En Passant

Racists and right wingers are trying to use yesterday’s horrific killing in south London to divide working people and whip up hatred of Muslims. It is crucial that we stop them. We must not allow this to be exploited to generate racism or to give a boost to the far right. We need unity against racism, and unity against the Tories. The US and Britain have murdered hundreds of thousands of people in the “war on terror” over the past 12 years. The killing in Woolwich is not the way to fight it. The millions strong movements against the war in Iraq and broad mass mobilisations against racism and fascism show this is possible.

There are no police with guns arresting the owners of companies whose workers are killed on the job. There are no cries of workplace terrorism when another worker dies at work because profit is more important than people. Terrorism at work is acceptable. That is the bloody logic of capitalism. The time has come to end the terrorism in our workplaces. Giving unions work safety inspection and enforcement rights can make workplaces much safer.

The biggest terrorist sits in Washington and kills women and kids every day. Why isn’t Barack Obama on trial for his terrorism?

We hope that people will reject more policing in the name of “security,” reject racist fear of Arabs, Muslims, South Asians and immigrants, and instead, face this tragedy with courage, compassion and a resolve to work for a world free of violence and oppression.

There is little in the political concerns of right-wing terrorist Anders Breivik that would be out of place in Coalition Party meetings or the mainstream media and especially on the shock jock radio shows.

Breivik saw 3 threats to Western society – Islam, multiculturalism and cultural Marxism.

This is stock standard right wing discourse. Indeed some of his comments could just as easily have been made by Australian Labor Party Parliamentarians and certainly some members.

No part of the political mainstream–neither conservative nor liberal [JP - reformist] parties–is blameless in the crusade against immigrants and Muslims that shaped Anders Behring Breivik.

But this has also produced revulsion among millions of people horrified by the return of the far right and its ideology–whether in the form of openly fascist parties in Europe or the Islamophobic fanatics who gravitate to the Tea Party movement in the U.S. or the “respectable” politicians on both continents who seek to exploit anti-immigrant and anti-Muslim bigotry.

Turning that revulsion into active opposition is the best way to present an alternative to the hatred and violence of the far right.

Osama bin Laden may be dead, but the world’s top terrorists remain at large.

These are the people responsible for the deaths of millions of men, women and children around the globe. They lie and torture, kill with impunity and have no respect for human life or the values of a civilised society. They cannot be found in Afghanistan or Pakistan, because they are in Washington, London and Canberra, where they reside in multi-million dollar compounds out of reach of the surrounding population, backed by the local ruling elites and defended by armed mercenaries and bought-off newspaper editors.

Justice is expendable. If the ideology of justice stands in the way of the US winning an important propaganda victory then justice is overthrown.

Osama bin Laden was yesterday’s man and had been for some time. With his assassination Obama is the man of the moment.

If American workers fight back and the Egyptian revolution continues to deepen and workers there make more and more political and economic demands we can dare to dream that the biggest terrorists – Obama and the Empire he serves – might become yesterday’s men and women too.

We are the terrorists. Bring the troops home.