Fight Racism! Fight Imperialism! No. 104, December 1991/January 1992
Ten years ago, many thousands demonstrated against racist attacks in East London. Now racism is spreading across Europe, new immigration and asylum laws are being designed and in Britain the political parties are sharpening their racist rhetoric for the next election. A new European-wide anti-racist and anti-fascist movement is required to stem the tide. We look at the growing racism and fascism in France, Germany, Belgium and the Asylum Bill in Britain.
‘What is at stake is both the defence of black and immigrant groups and also the future of the left in Europe. If, from the collapsed ruin of what has passed for socialism and communism in Europe, a healthy new movement is to be built, it will have on its leading banner ‘Against Imperialism, Against Racism, Against Fascism’, or it will have no banner at all.’ FIGHT RACISM! FIGHT IMPERIALISM! December 1990
Since these words were written their truth has been demonstrated by the burgeoning of racism in Europe, both governmental racism and its jackboot offspring of fascist thugs. Fascist parties are making serious electoral gains in France, Germany, Austria and Belgium. Black people and immigrants face escalating attacks in all European countries. The European anti-racist movement is small and fragmented. It is urgent that a strong, European-wide movement against all racism and fascism be built. Chris James, Nicki Jameson, Cat Wiener and Maxine Williams report.
GERMANY
Racist outrages, including the killing of three and the wounding of countless more immigrants, have escalated to heights unprecedented since the days of Nazism in Germany. In late September, Hoyerswerda, a small German town, became the symbol of the march of fascist forces, German popular response and government collusion. For in Hoyerswerda, following five days of vicious assaults on asylum seekers’ hostels, the immigrants were removed from the town on buses. A carnival atmosphere prevailed, as the population turned out to cheer their departure and stone their coaches. The government’s response has been to take steps to curb the numbers of asylum seekers in Germany.
In what was West Germany, there have been 210 arson attacks on immigrant hostels this year. In former East Germany, where anti-fascist laws were repealed at the time of unification, there have been about 70. Hundreds of attacks on individuals have taken place. In one attack Soviet children recovering from the Chernobyl disaster were attacked. The German police force, although large and well-equipped, has proclaimed itself mysteriously ‘powerless ‘to deal with such attacks. It has, however, managed to attack anti-fascist demonstrations in Berlin using teargas and riot police. Bourgeois political reaction has encouraged the fascists to greater heights of brutality. When they attack hostels, they see immigrants removed and indeed; in a chilling parallel with the 1930s, put into ‘collection’ camps. The German police have called for immigrants to be put in ‘concentrated accommodation’.
When the fascists launch a wave of attacks they hear the main political parties say that immigrant numbers must be dramatically cut. Christian Democrat Chancellor Kohl and the Social Democrats speak with one voice about this, although they differ about methods. Kohl has gone so far as to say that fascist outbreaks can only be stopped by reducing immigrant numbers. Rather like saying that the rise of Hitler could have been stopped by deporting all Jews from Germany.
The large amount of popular support for racist policies was shown in the recent Bremen elections. The extreme right-wing Deutsche Volksunion (DVU) got more than five per cent of the votes, winning six seats. The Christian Democrats surged by seven per cent, whilst the Social Democrats who, despite their best efforts, are seen as more liberal on immigration, lost 11 per cent. The increase in the DVU vote came mainly from working-class, male, previously Social Democrat voters.
During the euphoria with which commentators greeted German reunification in 1990, they repeatedly ridiculed the notion of Germany returning to its fascist past. Democracy was too strong, they said, thus ignoring much of Germany’s twentieth century history and most significantly the lack of any serious de-nazification campaign in West Germany after 1945. That ‘democracy’ is now facing its first serious, post-unification test.
The results look unpromising to say the least. A recent poll shows that 44 per cent of (West) Germans believe that Jews have too much influence in the country, despite the annihilation of six million Jews during the 1930s and 1940s. Germany, now a nation of 79 million and unquestionably the economically strongest in Europe, is in the grip of a nationalist and xenophobic fever. Its ‘democratic’ politicians have fed the fires that leave immigrant hostels in ashes and immigrants themselves in ‘concentrated accommodation’.
Such fires, once begun, rarely end at Germany’s borders. Particularly so today, when Germany’s geographical and economic position will make it both the dominant power in Europe and the power most likely to make gains from the fractures and fissures of what was socialist Eastern Europe.
The anti-fascist movement in Germany based on immigrant groups, left, liberal and church groups faces an uphill task and needs support. They face a fascist movement with an estimated 40,000 activists and a willingness to engage in armed attacks, and a state which is colluding with the fascists. The anti-fascists who stand guard at night outside hostels may not only be trying to keep immigrants alive, but democracy itself.
BRITAIN
‘We cannot open our doors to all comers just because London, Rome and Paris may seem preferable to Bombay or Algiers … We have need of a perimeter fence around Europe’ JOHN MAJOR, 1991
The new Asylum Bill introduced by Home Secretary Kenneth Baker, which had its second reading in November, is part of this escalating Europe-wide onslaught against immigrants from the oppressed nations.
Taking its place alongside what are already the most restrictive immigration controls in Europe, the Asylum Bill is a systematic attack on the tens of thousands of political refugees who arrive in Britain seeking refuge from detention; torture and possible death.
British immigration laws have always formed the keystone of British imperialism’s institutionalised racism. However, in the past Britain has been forced to at least recognise political asylum as a universal human right internationally upheld by the 1951 UN Convention on Refugees – although it had no qualms about abrogating from the European Convention of Human Rights on the issue of immigration. Today, to a chorus of vicious media propaganda about ‘the flood of immigrants’ and ‘the invasion of Europe’ it is able to trample roughshod on this right, under the pretext of clamping down on ‘bogus’ asylum-seekers who ‘abuse’ the system.
The measures proposed in the Bill include ‘fast-track’. processing of asylum applications, effectively denying the majority of asylum seekers the right to a personal hearing; those refused asylum have to ask leave to appeal within just two days. Independent legal aid is to be abolished, compulsory finger-printing and identity cards introduced; immigration checks are to be tightened at overseas airports and fines for airlines carrying passengers with ‘invalid’ documents (‘valid’ documentation being available only from the government whose persecution the refugee is fleeing) will be doubled to £2,000. There will be reduced rights to council housing for homeless refugee families, increased restrictions on foreign students and visitors, and visa controls on passengers making transit stops in Britain.
In particular, the new measures include a restriction on refugees whose political activities in Britain, or before they arrive, might ‘embarrass’ their home governments: so, for example, Kurds who protest against the fascist regime in Turkey, who have already faced torture and detention because of their political activities, put at risk their right to asylum when they attempt to mobilise support for their struggle in Britain.
The government has also been making routine use of the 1971 Immigration Act – used during the Gulf War to detain Iraqis and Palestinians – to detain ‘illegal’ entrants while deportation is considered. In October, Zairean asylum-seeker Omasase Lumumba, grand-nephew of Patrice Lumumba, was killed while being ‘restrained’ by six police officers during detention at Pentonville gaol.
And yet Baker claims that one of his reasons for introducing the Bill is to counter the rise of fascist activity in Britain! Truly, this vicious piece of racist legislation makes the work of the fascists here redundant. But then, the British state has always done the fascists’ work for them.
In the run-up to the General Election, the Tories see playing the race card as a strategy for bolstering their flagging electoral prospects. The Labour Party, wooing the same constituency, has been careful not to attack the principle of the Asylum Bill, objecting only to the withdrawal of legal aid. Labour agrees with the Tories that there are ‘too many’ refugees coming to Britain. An internal document obtained by The Independent in June 1991 stated that the Labour Party was demanding the renegotiation of the 1951 UN Convention on Refugees and the European Convention of Human Rights because it believed that both were out of date and proposed speeding up asylum appeals to avoid clogging the courts. Presumably, the only regret of the Labour racists is that the Tories beat them to it.
BELGIUM
Antwerp, Belgium, 27 October— the Parti du Travail de Belgique (PTB) organised a European anti-racist conference. Groups from France, England, Germany, Holland and Belgium were represented. On behalf of the RCG/FRFI Chris James and Nicki Jameson attended.
Belgium is experiencing a rising wave of racism which has seen a rapid growth in the extreme right. In particular Vlaams Blok, a fascist organisation notorious for its collaboration with the Nazi occupation of Belgium during the Second World War, has increased not only its thuggish street violence but also its electoral support.
Already holding one seat in the European parliament, two seats in the national parliament and ten seats in the Antwerp City parliament, Vlaams Blok looks set to gain 40% of the Antwerp vote in the coming election. This could leave one of Belgium’s most important cities under the control of a party whose principal slogan is ‘our own people first’ and whose long-term ambition is to unite all Flemish-speaking Belgians with the Dutch to form a ‘Greater Netherlands’. It sounds sickeningly familiar.
The growth of Vlaams Blok has been abetted by the bourgeois political parties. Social democracy, as always, having neither the political will nor the strength to challenge racism, is slavishly echoing the calls of the far right for greater immigration controls, for tighter border security, for repatriation, for essentially fascist measures. In Belgium it was the ‘Socialist’ Interior Minister in 1987 ‘who referred to immigrants as ‘barbarians’. It was the ‘Socialist’ mayor of one borough along with the fascist mayor of another, who refused, in 1989, to allow Muslim courses to be taught in local schools. It was ‘Socialist’ ministers in the coalition government who supported the implementation by six Brussels boroughs of a ban which denied entrance to certain (ie non-European) immigrants.
Belgium has a black and immigrant population of 9%; 27% in the capital Brussels. They are mainly of Moroccan and Turkish origin, with a relatively small number of Zairean and Ghanaian political refugees. Under a coalition government led by a Christian Democrat, their daily reality is one of constant ID checks, violent arrests, strip searches and denial of the right to vote even after being born in the country. One Moroccan worker was set alight earlier this year by his Belgian workmate ‘for fun’. Fascists within the national police force have been responsible for shooting dead more than 20 black people and have done so with impunity.
Dieter Mullen, worker at Centrum West Youth Club, told us: ‘The fact is that it is not just the identity controls. There is a sort of humiliation which starts with identity controls but which is present in all the system. In education Arab children are automatically directed at an early age towards ‘suitable’ professions. In the areas where they live, like here, there are no lamps in the streets, the roads are in a terrible state. We are in the ghetto here; even the schools are ghetto schools.’
In May this year, two predominantly Moroccan areas in Brussels erupted against police harassment and abuse. Black youth engaged in pitched running battles with the Belgian police. The youth were condemned from all sides of the bourgeois political arena while the police were heralded for their firmness of action in arresting over 200 ‘rioters’. In Belgium today virtually the only organisation to oppose both the fascism of groups like Vlaams Blok and the racism of the state is the PTB which has recently established an anti-racist campaign in Antwerp. They were also alone in their unconditional support for the black youth fighting back in Belgium.
FRANCE
The Socialist government in France is engaged in a ruthless attack on the immigrant community. In October, family allowances were withdrawn from ‘unauthorised’ workers, and harsher penalties imposed on their employers. These new laws have been approved by all the opposition parties, including the French Communist Party.
The Cresson government is also intensifying its voluntary repatriation programme, ensuring that deportations are carried out, speeding up asylum claims and fining airlines who carry passengers without correct documentation.
Fascist le Pen – who looks set to win 40-50 per cent of the vote in a regional presidential election in March 1992 – now describes his Front National as the party of the centre, claiming that his racist ideology has been absorbed into the mainstream political parties.
It is is clear that the fightback against the rise of racism in France can only come from outside the traditional political spectrum, steeped as it is in reaction.
The Comite contre la double peine was set up to fight the judicial treatment of ‘foreigners’ including many born in France. If they are found guilty of any crime they are liable to be punished not once but twice: first by prison, then by expulsion to their ‘land of origin’. This second punishment can be for life. Nicki Jameson spoke to MOHAMMED, himself expelled to Algeria where he knew no one and couldn’t speak the language, and NORREDINE about their fight for justice.
What are the problems you encounter in your work?
Mohammed: When you take up a case people say, ‘Yes, but you know he was a delinquent, he sold drugs,’ and so on. But we take no account of the nature of the misdemeanour. He has committed a crime and he is punished. That is normal. But it is not a reason to separate him from his family.
What is the relationship between the ‘Comite contre la double peine’ and other organisations which say they are fighting for rights for immigrants – SOS Racisme for example?
Norredine: At the time when SOS was created there was a big movement of young immigrants. The Socialist government, which invested everything in SOS Racisme, completely ignored it, in order to make people believe it was an association which fights for the rights of foreigners in France. And this lasted quite a few years until people perceived that there are other important questions like the Gulf War, the Palestinian problem, the problem of the ‘banlieue’ (suburbs).
What are the problems of the ‘banlieue’?
For years, I have personally been involved with combating racist and police crime. We worked with the families involved. Organisations like SOS would get involved in some things but if it didn’t fit their definition of ‘racist’ they didn’t want to know.
The only thing which interests a politician is people who can vote for him. When you have no vote you are in no position to put this pressure on politicians. For us the only way was to organise collectively among the youth in every area and together we called ourselves ‘Resistance des Banlieues’ (Suburban Resistance).
When the student, Malika Soukeine, was killed in Paris by the police in 1986 SOS took on the task of making sure things didn’t spill over into the backstreets and on the day of the verdict they seemed satisfied that they had organised a rally. But the rally was abandoned immediately because the people were angry and demanded to demonstrate in front of the Ministry of Justice.
The same day as the demonstration a young man was killed by a police inspector in a cafe in the suburbs. There had been a fight which the young man tried to prevent and the inspector who was off-duty and half-drunk shot him dead. The SOS-led students demonstrating for Malika refused us the right to join them in protest. But we did so anyway. There are not two justices. There are not good victims and bad victims.
How do you view the role of the extreme right in France?
They say it is a democracy therefore Le Pen has the right to express himself. But he expresses himself on the subject of a community which is denied that right. But he doesn’t scare us. What scares us is the behaviour of those who claim they are our friends. At the same time we are not sheep and we are not saints. We can fight as well. If they use violence against us, we will use violence against them.
In 1981 the Left made promises to give the vote to immigrants and at every election there is someone in the Socialist government who says, ‘We’re going to give the right to vote to immigrants’. And everyone, with Le Pen in the lead, goes ‘Wa, wa, wa’. So the Socialists then say, ‘You see the people are not ready’. But I say it is a principle. We don’t ask for our rights, we beg from no one. They are our rights.
