The role of the Amerikan so-called workers in anti-Arab hate crimes: why people are lining up more firmly for the MIM line September 21, 2001--Recent events in the aftermath of the World Trade Center bombing are demonstrating the role of Amerikan so-called workers in hate crimes and racism. These crimes do not always come from the direct wishes of imperialist leaders of business and government. The case of pilots and passengers in recent air travel shows that it is not the government or business leaders causing all the hate crimes, but the ordinary thinking of the so-called workers MIM calls "labor aristocracy" in the imperialist countries, such as the United $tates, England, France, Germany, Belgium etc. "Ashraf Khan, a 32-year-old Pakistani businessman was bumped off a Delta Airlines flight from San Antonio International Airport on Monday because the pilot and the crew did not feel 'comfortable' flying with him on board. In another incident, three Middle-Eastern looking men were forced to disembark a flight from Minneapolis Airport after other passengers refused to allow the plane to take off with them."(1) It is very important to be clear who is responsible for these actions. It is not the leaders of government and business. In the case of the Pakistani racially profiled for flying while looking close to Arab, it was the captain of the plane who had the authority to remove him and used that authority. The airline did not actually endorse the move, but captains have the authority once the flight is underway. Flight crews in Boston took Arab-looking passengers off three flights on the last weekend.(1) When the rulers actually became involved, these Arab-looking passengers were allowed to go on their way. As MIM pointed out before the September 11th bombings, President George Bush never retracted his position to allow the Confederate flag to fly in any state including South Carolina where it was under dispute.(2) In this sense of course imperialists contribute persynally to the overall climate of racism and national chauvinism; however, reality is that these politicians cannot be elected without keeping the settlers' national chauvinism in mind, so it becomes difficult to tell which class is more chauvinist in what matters, the labor aristocracy or the imperialists. MIM has also reported how Attorney General Ashcroft was another Confederate flag nut before he became Attorney General. However, now under pressure from their class interests, it is Bush and Ashcroft who have to take up the usual liberal, pc job of preaching tolerance. From the beginning, Bush has warned the public not to attack Islamic peoples or people of any ethnic background. Likewise, though we know his opinions, Ashcroft has moved swiftly to say that the federal government will be prosecuting hate crimes, and has already admitted to a large number in legal process. " On Wednesday, the Senate passed a resolution, 98-0, condemning violence and discrimination against Arab-Americans. Both President Bush and his father, the former president, called for tolerance. Attorney General John Ashcroft added: 'We must not descend to the level of those who perpetrated Tuesday's violence.'"(3) The reason Bush and Ashcroft have to toe the line for ethnic tolerance is that the imperialists as a class have decided to keep international commerce free and flowing. If the dark-skinned rulers of the rest of the world get kicked off planes, it will be difficult to do business with the United $tates and the economy will go further down the tubes, with the imperialists feeling the pinch on their profits. That is not to mention that in the war on Afghanistan or at least bin Laden, the U.$. imperialists are hoping to line up a large number of Middle East nations on their side. As usual, it is the realities of business and war that determine imperialist tolerance, not any preaching by the politically correct of the traditional petty-bourgeoisie of teachers, librarians, school administrators and lawyers. That is not to say that the imperialists would be unwilling to do without Arab, Pakistani, Sikh and Indian business completely. Under desperate fascist conditions of world war, these imperialists will turn easily toward exclusive fascism. For now, however, it is the Amerikan settlers or "labor aristocracy" as we call these so-called workers who fantasize about an economy limited to their white selves or their white selves and some tokens of other races thrown in, depending on what minority is in favor that week. That is why these settlers and labor aristocracy do not fear to do anything that might offend the dark-skinned business class of people. On occasion, this peeves the imperialists who have a better sense of business reality. Media black-out starting to consolidate on anti- Arab chauvinism Readers wanting to know what was going on inside U.$. borders with regard to hate crimes had to rely on their most independent media. As of September 21st in the evening, many major news outlets had stopped covering hate crimes. The following is MIM's thorough investigation of the major media. First, www.cbsnews.com had no article about it. At the Fox News website at 19:30 EST not one of 24 top stories was about hate crimes, while 23 out of 24 top stories related to the new Middle East war situation. For its contribution, ABC News left up a six day old interview with a U.S. Muslim leader about the backlash. It provided no concrete details or stories. At the same time the CNN home page and USA Today home page and national news secton had no stories of such illegal harassment either. (While I was editing this story, CNN finally did put up a story about five airline incidents at 19:53 on September 21.) When MIM found the same to be true at the Washington Post, which according to reactionaries is some kind of left-wing East Coast Establishment paper, we dug deeper. Although we found stories about every arrest of Middle Eastern people, we again found no stories about the harassment and hate crimes going on, even on the national news page. To top it all off, the flagship of the supposedly liberal East Coast Establishment, the New York Times had no articles about hate crimes either. Rather than report on the harassment of Middle Eastern passengers, the New York Times actually wrote a lengthy story about passengers complaining about security lapses ranging from allowing scissors to getting through security with itineraries instead of tickets. "Many Travelers on Airlines Appeal for Tighter Security" did not mention that these travelers had gone so far as to ground airplanes until the captain or crew threw Middle Eastern people off the planes! Eventually, the New York Times did put up a story "Racial Profiling May Get Wider Approval by Courts" about racial profiling, but it did not mention any concrete recent instances. Hence, we can say that the imperialists and their media opposed hate crimes from the beginning, but as they came under labor aristocracy pressure they fell silent and even hinted that the labor aristocracy would start to get its way in the courts with the legalization of racial profiling. The problem with most organizations calling themselves "Marxist" in the imperialist countries is that instead of challenging such a tacit alliance between the imperialist media and the rest of the imperialists with the settlers rampaging, these organizations talk about white oppressor nation workers being exploited and united with the oppressed nation workers. Every time we hear that phrase that the workers are united, it is a code word for saying that white so-called worker crimes against the international proletariat will be papered over. It's how the social-chauvinists smuggle the bourgeoisie into the international labor movement. Spreading the news on hate crimes, a difficult task At this time, one turban-wearing ethnicity of 22 million worldwide, the Sikhs is neither Muslim nor Middle Eastern, since they come from India. Nonetheless, they have already suffered over 100 hate crimes since September 11th, just by themselves. As an example, the San Diego Police Chief reported 21 hate crimes in less than 10 days since September 11th. The San Diego Union-Tribune reported that a driver ran over a Somali womyn and her kid and said, "'that's for what you did last week!'"(4) In New York City, rumors go around that Sikhs are being pulled from cabs and killed. They cease doing business; all Sikh and Middle Eastern business close and attendance at mosques might be only one persyn on some days. According to one Sikh, in all his days, he has never seen anything like this, even in India where Hindus and Moslems fight.(5) We credit the Village Voice of New York City with relative independence. " Among the notable incidents: An Indian Sikh, a Pakistani Muslim, and an Egyptian Copt, all males, were murdered in three different states last weekend in apparent bias attacks. Passengers sporting 'excessive facial hair' were detained at JFK airport, and then released, according to The New York Times. An Arab American deli owner in Ardsley New York, was pepper-sprayed when he identified himself as an Arab. Two Muslim girls were beaten at a college in Illinois, and a mob marched on a mosque near Chicago. A Palestinian-owned rug company in Maryland was set on fire. The windows were shot out of an Islamic center in Texas. There are also reports that undiscriminating 'patriots' have targeted Mexicans as well." One Palestinian escaped the 71st floor of the World Trade Center only to be harassed in the following days on the streets. The international proletariat will remember its liberal-radical friends at the Village Voice for standing up at this crucial time to point all this out.(6) Just tallying the over 40 violent crimes (not including threats!) against the Sikhs where someone survived to tell the Internet about it,(7) and then realizing that Sikhs are only a small portion of dark-skinned people, it seems likely to MIM that there have been thousands of violent incidents in the imperialist countries by the labor aristocracy against the oppressed with the intention of anti-Arab chauvinism since September 11th. By September 17th, the Arab-American Anti- Discrimination Committee had reported over 200 incidents.(8) Despite claiming to have learned its lessons from the internment of Japanese-Americans during World War II, the imperialist countries in fact did not. The settlers who killed the Indians are now using metaphors of genocide against the Apaches in their planned attack on Afghanistan.(9) It goes to show that imperialism provides a material basis for national oppression amongst the imperialist country workers: it cannot be cleansed with pc training. It is only in the imperialist countries where support for an Amerikan military strike is a majority--countries such as England and France. In the rest of the world, the average population does not support the military strikes. The reason for the militarism and racial and chauvinist violence of the ordinary people of the imperialist countries in contrast with the ordinary people of the Third World is that the imperialist country majority is bought-off, and in fact, in some matters of chauvinism, has a more sinister class position than that of the imperialists themselves. People who have now seen the reality of the ordinary Amerikan should work with MIM. Notes: 1. http://news.indiatimes.com/articleshow.asp?art_id= 1276389720 2. http://www.prisoncensorship.info/archive/etext/mn/text.php?mimf ile=mn210/whvote.txt 3. USA Today 13Sept2001, http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2001/09/13/ara b-americans.htm 4. 20Sept2001, http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/uniontrib/thu/m etro/news_7m20sikh.html 5. http://www.villagevoice.com/issues/0138/sietsema.p hp 6. http://www.villagevoice.com/issues/0138/fahim.php 7. http://www.attacksonsikhs.com/viewreports.cfm ; another tally of violence can be found at: http://65.42.195.102/sikhs/ 8. http://www.adc.org/action/2001/17september2001.htm 9. "And the British army learned that the only way to fight Afghans effectively is to use our Afghans. It's like General [George] Crook and General [Nelson] Miles, in the Southwest United States. The only way to beat the Apaches was to use Apache scouts." " Colin Gray, European director of the National Institute for Public Policy and an expert on military strategy and history." http://abcnews.go.com/sections/us/DailyNews/WTC_fo rces_010921.html