Trotskyist Platform Emergency Statement on the:

White Supremacist Terror
Attack in New Zealand

15 March 2019 – Today, white supremacists launched a horrific attack on people attending two mosques in the New Zealand city of Christchurch. The terrorists were motivated by a Nazi-like agenda of genocidal violence against Muslim people and all non-white people. The main attacker, an Australian white nationalist, shot indiscriminately at unarmed women, children and men. Two other people have so far been arrested. This cold blooded and cowardly act of terror has so far left 49 people dead – Muslim people, many of whom were also migrants and refugees. Some amongst the dozens of other gunshot victims are now fighting for their lives.

New Zealand prime minister, Jacinda Ardern, flanked in her press conference by the union jacks that sit in the corner of the New Zealand flag, symbols of brutal British colonial terror, said of the attack that “New Zealand has been chosen because we are not a place where violent extremism exists.” Many Maori people and immigrant-based communities from Asia and the neighbouring Pacific Islands may well disagree with her statement. They have often copped racist attacks from rednecks not to mention the bloody history of colonialist state terror that the Maori people have endured and continue to face, in different form, today.

However, as bad as racism is in NZ, it is much worse here in Australia. That is why it is no surprise that the main perpetrator of today’s atrocity is an Australian white supremacist. In the year 2016 alone, there were two known white supremacist murders here: the heinous deliberate running over of a 14 year-old Aboriginal child, Elijah Doughty, by a white racist in Kalgoorlie and the fire-bombing murder in Brisbane of Indian-origin bus driver, Manmeet Alisher, by a right-wing conspiracy theorist which both media and state authorities stubbornly refused to acknowledge as an act of political violence. Since then Australia has seen ongoing state and redneck attacks on Aboriginal people, repeated assaults against Muslim people, violent racist attacks on Chinese students, demonisation of African youth and the burning down of a Hindu temple in Sydney’ southwest. The danger is that the Christchurch attack will embolden Australia’s growing layer of violent white supremacists. Already people on far-right websites have been hailing today’s attack. That is why every time white supremacists go public and try to build their strength they must be shut down by mass mobilisations of trade unionists standing alongside Muslim, Aboriginal, Asian, African and Middle Eastern origin communities. This is not an issue of “free speech.” As today’s racist attack showed all too starkly it is a question of physically protecting targeted communities. The fascists are not about speech – they are about organising for and perpetrating racist terror. They need to be crushed!

In the Sydney suburb of Ashfield, one of the most violent white supremacist groups has a combat training centre where they learn how to conduct acts of racist terror. Where violent racists have such a known base, we need to shut it down!

Australian prime minister, Scott Morrison, while condemning In most cases, workers compensation doctors in Phoenix choose the least invasive and least painful treatments for the patient. viagra generika is another remedy used to treat this erectile dysfunction problem. However, do not worry about occasional failure of the penile can take place can take place cost of viagra canada for a variety of reasons including drinking too much alcohol may damage your blood vessels, which eventually may develop into impotence. female viagra 100mg These treatments are viewed as latent because they experts do them, patient. The fact that they are absolutely herbal makes it crystal clear that even if used in long-term, these capsules will not leave viagra discount prices any dirty footprints behind. today’s attacks said he is “shocked” by them. Yet, as an MP for the Sydney suburb of Cronulla – the very place that saw the horrific, rampaging white supremacist Cronulla Riot in 2005 – Morrison’s “shock” is blatantly disingenuous. After all, he and his right-wing government have been busy whipping up racist fears against non-white people by demonising and continuing the torturous detention and “turn back” policy against refugees. It’s hardly surprising then that it was a white, Australian man that spearheaded this horrific racist crime we witnessed with such horror today. Unfortunately, little will change no matter who wins the upcoming election. The ALP, while distancing itself from some of the most extreme anti-refugee policies of the Liberals, fully supports the racist, mandatory detention of refugees. And while the Greens have sometimes called out the racist policies of their rivals, they, like the ALP, push economic nationalist calls to restrict the entry of guest workers and to curb imports produced by foreign labour. Such economic nationalism while not always directly racist is always divisive and inevitably incites racism. Let’s note too that today’s attack occurred under the watch of a social democratic-led government in NZ. The Adern New Zealand Labour Party shares at least some of the blame for today’s attack. They took office promising to cut immigration which is why they were able to join in a coalition with the right-wing, anti-immigrant New Zealand First Party. Although New Zealand Labour motivated their anti-immigration policies in a softer way than New Zealand First, their blaming of immigration for the housing crisis and infrastructure inadequacies in New Zealand inevitably fuels racist hostility to migrants.

The problem is that the Liberal-Nationals, the ALP and the Greens all uphold the capitalist order. And because this system is less and less able to provide decent infrastructure and secure, permanent jobs for people, those that oversee the capitalist state inevitably look for scapegoats elsewhere. That is why from Trump’s America to Bolsonaro’s Brazil to the hard right-infested regimes in Austria, Hungary, Switzerland and Italy, open racists are gaining the ascendancy in capitalist countries. It is also why we can never trust the state organs administering capitalist rule to protect us from fascists – since these forces have been shaped by their role as enforcers of the inevitably racist policies associated with capitalism. How can one rely on the police and prison guards to stop violent racists when they, themselves, have far too often bashed and killed Aboriginal people in custody or covered up for their mates who have committed such horrendous, racist crimes. 

It is now time more than ever that we, the working class masses of the world, embracing and drawing behind us all those targeted by the fascists, spearhead the drive to smash the white supremacists once and for all. It is in the very interests of the multi-ethnic working class to crush the divisive, racist forces for only then can we build the inter-racial unity so necessary to fight back against the greedy, capitalist exploiters. Racism is not innate to our human nature – it is purely and simply a disgusting, murderous weapon wielded in the cynical hands of our capitalist exploiters for the one single purpose of keeping our fighting ranks divided. What the bullying bosses across the capitalist world are most afraid of is the mighty, unstoppable power of the united working class. Their biggest fear is that we working class sisters and brothers will lead all the world’s oppressed in a struggle against their brutal system that, ultimately, only brings low wages, insecure jobs, economic crises, unaffordable rents and as we saw today: terrible, racist, right wing terror. Forward to a socialist world that will be free of racism, unemployment, poverty and war! As Marx and Engels wrote in The Communist Manifesto: “Then the world will be for the common people, and the sounds of happiness will reach the deepest spring. Ah! Come! People of every land, how can you not be roused?”