Why capitalism needs racism
Why capitalism needs racism
The recent murder of Nitin Garg highlighted continuing violence against Indian students. It has led some to ask “Is Australia a racist country?” and put others on the defensive about Australia’s racist image. The ongoing Northern Territory intervention, which required the suspension of the Racial Discrimination Act, and the demonisation and persecution of refugees by both government and opposition politicians suggests that racism is alive in Australia. The following article is from the new and updated What Resistance Stands For, which Resistance branches around the country will launch in coming weeks. To find out more, order your copy, or attend a launch near you, visit www.resistance.org.au.
The capitalist social pyramid is black at the base and white at the
top. In South Africa, until apartheid was formally abolished in 1994,
this pyramid was legally sanctioned. Elsewhere, while slavery and
segregation have been outlawed, the richest people are still the
whitest and the poorest are the blackest. Racism suits capitalism
because it’s an important way of justifying economic
discrimination. It’s no accident that wherever you find racism,
someone seems to be making money from it. Racist ideas help
capitalism get away with super-exploiting racial and ethnic
minorities, and all non-white people. “Those Arabs” or
“Those Asians”, we’re told, “are used to
doing dirty, hard work, and they’ll be glad to get a job at
all.” Or when unemployment is on the rise, it’s always
handy to blame “Asians”, or whichever ethnic group is
being demonised at the time, for taking jobs away from “real”
Australians. And when governments in the rich countries impose
welfare funding or wage cuts on working people, they always start by
targeting the most vulnerable groups — non-Anglo migrants or
indigenous people. International students are often the first to cop
attacks on higher education.
Islamophobia
Racism fosters the
idea that the massive under-development and deprivation faced by the
people of the Third World is “their fault”. This leads to
acceptance of the idea that, while rich countries should give some
aid or loans, it should be tied to the recipient government agreeing
to terms favourable to the donor countries, including huge interest
charges. Without racist and nationalist ideas prevalent in the
populations of imperialist countries, people would be less likely to
accept as “natural” or “inevitable” the huge inequalities
between the First and Third Worlds or endorse wars on Third World
peoples who resist imperialist domination.In other words, racism is a
way for the capitalist class to divide ordinary people from each
other, within and between countries: divide and rule.
Attacks
on Aboriginal rights
The first historically significant act
of British colonisation in Australia was the widespread dispossession
of Australia’s Aboriginal people of their land and customs.
Australia was declared “terra nullius” — empty land, belonging
to nobody. Never mind the hundreds of Aboriginal tribes, the British
ruling class wanted another colony — a new source of raw materials.
Aboriginal land rights are a direct threat to Australia’s
capitalists. The uranium-rich land of central Australia is coveted by
government and private mining corporations alike. A potential source
of huge wealth for some, this land grab for private profit stands in
direct conflict with the granting of land rights and ownership to
Aboriginal people. This explains the continual push by governments,
on behalf of corporations, for land grabs and attacks on Aboriginal
self-determination.
The theft of Aboriginal land is justified
with racism. Oppression of Australia’s Indigenous people has led to
endemic poverty, bad health and low life expectancy for many. The
current incarceration rates for Australia’s Aboriginal people are
five times higher than for blacks under apartheid South Africa. On
June 21, 2007, the then-John Howard government announced that it was
“taking control” of Aboriginal communities in the Northern
Territory, claiming it was rescuing children from abuse described in
the Little
Children are Sacred
report. Under the Northern Territory intervention, police and the
army, along with federal government workers, were sent to
“prescribed” Aboriginal communities to enforce the compulsory
quarantining of all welfare payments and an Aboriginal-only
prohibition on the use of alcohol and pornography. To carry out such
a racist policy, the government had to suspend the Racial
Discrimination Act. It also passed laws allowing it to seize
Aboriginal land at any time.
Combating child abuse, or
genuinely addressing any of the crises caused by discrimination
against Aboriginal people, was never the aim of the Northern
Territory intervention. The government wanted to break up Aboriginal
communities and remove people from their land. This racist policy was
not only continued by the Kevin Rudd Labor government — it was
expanded.
Similarly, there is bipartisan support for Islamophobia —
fear of, and hostility towards, Muslims. Since the terrorist attacks
of September 11, 2001, Islamophobia has been encouraged by Western
governments. Muslims — and people of “Middle Eastern appearance”
— have been systematically portrayed in the corporate media as
“terrorists” or “potential terrorists”. This new racist push
to demonise people of a particular religion or region relies on fear
and ignorance to succeed. Whipping up this racism to divide the
mostly non-Muslim populations of Western countries from their Muslim
sisters and brothers is especially necessary for the capitalist
rulers given the majority opposition in the West to their
governments’ wars of occupation in the Middle East. Creating fear
and paranoia against minorities also helps governments to undermine
civil liberties more generally, and therefore weaken other movements
for progressive or radical social change.
For example, while
the current focus of Australia’s so-called anti-terror laws is on
supporters of resistance and national liberation movements in the
Third World, the laws could very easily be used against people who do
not agree with other aspects of government policy.
