Fight Racism! Fight Imperialism 228 August/September 2012
Racism in Lincolnshire
Fight Racism! Fight Imperialism! received this email from Lillian Madden, whose parents were Jamaican immigrants, documenting her fight against racism in Gainsborough, Lincolnshire. Racist oppression is endemic in Lincolnshire: local agribusiness depends on the ruthless exploitation of immigrant labour from Portugal and more recently Eastern Europe. It is estimated that a dozen or so gangmasters hold 70-80,000 immigrant workers in thrall, forcing them to live in appalling accommodation and paying them a pittance. In Boston there have been two attempts to organise anti-immigrant marches; in Gainsborough itself an EDL supporter was jailed for three months for having 17 anti-Muslim posters in his windows.
‘I am sending you this email hoping that you would publish my story because I have tried to go to The Voice newspaper and they have been ignoring my emails.
For the past eight years my teenage daughter, who is now 18, and I have been subjected to direct racism, physical assault on two occasions, and neighbour abuse and harassment from people and the police in Gainsborough where I used to live and where I had been brought up as a young child.
In 2003 my daughter and I went to live in Gainsborough to stay with my father. However, as soon as we moved in, we suffered constant racism and physical and verbal abuse. This included a police officer who made a racist comment and who said laughingly said that being called a ‘nigger’ is no worse than being called a pig. His colleague asked ‘what are you doing here anyway?’.
In 2005 I made an official complaint to the Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC), as a result of which a police officer was disciplined and another police officer was given ‘words of warning’. Although I believed the Lincolnshire police to be institutionally racist this was not acknowledged in the IPCC report. The Lincolnshire police did not have a Hate Crime Policy until I made the complaint.
I also made a complaint in 2006 and 2011 because my daughter and I were still being subjected to racism. On 14 June and 24 August 2011 I had bricks thrown through my windows which just missed my head. The police said that I was exaggerating and they wrote a letter stating that they could not protect me. I decided to flee my family home with my daughter because we were not safe. The police knew who the perpetrator had been because they told me and my family that they had caught him with evidence on him. However the next day he was released because he had a alibi.
There have been numerous racial incidents against my daughter and I which I have documented in a diary and I have newspaper articles regarding the severity of problems my family have been subjected to. However the police and the local MP, Tory Edward Leigh, and local LibDem councillors Pat O’Connor and Mark Binns choose to ignore what is going on in this racist and bigoted town.
I am still trying to pursue action against the police because I believe my daughter and I should receive justice after losing the human right to our home which has been in the family since the 1960s. My parents who are Jamaican came to the United Kingdom to work hard and support our family. I and my daughter, both of us born in this racist country, have, like many black people, lost all faith in the justice system.’
Action against Atos in Glasgow
As the war on welfare intensifies it is the poor, sick and disabled, the people on the front line of the cuts, who are being forced to fight back. Increasing public awareness of the Coalition’s punitive Work Capability Assessment (WCA) is opening up new possibilities for resistance.
The company hired by the government on a contract worth over £100m to carry out the WCA, private French multinational Atos Healthcare, has had its test centres picketed and occupied. On 29 June Fight Racism! Fight Imperialism! in Glasgow united with the Black Triangle Disability Rights Campaign, the Accord Campaign and the Merrylee Matters Campaign, to successfully picket an Atos centre – the first in a series of monthly pickets. A planning meeting ‘War on welfare: time for action!’ was held on 27 June. In this ongoing struggle it is vital to remember that it was a Labour government which first introduced the WCA and hired the services of Atos in 2008. Founding member of the Black Triangle campaign John McArdle pointed out that the Labour Party is as much if not more our ‘class enemy’ as the ConDem government.
The British Medical Association (BMA) has condemned the WCA and called for its immediate removal. This is welcome but will not be enough to mount a real challenge to the ruling class agenda. Resistance must be built from the street level up involving and in solidarity with the claimants under attack.
Thousands of claimants have been driven into deeper sickness, poverty, suicide or death by the WCA. All those who have been or know someone who has been targeted need to unite and to resist. 40% of claimants who appeal against Atos decisions are successful, rising to 70% for those who take up legal representation.
In addition, in July the minister for disabled people, Maria Miller, announced the closure of 27 of 54 Remploy factories which help provide jobs for people with disabilities. With all 54 factories expected to be shut down in the long term around 2,800 jobs will be lost. It is the duty of all progressive people to unite around the banner of the Remploy workers and incapacity benefit claimants for welfare, disability, employment and ultimately human rights. Future plans for anti-Atos work in Glasgow are currently being put in place and a Facebook page has been set up,‘Glasgow Against Atos’. To get involved contact 07734 348 065 or send a facebook message.
DOMINIC MULGREW
Glasgow, Scotland
Remember Peter Norman
The usual cropping of the photograph of Tommy Smith and John Carlos’ Black Power salute at the 1968 Olympics regrettably always leaves out the third man on the podium, who supported their anti-racist demonstration – Peter Norman. This white Australian, who wore the badge of the Olympic Project for Human Rights on the stand, was in with the plan for the protest and he suffered, like Smith and Carlos, for his political courage. He was an Australian 200m champion in 1966 and broke world records during the heats of the 1968 Games. From a poor background, having to borrow running shoes to compete, he was left out of Australia’s squad for the next Olympics despite qualifying 13 times over. He was not invited to participate in a VIP lap of honour at the 2000 Games in Sydney. As a teacher of physical education in Melbourne he was a union activist and addressed rallies of striking dock workers there. His nephew Matt Norman made a movie of his brave uncle and comrades and friends Carlos and Smith, called appropriately Salute!, which was released successfully in 2008. Peter Norman died in 2006. We salute you!
MICHAEL MCGREGOR
Dundee, Scotland
Desperate protest at Woodhill CSC
Constant lock-down whilst prison officers are paid to sit drinking tea, eating cakes and watching TV has finally led to protest by prisoners housed in the brutal Woodhill Close Supervision Centre (CSC) in Milton Keynes.
No access to phones, showers, time outside, in-cell electricity switched off, mail not being delivered and the unit governor refusing to do anything about it has resulted in seven out of the 16 cells being seriously damaged. Prisoners took to smashing their cells in frustration as the officers sat back, knowing it would create more work hours for them and more pay. The wing was flooded several times until water was turned off and prisoners left to go thirsty. Then the fires started…
Prison cells are very confined spaces with little ventilation, so setting a fire inside can be extremely dangerous, especially when the cell has no call system for alerting staff, as it was smashed days before. Normal practice would be to remove the prisoner from the cell of the fire, but not at Woodhill CSC. A small hole big enough only for the fire hose to fit is opened in the cell door, then the cell is flooded, with the prisoner and his belongings left drenched. Prisoners are then left in these wet cells full of smoke as a punishment. For one prisoner it was different. During the protest he attempted suicide by means of a cell fire, having first barricaded his cell. This was the second time in two months that he had done this and he had to be dragged from the cell semi-conscious. Prison staff then callously carried him to the top of the stairs, stood him up and left him to fall. In less than 24 hours he was transferred before he could make a complaint.
The cells have now been repaired and the prisoners all blamed for the events, but at least three of the victims of the Woodhill CSC managed to get a transfer as a result of the
protest.
Woodhill CSC prisoner
Socialist footsteps
I was very touched to read the letter from Michael in Dundee about his father in FRFI 227. Those parts of the struggle he mentions in Ireland and South Africa and the big rally at the Pier Head in Liverpool and the visits to the Soviet Union and Cuba were like retracing my own footsteps and those of my family. And as a small act of solidarity with Michael’s dad, Gerry, I am enclosing a cheque of £50 towards the FRFI Fighting Fund. Please let Michael know how much his letter was appreciated.
GARRY DEARDEN
Essex
FRFI: what a socialist newspaper should be
I want to tell you how informative and instructive I’ve found your newspaper FRFI. I was sent the April/May and June/July editions and have been reading them article by article. Look at the difference between your newspaper and the newspaper and magazine published by the Socialist Party. Yours is a proper newspaper – theirs is just a recruitment sheet. Yours is an exemplary publication. I am just impressed with your clear thinking. You make absolute sense to me. I feel sick after reading one edition of The Socialist. Sick of hearing about the Socialist Party. They ram themselves down your throat. Your publication tells the truth. And that is what socialism is all about or should be.
Your positions on Cuba and Venezuela reflect my own thinking. My heart is compassionate and I am coherent and comprehensive in my thinking. I like to look at the world as a whole. Much of my thinking came out of the USSR. I am opposed to America and its criminal practices. They are the biggest terrorist force in the world. There is no depth to which this dead-hearted monster won’t stoop.
I like the practical and ordinary nature of your newspaper. It is giving people ideas. It is helpful and detailed and open minded. It is original news reporting. We need information because the official sources of news are not trustworthy. The truth is being blacked out. We can’t trust their newspapers or television channels or the government or the official opposition. The enemy relies on a system of permanent lies. Everything they tell us is garbled and cannot in any way illuminate the actual state of affairs. The press is used to cover up their illegal activities. The police are not directed to investigate the real criminals in our society. They are directed to intimidate and harass and bully and persecute and prosecute the people through all possible avenues. We are being criminalised whilst the mass murderers are knighted and live in golden palaces. The police are part of the looting system since they ensure it can be left to do as it wishes without any interference. We can’t separate the police from the looting and mass murdering rich.
Elijah Traven
Hull
