<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN"> <HTML><HEAD> <META content="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1" http-equiv=Content-Type> <META content="MSHTML 5.00.2722.2800" name=GENERATOR> <STYLE></STYLE> </HEAD> <BODY bgColor=#ffffff> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial">----- Original Message ----- <DIV style="BACKGROUND: #e4e4e4; font-color: black">From: <A href="mailto:caroline@abelgratis.co.uk" title=caroline@abelgratis.co.uk>Caroline</A> </DIV> <DIV>To: <A href="mailto:right-left@savanne.ch" title=right-left@savanne.ch>right-left@savanne.ch</A> </DIV> <DIV>Sent: Sunday, July 09, 2000 6:37 PM</DIV> <DIV>Subject: [right-left] Fw: [UK_Left_Network] Re: "Red Action" Article</DIV></DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>This is a debate about the British left's response to the state's increasing attacks on refugees.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>'Red Action' are a small group with a reputation for physical confrontations with fascists. However on this issue they appear to be taking a position which, if not racist, is certainly reactionary in my opinion.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>Caroline</DIV> <DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial">----- Original Message ----- <DIV style="BACKGROUND: #e4e4e4; font-color: black">From: <A href="mailto:tony.evans@freeuk.com" title=tony.evans@freeuk.com>tony.evans@freeuk.com</A> </DIV> <DIV>To: <A href="mailto:UK_Left_Network@egroups.com" title=UK_Left_Network@egroups.com>UK_Left_Network@egroups.com</A> </DIV> <DIV>Sent: Saturday, July 08, 2000 10:00 PM</DIV> <DIV>Subject: [UK_Left_Network] Re: "Red Action" Article</DIV></DIV> <DIV> </DIV><TT>--- In <A href="mailto:UK_Left_Network@egroups.com">UK_Left_Network@egroups.com</A>, "Ian Donovan" <<A href="mailto:communist@d...">communist@d...</A>> wrote: > David Welch wrote: > > >On Fri, 7 Jul 2000, Owen Jones wrote: > > > >>  Er...Ok, not wishing to stir up controversy, but I managed to find a Red > >> Action site at <A href="http://www.redaction.org/">http://www.redaction.org/</A> As a warning to our Red Action > >> comrades, it appears their site has been hacked into by the BNP - for > >> instance, this article... > >> > >[...] > >> > >> Instead of demanding not only adequate, but extra resources to help > 'grease > >> the wheels of local integration' the liberal left, with the SWP > prominent, > >> feel their time and money is better spent plastering run down estates > with > >> posters insisting 'Refugees wecome here'. 'You'll take it and like it' is > >> the authoritarian message. A strategy that is determined to lay down > welcome > >> mats for the BNP in areas where till now they have had no resonance > cannot > >> be anti-fascist. No weasel words can disguise the fact that in the real > >> world this is not anti-fascism but its opposite: not 'bravely confronting > >> prejudice' but recklessly creating it. > >> > >I think Red Action's point is that very often councils (and central > >government) place white, working class communities in competition for > >resources with immigrants. I'm sure no one on the left would disagree > >that refugees (indeed all immigrants) should be welcome but as a slogan it > >fails to address the complexity of racial politics in modern Britain. > > I think this reasoning is strange, and is a capitulation to the chauvinism > of the least class-conscious workers. Is Red Action saying that those left > groups who oppose immigration controls are not interested in struggles for > better housing, transport, public services etc for all workers? If they are, > they are talking nonsense. And how is the slogan 'refugees welcome here' an > 'authoritarian' message? > > It is 'authoritarian' to Red Action, because it says that hostility to > immigrants and refugees should be socially unacceptable. Red Action wants to > conciliate and butter up those workers who believe that immigrants are their > enemies, and therefore to say that the prejudices of these backward sections > of the working class are reactionary is for Red Action 'provoking' > prejudice. > > In reality, if such prejudices were not there, there would be nothing to > 'provoke'. It is not prejudice that such slogans provoke, but rather > hostility on the part of those who are prejudiced. The fact is, that in > order to defeat reactionary prejudices, one has to confront them. This may > indeed provoke hostility from sections of the working class that are > prejudiced, but so what? That is part of the process of confronting > reaction. > > It seems that part of Red Action's 'strategy' of fighting the influence of > fascists in the working class is to conciliate racism and chauvinism in > order to 'isolate' the fascists. It is wrong to equate them with the BNP > thereby -- after all, Red Action are reputed to have really beat the shit > out of leading and no-so-leading fascists on many occasions. They are not > the BNP. But this focus on physical action cannot defeat the political > influence of the BNP, since it leaves the cancer of chauvinism intact in the > working class and does not defeat it politically. Thus the reasons why the > fascists gained influence in the working class remain. And of course, what a > racist-minded worker will do in the privacy of the ballot box is something > that the activities of anti-BNP hit squads are not really able to deal with. > > Comradely > > Ian Donovan If as Ian Donovan insists 'Refugees Wecome Here' is not 'authoritarian' then what is it? If not a declaration, is it then a prediction,or merely an aspiration? Red Action's 'reasoning' is that against a background of a beleagured working class, being forced to compete for resources with even more beleaugred refugees, for the left to seem so eager to takes sides with the minority (to no useful effect), merely invites the BNP to takes sides with the majority. If such thinking is 'strange' what should we make of someone who describes himself as 'communist' yet seems to see the working class as an enemy to be conquered?. 'The fact is that in order to defeat reactionary prejudices one has to confront them...this may provoke hostility...but so what? This is part of the process of confronting reaction.' It seems to have slipped you mind Ian, but as a 'communist' the working class, is afterall, meant to be your constituency.Is it not?  But as you say 'so what'.It is only the chauvinism of the 'least class conscious workers'afterall. A backward minority of whom the left have nothing to fear politically. In that case, if having their estates plastered with posters winds them up a little 'so what'? If some refugees get attacked in response,(has anyone asked them how they feel about the postering?) if the support for the BNP is a consequence, if the credibility of the LSA collapses, this too presumably is 'all part of the process of confronting reaction'. Assuming for the moment the most 'backward least class conscious workers' are a wretched and unrepresentative minority, at what stage might the process of fearlessly confronting/stimulating reaction cease to be a price worth paying? You see, according to police figures, race attacks in London have doubled in the last year. In the same period support for the BNP has quadrupled. In May, almost 80,000 Londoners voted for a BNP major. On July 6, the BNP came second to Labour in a by-election in Bexley.You see the drift? Turning to the 'least conscious/most conscious'equation, we have with Labour on the ropes, the LSA attracting not quite enough to save it's deposit. In real terms this means that at least 95% of the working class do not vote socialist. The 'class conscious glass' is in other words, not 5% full, rather it is  by your own criteria (and taking into account the under one in three turnout) probably nearer 99% empty. But then as long a we're fighting the good fight so what? Like much of the rest of the left it may be 'the taking part not the winning' that counts. In politics, as in all other fields as I'm sure you'll, agree a competive edge, can prove more than a little galling.            </TT> <HR> <A href="http://click.egroups.com/1/6637/10/_/_/_/963090022/" target=_blank> <CENTER><IMG alt="" border=0 height=60 src="http://adimg.egroups.com/img/6637/10/_/_/_/963090022/specialoffer468x60a3.gif" width=468></CENTER> <CENTER></CENTER></A> <HR> <TT>To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: UK_Left_Network-unsubscribe@egroups.com </TT> </BODY></HTML>