06. YCL CALLS TO ERADICATE RACISM

(The following article is from the April 1-15, 2008 issue of People's Voice, Canada's leading communist newspaper. Articles can be reprinted free if the source is credited. Subscription rates in Canada: $25/year, or $12 low income rate; for U.S. readers - $25 US per year; other overseas readers - $25 US or $35 CDN per year. Send to: People's Voice, c/o PV Business Manager, 133 Herkimer St. Unit 502, Hamilton, ON, L8P 2H3).

On March 21, the International Day for the Elimination of Racism, the Young Communist League of Canada issued a statement joining "with all those demanding an end to
racist wars, environmental destruction, inequality, and attacks on civil and democratic rights." 
     The statement goes on to say:
     March 21 marks the anniversary of the 1960 Sharpeville Massacre, when police used low-flying jet fighters and armoured vehicles to attack a non-violent demonstration of over 7,000 South Africans against Apartheid's passbook laws. The attack killed 67 people and wounded 186 protestors.

     Being born non-white is not a crime. But in Canada, it usually means you are sentenced to a lifetime of systemic racial oppression. This cannot be understood as simply a matter of individual prejudice. In the grand sweep of our country's history, genocide, colonization, national oppression, racism, sexual assault and sexism, discrimination against immigrants, homophobia and other forms of oppression have and continue to play a major role in the functioning of Canadian capitalism.

     The ideology of sexism and racism are also used as a rationale and enforcer of the most brutal polices of our government - including Canada's participation in coup and occupation of Haiti, the war in Afghanistan, and Canada's support for the ongoing Israeli occupation and oppression of Palestine.

     There can be no peaceful co-existence with racism and with the violence it invariably spawns. The ideology racism is not abstract. It is used to divide and defeat the working class.

     We demand respect for and call for the defense of civil and democratic rights, including the elimination of racial profiling by the police and the civilian and community control of police and prisons; reform to immigration and refuge laws; strengthening and enforcement of hate laws; support of black-focused schools; and the enacting and enforcing equality in education, employment, healthcare and housing as a priority.

     We express our solidarity with the young anti-racist activists, one of whom was a Communist Party election candidate, whose home was recently fire-bombed by neo-Nazis during the Alberta election.

     We note with alarm the growing racism campaign against immigrants and racialized communities including "anti-Islamic racism" or "Islamophobia," a new label for an old form of racism that is today viciously used to justify oppression and imperialist policy.

     We demand an end to the national oppression and racism Aboriginal peoples (including First Nations Inuit, and Metis peoples) face; immediate action for just and early settlement of Aboriginal land claims; Treaty implementation; solidarity with Aboriginal struggles including Sun Peaks BC, Grassy Narrows Manitoba, and Caledonia, Ontario; recognition of self-determination and self-government; implementation of the Kelowna accord at a minimum and the signing of the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples by Canada; support of the Native Youth Movement and their opposition to the 2010 BC Olympic games profiteering; removing the current federal cap on core funding to First Nations; and an end to the Canadian government's policies of suicide, genocide and assimilation.

     We demand that everyone should have the right to dignity, life and justice, and access to employment, labour rights, education, health care, sports, culture, and technology.

     To push back racism and sexism will take a mighty and united struggle. Together we can beat it by uniting all races, ages, and genders.

     The capitalists will never end racism on their own because it serves their economic self-interest. For youth & students, the working class and the people as a whole, racism holds back our demands for a better future. Racism is not an advantage to white youth. There are only setbacks when there is no unity.

     Sexism, racism, and class exploitation are inseparably linked and impact all our lives, but through unity and militancy we can defeat this system of oppression. In the longer term, socialism is a historic necessity if humanity is to win that battle and reach the stage of real democracy. The struggle to defeat racism not a distraction from the struggle for socialism, it is part of that struggle, and continues after socialism has been won. Socialism creates conditions to profoundly deepen the anti-racist struggle.

     It is not only possible to bring an end to racial oppression and inequality in our country, it is a dire necessity.