FIGHT FOR COMMUNISM!
International Communist Workers Party
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FIGHT FOR COMMUNISM! |
International Communist Workers Party | |
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On December 23, 190 Somali workers at the Cargill meatpacking plant in Fort Morgan, Colorado, were fired from their jobs as the result of a struggle against increasing attacks on Muslim workers’ access to prayer time.
An injury to one is an injury to all
This attack brings into sharp relief the growth of a fascist movement in the United States, in particular, as well as around the world. In the US, racist police terror is allowed free rein—in 2015 police killed more than a thousand members of our class—disproportionately Black, Latino and Native American. At the same time, the press has whipped up anti-Muslim hysteria in the wake of the San Bernardino attack, resulting in an upsurge of attacks on Muslims in the US.
Cargill is taking advantage of these racist currents to attack the African Muslim workers at the Fort Morgan plant. Cargill is a large producer of meat products with a major plant in Fort Morgan, a regional center in the Eastern Plains of Colorado. Fort Morgan is a racist KKK city. For the last four years there has been a movement centered in Fort Morgan for Eastern Colorado to secede from the state, based on hostility to African and Latino immigrants.
While visiting the city two years ago, a supporter of the ICWP was called a “nigger” by “white” youth at a McDonalds. When the local police were called and asked to file a hate crime report on the incident, they commented, “What do you want us to do about it?”
Fort Morgan’s population is close to 12,000. Somalis may make up 6 percent of the city population. Somalis occupy apartments or homes that appear to be poorly maintained and overcrowded. The community ranges from those who are fluent in English to those who mostly speak Somali. Almost all of the women wear traditional Islamic clothing. The entire Black population of this mostly-white city are Muslim Somali immigrants and their families.
The Teamster Union hall is right down the street from the plant. But the Teamsters local has been notably silent in response to the protests and firing of the Somali workers. Their failure to defend these working-class sisters and brothers weakens all workers—and not only at Cargill. By turning a blind eye to this attack on Somali workers they reveal their role as faithful servants of capital.
The only organization that seems to be defending these workers is the Committee on American Islamic Relations—which views it narrowly as a civil rights struggle instead of an attack on all workers.
War and Fascism or Communist Revolution
What is happening in Fort Morgan reflects a growing fascist attack on the whole working class.
The liberal media, like the New York Times, publicize the gutter racists while urging people to support the mainstream fascists in the Democratic Party. But the Clintons built the racist prison-industrial complex which has devastated black communities and Obama has deported more immigrants than any president before him.
Racism in its myriad forms is essential to capitalism, as is the imperialist exploitation of the workers in the Third World. So, too, are increasingly sharp economic crises, creating regional wars and eventual world war. Capitalists in crisis are sharpening their attacks on workers around the world.
US and European workers have a choice. Will they join the ruling class in an ultimately suicidal attack on their Black, Muslim and immigrant sisters and brothers, and in war against the bosses’ rival imperialists? Or will we build the revolutionary communist working class unity to put an end to this vicious system?
The growth of ICWP in El Salvador and South Africa must be matched with growth among US and European workers, students and soldiers. We must turn attacks on our class sisters and brothers in Cargill into an opportunity to build communist solidarity, as we build international communist solidarity to put an end to the whole system.