Fight Racism! Fight Imperialism! no.11 – July/August 1981
Imperialist banks
While Tony Benn and the middle class socialists of the CPGB drone on about Britain becoming a ‘colony’ and `having a Third World future’, the British imperialist banks are setting about their real business quite unmoved. Out of the growing worldwide poverty and starvation British banks are continuing to accumulate vast amounts of wealth. Readers of FRFI 6 will remember that last year British banks were the most profitable in the world, having four of the top ten most profitable banks, with Barclays heading the list. Well this year, in spite of Mr Benn, they have gone one better. Barclays is still the most profitable bank in the world. And five of the top ten are now British, their total profits amounting to over £2,000 million.
Last year the total assets abroad owned by the British private sector increased from £177,390 million to £206,035 million, an increase of nearly £29,000 million. A remarkable `colony’ this which has such enormous assets abroad and insists on increasing them. But then as you will be told by those in the ‘Third World’, who in fact have no future while the rapacious British banks run wild, British imperialism is unfortunately very much alive and well.
TUC rides imperialist gravy train
The parasitical dependence of the labour aristocracy on imperialism is revealed by the recently leaked details of the TUC’s secret investment portfolio. Valued at £ 3/4m, some £440,000 consists of holdings of company shares. An examination of the shares held shows the following.
- The firms to which the TUC has lent money operate in over 70 oppressed nations.
- Despite the call by the liberation movement for disinvestment more than 50% of the TUC’s equity portfolio is in firms which trade with or invest in South Africa.
- At least three of the firms own or control subsidiaries in Chile where the fascist junta has murdered thousands of workers, and pushed living standards to below starvation levels.
- The portfolio includes investment in firms which rely on the most blatant and ruthless exploitation of oppressed peoples. For example — BROOKE BOND, who pay their workers on their Malawi tea planta-tions 18p per day! For example — LLOYDS BANK, which has not only participated in a huge Deutsch-mark loan to South Africa, but which recently gave a loan to the fascist junta in Chile, and which operates a subsidiary Banco de Desarollo e Inversion SA, in El Salvador.
- Many of the firms operate in countries which are either colonies or ruled by imperialist stooges who repress trade unions and the anti-imperialist movement. These include South Africa, Namibia, the zionist state of Israel, South Korea, Taiwan, Singapore, Puerto Rico, Hong Kong, Argentina, Bolivia, and Dominican Republic. In these countries, repression and torture are suffered by the workers every day.
- Many of the firms operate in countries where Britain is waging war to maintain imperialist control, such as Ireland and Oman in the Gulf.
- Some of the subsidiaries are well known exploiters of black and immigrant workers, such as the Wimpy chain. One company controls Mansfield Hosiery Mills, where black workers fought a bitter strike over job discrimination and the union colluded with management, to preserve the privileged position of white workers.
This is the true face of the imperialist TUC.
For Services Rendered
The honours list — that occasion when the British ruling class award each other obscure feudal titles for services to the state — has been drawn up again. And we see that the priorities of the imperialists have not changed.
For services to export (the export of misery and poverty) Chief Executive of Rio Tinto Zinc Alistair Frame has been awarded a knighthood. Frame’s service to the empire is that he busted UN sanctions in order to rob Uranium from the people of Namibia for use in British nuclear reactors, that he stole the land of Australian aborigines to obtain bauxite and diamonds, and that he destroyed the land of Panamanian Indians in order to extract their copper.
Also knighted was Shapoor Reporter for selling to the Shah of Iran the Chieftain tanks that were used to butcher the Iranian and Kurdish people. As well as a knighthood Reporter received £1,000,000 for clinching this little deal.
And for selling to oppressed nations the high tar cigarettes that for health reasons can no longer be sold in Britain and America, Peter Macadam of BAT industries became SIR Peter.
We sincerely hope that Her Majesty’s royal carpet was stained badly by the blood soaked hands of these criminals as they knelt to take their prize.
Selling the paper
Selling Fight Racism! Fight Imperialism! is always exciting and rarely difficult to do. In general it is welcomed with interest and enthusiasm by thousands of workers in Britain (and we may add in the USA and Ireland).
It is interesting to note where problems in selling the paper do come from. The police and petty state officials naturally detest it and systematically harass and arrest our sellers. But the recent experience of a young black seller shows that the TUC too detest FRFI and seek to prevent its circulation amongst the working class. He and he alone of all the hundreds of paper sellers was instructed to stop selling at the TUC People’s March for Jobs on 31 May. TUC stewards took affront after watching him sell enormous numbers of FRFI to enthusiastic buyers. Naturally, the comrade refused to stop selling and asked the TUC steward why he a black seller of Fight Racism! Fight Imperialism! was being picked on.
The same seller experienced the same special attention from a steward at the National demonstration in London on 13 June organised by the London H-Block/ Armagh Committee. Again he naturally refused to stop selling and inquired why he of all the numerous paper sellers was being picked on.
The answer of course is the ingrained racism and pro-imperialism of the TUC and the hostility of the middle class socialists to FRFI
