SUPPORT THOSE FIGHTING RACISM AND POLICE VIOLENCE VICTORY TO THE YOUNG PEOPLE OF THE NORTHERN TOWNS! The uprisings by black and Asian youth against racism and police harassment in Oldham, Burnley, Leeds and other northern towns must be supported. These young people are right not to accept racist attacks and to take their fight-back to the streets in order to defend their homes, lives and communities. These racist attacks do not, as the media would have us believe, have their origin in fascist groups such as the BNP and National Front. Such groups are a symptom of something much deeper and rotten in this society. Black people and other ethnic minorities in Britain have always suffered racism and discrimination; they have always suffered police violence and contempt. Take for instance, the cases of Roger Sylvester, suffocated by eight police officers in January 1999; of Christopher Alder, who choked on his own blood after being beaten by police in April 1998; of Harry Stanley, shot by the police because they thought he was Irish; of Errol McGowan, his nephew Jason and his friend Johnny Elliot, all found hanged in suspicious circumstances after police refused to take action against racial attacks. Far more black people are murdered each year by racist police, prison officers and immigration controls, than by fascists. These are the forces of the state. WHERE DOES RACISM COME FROM? Britain is an imperialist country. The ruling class make super- profits by exploiting the poor and oppressed countries and, in times of prosperity, by allowing immigrants from these countries into Britain to take-on the worst and poorest paid jobs. Racism has its origins in this imperialist system. Racism serves to justify the exploitation of the peoples of the oppressed countries by making them out to be lesser human beings. In Britain, the forces of the state are used to brutally intimidate black, Asian and other minorities, to `keep them in their place' at the bottom of the pile and to prevent them from making common cause with the poorest, most exploited, section of the white working class. LABOUR PARTY - RACIST PARTY The Labour government directs the forces of the state on behalf of the ruling class. Labour governments and the Labour Party have always supported imperialism. They have a long history of racism. The present Labour government introduced the Asylum and Immigration Act in 1999 and made tightening of immigration controls a major part of its 2001 election programme. Capitalism faces a crisis of profitability at present. Manufacturing industry is being moved out to countries with lower labour costs. It no longer requires large numbers of poor and unskilled immigrant workers. The purpose of the Immigration Act is to keep them out of Britain while allowing in the rich and skilled people it does need. The Labour government's racist rhetoric about `bogus asylum seekers', the degrading system of welfare vouchers and the inhuman dispersal and treatment of refugees in detention centres did much to create the climate for the present escalation of racist attacks. It is this climate that gives the green light to the BNP and National Front. Despite appearances, fascists do not crawl out of the woodwork, they are the consequence of a capitalist system in crisis, just as they were in Germany, Italy and Spain in the 1930s. Fascism is the form capitalism takes when the mask of democracy has to be removed. Driven by the needs of their backers in big business, the Labour government has done much to prepare a fertile ground for fascist activity - its attacks on the poorest sections of the working class, forcing them into low-paid, part-time and temporary work; its widespread use of surveillance and riot police; the so-called anti- terrorist legislation aimed at criminalising dissent; its authoritarian attacks on anyone who doesn't fit their image of normality, that is anyone from the homeless to young mothers, its elitist education policy, its dismantling of health and welfare services, its support for anti-union legislation. FIGHT RACISM! FIGHT IMPERIALISM! Racism cannot be defeated by community-relations councillors and the like, nor by more multicultural understanding nor by Stephen Lawrence type enquiries, useful as these may be at times. Nor can racism be defeated simply by smashing the BNP and National Front, essential though this is. Racism is the product of the economic system under which we live. In imperialist Britain there can be no struggle against racism that does not also challenge the imperialist roots of that racism. That means working class people uniting to fight against their common enemy - the Labour government and the capitalist system that tries to keep us all `in our place'. SELF-DEFENCE IS NO OFFENCE FIGHT RACISM! FIGHT IMPERIALISM! http://www.revolutionarycommunist.com http://www.rcgfrfi.easynet.co.uk/frfi ---------------------------------------------------------------------- ---------------------------------------------------------------------- ------------------ Read the best anti-racist, anti-imperialist newspaper in Britain - FIGHT RACISM! FIGHT IMPERIALISM! Every issue of FRFI: � supports the fight against racism and fascism � brings news of anti-imperialist struggles around the world � exposes the Labour Party � fights for the interests of the working class and for socialism For more details of FRFI and events in the Midlands phone 0780 3939 713 or 020 7837 1688 or write to :- FRFI, BCM Box 5909, London WC1N 3XX
