Letters

Ideology and race

Comrade Tom Ball continues to insist on “the implicitly racist nature of advanced capitalism” (Letters, February 19). He fails to come to grips with a key question: why must a state - the purpose of which is to defend the system of exploitation - of necessity employ racism to ensure control?

Comrade Ball’s belief in this inevitability leads him to dismiss the officially sponsored bourgeois consensus of anti-racist ideology, in all its obvious manifestations, as “racism more or less disguised”. Instead of trying to substantiate this with clear examples of the state’s direct encouragement of racism, he can only point to circumstantial evidence.

Citing numerous statistics to prove the well established and uncontested existence of brutal and widespread racism within the police, he asks: “What does all this amount to, if not racism expressed by an integral part of the British state ...?”

Yes, comrade, but is it deliberately encouraged or even officially directed? If comrade Ball could provide us with examples of overt racist procedures relating to police recruitment, training or official practice, then he would have a case. Are police officers instructed to abuse Asians and beat up blacks because they are Asian or black?

As he well knows, official anti-racism is present in every aspect of police procedures just as much as it is a feature of all state-run institutions. State representatives routinely condemn police racism and claim to be taking rigorous steps to combat it.

It is true that senior police officers and home office ministers may frequently attempt to disguise the extent of racism within the police, and may even conspire to cover up the worst incidents, but this is not primarily because they may themselves be racist or because they are pursuing some covert racist policy. The state tries to promote an image of its police as almost entirely honest and trustworthy, and is always reluctant to admit to evidence to the contrary. In this way, it may also attempt to conceal other categories of ‘misdemeanour’, but I do not think even comrade Ball would suggest that this proves that the state condones police bribe-taking or drug-running. By and large police racism exists as a bastard form of state ideology.

Comrade Ball’s second example of state ‘racism’ is bizarre in the extreme. Citing the abolition (in the 1994 Criminal Justice and Public Order Act) of the obligation on local authorities to provide caravan sites for gypsies, along with the ending of government funding for that purpose, he states: “The removal of this obligation is a racist act directed against Roma.” So how would he describe the previous legislation (in 1968 and 1980), which introduced the provision?

To describe state policy directed against this heterogeneous community of British, Irish and continental Romanies, along with an assortment of outcasts and hippies, as “racist” makes the term itself meaningless.

Comrade Ball is prepared to admit that “Tony Blair and his government may be formally anti-racist”. But, he continues, “They are in office, not power. Power rests with the state and capitalism proper.” There are two possible interpretations of this remark. The first one is that, while government personnel themselves may be anti-racist, civil servants, state bureaucrats and capitalists are not. They are in effect perpetuating racism in opposition to Blair and co.

However, I believe that comrade Ball is proposing a different explanation: he seems to hold that ideologies can exist in a vacuum, independent of human consciousness. Although politicians, council officers, public sector bureaucrats, company directors, bankers, academics and broadcasters may, in their overwhelming majority, all accept the current anti-racist consensus, nevertheless they are powerless in the face of an inanimate, but all-pervading ideology. According to Tom, the state cannot afford to drop racism “even if it could” (original emphasis).

It is this belief in the ability of ideology to exist detached from human thought itself that leads comrade Ball astray. But in order to grip the population a ruling class ideology must be promoted. Furthermore it must be accepted as ‘the truth’ by most of the ruling class itself. When the inferiority of blacks or the superiority of the English was promoted to justify slavery and colonialism, these myths were widely believed. Yet in Britain today any hint of racial ideology is liable to cause outrage amongst large sections of the bourgeoisie.

Comrade Joe Reilly made some interesting and useful points (Letters, February 5). He explained how state anti-racism can be just as divisive in its present use as racism was (and could be again). He was absolutely correct to say that “the project is conceived and implemented from the top down. As such, it is entirely divorced from any concept of social justice.” Whenever we leave the implementation of a positive idea in the hands of the bourgeoisie, we can be sure that it will be turned against us sooner or later.

However, comrade Reilly is wide of the mark when he says: “Multi-culturalism is promoted and endorsed by the ruling elite precisely for this reason” [to provoke “horizontal resentment and violence”]. Such schismatic splits may result, but the policy was not adopted with that in mind. I have argued that the bourgeoisie’s main concern is to ensure continued relative social stability. The establishment needs to maintain a passive division amongst workers - to guard against the possibility that we might unite against it. At the same time through national chauvinism it promotes a more active ‘unity’ of all sections in its own interests behind the state.

In addition comrade Reilly is very wrong to think that “race has displaced class as the primary dynamic within society”. This is contradicted by the implication of his own assertion that race-based divisions are used by the ruling class against the workers.

Alan Fox
London

Steven Kitson

Thank you for your condolences on the death of our son Steven, who died of cancer at the age of 40.

When he was nine years old and Verwoed was assassinated, he was beaten up by boys in his school, because ‘his father was a communist’. My family was continually harassed by the security police while I was in jail and in 1968 came to England, where he grew up.

He started coming to visit me in jail in South Africa when he was 13. He visited me every year until he was 25, when he was arrested and detained by the security police, who accused him of being an ANC courier. Such was the outcry in Britain that they had to release him after six days and he was deported, being prohibited from visiting me again. While he was flying back to Britain his aunt, Joan Weinberg, was murdered in an act of spite. Then he became very active politically indeed.

Last week I visited Johannesburg. I took the opportunity to visit the national offices of the South African Communist Party and renewed my party card. It is a lousy party, but it is the only one we’ve got. In particular it is compromised by participating in a government which represents the interests of the bourgeoisie. In fact the GNU exercises the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie rather than the interests of the working class.

However, I joined in 1940 and feel a gap if I am not paid up. Furthermore there is an inner-party struggle going on between the old and the new, so I have a feeling of hope.

David Kitson
Zimbabwe

Political prisoner

I’m writing from Bayrampasa prison in Istanbul. I’m a political prisoner and I have been in prison for four years. I’m following the debates and news on the socialist and working class movement throughout the world.

I want to read the Weekly Worker and other CPGB material. I request you to send issues continuously.

Erol Kaplan
Turkey