Defeating Organized Racism: From South Africa to Canada
Johann Sebastian Bot
David Lethbridge (The Bethune Institute for Anti-Fascist Studies)
Mar 97
THE SHARPEVILLE MASSACRE
March 21 is commemorated as the International Day for the Elimination of
Racial Discrimination because of a massacre in the town of Sharpeville, in
the Republic of South Africa. Until as recently as 1994, South Africa was a
country ruled by brutal white supremacists. Organized racism was state
policy. The people labored under a government that was widely regarded as
fascist, and of the same type as Nazi Germany. Certainly Canadian and
American racist and fascist publications have been consistent in their
support of South African white supremacy and the policy of apartheid - or
racial separation - on which South African fascism was constructed.
Of all the racist laws that people of color were forced to obey under
apartheid, the pass law was among the most degrading. Every non-white was
forced to carry a written pass. Failure to produce the pass when requested
by any white police officer, civil servant, or employer meant fines or
imprisonment. The pass contained information on where the bearer lived, who
his or her local chief was, and a variety of detailed information including
whether the pass carrier had paid the annual poll tax, which was a tax that
only Africans were forced to pay. The African people of color recognized
that the pass system was a form of organized racist oppression designed to
eliminate their free movement within their own country. And they were
determined to resist it.
Among the many anti-pass campaigns of the people's resistance, the March
1960 campaign became the most famous. The African National Congress - the
largest revolutionary organization in South Africa - was dedicated to
eliminating apartheid and building a non-racial, non-sexist society. As
part of that struggle, they had organized a massive anti-pass campaign
which would begin on March 31, and culminate in a mass bonfire of passes at
the end of June. The intention was to bring the pass system to its knees.
Unfortunately, a few leaders of a rival anti-government organization
foolishly decided to usurp the anti-pass campaign by walking into a police
station and turning in their passes in a brave show of defiance. The
government showed its contempt by immediately sentencing them to three
years in prison.
But the people fought back. They rallied to the defence of the jailed
leaders. On March 21, in Sharpeville, an industrial town to the south of
Johannesburg, several thousand protesters began to demonstrate against the
pass laws and harsh prison sentences handed out by the racist government.
The demonstrators were peaceful and unarmed. The police were not. The
police opened fire shooting round after round directly into the crowd of
demonstrators. Four hundred were wounded. Sixty-nine were killed, almost
all of them shot in the back as the protesters turned and tried to escape.
It was a massacre that the revolutionary forces in South Africa would never
forget.
THE BATTLE OF CUITO CUANAVALE
After decades of struggle, white supremacy and its policy of apartheid were
finally overthrown in the 1990s, by a united three-way alliance of the
African National Congress, the South African Communist Party, and the
Congress of South African Trade Unions. Nelson Mandela, the leader of the
African National Congress, and Joe Slovo, the leader of the Communist Party
of South Africa, were close colleagues and together fashioned the combined
strategy of political struggle and armed struggle that eventually won the
day.
Both the press and the government in Canada do their best to ignore the
positive role of the Communist Party in ending organized white racism in
South Africa. They try to put a false distance between Nelson Mandela and
the communists. But Mandela himself has been very clear about the role not
only of the South African Communist Party, but of the volunteer forces from
Cuba that came to Africa in a spirit of internationalist solidarity.
Three years before the first free elections in South Africa that swept him
into power, Mandela spoke in Cuba, on 26 July 1991, on the same platform as
Fidel Castro. Mandela was in Cuba because he believed that the South
African people owed revolutionary Cuba a special debt of gratitude. Cuban
troops had been sent to Angola, a country to the northwest of South Africa,
when the white racist army of South Africa had invaded that nation. Angola
had just achieved independence from Portugal, and the fascist South African
government was determined that the spirit of freedom not reach across the
border into South Africa itself. The Angolans asked the Cuban army to come
to their aid, and the Cuban volunteers came. They fought side by side with
the Angolan people against the invading forces of South Africa. Every
victory of the combined army of the Cubans and Angolans, inspired Nelson
Mandela, Joe Slovo, and the revolutionary triple alliance inside South
Africa to struggle harder against the white racist government.
In 1987, however, the fascist apartheid regime in South Africa decided to
crush the revolutionary upsurge inside its own borders, by illegally
attacking and attempting to overthrow the revolutionary government of
Angola. A massive South African army pierced deeply into Angola and
surrounded and besieged the strategically located city of Cuito Cuanavale.
The situation was desperate. Angola's best units were stationed in Cuito
Cuanavale. If the South African army entered the city they almost certainly
would have wiped out the defending forces and the Angolan revolution would
have been imperiled.
Once again the Angolan government appealed to Castro. The Cuban people
responded and thousands of new volunteers went to Cuito Cuanavale. In March
1988, the Cubans and Angolans together broke the siege of Cuito Cuanavale,
and in one of the most important and decisive battles of the late twentieth
century, they defeated the fascist South African troops and forced them
into a humiliating retreat. It was the beginning of the end for the racist
government. Less than two years later, in 1990, Nelson Mandela was freed
from the South African jails. In 1994, with the apartheid system finally
overthrown, he was elected president.
In his speech in Cuba, standing at Castro's side, Mandela had this to say:
"The crushing defeat of the racist army at Cuito Cuanavale was a victory
for the whole of Africa! The defeat of the apartheid army was an
inspiration to the struggling people inside South Africa! The defeat of the
racist army at Cuito Cuanavale has made it possible for me to be here
today! Cuito Cuanavale has been a turning point in the struggle to free the
continent and our country from the scourge of apartheid!"
The point of this long divergence into the history and repercussions of the
battle of Cuito Cuanavale, is to highlight the fact that organized white
racism and fascism must be, and can be, defeated in struggle. In South
Africa, the struggle was won primarily through the triple alliance of the
African National Congress, the South African Communist Party, and the
Congress of South African Trade Unions, operating through both political
and armed initiatives. The struggle against white supremacists and neo-
fascists in Canada must necessarily take different forms under very
different circumstances.
ORGANIZED RACIST ACTIVITY IN CANADA
The Canadian state is not a fascist state, and organized racism is not
state policy. On the other hand, the Canadian government has for decades
engaged in activities which border closely on fascism and has tolerated,
and continues to tolerate, overt white racism. That Canada is rarely
condemned on these grounds is testimony to the ability of the Canadian
state to consistently portray itself as fair, moderate, and benign, in the
face of any amount of contrary evidence.
From Vancouver to Halifax, people of color experience police harassment and
brutality, including murder. In some communities, police officers have
worked with organized racist groups, such as the Ku Klux Klan, and have
been members of such groups. Government policy before the Second World War,
refused the entrance into Canada of Jews fleeing from Nazi Germany; many of
them were subsequently murdered in Nazi gas chambers. But after the war,
the government allowed hundreds of Nazi SS officers, war criminals, and
fascist collaborators to immigrate. The INCO mining company, in Sudbury,
Ontario, brought former Nazis into the country and employed them for the
specific purpose of physically attacking the union leaders and destroying
the union. And in a move reminiscent of every fascist state, the Canadian
government, through a network of secret police and spy agencies, harassed,
blacklisted, and kept files on at least one million Canadians, between 1940
and 1970, simply because they ! held socialist political beliefs or were
active in union organizing. We do not know how many progressive Canadians
are systematically spied on by their government today.
But of even greater concern to the anti-racist and anti-fascist movement,
is the rapid growth of organized white racism in Canada in the 1990s. Many
groups that promote white supremacy, hatred of Jews, and denial of the
Holocaust have been active for decades, but have shown increased growth in
this period. Many others are new. These organizations break down into two
fundamental categories: Christian Identity, and neo-Nazi.
Christian Identity is a religion which unites the majority of organized
racist and fascist groups in Canada and the USA today. The essential
beliefs of Identity are that white people are God's chosen people; that all
people of color were created separately from whites and are spiritually and
biologically inferior; and that Jews were created by Satan and are the
embodiment of evil. They believe that there is an international Jewish
conspiracy to take over the world through a New World Order and a One World
Government. They believe that the Canadian and American governments have
already been taken over by the Jews. Identity believers maintain that
Christ will come again soon, but not until white people do their religious
duty which is to establish a whites-only, Christian-only state. Many
Identity groups advocate the genocide of Jews and the enslavement of people
of color. Many Identity groups are well-armed, including laser-assisted
automatic weapons, plastic explosives, anti-t! ank missiles, surface-to-air
missiles, and biological toxins.
In Canada, Identity organizations, or Identity-oriented organizations,
include most Ku Klux Klan groups, the Euro-Christian Defence League, Aryan
Nations, Winston's Journal, Posse Comitatus, and, to some extent, the
Council on Public Affairs, and the Canadian League of Rights.
The second large category, the neo-Nazis, believes in white racial
supremacy, the eugenic creation of superior Aryan beings, the establishment
of a whites-only fascist state, and the extermination of Jews and all
people of color. Neo-Nazi organizations in Canada include the Heritage
Front, the Church of the Creator, Northern Hammerskins, White Aryan
Resistance, the Aryan Youth Corps, the Aryan Women's Unity, Canadian
Patriot's Network, Ernst Zundel's organization, and, to some extent,
Citizen's for Foreign Aid Reform, the Canadian Association for Free
Expression, and the Canadian Free Speech League.
As is very obvious, there is little fundamental difference between the neo-
Nazi and Identity programs. Both categories are white supremacists and
advocate genocidal activity against Jews, people of color, homosexuals,
socialists, and Communists. Both oppose any non-white immigration. Both
oppose women's reproductive rights. Both are armed and dangerous. Both are
actively recruiting. Both are growing in influence and in raw numbers. Both
are operating with virtual impunity in every province of the country.
CANADIAN LAW AND CANADA'S OBLIGATIONS UNDER INTERNATIONAL DECLARATIONS AND
TREATIES
Canada's laws against racism and fascism are among the weakest in the
western world. And even though sections 318, 319, and 320 of the criminal
code forbid the advocacy or promotion of genocide; the willful promotion of
hatred on the basis of color, race, religion, or ethnic origin; or the sale
or distribution of hate propaganda, these laws are almost never enforced.
There have been literally no more than a handful of convictions.
Even more seriously, although it has signed several international
declarations and conventions, Canada has done almost nothing to live up to
its obligations. Nevertheless, by signing international conventions, the
Canadian government is duty bound to carry out the intentions of the
documents; after all, what else is the point in signing them?
The International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial
Discrimination, which Canada signed in 1965, obliges all signatories to
"declare illegal and prohibit organizations, and also organized and all
other propaganda activities, which promote and incite racial
discrimination, and shall recognize participation in such organizations or
activities as an offence punishable by law." Furthermore, The Declaration
of Race and Racial Prejudice, which Canada signed in 1978, obliges signing
governments to take appropriate steps specifically "to prevent, prohibit,
and eradicate racism," and "racist propaganda."
Under these international agreements the Canadian government has both a
legal and an ethical duty to eliminate racist organizations and racist
propaganda. Yet Aryan Nations, Heritage Front, the Ku Klux Klan, and dozens
of other racist and fascist groups are openly active and recruiting across
the country. Furthermore, Ernst Zundel's organization, based in Toronto,
Ontario; the Canadian League of Rights, based in High River, Alberta; the
Council on Public Affairs, based in Salmon Arm, British Columbia; and
dozens of other organizations sell substantial quantities of viciously
racist and anti-Jewish literature secure in the knowledge that there will
almost certainly be no legal consequences.
THE STRUGGLE AGAINST ORGANIZED RACISM IN CANADA
Partly because of the relative inactivity of the government, an anti-racist
and anti-fascist movement has been developing in Canada, especially over
the last ten years. The anti-racist and anti-fascist movement believes that
organized racist groups easily breed within Canada because the fundamental
power structure of Canadian society is based on white supremacy.
In order to combat organized white racism, the anti-racist movement
monitors and tracks the activities of racist groups, gathers and analyzes
information, writes documents and reports, publicly exposes racist groups,
sponsors anti-racist events, engages in anti-racist education, leads anti-
racist training workshops, organizes community groups across the country,
lobbies the government, protests and demonstrates against racist meetings,
attempts to shut down racist meetings, and presses for prosecutions against
the distributors of racist propaganda, and for the arrest and conviction of
racist and fascist leaders. If it is true that the anti-racist movement has
had some recent successes, it is important to realize that the work becomes
more difficult each year. Organized racist and fascist groups are expanding
exponentially. In Canada and the USA combined there are over 800 armed,
paramilitary militia groups, where only five years ago there were no more
than half a dozen. Enrollment in the largest neo-Nazi group, National
Alliance, is up 30 times what is was ten years ago. Aryan Nations is active
in 24 states of the United States today, compared to 6 states in 1993; and
is active in all provinces in Canada except Newfoundland and, probably,
Prince Edward Island. In Canada, Aryan Nations and other Nazi and Identity
organizations have begun to adopt a pattern of underground activity making
the possibility of widespread armed violence increasingly likely.
MAKING THEIR STRUGGLE OUR OWN
For all these reasons, we need to build the anti-racist movement and build
an anti-fascist culture in Canada. Today, we need to recognize the
continuity of anti-racist work from South Africa to Canada. The March 21
massacre in Sharpeville was not the beginning of the international struggle
against organized racism, and it surely was not the end of that struggle.
But if today we want to honor the memory of the men and women who died in
Sharpeville, we can do that best by actively carrying on their struggle,
and by making it our own. We best honor history by making history.
So, we should not permit the observance of this day to become a meaningless
lip service to the struggles of the past. We should instead use this day to
rededicate ourselves to the on-going fight against racism. And we should
use this day to remind those racists and fascists in our midst that they
will not win; that no matter how long it takes, and no matter what the
cost, we will defeat them.
* * * * *
This document is also stored at:
<ftp://ftp.nyct.net/pub/users/tallpaul/docs/tactics/tac019.txt>
In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. section 107, this material is
distributed without profit or payment to those who have expressed a prior
interest in receiving this information for non-profit research and
educational purposes only.
Alex Vange
http://stormfront.org
"Johann Sebastian Bot" <j-s...@nyc.rr.com> wrote in message
news:asxrOsHQ8F70a9...@4ax.com...
> Defeating Organized Racism: From South Africa to Canada
> David Lethbridge (The Bethune Institute for Anti-Fascist Studies)
> Mar 97
>
> THE SHARPEVILLE MASSACRE
>
> March 21 is commemorated as the International Day for the Elimination of
> Racial Discrimination because of a massacre in the town of Sharpeville, in
> the Republic of South Africa. Until as recently as 1994, South Africa was
a
> country ruled by brutal white supremacists. Organized racism was state
> policy. The people labored under a government that was widely regarded as
> fascist, and of the same type as Nazi Germany. Certainly Canadian and
> American racist and fascist publications have been consistent in their
> support of South African white supremacy and the policy of apartheid - or
> racial separation - on which South African fascism was constructed.
>
> Of all the racist laws that people of color were forced to obey under
> apartheid, the pass law was among the most degrading. Every non-white was
> forced to carry a written pass.
There was probably a good reason for this. In America it is the
Blacks who do most of the crime.
Letter To The Citizen by F. Rundle
A White Man's Apologies.
Along with the other South African Whites who are
apologising for
Apartheid, we Whites who are not part of that
liberal select group
would like to apologise to the Black people for the
following heinous
crimes:
We apologise for bringing clothing to a land where
the Black people
were naked or only had animal skin loincloths to
cover themselves
before our arrival;
We apologise for bringing doctors and free medical
care, as a result
of which the Black people have been able to survive
plagues and
catastrophes and grow in numbers;
We apologise for teaching Black people to read and
write;
We apologise for providing the money to build
schools and
universities for the Black people, always rebuilding
them when they
were burned down or vandalised;
We apologise for bringing vehicles and roads to a
land, which did
not have the wheel, before we arrived here 350 years
ago;
We apologise for building dams which stored water
for times of
drought, and we apologise for bringing running water
systems to the
houses we built;
We also apologise for bringing electricity to this
country;
We apologise for building factories, highways, and
buildings that
gave Black people employment and money;
We apologise for developing commercial farms which
to this day feed
the bulk of Africa, the like of which the Black
people never had
before;
We apologise for taking minerals from the earth,
which the Black
people neither used, nor wanted, nor even knew were
there;
We apologise for those among us who have established
welfare
organisations and have devoted their entire lives
towards making
life richer and better for the Black people;
We apologise for paying the lion's share of taxation
while spending
less
on ourselves than on the Black people;
For all these sins we humbly beg forgiveness, and if
they will only
accept our apology we will be happy to take back all
of the above
evil and horrible things we have done to you and
return to Europe.
F Rundle
Johann Sebastian Bot
David Lethbridge (The Bethune Institute for Anti-Fascist Studies)
Mar 97
THE SHARPEVILLE MASSACRE
March 21 is commemorated as the International Day for the Elimination of
Racial Discrimination because of a massacre in the town of Sharpeville, in
the Republic of South Africa. Until as recently as 1994, South Africa was a
country ruled by brutal white supremacists. Organized racism was state
policy. The people labored under a government that was widely regarded as
fascist, and of the same type as Nazi Germany. Certainly Canadian and
American racist and fascist publications have been consistent in their
support of South African white supremacy and the policy of apartheid - or
racial separation - on which South African fascism was constructed.
Of all the racist laws that people of color were forced to obey under
apartheid, the pass law was among the most degrading. Every non-white was