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| Volume 54 Number 19, August 11, 2024 | ARCHIVE | HOME | JBCENTRE | SUBSCRIBE |
Liverpool defending the Asylum Centre - Photo: Jon Super
AP Picture Alliance
The disturbances on the streets in a number of towns and cities in the wake of the tragic stabbing attack in Southport in which three young girls were killed, and ten others, including eight children, were injured, have seen the rhetoric of immigration to Britain being a problem, hammered home by those in government, summed up in "stop the boats", incited to be acted on in the streets. This has been called "thuggery" and the actions as those of the "extreme right". But the question must be asked, who is responsible?
Unity Rally, Oxford
The blame must crucially be placed on those in power. The spontaneous organisation of the anti-immigrant actions has been but a short step from all the hysteria promoted by those in power that immigration must be curtailed, asylum seekers deported, and refugees considered a threat to "British values", and that is what the people must fight for. Migration itself is a fact of life, which is evident throughout society, including those in power. Refugees and asylum seekers are the direct responsibility of those in power in countries such as Britain, the US, and others, not only through the wars, aggression and intervention of the big powers, but in the refusal to take action against climate change which is devastating many parts of the world.
Despite all the media coverage of the actions of the "far right", the unity of the people in defence of the rights of immigrants, whether "legal" or "illegal", has been the overwhelming response. Many unity demonstrations involving thousands of people have taken place from Newcastle to Bristol to Birmingham, London and Brighton, in places forming human shields to protect asylum centres, and displaying placards such as "refugees welcome" and "reject racism, try therapy", representing that the rights of all must be defended.
The violence, often involving young teenagers, which has melted away, cannot be said to represent a deep-going "clash of civilisations", a conception put forward by the ideologue Samuel Huntingdon. Now, as forty years ago when he was denied the right to speak by the student movement at Sussex University, this has mainly been put forward as a justification for aggression and intervention against "terrorist" states, identified as revolutionary, communist or Islamist.
Unity Rally, Newcastle
To take the matter further, the people must adopt the vantage point of defending the rights of all, and not leave the question simply as one of goodwill, or building a "united Britain". It is dangerous to see Keir Starmer and others demanding swift and longer jail sentences for those involved in "far-right extremism", and a crack-down on social media, in response to the violence. Rather than tackling the problem of disenfranchised youth, investing in social programmes, and tackling the inequality arising from ensuring that the rich get richer, Starmer and others are taking a "strong" line against violence, strengthening police powers, and using "hate crime" and "extremism" to control the political space. Keir Starmer is set to use the events to reverse the lack of credibility and legitimacy of his government. But he faces problems in that the prisons are already nearly full, and his backing for the violence of the Zionist state of Israel is second to none.
The basic problem of posing the issue in these terms, rather than as a concerted attempt to promote an anti-immigrant movement, is in how "violent extremism" and "hate" are defined and by whom. Coming from those in power, these definitions tend to be self-serving, suited to some immediate need of narrow private interests to silence a section of the population. This may not appear to be immediately evident when "extremism" is equated with racism and fascism, but the underlying issue of definition and how this definition is implemented is crucial for the rights of all citizens and those seeking asylum.
The rulers are themselves ideologically motivated to maintain and defend the existing system and its institutions of governance. This and repeated experience makes them not credible when they say they are not presenting ideologically motivated criteria, or that their criteria does not condemn people because of their ideological views and opinions or that it does not deprive them of their civil liberties. This argument is blown out of the water when it is noted that the deliberate massacres that the "Israel Defence Force" are carrying out in Gaza are not considered by the Westminster government to constitute violent extremism or hate crimes.
Swansea, Wales
In this respect, the crimes the US and Britain have committed in the name of eliminating extremists, including torture, inhuman treatment of prisoners, brutal targeted assassinations and revenge killings, must be taken into account. Every effort is made to link "hate," and "hate crimes" with extremism, something to be feared and punished. How to eliminate the usurpation of power by narrow supranational private interests by creating mass democratic transitional forms of discussion, deliberation and decision-making is the problem the working class and people need to take up for solution by actually working out and creating those forms with a mass character.
In addition, much is being made of disinformation and hate being spread on social media. It is being posed that legislation is needed to increase the ability of the state to potentially shut down web pages and social media accounts they decide are "hateful", and penalise the people involved, including jailing them. The Sunak government came up with an "updated" definition of extremism in March of this year, a definition which it said was "narrower and more precise than the 2011 Prevent definition". It more specifically targets activity which it says aims to "undermine, overturn or replace the UK's system of liberal parliamentary democracy and democratic rights".
Unity Rally, Newcastle - Photo RM
As the journalist Craig Murray wrote: "In particular the announcement that the already deeply worrying Online Safety Act will be amended, to give the state still greater power over information sources like the one which you are currently reading, could signal a massive blow to internet freedom. Publication of 'misinformation' is to be criminalised - which means the official narrative will be enforced on social media. Given that, for example, the government has relentlessly promoted the demonstrably false stories of mass rape by Palestinians on October 7, while studiously failing to notice the vast amount of unquestionable evidence in the last fortnight of systematic rape of Palestinian prisoners on a vast scale by the Israeli Defence Force, no reasonable person can fail to understand the danger of the enforcement of state-approved 'truth'."
It is worth mentioning that the evidence at the ongoing Undercover Policing Inquiry, while exposing the injustice of the state's intervention in people's political associations and campaigns, has shown how the state is focused on whether or not organisations sought to overthrow "parliamentary democracy". What might be called the exception in the 1970s and early 1980s of immoral or amoral "spycops" infiltrating organisations which were deemed to be dedicated to "public disorder" can be seen to be the rule in its present form of enabling the state to intervene in every aspect of the people's activities. Laws concerning "extremism" and "hate" in Britain, as is happening also in the US, are bringing "extremism" and "hate" to the fore as the problem, in another attempt to justify what cannot be justified. It is convenient that these "new" definitions are ready to hand to use against "groups or individuals who attempt to advance extremist ideologies that negate our fundamental rights and freedoms and overturn the UK's system of liberal parliamentary democracy".
The reality is that this "liberal parliamentary democracy" is responsible for its own dysfunctionality and the insistence that everyone must fend for themselves, that to make claims on society is out of the question. In this vein, and to avert civil war, King Charles also called for peace, unity and the "community spirit", in order to shore up contradictions as the person of state at the apex of "shared values of mutual respect and understanding [that] will continue to strengthen and unite the nation".
Southall, London
It is the promotion of the problem as being of "extremism" which is itself the diversion from the solution, which is to fight to defend the rights of all. It keeps open the door to the state's opposition to "left-extremism", as though the government was occupying the centre ground, or the "centre-left".
This "centre ground" has as its banner the promotion of core British values and forging a unified national cultural identity. This cannot be allowed to stand. Citizenship and the rights of citizens cannot be conflated with cultural identity, nor with nationality, national background. This is at the heart of the promotion that immigrants are unwelcome, that there is something alien which needs to be challenged in order to unite everyone around so-called core British values.
The events after the tragic Southport stabbings, events which have been a desperate attempt to promote an anti-immigrant movement, have demonstrated the urgent need to involve the mass of people, particularly the youth, in working out solutions to the problems they face which favour them. The refusal by those in power to deal in a human-centred fashion with the direction of the economy and society, favouring instead narrow private interests, is blocking the people as one taking the future into their own hands. In opposition, the mass of the people have shown that the future lies with defending the rights of all by virtue of their humanity, and that the overwhelming sentiment is to oppose the stand of the governments, past and present, that immigration presents a problem for working people.
Defend the rights of immigrants, asylum seekers and refugees!
Defend the rights of all!