by a culture of fear, can create a truly terrifying result. The monster created via the effects of television, newspaper, film and all official state apparatus, including schools, allows not just a few but many to become xenophobic, racist and violent. The imminent war with Iraq is just another manifestation of this only on a global scale as Gulf War I, Nicaragua, and Vietnam were before it. In fact such a culture at home is a necessary prerequisite for making war abroad. We surely have to believe that we ourselves are about to die if we are to be prepared to sacrifice the lives of others.

When we look at how asylum seekers are being linked to terrorism in Britain at this time, we can see the horrible prospect of creating a climate where anyone who is Asian or Muslim is a potential target for racism and for a denial of their civil rights.

Already cries can be heard for any suspects to be deported before the result of their asylum application is known. Opinion polls consistently show that people across Britain think there is a problem with asylum seekers entering this country. And a media which consistently show foreigners as criminals or a potential physical threat which casts a shadow of suspicion on anyone who appears foreign.

No amount of ANL Nazi bashing will halt this. And Scotland is not immune despite its glossy spin on multiculturalism. Our ethnic communities are at risk – right here, right now. Not from fascists but from frightened communities who are being prepared for their country attacking and killing men women and children in Iraq. There seems to be reluctance on the part of the SWP to participate in broad based, anti-racist campaigns, which involve a bit more than instant confrontation and hunt the Nazi.

Where do we go from here? On the one hand official anti-racism which denies the right of any confrontation in favour of being nice and official anti-Nazism which cannot survive unless the BNP continue to exist?

Effective anti-racism

When it comes to fighting racism, we should not settle for liberal multiculturalism, but demand effective anti-racist education at all levels in society. A couple of hours of racism awareness in workplaces is seen by many workers as tokenistic and irrelevant. Such is the quality of much of the training.

Meaningful anti-racism means telling the truth about Britain’s colonial past. We must face up to Britain’s role in the subjugation ofother nations and cultures. The way we built an empire, our use of slavery and how we continue to create situations worldwide that require people either to fight for their lives or flee, all need explored. We need only think of Palestine, Afghanistan, and Iraq to get the ball rolling. As our population and skill base declines, we should publicly be making a case for economic migrants to come to Scotland – End all immigration controls! We must work to turn the slogan Asylum seekers welcome here! from a forlorn wish to a statement of fact. For this to happen, political and economic problems need to be clarified so black and white can fight on a class basis not on the basis of ethnicity.

Matt Siegfried, a socialist and trade unionist activist from Detroit, examines the motivation behind the US government’s obsession with war against Iraq.

This article originally appeared in Fourthwrite.

The United States is on the verge of war with Iraq. A section of the Bush administration, reflecting a section of the US ruling class, has long been pursuing an assault on Iraq to overthrow Saddam Hussein. It will come as no surprise to anyone that this group is intimately associated with the oil and, to a lesser extent, the military industries.

Dick Cheney, Vice-President, former Defence Secretary and chief of the Halliburton Corporation, is the main representative of these interests in the Bush administration. Halliburton, at a nominal value of over 18 billion dollars, is the largest oil supply company in the world. Giant oil corporation, Chevron-Texaco, has named one of its tankers after Condoleeza Rice, Bush’s National Security Advisor! If Chevron-Texaco needs parts in Nigeria or new oil wells in the Arctic wilderness, then Halliburton is there. The runways that launch U.S. bombing sorties on Afghan wedding parties and the prisoner camp at Guantanamo, in occupied Cuba, were both built by Halliburton.

This is not a conspiracy, nor is it a coincidence – it is how US capitalism works. The government sees its primary role to defend and extend US corporate interests. There is a constant revolving door between government and business. This, of course, is not a uniquely American reality but one shared with all the capitalist governments of the world. Utilising the bellicose mood of the post-September 11th political atmosphere, the US right wing has made a concerted effort to win the government to launching a new Gulf War.

The hawks have been in the ascendancy since last spring, though not without contradictions and real opposition from parts of the ruling class, government and military, who fear some of the consequences of a new war. These consequences include the prospect of a jump in oil prices and the inflationary pressure that would affect the already troubled economy; the further destabilisation of a region already seething from the
War on Terrorism, continued sanctions on Iraq and US patronage of Israel; and strains on an increasingly active volunteer army’s resources, to name but a few.

Old and new enemies

Some of them want revenge for their failure to dislodge Saddam Hussein in the last war and all the attempts made over the last decade to isolate and replace him. This looks and sounds a bit like the red-faced rage of the school-yard bully whose attempts at intimidation go unheeded. He can not remain a bully if others refuse to be bullied. Another motivation is that the US administration has little to show for its War on Terrorism. Mullah Omar and Osama bin Laden have, so far, been unwilling to offer up their corpses for a trophy photo. Though the imperialists have clearly made many gains in Afghanistan, the looking-and-no-finding war seems to have powered down without any of the big issues being resolved in the administration’s favour. A war on Iraq would deflect charges of being soft on Al-Qaeda and the Axis of Evil from the far right of American politics and coincidentally, some Democrats. When other enemies prove too elusive, Saddam’s nefarious star tends to rise in the US government’s psyche. They seem to wilt without an enemy to compare to Hitler.

Oil, more oil and inter-imperialist rivalry

Oil remains a motivation – and not just oil within the boundaries of Iraq. While strictly economic aims are sometimes simplistically laid out as the primary reasons behind US war policy, it would be foolish to underestimate the power of oil interests in shaping American policy.

Competition among the imperialist powers over access to and control of oil has increased since the collapse of the USSR. One reason for this is that previously off-limits resources of the former Soviet Union have opened up, leading to a new Great Game for the riches of the new successor states in Central Asia and the Caspian Sea. These are now conveniently hosting U.S. military bases after the war in Afghanistan. Why leave all that oil to the Russians and the Central Asians? The privatisation of the old state energy companies is a potential windfall of many billions of dollars for US oil interests. All that is required is that the new companies partner with the US corporations and upgrade their facilities with the parts and know-how of the Halliburton Corporation.

Another reason is that the old equilibrium between the imperialist powers facing a common Soviet threat has broken down. This means that each is more likely to pursue its own energy goals, including their own direct access to oil. This is what is at the heart of France’s opposition to sanctions on Iraq. While many countries buy oil from the IPC which was nationalised in 1972, France is the only Western power which has partial ownership of the IPC. The sanctions prevent France from fully exploiting that relationship.

The US and UK, with four of the top five oil companies, were frozen out of investment in the IPC and therefore control over 10% of the world’s oil. Is it really any surprise then, that these two countries are the most adamant about continuing the sanctions and going to war, whatever the consequences for the Iraqi people? Japan and Germany have almost no indigenous oil resources, so the second and third largest economies in the world have to buy their way into the oil market. While their wealth provides them with access, they can not ‘protect’ their interests militarily, due to being defeated powers in the Second World War.

Thus they remain beholden to the US to protect their oil access. For the US, control of oil means control over its friends who are also its rivals. In the largest gas bill in history, the US made Germany and Japan cough up billions of dollars for their Kuwait oil in the last Gulf War. Recession and political problems at home make Germany and Japan much less willing to do this again.

Pax Americana – a policy shared by Republicans and Democrats

The more mercenary war-mongers in the US government see control over oil as the starting point of their policy, rather than the regime of Saddam Hussein. When they look at maps of the world they see resources and zones of influence, rather than countries and people. With all that has happened in the last decade they see an urgent need to reshape parts of the world in their own interests and, by virtue of being the only superpower, almost the ordained obligation to do so.

This attitude is not new with the Bush administration. The humanitarian interventions of the Clinton administration were rooted in the same arrogant view, which holds that the Middle East is too important to be left to its people. The goal of this patrician group is to impose a Pax Americana on the region. The costs and consequences of such brutal folly can only be guessed at, but the destruction Israel is inflicting on Palestine, is a good place to start. Iraqi oil is part of the motivation. Oil in general is a greater motivation. But the root of the cowboy attitude is the nature of capitalism and imperialism in general, whoever practices it. That is the violent imposition of the interests of the few, the rulers of the capitalist great powers on the vast majority of the world’s people. The ruined lives of the many underlie the profit and the power of a few.

Another World is Possible – Socialism

We, the working people of the world, are not simply exploited masses to be pitied. We are a power, who, by fighting for our own interests, fights for the liberation of all humankind. Crises are currently shaking continents as a consequence of the neo-liberal crusade of the last twenty years. From Jakarta and Buenos Aires, from Johannesburg and Jenin, from Seattle and Genoa, people have marched under the banner, Another World is Possible. In the face of another US-led war, it is time to give that world a name – Socialism – and urgently, to begin to change it. We need a common, rational and shared utilisation of what nature, finitely, has endowed this planet – that is Socialism.

Working people, the exploited masses also exist in the US, though usually more silently than in the rest of the world. Workers in the US need to enter this struggle with their own voices, rather than fall behind those voices who would speak for them. Should the US government succeed in launching their war, despite the mounting protest, we will continue to oppose them. If they triumph in their plans we will demonstrate the perfidy of their victory and use the lessons learned to resist the next war, which will surely come. Wars are in the nature of imperialism and we must press home the reality – to defeat war it is necessary to defeat capitalism.

The Republican Communist Network is proud to be part of the SSP, which has consistently upheld the line of opposition to the threatened war on Iraq. It has led the anti-war movement in Scotland on a principled basis. The SSP and the RCN are completely opposed to any war against Iraq regardless of any subsequent resolutions or votes in the United Nations. We are aware that present in the anti-war movement are elements who will drop their opposition once a second UN resolution has been agreed. The UN is a veil for imperialism. The five permanent members of the Security Council – US, UK, France, Russia and China – all have weapons of mass destruction. They have the power of veto while continuing to bully and bribe other states into adopting their line.

We condemn the vicious dictatorship of Saddam Hussein and the Baathist Party, both of which have enjoyed the support of the US and UK states in the past, when brutality against Iraqis and others, met immediate imperialist needs. We support those democratic and socialist forces struggling to overthrow the Iraqi regime. However, this does not include those who were previously enthusiastic supporters complicit in this torture-house of the Iraqi people. Remember Afghanistan!

Never before in history has such a vast and internationally coordinated opposition to a war existed before a conflict has exploded into full scale war. Using the excuse of the atrocities of September 11, the US is taking this opportunity to implement their plan for total war and full spectrum dominance. Furthermore, if they get their way, this will only be the first of many wars. As Gore Vidal has put it, US state policy now means permanent war for permanent peace! Opposition to specific government policies and actions and support for anti-militarist reforms will not be enough to counter this new phase of imperialism. We now have the makings of a genuinely international movement, being formed from the anti-globalisation and anti-war struggles. We must counter the imperialist drive for permanent war with the need for permanent revolution.

The main enemy is at home

Our main target must remain the ruling class here in the UK, represented by Blair and his clique. They are a vital support to Bush and the US state. The socialist strand in the anti-war movement in the UK therefore must play a pivotal role. The state’s difficulty must be our opportunity. We must continue to support the fire-fighters in their struggle, giving them confidence and strength to pursue their fight for a proper pay settlement while defending the quality and quantity of the service they provide. Prescott’s proposed enforced settlement heralds a new more general drive against trade unionists, particularly in the public sector. The use of the armed forces to cover fire duties weakens the war drive. The ruling class always claims they have no money to improve wages or public services, but they always find money to wage war and destroy lives. If there is a war, thousands of Iraqi men, women and children will be slaughtered and our social services will continue to crumble.

However, we can stop this war. If, following on from the mass, international demonstrations on February 15, the Labour government ignores the will of the people for peace we must intensify our struggle to include strikes, more demonstrations and organised, mass civil disobedience. Blair’s Labour government has no democratic mandate to pursue this war.

To end war, end capitalism

The imperialist drive for war is inevitable but it’s success is not. The 1914-18 war was stopped in part by mutinies and strikes including the Russian Revolution. Similar forces undermined the US war against the Vietnamese, which of course the USA lost.

To end, forever, the threat of war requires the ending of capitalism, a system based on profit competition and environmental destruction, and its socialist transformation to a society based on the needs and co-operation of the entire human race – communism.