Workers Solidarity Movement

The photo shows stickering by anti-racists/anti-fascists on Nutgrove Way, Rathfarnham, where the vicious racist attack on 3 migrants by 5 men happened on the evening of Thursday, 5th May. All 3 – originally from Afghanistan - went to hospital for their injuries. The 18 and 20-year-old brothers were beaten unconscious (some of the assailants using a blunt metal weapon), and their 13-year-old nephew was punched in the face.

'“They rolled down the window and started shouting the F-word many times, swearing a lot and saying, ‘Why are you here? Go back to your country,’” [the boy's father] said.'

'“They stuck up their finger saying, ‘We’ll see you again. Go back to your own country. This is a warning, next time we’ll kill you.’ They used the F-word about being Muslim too.”'

'When asked if he and his family feel safe in Ireland, the man reluctantly shook his head and turned away to cry.'

This attack is extremely serious. Racist violence is expected in a society where racist, nationalist, and xenophobic, prejudice is allowed to spread and fester - it does not come out of 'nowhere'. Which is why this attack should be a wake-up call, a boot up the ass, for each of us to realise that unless we suppress this toxic ideology, more violence is on the way. Do we wait until it becomes 'normal' until we act?

There is a wave of racist and xenophobic poison sweeping across Europe - that good ol' 1930's feeling - particularly targeted at Muslims. Far-right groups are seizing upon and fomenting this to further their white supremacist/Nazi/fascist/racist agendas - like Pegida (Proud Europeans against the Islamisation of the West), the Irish branch of which never got off the ground because anti-fascists gave them an absolute hiding at their launch on Feb 6th while hundreds of anti-racist demonstrators thronged to their meetup location. Meanwhile elsewhere they and similar groups pull crowds of hundreds, thousands, and tens of thousands in other countries, in eerie Nuremburg-esque mobs of people baying for racial and cultural purity and 'sensible immigration policy'.

Thousands of refugees are dying needlessly in the unforgiving seas beyond the shores of Fortress Europe, as they commit the crime of fleeing war and persecution (usually caused by Western imperialism), risking their lives for some hope of safety. And the 'lucky' ones who don't die at sea, and make it somewhere, are demonised as the cause of whatever problem and social ill you can think of. Borders continue to be a noose around the neck of humanity.

The onus is on every single one of us to stop this, on a personal level, and on a public, systematic level. We need to show solidarity for our fellow human beings by having zero tolerance for racist norms, behaviour, and ideology. Every casually racist remark you let go by contributes to the culture that is the context for this heinous attack. Every time refugees, migrants, Muslims, people of colour, Travellers, are scapegoated for the country's economic or social problems. Let yourself be heard, you welcome refugees, people of all races and religions, and won't let hurtful myths be spread, won't let people be discriminated against. Educate and examine yourself, how are you contributing to racism in this country? How are you contributing to fighting racism?

But that's not all. We need to work towards destroying this economic system which divides the working classes against each other, this system of nation states with policed borders where the geographical lottery of birth is ruthlessly enforced. That will require a sustained and organised collective effort by people across this island, and the globe, and there's no time to waste