Resistance activists discuss fight against racism

Resistance activists discuss fight against racism

By Zanny Begg

BRISBANE — Thirty people came to the Resistance Centre on August 9 to hear Resistance national coordinator Sean Healy talk about strategies for fighting racism and the far right. Healy outlined the rise of fascism in Germany and Italy and drew lessons from this for the fight against racism today.

"Fascism is not a term of abuse", Healy pointed out, "but a term to describe a specific political formation that the ruling class resorts to in a time of crisis. What proceeded the rise of fascism in both Italy and Germany was a deep economic crisis and the desire of the capitalists to utterly smash working-class resistance to lower wages.

"Fascism has several features: anti-labour gangs who intimidate and destroy workers' organisations; demagogic references to the master race; attacks on minority groups like Jews, gays and lesbians, blacks or migrants; and the smashing of democracy."

A key mistake the left made in the fight against fascism was that the Communist parties, under the influence of Stalin, refused to build a united front with other sectors prepared to fight fascism.

The social democratic forces, on the other hand, relied on the state to halt the rise of the fascists, rather than mobilising the working class in defence of its own interests.

Healy pointed out that the One Nation party is not a fascist organisation but a parliamentary party within the framework of mainstream politics. The task for the anti-racist movement here is to mobilise the working class against the right-wing solutions put forward by Hanson.

"As well as building the broadest and largest possible mobilisations against the racists, the left needs to put forward solutions which are in the interest of all workers, black or white, to unemployment and cuts in government spending . The more we do this, the more we remove the base of support for the Hansons."

From GLW issue 286