Invasion Day 2015

CHANGE THE NAME, CHANGE THE DATE! JAN 26 IS INVASION DAY! FOR A WORKERS’ REPUBLIC!

Another January 26 rolls around, and once again the Australian ruling class and their scribes attempt to wheedle us into “celebrating” the alleged national day, complete with a public holiday. Yet in 2015, this cruel game is wearing thin. The Aboriginal people, the original owners and custodians of the land that is now known as Australia, continue to endure a horrific oppression, the likes of which even the United Nations has been moved to condemn. Aboriginal deaths in custody continue to occur, incarceration rates of Aboriginal people are increasing, Aboriginal children continue to be stolen by state government departments from their families, access to decent health care, education and employment remain at chronically low levels, and the gap in life expectancy with non-indigenous Australians remains at close to two decades. For Aboriginal people, January 26 was the beginning of all of these crimes, and much else besides.

There is no reason why Australia’s national day cannot be changed to another day on the calendar, so it does not remain as a permanent insult to Aboriginal people, on top of all the other injustices perpetrated against them. Of course, if this demand was won, all of the other crimes could easily continue. The ultimate cause of Aboriginal oppression, along with the oppression of all working people in this country, is the existence of Australian capitalism, which rests on the land which was originally stolen from the Aboriginal people. This is why it is in the interests of workers here to join with indigenous Australians to demand that the full sovereignty of the indigenous people be recognised, and immediate measures be taken to redress over two centuries of discrimination. The Unions should be leading this effort, winning support from the majority of workers for the fullest justice for indigenous people. For workers, this will entail a political struggle against conservative Union leaders, who in most cases are too materially tied into the capitalist system to make even token gestures. An example of what is possible occurred in 1996, when Unionists came to the aid of Aboriginal protesters marching against the Howard Government in Canberra. 

While some gains can be made for Aboriginal people when linked to a pro-working class political movement, and these should be striven for, workers and Aboriginal people should harbour no illusions about the nature of the capitalist state. Most people are aware that the push for “Constitutional Recognition”, even if it happens, will ultimately just be words on paper, and if nothing changes, will be disingenuous words at that. Yet we should also be aware that other demands, while not as overtly as “Constitutional Recognition”, are also demands calling for the reform of the capitalist state, as if the state that carried out the genocide against Aboriginal people can somehow be convinced to change its genetic make up. For example, the call for a Royal Commission. The most well known Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody, which produced its findings in 1992, came up with hundreds of recommendations, barely any of which were ever implemented. It ultimately served to give cover to the ruling class, which could then feign concern. Further calls now for Royal Commissions, or for official inquiries, or for “community control of policing”, end up serving the same aims. They provide an alibi for the state which protects a super-wealthy minority at the expense of all working people, a state which needs racism to function.

Socialist states, on the other hand, not only have no need to foster racism, they have an active interest in taking all possible measures to stamp it out. The unity of the working class required for building socialism means that divisions not only harms those discriminated against, but also hinders the building of a collective society with justice for all. The Republic of Cuba has taken enormous strides towards the elimination of racism on its shores since its socialist revolution in 1959. Pre-revolution, Afro-Cubans lived in a state of segregation, unable to access some beaches, but also concentrated in the lowest paid jobs, when there were any. The revolution brought the Proclamation Against Racism, and major affirmative action programs in an attempt to fully integrate Afro-Cubans, in a nation with a history of slavery. The former Soviet Union, from the first day of its founding, declared the equality of all races, and later was noted for allowing many from Third World countries, including Africans, to live and study at Soviet Universities. The counterrevolutionary destruction of the former USSR, however, undid all of this and it saw racism flare to the dangerous level it is today.

Indigenous fighter Gary Foley toured the People’s Republic of China in 1974, and was greatly impressed by, amongst other things, the autonomy for national minorities, and a felt absence of racism. The socialist states thus point the way to a permanent solution for justice for Aboriginal people, and the first strides towards the elimination of racism. The oppression of the first Australians is thus bound up with the oppression of the working class as it struggles to free itself, through the efforts for the seizure of state power, and the establishment of a workers’ republic. Only then can Aboriginal people and workers together form a union on an equal basis, against a common foe – the capitalist class. Indispensable for this task is the forging of a vanguard party based on Marxist-Leninism, the vehicle that prepares for the rule of the workers, the first step on the road to socialism. End the suffering of Aborigines and workers! For a workers’ republic!

MARXIST-LENINIST FRONT

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