Forging Communist Unity here ♦ Capitalism Kills here ♦
Tens of thousands of demonstrators marched in cities throughout France on Sunday, January 21 against a new racist immigration law. The law would make it illegal to be in France without residence papers and make it much more difficult for immigrants to bring their family members to France and to use social services. As war and famine stalk Western Asia and the former French colonies in Africa, an increasing number of workers risk the deadly Mediterranean crossing, only to face fascist attacks in Europe.
ICWP forges Communist Unity of Immigrant and Citizen Workers and Soldiers
GQEBERHA (South Africa), January 19— “We can grow and build a bigger ICWP. There is no other way,” said a comrade at a meeting of the International Communist Workers’ Party. “The capitalists everywhere are creating genocide.
“Look at the hypocrisy of the African National Congress (ANC),” he continued. “They are charging the Israeli government with genocide but right here, we have dozens of Blacks getting killed in South Africa by police.”
Other comrades at the meeting passionately described how the lack of jobs has left millions of Black South Africans in unbearable conditions of poverty, hunger, and homelessness. Racism, xenophobia, drugs, and police violence are on the rise.
Many people are violently attacked by drug gangs. Last week, a comrade from Mozambique was robbed. He lost his cellphone and some cash. When we found out, we organized comrades to defend him. Our comrades confronted the criminal, who was forced to return the money and cellphone.
We carried out this mission because comrades are reading Red Flag. We must defend against these racist attacks. We are all workers. Our ethnicity, nationality, gender, can never divide us.
The comrades from Mozambique don’t speak the local language and they are targeted. We taught many Mozambican guys to speak Xhosa. They are now well integrated with us. We read in English and translate for them in Xhosa. Now many of them will join us on May Day.
Our efforts to teach English to the Portuguese-speaking workers from Mozambique has opened eyes, too, of many from Zimbabwe. They face similar problems of racism. They come looking for guys with “Red Flag.” All this is going to translate into our large presence for May Day.
In our meetings, we have discussed the need to reach out and organize soldiers who live with us in the township. Several soldiers are getting Red Flag, and they are talking to others on their base. The soldiers see that in the township there is racism, sexism, lack of healthcare and schools. But the rich capitalists want us to attack the working class when they fight back.
Many of these soldiers talk about the Marikana massacre in 2012, when Black soldiers attacked miners under the leadership of ANC head Ramaphosa. “We have to fight for the miners, not against them, and build for the future without these bloodsuckers,” one said. “I will take a stack of Red Flags to my base and recruit some of them for May Day.”
We estimate we will have over 200 workers (including immigrants) and soldiers in our area march with us for May Day.
Capitalism Kills! Only Communism Will Save the Working Class.
Recent developments around the world and here in South Africa might seem isolated. But they are overall connected as imperialist and capitalist crisis pops up everywhere.
In the Middle East: the ongoing slaughter of Palestinians in Gaza at the hands of Israeli and US rulers. In the Red Sea, with Houthis and the US and UK. We know all these groups and countries have no interest in the workers. Rather, they care about controlling trade routes and dominating regions for their own capitalist interests.
South Africa launched a genocide case against Israel in the World Court. We don’t expect much, because the UN and all its institutions are practically controlled by our class enemies. The World Court has no enforcement power.
We want the killings of the Palestinian working-class brothers and sisters to stop. A ceasefire is better than the ongoing bombardment. However, ultimately the best way to protect the class brothers and sisters in Palestine is through a red army that defends workers and will revolt against capitalism.
We must intensify our efforts to bring about communism and communist revolution. The opportunities are there.
Our working-class family in Palestine and Syria is killed directly by bombs, disease, and starvation. Around the world they are killed every day by capitalism in other forms. In South Africa, crime and drug abuse are rampant. Seventy-five people are murdered every day, which in some cases is more than in active war zones like Syria.
Workers produce everything, but capitalism forces the things the workers produce to be wasted. Their system of overproduction does not allow them to distribute things to workers who need them.
We must fight and mobilise to end this tragedy of capitalism everywhere in the world. We must unite to usher in a communist revolution in which we build a society that is based on meeting our needs.
Capitalists mobilise our class brothers and sisters to fight their wars for profit. We should organise and mobilise our class brothers and sisters who are soldiers to fight for our emancipation. We support our comrade who is organising twenty soldiers for the May Day rally. We hope to have multiple meetings with them before and after the rally.
We only have ourselves and our unity as the working class in order to kill our killers (capitalism) through ICWP and mobilising for communism.
Fighting for reforms instead of fighting directly to end capitalism is tantamount to allowing genocide and suffering to continue. Capitalism kills: Whether slowly or fast, it kills the same. And we know it kills, not the capitalists and politicians, but us working class masses.
—Comrade in South Africa
FRANCE, January 21. “Let’s break down all the walls! Solidarity with the exiled.”
Read Our Pamphlet:
“Fight for the Day When No Workers Will Be Called Foreigner” here