Socialists against racism (1992)

From the March 1992 issue of the Socialist Standard

Traditionally, racism has been seen as an ideology, a system of beliefs, which held that white people were superior to black people. It was an ideology of crude racial superiority and, as such, was used to justify the conquest, enslavement and pillaging by European nations of most of what is now called the Third World. This type of crude bigotry is still promoted by members of fascist groups throughout Europe and the USA.

The so-called new racism, on the other hand, is essentially a theory of “human nature" and “human instinct" the most important of which is supposed to be the desire for the company of the same kind. The idea that there exists such a human instinct is now widespread among right-wing politicians. For example, in The Meaning of Conservatism (Penguin 1980) Roger Scruton claims that:

Illiberal sentiments . . . are sentiments which seen to arise inevitably from social consciousness: they involve natural prejudice, and a desire for the company of ones own kind.

What bonds people together, what makes up “one's own kind" according to new racism, is “a shared way of life” which includes not just language and customs but also beliefs and feeling, in short a “culture”; and, the new racists continue, while there are many groupings, the most important way in which people who share a way of life come together is in a "nation" in which they identify themselves as who and what they are.

As with the old racism, science is called in in support of such an "instinct" to "prove" that it is “natural" for people to be hostile to "outsiders”. The idea of an innate and natural hostility towards those who are perceived to be different is something which runs through the new racism. But that biological differences determine other, cultural characteristics has been discredited by scientists for years. What are called "racial differences" is something which is socially defined. For example, groups which are classed as "outsiders" in one period or in one country may be defined as insiders in another.

Prejudice

According to the Daily Telegraph (23 September 1991), the former French President Giscard D’Estaing takes a tough line on immigration. He suggested a referendum to make citizenship a "right of blood” rather than a "right of ground"—in other words, he wants nationality to be determined by "race" and ancestry rather than by place of birth. In his article he wrote of an invasion by "unwanted aliens", an opinion he shares with, indeed derived from, his rightwing rival Jean Marie Le Pen and his National Front.

In the 1990s' economic recession many racist workers are blaming problems on immigrants who happen to mainly come from the so-called Third World. Their racism arises from fear that someone else is competing with them on the labour market and for housing, education and other social services.

The nationalistic and fascist ideas of the 1930s of Mussolini and Hitler such as xenophobia, nationalism and contempt for democracy are now at work again in Western society. Organisations like the National Front, the BNP. German and French neo-nazis and other European fascists have been churning out propaganda. aimed particularly at young people, to foster antagonism between black and white. In recent years minority ethnic groups have suffered an increasing number of racially-inspired attacks. Temples, mosques, synagogues and cemeteries have been vandalised and daubed with fascist slogans and emblems; people have been attacked in the streets and abused with racist insults. This alarming trend is only the tip of the iceberg of popular and institutionalised racism.

The problem of racial tensions is usually approached by the main political parties from the assumption that plans should be devised to enable "different races” to exist co-operatively. Although on the face of it this is an anti-racist attitude, it is in fact quite the reverse. There is of course only one race—the human race, and no-one comes from any pure "racial” stock. The peoples of the world enjoy many diverse cultures, but there is no necessary link between race and culture.

Todays so-called “British stock” in fact traces its ancestry to a great variety of groups who settled on this island including the Celts, Romans. Jutes. Angles, Saxons, Vikings and Normans. Each of these groups was, similarly, the result of a mixture of people of different geographical and cultural origins. So, many of the philanthropic reformers who today advocate measures like “positive discrimination" as ways of improving the relations between the "different races" are in fact proceeding from the same fallacious racial assumptions as their fascist opponents.

Ignorance

The profit system doesn't operate on any moral code, and we can not say that as capitalism continues it will progress to smoother and more harmonious ways of working. Governments will tend to discourage or promote racism to suit the requirements of the profitability of industry. During the last World War much of industry and many services were destroyed. After the War there was much reconstruction work to be done and. with about 30 million workers killed in Europe, there was an acute shortage of labour. The capitalists needed an enlarged workforce quickly, and they were not fussy about where the “hands” came from. In the Economic Review of 1947 the government set out its policy:

Foreign labour can make a useful contribution to our needs. Foreign labour is the only substantial additional source of manpower which is open to us, especially for the undermanned industries. The undermanned industries have to be filled by the immigrant labour force mainly from the Colonies of West Indies, India and Africa.

Now Britain, along with other industrialised countries, is in economic crisis—and "swamping our culture", scaremongery and measures like the Nationality Act and the 1991 Asylum Bill have come back on to the agenda.

From the Jewish fundamentalists, who proclaim they are the “chosen people”, to the neo-nazis who believe that that honour is theirs, all racism feeds and flourishes upon ignorance. But the fact is that today the most significant division between people is that by which a small minority (from all cultural origins) own and control the means of life, while the overwhelming majority of us (from all cultural origins) create wealth and run society primarily to produce profits for the rich.

Michael Ghebre