Refugees are fellow-workers

Refugee Festival Scotland Opening Day is on Saturday 16 June at the Hidden Gardens in 25a Albert Drive, Glasgow with free entry. Wednesday, 20 June is World Refugee Day.

People living in other countries which are not the land of their birth are grimly accustomed to invectives like "fucking foreigner"; "parasite"; "free-loading scrounger", etc. and it appears matters have been getting out of hand in recent years. Xenophobia is on the rise. "Patriotic" citizens are quick to assert, nationalistically, that the "aliens" have come to take over their country, their resources, their jobs, their culture, and what have you. The Socialist Party does not speak of ‘we’ and ‘us’ in relation to so-called nationality in where we happened to have been born. 

In order to ward off unrest, various tactics are employed by governments. One of them is creating divisions among the suffering masses by, for instance, blaming foreigners and whipping up nationalistic feelings. This diverts attention from misrule and mismanagement. Secondly, and in response to the official lies, the masses who are hungry, sick and illiterate are taken in by the government's ploy. Now, since a hungry man is an angry man and since anger is emotional and overpowers reason, the least provocation can result in misdirected violence vented against vulnerable fellow citizens or be turned loose on the "aliens". This is the real cause of xenophobia - the rich pitting the poor against the poor. Our ruling class has opened a Pandora's Box of nationalist rhetoric around migrants and allowed a space to open up in groups and individuals influenced by fascist and racist ideology. 

 The Socialist Party condemns nationalist ideas. They are stumbling-blocks to working-class understanding of socialism. This above all is why we find such attitudes pernicious and repugnant.  The nationalist seeks only the crudest and superficial explanation of social problems. They need a scapegoat to explain the loss of what they called “national identity”. For the working class, national identity has always meant congested decaying slums, insecurity poverty and, very often, the dole-queue. National identity is a cunning political device by means of which the working class, who own no country, are duped to identify with their exploiters, the capitalists, who own virtually everything. 

 Capitalism divides because the means of production are owned by a few. Socialism will embrace all mankind because the earth will be owned in common.  We stand together as friends, work colleagues and members of our communities. We stand side-by-side and will not allow a wave of xenophobic nationalism and racism to threaten our lives and well-being.