SPAIN, February 18—More than a hundred and fifty thousand people marched through Barcelona, loudly shouting in Catalan, ““Volem Acollir, No més morts. Obrim fronteres!, Catalunya, terra d’acollida, Prou excuses. Acollim ara”! In English, this means “We want to welcome refugees; No more deaths, Open the borders! Catalonia, land of welcome. No more excuses. Welcome them now!”
The demonstration was organized by associations and trade unions in the province of Barcelona, with the goal of pressuring the Spanish government and the government of Catalonia to host the refugees.
These refugees were created by the oil wars in the Middle East and Syria, where the US, Chinese and Russian imperialists have created a climate disaster, poverty and death that forces these workers to leave their places of origin.
These refugees, desperate to save their lives, try to cross the Mediterranean Sea or to cross borders on European territory. The number of workers killed or disappeared in the year 2016 exceeded the estimated 3,800, a record that increases every day.
Thousands of workers took to the streets demanding that the government carry out rapid measures that help these workers in search of “a better future.”
However, during the demonstration they encountered other groups and people who did not agree with these intentions. “Before demonstrating for immigrants you should demonstrate for Spaniards” were some of the comments we heard on the march.
“Spain for the Spaniards,” said others, in clear support for the fascist movements of the moment or because they see their economic situation affected. Others repeated these slogans because they have lost their homes and jobs and live in poverty.
As the International Communist Workers’ Party, we talk about how to support the workers in the protests, but we also focus the conversation on telling workers that capitalism will never solve these problems. On the contrary, it uses its wars and poverty to strengthen racism and nationalism in the working class and to gain more profits for the European bosses, using immigrants for cheap labor in their labor markets.
“Fight for communism” is our slogan; and to win that we must build a mass ICWP organized for and by the working class. ICWP is being built on the basis of the working class following a political line in which capitalism has no place in any of its phases. We must fight to break down the borders, to destroy wage slavery and to unite as one single international working class.
“I believe in communism. But I think we must carry out activities that help the workers in their daily lives, not just read the newspaper,” said a comrade who is reading Red Flag.
“It is correct to study Dialectical Materialism, but putting it into practice is better,” said a restaurant worker who is also a Red Flag reader.
We are working to continue bringing communist ideas to the largest number of workers possible and also to continue learning about how to defeat capitalism in the workers’ struggle. Only Communism can defeat this system and ICWP is leading this struggle.
We also talk about how we can help the workers as ICWP. One of the ways is by meeting frequently to carry out activities in which we can talk about communism but at the same time finding ways to help low-income workers.
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