On March 15 a brutal racist terror attack was carried out on two mosques in the city of Christchurch, New Zealand. 50 people were killed with dozens more wounded. Many of those affected were refugees from warzones, such as Syria, who saw New Zealand as a safe haven.
Already thousands of people have attended solidarity events and vigils in sympathy with the victims. These acts of standing together against racism and terror show the best side of human solidarity.
Horrifically, the attack was streamed live. It took hours to remove videos from social media platforms. The attacker was an Australian active on extreme right-wing forums, and a self confessed fascist
This is another warning to the Muslims, the labour and trade union movement and working-class communities worldwide of the need to build a united movement to defeat the far right.
Last year, killings by the far right were at the highest level for over 20 years in the United States, according to the Anti-Defamation League. This included the white supremacist attack on a Pittsburgh synagogue that killed eleven people and the attack on the Québec city mosque that killed six people. In 2011, Anders Breivik murdered 77 people, mostly at a summer camp of the youth wing of the Norwegian Labour Party.
The ground for such attacks has been prepared, for years, by the political establishment and the corporate media. Right-wing racist rhetoric against Muslims has spiked in recent times, but the demonizing of Muslims is not new. Ever since September 2001, ordinary Muslims have been ruthlessly scape-goated by the corporate media and right-wing politicians.
But even main stream parties around the world have used racism and Islamophobia to garner votes, to divide working class people, and to justify spending cuts, wars and anti-democratic laws.
New Zealand’s Labour Premier Ardern has been applauded for her statements against racism, and her immediate willingness to call this what it is – a terrorist attack. But her party has a far from clean record when it comes to harbouring bigots and promoting divisive racist ideas. The New Zealand Labour Party is in coalition with the right-wing populist New Zealand First party. They have repeatedly called for an end to immigration from Muslim countries, echoing many of the points made by terrorist, not to mention US president Trump.
The Christchurch attack has shown the hypocrisy of the establishment political parties in New Zealand and elsewhere, whose polices have helped legitimise the policies of the far right.
The Indonesian government has now called in the Australian ambassador after right-wing Queensland Senator, Fraser Anning, tweeted: “Does anyone still dispute the link between Muslim immigration and violence?” He also wrote: “As always, left-wing politicians and the media will rush to claim that the causes of today’s shootings lie with gun laws or those who hold nationalist views, but this is all clichéd nonsense. The real cause of bloodshed on New Zealand streets today is the immigration program which allowed Muslim fanatics to migrate to New Zealand in the first place.”
This outrageous racism is in stark contrast to the magnificent support and solidarity of ordinary working-class people from all communities, both in New Zealand and globally.
We cannot rely on the current batch of establishment politicians to help us move forward after this tragic attack. They all support the system that breeds this hate.
Those that own and control the wealth under capitalism are a minority who do everything to keep the majority divided in order to maintain their rule. Racism and Islamophobia are just some of the tools they use, along with sexism and homophobia.
Alongside mourning this horrific attack, we must reject all these divisive ideas. We must strive to build movements of ordinary people that stand in solidarity with oppressed groups, as well as movements that challenge those that benefit from inequality and division.
The best way to undermine racist terror attacks is to undermine the system that breeds racism. We need to struggle for democratic socialist change, where the majority has ownership and control of the wealth in society, and where we can finally end all exploitation and oppression.
This attack is in the context of rising instability in a period or global capitalist crisis in the decade since the financial crisis and the Great Recession. The working class has shown great fighting capacity around the world in defence of living standards and the gains made in the post-war period, now threatened by rapacious capitalism.
In New Zealand in the last year, nurses, teachers, public servants, railway workers, cleaners, bus drivers, fast food workers, airport workers, dockers, and junior doctors have taken strike action in pursuit of improved wages and conditions.
This has come after a decade when workers’ action has been at low ebb. Workers have been forced to fight as the Labour-led coalition has continued with the austerity policies very similar to the previous conservative National Party administration.
The role of so-called Labour governments like this has helped create a political vacuum which the far right can try to fill. Both in New Zealand and elsewhere, the labour and trade union movement, if it is prepared to fight, is the key force to combat the far right, which seeks to divide the working class in defence of big business.
The horrendous events in Christchurch have shocked the world. Many will be asking: what is the way forward? The response must be mass workers’ action.
