Once more on imperialism’s attempts to launch fascist attacks on the working class

Imperialism has tried virtually all their tricks to instigate the working class to attack our black brothers and sisters from the rest of Africa: they have deliberately run a rumour campaign in the mainstream capitalist press of ‘xenophobic’ violence after the world cup; anonymous leaflets appeared instigating attacks; lumpen elements were hired to attack Somalis (some of them admitted to being paid to launch attacks); the police sat with folded arms, in many cases, while small groups of lumpen elements attacked our black brothers and sisters; the state banned marches by the working class against the lumpen elements, in some areas such as Du Noon.

The imperialists are still trying to instigate worker on worker attacks, but they have failed in their attempts to sweep up the same level of fear and intimidation among the masses, as they did in 2008, Why? The main reason is that the working class has largely drawn the lesson from 2008; in several areas where WIVL issued our leaflets against the imperialist attacks, we discovered that the majority of workers were saying: ‘This is not right’ , ‘Why must we attack them?’, ‘They helped us in our liberation struggle’. The concern among some workers was that the capitalists use cheap ‘illegal’ labour to make profits: ‘the bosses hire them for less money’. When we dialogued with workers that made such comments that we need to fight for equal wages and conditions and that the unions should organise all workers, whether ‘legal’ or ‘illegal’, whether casual or permanent, the response from workers was a resounding ‘yes!’. In some areas workers took up the campaign to organise joint self-defence committees with immigrant workers and stopped the lumpen in their tracks.

Other factors included the capitalist world cup media campaign that ‘we need to welcome the world’; even the arch nationalists of the ANC and SACP, who daily humiliate our brothers and sisters at the Home Affairs and Immigration offices and private immigration prisons (such as Lindela), were forced to say ‘ support Ghana’ and ‘support the teams from Africa’.

There is no need for complacency; it is still necessary to build and strengthen joint self defence committees in all working class communities to decisively root out any further attempted attacks on our brothers and sisters; but the real aim of imperialism was to divide the working class so that they could continue their attacks on the working class as a whole; thus the best way forward is to take up anew the campaign to fight high food prices, to fight the electricity increases, to support the public sector workers struggle; what is needed is a workers summit uniting delegates from local and immigrant workers, from employed and unemployed, with workers delegates from all workplaces, including rank and file soldiers, to prepare for a general strike against the imperialist onslaught; we need to invite delegates from workers and rank and file soldiers from Madagascar and from the entire South African region (and why not from Ghana and the rest of Africa too?).

4.8.2010