The following document contains the text of a leaflet given out by CWO North East members at the anti-Pegida demonstration in Newgate, Newcastle today. Close to 2000 demonstrators opposing PEGIDA were halted by police a few yards from a demonstration of 375 racists in the Bigg Market, a good portion of which were just the usual out and out fascist thugs.

The ruling class has many ways of dividing workers. Nationalism and racism are high amongst them. Workers have no country. We have always been a class of migrants. Class solidarity is our natural response to divide and rule.

Thanks to this solidarity out and out racism has largely been confined to a nasty minority. Enter PEGIDA. This is a racism that dare not speak its name but takes cover behind warnings of an imaginary “Islamisation” of Europe.

Yet, just as PEGIDA UK arrives, the German original is in trouble. It split and since then numbers at the Dresden demonstrations have dropped from over 20,000 to under 2,000. The rival racists got only 500.

That’s the good news. The bad news is that the German government, in pandering to the racists, intends to bring in more anti-immigration laws. Such measures will only increase the confidence of racists in making attacks on individuals.

That is not the only problem. The horrific jihadist murders in Paris have given the French Government a blank cheque to put 100,000 troops on the streets. In defence of “freedom of expression” it is bringing in new laws which can be used against any group – and especially against those with anti-capitalist agendas. It has also given the Socialist (sic) Government the freedom to impose further austerity measures on a population suffering under massive unemployment especially amongst the young.

Here the Government already has enough power of arrest without charge but the pages of the gutter press (Sun, Mail, Express etc) make the same connect. They alternate between spewing out vitriol against migrants and attacking people who need welfare benefits. Everywhere the weakest and most vulnerable are being blamed for the capitalist crisis. All states, no matter how democratic, are busy patching up the bankrupt system to protect the profits of the few. Meanwhile the rest of us have to work harder and longer as the welfare system crumbles.

Capitalism today has created a truly wonderful world. From Sudan to Syria, from Congo to Crimea, imperialist rivalry leads to the death, rape and displacement of millions of the poorest people on the planet. Some of the survivors then risk their lives and pay people traffickers small fortunes to try to get to the “rich” (for some) coun­tries. In the course of this they are met with violence and death on the seas or in transit areas. And the response of the rich? Not to stop plundering the South but to make it harder to reach the North.

And the “lucky ones”? The people who make it have to work for a pittance living in substandard accommodation and subject to daily humiliation and racist attacks. The capitalists of the democratic states don’t need PEGIDA. They already discriminate without them.

The only alternative is to work to get rid of the system that creates these evils. The Communist Workers’ Organisation is a small organi­sation but part of a growing international anti-capitalist movement. We stand for a society without exploitation or money-making and profit, where everyone has a part in deciding and producing directly for all human needs. We want an end to standing armies and the states they defend. We aim to see the abolition of national, racial and religious bigotry and for a world sustainable community of equal producers. To achieve this we need to create an international politi­cal movement which helps lead and guide that struggle. If you share this vision get in touch or join the growing debate on how to end capitalist misery. Remember, it only needs the working class to do nothing for this system to lead us all to even greater horrors. We still have a world to win.

The Communist Workers’ Organisation is part of the Internationalist Communist Tendency.

Find us at:

Website: leftcom.org

Email: uk@leftcom.org

Postal address:

BM CWO,

LONDON,

WC1N 3XX

Look out for our press: Aurora and Revolutionary Perspectives