Anti-racism and trade unions
As one of the speakers at the protest rally outside Hanson's One Nation meeting in Adelaide on June 12, I took up the theme of trade unions campaigning against racism. I referred to the past history of activism in support of workers' and community rights, but was highly critical of the lack of visible union banners, attendance or support at the rally against Hanson and Howard's racism.
I have since been approached by some union officials to set the record straight. Members of the CFMEU/BLF were at the rally, to assist with security and to protest. The general secretary of the ASU also advised me that ASU members were present. Similarly, officials of the metalworkers' union arrived during the evening with their banner. CFMEU secretary, Ben Carslake, has also agreed to provide continued support to Â鶹´«Ã½ Weekly sellers who are being harassed by National Action.
My comments were, however, not merely questioning the actual attendance of various union officials, but the general role of trade unions in fighting against racism. Of the unions which decided to take any action, the majority chose to support the city-based "Celebrating Diversity" vigil endorsed by the SA United Trades and Labour Council, rather than the rally in Findon outside the One Nation meeting.
The vigil took up the theme of multiculturalism and tolerance. The Findon rally was clearly against Hanson and Howard's racism. The vigil was consistently portrayed as "the peaceful alternative".
Tolerance means "to permit to be done", "to put up with", "endurable and supportable". This is not a political position we can afford to take in relation to Hanson and Howard's racist attacks. Who are the real perpetrators of violence? Isn't it violence to remove a generation of children from their homes and culture? Isn't it violence to use waves of migrants as cheap workers in sweatshop conditions? Union officials could have taken up this theme, rather than bend to the propaganda of the establishment media. This was a conscious political decision on the part of a wide layer, but not all, trade union leaders.
Historically, unions have organised political, industrial and/or militant actions around social justice, environmental and international issues. They are still looked to as a potentially powerful force with an ability to educate and mobilise their members. In fact, any serious challenge to the system that perpetrates racism and scapegoats migrants and youth for unemployment, can only come from a politically and industrially organised working-class movement.
The trade union leadership has a moral and political responsibility to support each and every campaign and action against racism, all forms of injustice against ordinary people. The activities in Adelaide offered an opportunity to challenge the nature of the current government policies and show the union leadership at the forefront of the struggle against injustice. That opportunity was diminished by capitulating to the mainstream media's hysteria about violence. Ignoring political enemies will not make them go away.
Adelaide
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Racism and justice
I am constantly amazed at how the establishment media asks Hanson for her opinion on anything and everything that happens in Australian politics — particularly as she only seems to have two opinions (it's the Aborigines' and migrants' fault). In this context, recent GLW articles highlighting that "migrants don't cost jobs" have been a welcome relief.
It is essential that we raise these facts, but we also should not buy into a purely economic argument. I am reminded of the Friends of the Earth campaign to stop uranium mining when the ALP was in government. Their key argument was that mining was economically unviable.
We can see how far the spectrum of debate has shifted to the right — when we begin by arguing solely on "their terms" we are digging our own grave. What happens when new technologies arise so uranium mining is cheaper? What happens if statistics show that migrants from a particular country tend to go on welfare?
We need to present the real economic issues, but the crucial point is that our lives, indeed our society, should not be run by the insanity of a market system. Sometimes we need to make humane choices — choices that will not turn over a quick buck for our local multinational, but choices that will be in all of our interests.
This is why we have to focus on the question of justice in the so-called "race debate". Missing in the comments of Access Economics and Jeff Kennett is the impact that racism has had on real people (not just business). Also missing is the fact that to fight racism we need a society that puts people before profit.
Como WA
What is an 'Australian'?
What are the individual and collective responsibilities associated with being a citizen of this nation? Pauline Hanson asked in parliament why she should feel guilt for something committed against the Aborigines in which she played no part, and therefore is not responsible for.
A similar question is: "Why should the Japanese people feel any responsibility for something committed against prisoners of war in World War Two?".
If Ms Hanson feels no guilt or responsibility for what her country's government did to Aboriginal families in the stealing of their children, then she should support the corollary that a POW survivor has no right to expect the Japanese people to feel any sense of collective responsibility for what their government did.
Do we have any responsibility for our government's actions — past, present or future? Surely to be an Australian is to be mature enough to shoulder the responsibility arising from acts committed in your society (whether good or bad). If you say "this is my nation", then you are taking on its past as well as its present. If your nation has committed an injustice, you need to be adult enough to attempt to rectify, or own up to, your nation's collective moral responsibilities.
If to be an Australian is to be a selfish, shallow, intolerant, narrow-minded and immoral individual, then we do not live in the collective concept of a nation, where we are members of one family, and thus collectively responsible for the actions of individual members.
If this is your nation, your country, your land, your history, then it is also your cultural heritage. And if that heritage contains injustices, then you, as a citizen, are part of a nation which must shoulder the civil and moral responsibility for ensuring that those injustices are justly dealt with and not selfishly ignored.
NSW
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Ireland
You report (GLW #278) that Sinn Féin has advanced to about 6% of the all-Ireland vote. But why hail that 6%, and not some of the 94% of the Irish people who reject Sinn Féin?
Sinn Féin is the most militant voice of the worst-off Â鶹´«Ã½ of the oppressed Catholic minority in Northern Ireland. We support that minority against British state repression. Yet Sinn Féin is a movement proposing policies for all Ireland, and must be judged as such.
Its strategy is to push Britain — by bombs or diplomatic pressure — to coerce the Anglo-Scots (Protestant) Irish into a state covering the whole island. But a state with a Protestant minority entrapped by British force would be no better than the current Northern Ireland, with its Catholic minority entrapped by British force.
IRA bombs and shootings, directed in practice mainly against the Protestant community, make the strategy more divisive and damaging, not more revolutionary.
Instead of cheering on Sinn Féin, the left should put our energies into devising policies for working-class unity and for self-determination for the Irish people as a whole, both communities included.
Your article also confuses the SDLP with the Irish Labour Party, a different party.