Interview with a member of the "Revolutionary Communist Group", GB

29/08/2002

What would you say about the position of England and of the Labour Party, when you said "Britain is more than a Vicious pet"?

Well, Toni Blair and the labour party, allowed themselves to speak up along with the USA, and doing this, Britain is punching above its weight, that ´s what I meant. But Britain is playing for its own interests, even if it´s aligned with the USA. Actually it´s using the excuse of terrorism to apply its own repressive politics.

About the repressive laws, well, the conservative party rises the ID proposal, and dropped it, but the labour party pretending to be better than the conservative, what we always denied, we knew they were going to be worse, the labour party dismissed representing the working class, and they rushed those laws. For example, the Benefit unemployment, forcing people to work for nothing, just to prove they can, and saying "it´s in your own interest", this spin of language, the "meritocracy" concept is everything against working class, and that´s nevertheless the Labour party line……
They introduce the Chip-ID, and electronic surveillance, so information about every citizen can be stored in a data-bank for 7 years. Because the "war against terror" gives a new form of morality, and because we are told by the media and by the Labour Party that we are on threat, these repressive laws are to be accepted. The message of the ruling class is : "Immigrants are terrorists", they are openly racist and as the Muslim community is being isolated, blamed not to make efforts to integrate, the media plays with this.
They are , in facts, Caribbean, sub-continental, Irish community living around poor white communities, but the media plays one community against the other. That´s when the government realised how inside communities they help each other and build a powerful gathering of people.That´s the U-turn of the government, with the Dispersal system.
They will send an Iraqi family to Scotland, they will furnish a house, some furniture and then the people there will say "well, we don´t even get that from the state", and in this way, they create tensions.

How do you work with those communities?

Well, we do work with young Muslims along on many subjects.
After the uprising of the youth of some communities, Bangladesh and Pakistanis, which parents are respectable, grateful people, but the youth knows that they have nothing to take, they don´t respect the state. They are of course British but they feel left aside, and they are much more militants, but not in a progressive way, they are not organised. We try to show them, like " you´re burning your own district" , but then all the social-democrats , lawyers and so on, are coming, swamp the area , they condemn violence, and they talk about legal ways to change things, for example when somebody dies, they say to the people "there are ways, trust the system".

You talked about interments and about the witch-hunt against Muslims, what is it all about?

Interments exists since the 70´s , with the Irish resistance, so it´s not something really new, but since 2001, with the anti-terror war, they introduce the "Indefinite Internment".
That is, the police can arrest someone, anyone, without giving a reason and without telling the charges, the person will be taken to a detention centre, and they won´t have to tell where. And this can last 5 years. Immediately after this law was voted, 9 Arabs- Muslims were interned, since December. They use this mass Hysteria against Muslim communities, to repress the anti-racist uprisings .
A few days ago, the European court of Human rights declared this law illegal, but still there is those immigration squads, and they cease 80 persons a day.
It is to know that all those repressive laws have been waiting to be passed and they didn´t pop up suddenly with the 9-11. But they were voted in 2 days without opposition.