Faced with racism, bourgeois democracy is a dead end!

Following the deaths by stabbing of three children in Southport  on 29 July, far right elements used social media networks to exploit the situation. By peddling false information and rumours, they took immediate advantage of this terrible crime, not unsurprisingly singling out migrants as the scapegoats. Racist attacks escalated rapidly in the UK between 30 July and 5 August, targeting the places housing asylum seekers and immigration lawyers, mosques, and shops belonging to immigrants.

The riots were widespread, taking place in more than 35 locations, including towns and cities in Northern Ireland. While there was the clear ideological influence of the English Defence League (now officially disbanded) the demos were not centrally organised, but rather emerged through the existing far-right internet networks. They were the worst riots since 2011 and revealed the deep divisions within British society.

This wave of racist attacks is not an isolated case. In recent years, anti-migrant rhetoric and hate crimes have become increasingly prevalent in the UK. Such eruptions have also become a world-wide phenomenon. Brutal attacks on migrants and refugees by mobs made up mostly of the most socially disadvantaged sections of the population are now occurring in many countries around the world, from Chile to Kyrgyzstan and from Sweden to India.

Some striking examples:

- In Chemnitz, Germany, on 26 and 27 August 2018, two days of violent far-right demonstrations degenerated into the pursuit of people believed to be migrants. An angry mob of 8,000 people waving German flags, and some performing Nazi salutes, made its way through the streets, hunting in packs, attacking dark-skinned by-standers and inciting other individuals to join in the action. This attack, in response to the fatal stabbing of a German man by a Syrian immigrant, expressed a resurgence of hatred and the pogrom spirit.

- In Turkey, 30 June 2024 marked the start of three nights of hatred and racist attacks against Syrian refugees and their properties. In Kayseri, the initial resentment turned into a pogrom, burning down refugee homes, vandalising and burning vehicles, looting and damaging shops, all accompanied by anti-refugee slogans. In the days that followed, the attacks spread to other towns, where Syrians were once again terrorised. In Antalya, a 17-year-old Syrian was killed and two of his friends were seriously injured. The motive for these attacks was completely fabricated.

- In September 2019, immigrants inside South Africa were brutally attacked and their properties destroyed by local citizens in various towns and provinces across the country. The attacks began in the form of a demonstration with chants demanding that foreigners return to where they came from. During the demonstration, the mobs began looting property, destroying and setting fire to businesses owned by African immigrants. They also attacked those who tried to protect or prevent the looting or destruction of their shops. As a result of these attacks, twelve African migrants were killed and thousands injured.

The fruit of years of campaigning against migrants

The escalation of attacks on migrants, Arabs and black people is not happening in isolation: they are the result of years of racist policies and language peddled by politicians from parties on both the right and the left. The ruling class has always played the racist card when it suited them. But populists and the far right are always the most virulent and brutal mouthpieces of anti-migrant rhetoric, portraying the “other” as a threat to the well-being of the indigenous population. The deep-seated hatred they fuel against them finds ever more fertile ground in a capitalist society rotting on its feet.

In this distorted view of the world, migrants are responsible for the suffering of everyone else. This scapegoating implies an act of dehumanisation, in which far-right and populist discourse presents refugees as an alien species. Marine Le Pen of Rassemblement National, for example, has compared the influx of refugees into Europe to the invasion of barbarians. Laurence Fox, of the Reclaim Party[1]suggested that Muslims are invaders. Jarosław Kaczyński, leader of Poland's Law and Justice party, warned that migrants could bring all sorts of pests. Donald Trump has said that most immigrants from Mexico are rapists, drug dealers and criminals.

The bourgeoisie also uses riots to legitimise the expansion and reinforcement of its repressive apparatus. The head of the Police Federation (the unions for police officers) in the UK used the riots to call for more powers to be given to the police. In the aftermath of the riots, the UK government announced policing measures to combat the far right, including the creation of a "standing army" of specialist police officers who could be rapidly deployed to areas of widespread far-right rioting and violence. But as we said in an earlier article “No to divide and rule! Our only defence is the class struggle!”: The strengthening measures of repression will inevitably see them used against the future struggles of the working class.

A global migration crisis

This growth of the anti-immigrant rhetoric is linked to the increasing number of displaced people fleeing to the safer regions of the world, as well as the incapacity of the national bourgeoisies to organise their reception and integration into the country of arrival. But it is also important to note that the state is finding it increasingly difficult to counteract the every man for himself mentality in society, the fragmentation and profound erosion of social cohesion. In such conditions, discontent expresses itself often more easily through indiscriminate violence, serving as an outlet for the inhabitants in the regions most affected by the phenomena of decomposition.

Alongside all this is the general indignation aroused by the inhumane treatment of migrants, which leads to mobilisations aimed at addressing the problem: demonstrations that denounce the government's and political parties' racist policies, actions by minorities to defend migrants' homes or blockades to prevent the expulsion of migrants. However, certain sections of the bourgeoisie will still try to turn this indignation into a defence of bourgeois democracy, pointing to the alleged threat by far-right or fascist organisations.

The danger of anti-fascist ideology

The label "fascist", applied to organisations which call for, and in some cases conduct racist attacks, is intended to mobilise the population, including workers, against the threat the far right organisations represent to democracy. Faced with the so-called fascist threat, political parties from the moderate right to the extreme left often work together to mobilise the population behind the bourgeois state.

Such a manoeuvre was carried out at the beginning of 2024 during demonstrations in Germany in reaction to the Alternative für Deutschland and the Identitarian Movement, which had discussed a plan for the mass deportation of asylum seekers. When called upon by an alliance of civil rights movements, trade unions and political parties to mobilise, hundreds of thousands of people took to the streets in protest, actively supported by most left-wing organisations over three consecutive weekends against what German Chancellor Olaf Scholz had described as "an attack on our democracy".

These mobilisations against racism remain at the level of partial or "single issue" struggles, which "manifest themselves primordially at the superstructural level, their demands focusing on subjects that do not question the foundations of capitalist society, even if they may point the finger of blame at capitalism".[2]

When the question is not openly one of a demand for democratic rights, the political forces of the ruling class will do everything they can to prevent workers from making the crucial link between the struggle against racism and all forms of segregation or exploitation (against women, gays, etc.) and the historic struggle of the working class. The aim is always to divert the issue back onto the terrain of democratic rights and the dangerous illusion that the bourgeois state can provide an answer to all these criminal outrages. Contrary to what groups of the bourgeois left claim, the anti-racist struggle can never be the beginning of a struggle against the capitalist system.

Democracy is only one expression of the dictatorship of capital. The fight for democracy does not solve the problem of racism in society and only leads to the continuation of capitalist exploitation and domination. But the bourgeoisie takes every opportunity to divert the working class away from the struggle on its own terrain and into a dead end. This is a deliberate manoeuvre, as was the case with the mobilisations at the beginning of the year in Germany, to divert the workers from the class struggle, which is the only terrain where real solidarity with the wretched of the earth can be expressed.

The working class in Britain has a rich history; it was at the origin of the international workers' movement and fought for the international unity of all workers, whatever their origin.

- On 31 December 1862, thousands of workers gathered in Manchester and were the first to express their sympathy for the northern states of the United States and to call on President Lincoln to abolish slavery.

- In 2022-2023, workers of all colours, religions and ethnicities fought together to defend their living conditions against the cost of living crisis.

- In August this year, when almost 20% of NHS staff is already of non-British origin, there were expressions of solidarity with immigrant health workers, who are the most vulnerable in carrying out their duties.

It is struggles like these that hold the key to overcoming racism and all the other poisonous divisions in society.

 

Dennis, 5 September 2024

 

 

 

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[1] The Reclaim Party is a right wing populist party in the UK that was launched by former actor Laurence Fox in 2020.

[2] Report on the international class struggle to the 24th ICC Congress, International Review 167