Resourceful workers organize against fascist ICE here ♦ Deportations attack all workers here ♦
Resourceful Workers Organize Against Fascist ICE
“I want to use my white-girl privilege to help stop ICE from kidnapping people,” said A, a young activist.
We were a small group sitting at a “Community Defense Center” (CDC) in a mainly Latinx neighborhood. ICE (immigration police) and their bounty-hunters had outrageously attacked nearby Villa Park.
Several long-time neighbors started chasing kidnappers’ vehicles out of the area. They set up this CDC, now the “Grupo AutoDefensa” (self-defense group). Their anger had turned them into organizers. They distribute signs and information. Neighborhood folks and people patrolling to warn of ICE presence stop by to chat.
“We are organizing together to help our city,” C explained.
Since then, other CDCs have popped up.
There is lots of time for conversation. A’s comment sparked a lively one.
“Someone was saying the other day that we shouldn’t be talking about white privilege,” B remembered. “He said it’s divisive.”
“We’re all part of one working class. Let’s talk about what each person can contribute,” I agreed.
L reframed the conversation. “Resources,” she said. “We have different resources. White people can safely go some places I can’t, but I can go some places they can’t. We need to use all the resources we can.”
It’s become clear in recent weeks, amidst the fascist armed invasion, that the working class is very resourceful. Day laborers from the Pasadena Job Center continue to give key leadership. Young workers in health care, schools, offices, IT, and more show up as they can. Self-employed people and even some small-business owners follow the workers’ lead.
New organizers figure out strategies and tactics. An organizer explained to other volunteers at a different new CDC what to do. Then he said, “Actually I have only been doing this for about a week.”
Almost everyone I meet takes Red Flag. L’s first response was, “Where do you get these?” C’s was, “There are a lot more workers than there are capitalists.” He took extras to share. When I see folks again, many are eager to discuss it.
Most of my new friends are not communists. Some identify with anarchism, a few with socialism. Many have not thought much about revolutionary politics. But in their resourcefulness and their commitment to community, I see the material basis of our party’s line of “mobilizing masses for communism.”
I see them working for the common good, not for personal gain. Buoyed by appreciative support. And struggling against the negativity of the few backward elements. Learning to work collectively. Amid the defensive fight we wage today, starting to consider what it will mean to go on the offensive to win the world we desperately need.
When we fight alongside these new anti-fascist activists, we make new friends. We learn from them. “We become like family,” said C. Their resources will help us develop the practice and the theory of communism.
—Comrade in Pasadena (USA)
Deportations Attack All Workers—Let’s Unite Against Capitalist Rulers’ Fascism and War
The 12-day war between the Islamic Republic and Israel ended with the intervention of American bombers and the bombing of nuclear sites. Afterward, the pressure on Afghan immigrants in Iran increased to an unprecedented extent.
When the Taliban returned to power, Afghans migrated to neighboring countries, especially Iran and Pakistan, in search of work. Before the war between the Islamic Republic and Israel, there were an estimated six million Afghan immigrants in Iran. Many of them belonged to the second generation. They were born in Iran and spoke Persian with local dialects. According to the law of the Islamic Republic, birth in Iran does not automatically bring citizenship. Children born in Iran to Afghan parents are still considered Afghan citizens. Donald Trump is also seeking to pass such a law in the United States, along with dozens of other reactionary laws.
The war between Israel and the Islamic Republic led to an unprecedented increase in the deportation of Afghan immigrants. On the first day, a number of leaders of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and nuclear scientists were assassinated. It was a serious blow to the regime that could not have been achieved without the influence of spies.
In the search for spies, Afghan immigrants were suspected at first. By arresting several low-level supposed Afghan spies, the Islamic Republic regime fueled ethnic hatred and anti-immigrant sentiment.
Afghan immigrants in Iran constitute a significant part of the workforce. They perform hard work in the construction and agricultural industries for low wages. Some progressive forces in Iran criticized the anti-immigrant Islamic Republic policy of expelling Afghan citizens. They have emphasized that Israel’s criminal aggression against Iran, which led to the destruction of much of the country’s infrastructure, cannot be an excuse for expelling Afghan workers. They emphasized that the flow of espionage infiltration should be sought at the top of the governance pyramid. Those who were aware of the position of the IRGC commanders.
During the 12-day war, thousands of Afghans were deported daily. The brutal deportation of Afghan migrants from Iran comes at a time when the Trump administration in the United States has implemented a similar policy regarding migrants. Armed forces with their faces covered are raiding places where migrants, often from Latin American countries, live and work, brutally arresting them and sending them to unknown prisons. These unknown ICE agents ignore the State laws and go beyond the limits. They refuse to show any court order and do whatever they want. Are these signs of the rise of a fascist movement?
War and racist attacks on immigrants go together. The `Iranian regime is attacking Afghan workers to try to build up nationalism among Iranian workers—to get them to fight for the Iranian capitalists. US rulers want to do the same.
All workers, immigrants and native born, need to unite to defeat this growing fascism!
—A friend