History proves that if people believe in a bright future, they work and fight side by side irrespective of differences. Humans are not naturally racist, prejudiced or biased. These behaviours are cultivated by those in power in order to maintain their power. Our bitterest enemy is not fractions of a beleaguered working class, but the ruling elite.
The series of race and anti-migrant riots that recently swept across England’s vast deindustrialised regions in the north west, north east, the Midlands and Yorkshire serve many purposes. They fuel fear of a rise in fascist sentiment and in a show of unity against right-wing yobs; they propel people towards the Labour party and affiliated unions where their desire to coordinate is neutralised.
They pit the working class against one another by blaming migrants and asylum seekers for economic deprivation. They reinvigorate anti-muslim sentiment to act as a counterpoint for the pro-Palestinian support sweeping the nation. Most importantly, they provide a narrative to justify ever-increasing and encroaching state powers that enervate civil liberties at a time when the people are beginning to question the entire system of society – capitalism.
The collusion of the state: politicians, media, institutions and corporations to counteract the efforts of working-class people to organise and unite is nothing new, but has intensified in recent decades as living standards collapse in line with the capitalist system. Our communities have been dismantled, our unions undermined, national cultures are brutally persecuted, essential civil rights are curtailed and distrust and hostility is sown among the people – purposefully – to incite them into collisions against one another. The erosion of class-consciousness by decades of defeat, despair and propaganda and its ongoing suppression is the primary tool of the ruling class.
Britain’s historic and ongoing role as one of the world’s great imperial powers has made it one of the richest countries in the world, and its working class one of the most diverse. But the racism that blames asylum seekers for a lack of investment in public services does not originate in the working class. It comes from the top down. It is part and parcel of the British ruling class’s ideology, rooted in colonialism, slavery and empire, which has always promoted racism as a tool to divide the working class.
Our politicians and media often talk about ‘British values’, which according to the UK government are democracy, the rule of law, individual liberty, and mutual respect for and tolerance of those with different faiths and beliefs and for those without faith.
But where is my individual liberty when I can’t feed my children, or I have to choose between heating and eating? Where is tolerance when I am arrested for peacefully demonstrating against my government’s complicity in genocide? How does the rule of law apply when it is exercised differently for the rich than for everyone else? What is democracy when my choice for representation falls back to two parties, both representing imperial interests rather than those of the majority?
Such ‘Britishness’ is a cultivated fiction that drives emotive behaviour in a direction that suits the ruling class.
Nationhood is a tool that assumes distinctive shades in different periods according to which class raises it, whose interests it serves and the period in question. For instance, British values are broad and inclusive when the ruling class unites black and white, jews, muslims and christians etc into the armed forces to die serving imperial interests. Likewise, the rise of islamophobia, not a natural phenomenon, was a deliberately created, mobilised and utilised tactic of the western ruling class and its captive media, a potent weapon to divert opposition in the build-up to the invasion of Afghanistan in 2001.
National and other distinctions are heightened by the ruling class to drive behaviour that suits their ends: to advance support for illegal and immoral wars, to divert blame for economic deprivation, to divert attention away from the misery of life and the advance of class-consciousness. The strategy is clear: sow discord, intensify national strife and reinforce cultural differences to disunite workers, and in so doing bury their class-consciousness and class unity.
Divide and rule has always been an effective tactic of the ruling class. There are just so many ways to pit workers against one another to ensure the real culprits of exploitation and injustice can continue their plunder unhindered: sexism, racism, religion, age, political party affiliation, public-sector v private-sector employment, better-off v poorer wage-slaves … As long as workers are engrossed in a perpetual battle against one another, the ruling class can continue its assault on us all unimpeded.
Capitalism has fashioned a utopia for the few and a dystopia for the many, who feel disenfranchised, disillusioned and discontented. They are worried about the future and angry at their present situation, living in communities deprived of investment and opportunity. Their anger is entirely justified, but it is directed at the wrong target. Poor workers, regardless of race, religion or any other difference, are as powerless as other poor workers. Workers drawn into supporting racist groups out of the very real anger and despair they feel must be shown that class-based organising is their true salvation.
The amplification of cultural differences between different ethnic groups as a wedge issue by the right conceals the dire economic plight shared by all. Asylum seekers sitting in hotels are victims of the self-same neoliberal and colonial system as those who’ve been attacking them. The result is a ruling capitalist elite being able to sleep at night, knowing that their wealth and power will remain intact.
The relentless propaganda against muslims in Britain was not invented by the likes of Mr Yaxley-Lennon (known by his stage name of ‘Tommy Robinson’) or by the BNP’s Nick Griffin before him. Anti-muslim rhetoric became part of the official language of the British state over 20 years ago, and the garbage spewed out by the fascists all has its origins in propaganda produced by the bourgeois press.
The demonisation of the figure of the muslim is quite calculated. It was done to justify the naked imperialism of the George W Bush-era invasions. Because this was an attempt to bring back direct colonialism (without the ‘neo’), the imperialists had to demonise the population targeted as being ‘uncivilised’. The official propaganda of the time was still loudly proclaiming its ‘antiracist’ credentials, so they had to avoid just simply saying this was about Arabs or Africans or any other group whose countries were being targeted for invasion and destruction.
British collusion with US imperialists in creating the situation in Palestine and funding the genocidal activities of zionist Israel has enraged and appalled the world’s people to an extent not witnessed since the Vietnam war. People, organisations and other countries are demonstrating regularly in their hundreds of thousands in the streets and universities, in their councils, unions and other organisations.
This unprecedented worldwide activity is alarming the British and American ruling classes, not only because of the increasing numbers involved, but because it is clearly exposing the naked role of imperialism, the role of Nato, and revealing the nonsense that the west desires peace and democracy when in reality its leaders are promoting war and destruction across the world. Riots serve their purpose. They lead to an increase in police powers under the guise of ensuring the peace and safety of its citizens. We know all this is really being done to shore up the status quo.
In 1913, Josef Stalin explained how the national question as it pertains to the working class is quite different to the national question of the nobility or the bourgeoisie. The national question must be regarded not in isolation from, but in inseparable connection with, the question of the victory of the working class over the bourgeoisie. If the working class is to achieve victory, all workers, irrespective of nationality, must unite.
We are British, but above all else we are the proletarians, we are working-class, and we must fashion British values that support the fight for our emancipation, for a democracy that serves our interests, and for the right of our fellow workers across the world to do the same.
Never is the capitalist class made more aware of the existential threat it faces than when confronted by the infinite power of a united working class.
Stretch out our hands to one another and understand that regardless of any differences in how we look, the religion we follow, or any other difference, our common interest – our class interest – is singular and omnipotent. The gravedigger of the stinking, foul and fetid unjust system we suffer under, monopoly capitalism, is the awakening of our consciousness.
Class is what unites us and, in that unity, is what will deliver our salvation.
