Marnie Holborow argues that the escalation of far right violence and racism requires the urgent building of a united anti-racist movement.
The new British Prime Minister, Keir Starmer, has called for those who were responsible for the riots would face ‘the full force of the law’ and mass arrests of those involved in the racist riots in Southport and elsewhere. Justice Minister, Helen McEntee, is calling for new legislation that would prohibit protesters ‘with the intention to intimidate’from wearing masks.
No Policing Solution
Appeals to impose law and order may assuage liberal outrage at the riots, but it is no answer. The police are no friend of those needing protection against racism. After the Belfast riot on Saturday 3 August, the Immigrant-owned shops in the city were abandoned by the PSNI as their premises were being burnt and ransacked.
Governments arguing for tougher policing also conveniently sidestep what has led to rise of the far right. The Tory government and Stormont presided over increased poverty and falling living standards.The new Labour government has already refused to take steps to reduce child poverty, like scrapping thetwo-child benefit cap.
Failed government policies
In Ireland, the FF/FG and Green government have constructed multifaceted social crises. The number ofthose homeless shows no signs of abating. Publicly provided services continue to fail with routine medical procedures taking months to get. Waiting lists for community healthcare are up 50% in five years. The loss of local jobs offers people no future in the area where they were brought up.
Recognising how poverty and deprivation has fed the far right does not, however, get around the vile and divisive racism that they have stirred up. Their attacks on anti-racists in Belfast, their anti-immigrant slogans, their branding of black and brown men as rapists have horrendous consequences.
Attacks on Refugees
Asylum seekers living on the streets of Dublin now fear for their lives. Some have said that they fear being stabbed as they walk home. We have seen no less than 31 arson attacks on centres and potential centres for refugees over the last two years. People sleeping in tents on canal banks in Dubin have had their tents slashed and their belongings thrown intothe water.
Recently, just north of Finglas, two Palestinians were hospitalised after being attacked in their tents when they were sleeping. In a well-worn trope used by the KKK in the Southern states of the US, single brown and black ‘unvetted’ men are now targeted as potential rapists.
Concessions & Evasion
This outright racism must be tackled head-on, something Sinn Féin has consistently avoided. It has redrawn its immigration policy with a focus on poor services, on the need for ‘a firm but fair’ immigration policy, on swifter deportations of ‘illegal’ refugees and on a ‘fairer’ dispersal into middle class communities of those seeking International Protection.
Racism, in this narrative, is not only not mentioned but is effectively normalised, through a repetition of the government’s racist mantra of being tougher on immigration.
Others, too, have turned away from challenging racism and the far right directly. An anti-racist NGO, The Hope and Courage Collective, for example, believes that the lessons from the Coolock riots are that the Garda presence and visibility was inadequate, and that ‘intelligence-led policing’ is needed.
They believe that the biggest danger would be to amplify the far-right message – by which they appear to mean rejecting a clear fight against the far right. On the strange grounds of ‘what we fight we feed’, they argue that ‘amplification of positive community stories and leaders’ is the best solution.
This is hardly an adequate political response. We need more, not less, of a clear and direct challenge to racism.
Against State Racism
We need to start with those in power who have institutionalised racism and xenophobia. Last year, visa-free travel for refugees into the state was suspended, and in October, the conditions afforded to Ukrainians tightened. The numbers of deportations have risen and there has more rapid processing of asylum cases of people who are coming from countries now deemed ‘safe’, such as Algeria and Georgia. Since last year there have been more checks on people who may not have documents. Gardaí have resumed travelling on some flights and random checks on cross border transport.
The EU has led the way on anti-migrant discourseand the Irish government has happily followed along.For example, the passing earlier this year of the EU Migrant Pact, represents a major tightening of the EU’s migration and asylum rules. It will speed up the asylum process and the return of irregular migrants to home countries. Fortress Europe is being fortified further, as Niaṁh Ní Mháille’s article showed, and amounts to institutionalised racism.
Always Anti-Racist
We need to highlight how scapegoating immigrants and asylum seekers only serves to perpetuate the rule of Fine Gael, Fianna Fail and the Greens. It is their policies of a reliance on the market for housing and services that has left people competing with each other on the end of long waiting lists.
It is no coincidence that since the rise of the far right, the prospect of an alternative left government led by Sinn Féin has receded. Recent polls put Sinn Féinback in third place at 19% behind Fianna Fail and Fine Gael just as ‘concerns around immigration’have risen near the top of the political agenda.
To push back the far-right, a broad anti-racist movement needs to be built, both nationally and locally. National demonstrations which bring together a broad range of anti-racist groups, NGO’s, women’s groups, trade unions and trades councils, LGBTQI+ organisations, parties of the left.
Crucially it needs to involve trade unions: Dublin Council of Trade Unions has already expressed their frustration with the silence of most trade union leaders over the rise of the far right. While there may be differences of emphasis within these groups and parties, it is vital that we create a united front in opposing the far right and putting big numbers on the streets.
Onto the Streets
The recent South Dublin protest to pull down the fences set up to keep asylum seekers’ tents away from along the canal, and the recent Dundalk counter-protests provide two local examples of forging unity against racism on the ground. The Belfast counter-protest on 3rd August, involving many different groups under the broad banner of United Against Racism (UAR), also showed the strength of unity and people on the streets.
This work needs to be broad, creating genuine local united fronts, built around specific actions – leafleting, petitioning, removing racist graffiti and organising local demonstrations – which can then feed into and build for national events.
Lessons of History
The lessons from earlier eras which saw the rise of fascism, was that holding back on calling out the fascists and not mobilising against them allowed the fascists to grow. In Italy, in the 1920’s, the left refused unity with the spontaneous resistance to the fascist squads represented by the Arditi del Populo, on the grounds that that they were not ‘socialist enough’.
In France, in the 1930’s, socialists and communists argued that the threat from the far right could only be fought through an electoral Popular Front and programme for government – not through mass mobilisation and strikes.
Neither situation is the same as today. But the political lessons about building the broadest unity from below, on the streets and in the communities, are as valid as ever. They remain the best means of pushing back racism and stopping the growth of fascism.
