11.04.2001

Chinese scapegoats

On March 27, the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (Maff) alleged that the source of foot and mouth was illegally smuggled meat supplied to a Chinese restaurant. As a result, trade dropped in Chinese establishments throughout the country (one report claimed it fell 40% in a week).

In a media release on April 4 the Socialist Alliance robustly countered these government lies: "Chinese restaurants and takeaways do not use imported meat from the Far East. It is cheaper for them to buy from British butchers ... The illegal packets of meat to which the authorities are referring are a dried meat jerky snack used exclusively for personal consumption and not for the catering trade."

In the last two weeks the SA has not only put out statements to the media on the Dudley hospital strike (twice), the tube strike, and Sodexho, which supplies asylum-seekers' vouchers, but it has taken this strong stand against scapegoating of the Chinese community over foot and mouth, rallying support for the national 'Stop scapegoating the Chinese for foot and mouth' demonstration last Sunday.

Jabez Lam, Dover 58 campaign coordinator, said: "Following Maff's announcement this week that illegally imported, diseased meat from Chinese restaurants in the north east could be responsible for the outbreak, fear of harassment and attacks is growing. Nick Brown and the media forget that the Chinese catering business in this country is suffering along with everyone else. To offer the Chinese community as a sacrifice to take the heat off themselves is despicable."

This response by the Socialist Alliance to the anti-Chinese rumour-mongering campaign started by the government is a welcome development in how the SA propagandises and presents itself. It shows that we mean business in terms of all the political concerns and questions that affect society.

As CPGB members have often repeated, for the working class to gain hegemony and become a ruling class it has to consider all political questions in society, not just those that directly affect it or merely modify its status as a slave class.

Clearly, questions around race, chauvinism, small shopkeepers, restaurateurs, small farmers, rural communities, the environment, the monarchy, the constitution, police corruption, the prison system, and so on are all beyond the remit of the working class - if it is viewed as merely being concerned with its own narrow interests as a slave class. But they are certainly questions that a working class intending to become a ruling class must take up as its own.

What our Socialist Alliance must readdress is a programmatic approach to all these questions as part of an overall strategy for working class self-liberation. Reactive statements to events are necessary, though of course we need to prepare ourselves programmatically that developing issues can be tackled in a much more pro-active manner.

Jim Gilbert