On International Day against Racial Discrimination
“Fascism is being cured by studying and racism by travelling” Miguel Di Unamuno
The 21st of March has been established as the international day against racist discrimination and it constitutes a day of solidarity, cooperation, friendship and commitment on the respect of human rights and human dignity in the whole world.
Symptoms of capitalism, like economic inequality, poverty, unemployment, criminality that infest developing and developed countries, constitute a fertile ground for the development of racism and xenophobia. Nobody chooses to take the bitter road of leaving its country and live outside it. Migration, it’s a phenomenon linked with the conditions that exist in the modern capitalist world. The refugees are victims of the continuous wars, the aggressiveness of imperialism and the capital that attack people and their wealth for their own interests. Wars and poverty are the causes of people’s misfortune and the causes that force them to migration.
In most of the developed states, like in Cyprus, the phenomenon of migration is being used according to the benefits of the local capital. In some cases, migrants are presented as guilty for all the bad happenings in society: unemployment, criminality and as some Greek racist organizations suggest, even for the presence of diseases. Some other conservative and dark groups do not hesitate to claim that the presence of migrants corrupts our morals, customs and tradition.
The policy of the Cypriot state against migrants is limited in the approach that migrants can be “imported” and “exported” according with the desires and needs of business. This approach however encourages the development of an aggressive approach within the Cypriot society towards migrants, having as a result the toleration from simple citizens cases of violation of human rights, isolation and humiliation of migrants from the public bureaucracy, police suppression and employers.
Cypriot and foreign employees are both victims of local and multinational capital and objects of exploitation and suppression coming from the same big interests. For us, racism and xenophobia are another anachronistic ideological part of capitalism that splits the unity of workers and their fight for their rights.
As EDON, we condemn every expression of racism, nationalism and chauvinism. At the same time, we express the determination of our organization in continuing to fight with dedication against such phenomena and those that seek to promote them. With the youth, we continue the fight of achieving our vision for a society of equality, social justice and solidarity, in an effort, among others of confronting racism and fascism.
We live in a country that thousands of its citizens were forced to migrate due to the Turkish invasion and look for a better tomorrow in foreign countries. It’s not possible to allow our society to be poisoned by the rotten ideology of racism and fascism.
Today, there is the need as never before, for Cypriot and foreign employees to fight together as the enemy is common and does not distinguish between locals and foreigners. The workers, united, should confront the policies that aim to put them against the wall, serving in this ways the capital’s interest. For a better future for the working class, for the new generation!
C.C. of EDON
20.03.2015