Part 5 - DW062 001 029 005

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5 LIVERPOOL FC V COUNCILLORS up in an old council flat, having no money and no- where to go. There are clubs, etc in the area but I don't feel I can attend. I would not want to disgrace my- self and my children by app- earing to be poor. I have had the child- ren's names down for day nursery for over a year but have been told it is virtually impossible to get a place unless the children are "at risk"- in other words, unless I hammer hell out of them. I have a limited know- ledge of what I consider a socialist society to be like and therefore bought a copy of "New Age" No.3. I feel I have little to lose by learning about com- munism in its true sense and therefore would support the paper. Allow me to point out to all those who consider themselves arrogant enough to criticize "Social Sec- urity Scroungers"-One wrong move could easily put them in the same boat. SOVIET FLUNKEYS MEET A congress of the World Federation of Trade Unions (WFTU) took place recent- ly in Prague, capital of occupied Czechoslovakia. The WFTU is a tool of So- viet global expansion and comprises the state-contol- led "trade unions" of the Soviet Union and other revisionist countries as well as trade unions in capitalist countries that are controlled by revision- ist parties. The resolutions of the congress were filled with revisionist bunkum. They made the incredible assertion that the Soviet state unions are free and democratic - this at a time when Soviet workers are being impri- soned in jails and psyc- hiatric hospitals for at- tempting to form a free Trade Union. British workers should take note that present as an "observer" at the con- gress was National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) lead- er Joe Gormley. Gormley is notorious for his sup- port of the corporatist "social contract" as well as a productivity deal in British mines that sets miner against miner and puts safety gravely at risk in order to make great- er profits for the mine owners - who just happen to be the Labour government of which Gormley is a faithful servant. Perhaps Gormley would like to see British miners who struggle for a fighting union placed in psychi- atric wards? Liverpool councillors were up in arms over the arrange- ments of Liverpool FC to play Nottingham Forest on May 4th, the day of the municipal el- ections. The councillors fear- ed that the workers would pre- fer the match to voting, so they condemned the club for playing them. However, it was those very same councillors (or the majority of them) that chose to miss an important council meeting in order to watch the European Cup Semi- Final against Borussia Moen- chen Gladbach! This goes to prove that the councillors are not interested in the problems of the city, but only their own careers and perks. People consider all three main parties as the same, and no longer attach much import- ance to elections-thus it was estimated that 50,000 people would prefer to watch the match instead. The "Left" Labour councillors will acc- use the club and workers of apathy, but the apathy is created by those very people who do the accusing. After the elections, the party that gets the majority of seats will push through pol- icies regardless, and the other parties will say, "I told you so" and so the mer- ry-go-round goes on. Of course, the directors of the club would have liked the elections to go on with- out the match interfering (as social-democracy is in their interests), but profit had to take priority over el- ections. So worried were coun- cillors that they appealed to the League over the date. They don't give a damn about the destruction of the city, which has been left as a barren wasteland near the centre, nor about the bad re- pair of housing or public transport. All cuts tomthese essential services have been brought about by the IMF dic- tating policy to the Labour party, or rather, by the Labour party doing its usual job and having the IMF as an excuse. Of course, not one of these councillors gets up on an anti-imperialist platform and exposes the Labour party or really tackles the IMF. On the contrary, it is the usual "don't rock the boat" slogan. It is no wonder that the people would rather watch a football match than vote for a council who pursue practic- ally the same policies which- ever party gets in. The lesson to be learned is that many workers will continue to think football more important than politics until the Marxist-Leninists can give them an alternative- this can't be done until we have a party of the masses, for the masses. EAST END MURDER The extremely brutal mur- der of a child in East Lon- don has received little at- tention in the national press and T.V. Kennith Singh, a 10 years old Indian boy, was a victim of a "vicious, sustained and extremely brutal attack" to use the words of the police. He was discovered on a dere- lict site near his home in Plaistow in the evening of April 20th - with fourteen stab wounds to the head and shoulders, a crushed skull and severe bruising - short- ly after going to the shop for his mother; he died soon afterwards in hospital. He had not been sexually assaulted, neither had he been robbed - but on the fences round the derelict site, and near by, were daub- ed numerous slogans of race- hate. At or near this spot a small group of white youths used to gather on certain evenings and shout racist insults or threats at Asians who were passing; since the murder they have not been seen there. In the words of E. Warner, Secre- tary of the Newham Community Relations Council, "There is a strong feeling in the com- munity that this may have been a racialist attack." This is the feeling of neighbours, black and white, who have expressed their sympathy to the bereaved parents. This indeed is the way the evidence over- whelmingly points. The police however claim to be at a loss as to the motive for this horrific crime, which they describe as a "motiveless attack", "just a senseless slaying." FASCISM Some people will remem- ber that just around the cor- ner - on the other side of Plaistow Station - the fasc- ist Kingsley-Read, former Chairman of the National Front, delivered a notori- ous speech including the com- ment "One Down One Million to Go" on the death of an A- ian youth in Southall; and that a judge in the Old Bai- ley "wished him well" for this speech. Could these events be more than a co- incidence? A few miles away in White- chapel another brutal murder of an Asian youth occurred on the evening of May 4th (the day of local council elections in which National Front candidates did very badly) - the victim was the ASIANS DETERMINED TO FIGHT BACK Bengali youth Altab Ali. After some 8,000 people marched in protest from Whitechapel to Hyde Park on May 14th, the murder and other racial attacks on the Bengali community in the East End were the subject of a T.V. programme. Even the police, very reluctantly, were forced to concede that such attacks do take place - but blamed the Bengalis for not reporting the at- tacks to them. But as a member of the Bengali community pointed out, "only a few have been reported to the police. The people feel they have no protection and to contact the police would only ex- pose them to further at- tacks." In other words the Asian community has absolutely no confidence in the willing- ness or ability of the poli- ce to protect them or pun- ish the attackers. This is a result of their own exper- ience. That is why Asians in parts of East London where such racial attacks take place have no alternative but to organise their own self-defence - in order to protect themselves, their families and their homes and property. As one slo- gan on the recent march said, "self-defence is no offence!" RESISTANCE Contrary to the impression which the T.V. programme tried to give, the Asian community in East London does not stand alone. The fascists and active racists are a tiny minority of the people - even in those parts of the East End which they claim to be their 'stronghold' and they are spurned and ha- ted by the vast majority of the people, particularly the young. Hundreds of white people took part in the pro- test march on May 14th with banners of Stepney Trades Council and other local bo- dies. More and more white working people and youth are joining the struggle against racism and fascism - as shown for example by the 80,000 people who took part in the demonstration and carnival on April 30th or- ganised by the Anti-Nazi League. In the face of these two vicious murders and numer- ous other attacks, Asian people have every right to organise to defend themsel- ves - and we will give them active support.

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