EUROPE today is awash with racism. Immigrant workers have been murdered in Germany, France and Britain. Fascist and semi-fascist parties are winning millions of votes. There are four elements of the present poisonous situation.
First, a general rise of racist sentiment in sections of the white middle and working class; a rise in state racism, threatening the right to asylum and other immigrant rights; the growth of the fascist organisations; and an intensification ofracist attacks as a result of all these things.
At the core of these developments is the new, intensified, stage of the capitatist crisis. Growing unemployment, bankruptcies and austerity create a fertile climate for racism.
Deepening inter-imperialist competition reinforces various forms of nationalism, especially in the EC countries.
And the failure of the mainstream labour movement to put forward realistic solutions to the crisis creates an opening for the racists and fascists.
Fortress Europe While European monetary and political union may be some way off, the Buropeans have got their act together to impose tough new immigration controls and restrict asylum rights.
The Schengen agreement, signed in 1985 and due to come into force at the end of this year creates a Europe-wide visa, and has drawn up a list of 104 countries whose citizens will now have to have a visa for any European country.
A huge computer system has been created to keep track of 'undesirables'. Foreigners' resident in any EC country will now have to register with the police when they visit another.
Anyone designated 'persona non grata' in the joint computer files will not be allowed entry into any EC country. French people from outside metropolitan France will now be considered 'foreigners'. And, crucially, any asyium seeker refused entry into one EC country will not be allowed to seek asylum in another.
Continued overleaf No. 14 Jan. 18, 1992 Page 7
(Continued from previous page) Special Feature STATTACK