Defend Muslims! Asylum for refugees! Build a revolutionary workers party!

Joseph Donnelly, June 2017.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

On Saturday, June 10th, a group called “ACT for America” put out nationwide calls for a “March Against Sharia” in numerous U.S. states and cities. Under the guise of fighting against reactionary Sharia Law, these people and the fascists who have readily joined their marches are really in a fight against innocent Muslims and refugees from the Middle East, the latter which exist solely because of the world’s number one terrorist force — U.S. imperialism — which continues day-after-day of fighting against the international working class and all oppressed peoples.

In New York City, the “anti-Sharia” protestors carried signs that said, “No more Muslims” along with pro-Trump banners and U.S. flags. Screeching right alongside them were people carrying white supremacist flags and one particularly vile flag which had written on it “anti-communist action” in the style of the traditional anti-fascist action flag but with a yellow flag and a helicopter with a man being thrown out of it — a clear reference to “death flights,” a form of execution that had been used extensively by both the U.S.-backed Pinochet regime in Chile and the military dictatorship in Argentina. While backing those regimes, and a whole host of other grotesque regimes, the U.S., despite the “liberty” it claims to uphold, is also a long-time ally of the most reactionary Islamists, whether that be modern Saudi Arabia or the historical anti-Soviet “holy warriors,” the Mujahideen, which included Osama Bin Laden in its ranks.

While the majority of Trump supporters and Trump himself are not fascists, there is a significant and dangerous number of fascists who have rallied to his side, and they are a threat to workers and the oppressed everywhere — and so we must mobilize against them everywhere they are to be found. In fighting against fascism and all bigotry, we say, “Defend Muslims! Asylum for refugees!” But we cannot stop with just those simple demands: a fight for those demands must go hand-in-hand with the fight for socialist revolution, the only long-lasting solution to the barbarism that capitalist-imperialism creates. For that, we need a working-class vanguard party that fights to build a communist society. Therefore, we also demand, “Build a revolutionary workers party!”