Letters of January 13

Anti-Muslim Racism is Anti-Black, Anti-Arab
We the Party in Haiti discussed the last two editorials (11/25 and 12/9) and they are good. We think that we should clarify something for the working class. First, anti-Muslim racism is racism against both Black and Arab workers. Historically, many oppressed workers and youth have converted to Islam. And the imperialists from the eastern hemisphere use them to fight on the side of their own bosses against the Western imperialists. ISIS playing on workers’ alienation and the anti-Muslim racism are both really an attack on the working class.
There is a more than a hint of repartitioning the small capitalist countries, whose rulers take sides, either for Russia and China or on the side of the U.S. and France.
Some oppressed workers, weakened by reformist ideas and the collapse of old communist movement in the last century, enter into the ranks of eastern terrorists against the western terrorists through the ideology of Islam.
We’d like to add something on the question of taking power and the electoral system pushed by the bourgeoisie. Democracy is an alienating doctrine in that it fools workers into thinking they can take power through taking over the government. In reality, the bosses use democracy to pacify and disarm us. They also use elections to push their capitalist ideas on the working class. Elections are also a means of sharing or dividing power among the bourgeoisie. There is a class dictatorship at play among the bourgeoisie for example, in the U.S. and in France among the openly fascists and the liberal bosses.
Here in Haiti, what’s going on worldwide economically and politically really interests us. We know we should be writing more on how to strengthen our communist politics and multiply the number of our members to build a real mass Party. We will conduct inner-Party struggle to guarantee more writing in the coming year and beyond!
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Nationalism Hurts All Workers
I recently came back from a trip to Israel, a country built with the myth that it would be of Jews, by Jews, and for Jews where Jewish people could prosper. I know the Israeli state’s existence is only possible because of the ethnic cleansing of workers in Palestine and that it is built on a foundation of anti-Arab racism. So, I expected to see non-Jewish workers and youth living in oppressive (to put it lightly) conditions. Indeed, I found this to be true.
But I didn’t expect to find Jewish workers living in terrible conditions. They were living in apartments barely large enough to sleep in. They were working overtime and barely affording to pay rent and eat. I saw people sleeping in the streets, begging for money. I saw all the same things I see in the United States. Though Arab and African immigrant workers are absolutely the most oppressed and exploited, it is a myth that Jewish workers live in luxury.
Seeing this society reminded me of the conversations I have with friends about creating an “all-Black society.” Many prescribe to the idea that if Black people band together to help each other and create their own society, things will be better for them. My experiences in Israel prove this ideology to be incorrect. Our unity to fight racism must be based on class, not race.
Israel is a society based on their race/religion, and it has only hurt the working class. There is still poverty, exploitation, and racism—lots of racism. Nationalism has been tried and failed many times over. It is a road to failure for the international working class. The only way to build a society that works is to unite based on class and smash capitalism worldwide.
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Liberal FDR’s Nazi-Style Camps
In the December 23 issue of CHALLENGE, the letter “Racist FDR No Friend of Workers” did a good job of attacking president Roosevelt’s image as a pro-working class president. However, it did leave out one of his most racist and fascist actions, which is especially important for us to expose in the current political climate. After the bombing of Pearl Harbor, FDR issued an executive order to forcefully remove all people of Japanese descent throughout the U.S, from their homes and force them into concentration camps. They were packed twenty-five people to a room built for four, limited to 45-cents of food per day, had no plumbing, insufficient medical care leading to outbreaks of dysentery and tuberculosis, and were kept in by armed guards prepared to shoot anyone who approached the fence.
Trump’s calls for the rounding-up and imprisonment of Muslim workers are no different from Roosevelt’s racist attacks on Japanese workers. But make no mistake: his rhetoric is not just right-wing hysteria. Roosevelt was an epitome of the Democratic Party. Racism and fascism are essential tools of the capitalists to keep workers divided from each other and loyal to their national bosses, to see workers across the world as their enemies. It is all part of a scheme to build for imperialist war.
Therefore, it makes no difference whether a Republican or Democrat is in office, the result is the same: more racism, more exploitation, and more attacks on workers. Whether Trump or Clinton wins the election, they will both follow this long legacy. Fight racism from all of the bosses’ mouth pieces!
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