UK: Another Big Demo in London Against Racist Violence

Richard Mellor
Afscme Local 444, retired

We are witnessing the beginnings of a global movement that is inspiring in its unity, diversity and commitment to justice and freedom The enemy is resourceful, powerful and ruthless and will be doing all it can to undermine it. Capitalism and its security police is the source if the problem and it cannot be reformed, cannot be "made nice". This was the understanding that Malcolm X had.  We cannot eliminate racism without eliminating capitalism and we cannot eliminate capitalism without working class unity. This is not understood by the mass of the protestors, but in times of great movements, the state and its forces will help people draw this conclusion and look for revolutionary answers.

Already, people are raising questions about the police, this gives revolutionary socialists and anti-capitalists an opportunity. The movement is diverse, fearless and international. In the US, the ruling class will bring out all the stops to convince the white workers that the movement is directed at them, that they should fear it and when we fear something in society we are supposed to call the police to protect us. But we are not seeing the fear they want us to have in the throngs of young people black, white Asian, Indigenous as they confront the state.

I see Ferguson has elected a black mayor. But we have had black Americans as governors of states and mayors of big cities and this does not change the situation in the black or brown communities and the conditions of the white working class have continued to deteriorate.

Years ago I got my union local to defend a South African trade union leader, Moses Mayekiso. At the founding conference of COSATU I remember him saying that in South Africa they did not want simply to change the color of thew face of the opressor; they wanted to change the system.

A lot has happened since then, and much of it in a backward direction. But meaning of those words still rings true.