"Yesterday’s appalling events in Dublin can scarcely come as a surprise.
People were, of course, shocked at the horrific knife attack on innocent school children and their teachers , but this was not the reason for the orgy of reactionary violence in which workers were attacked, shops looted and public services and their workers, including first responders, targeted and abused.
The violence did not arise out of concern for the children or their teachers. The threats to nearby hospitals and schools bear testament to that. This was a criminal hate-fest orchestrated by rightist and fascist forces and demonstrated their ability to provoke street violence through online networks and social media. It is necessary to expose and condemn the social media fuelled false speculation, racist reactions and vigilantism.
In essence, this was a racist and anti-worker attack by criminal, racist, supremacist elements fired up by reactionary forces exploiting economic and social grievances to advance their own poisonous agendas by attempting to place the blame for their situation on innocent people, including Irish citizens, from different racial and ethnic backgrounds, and on migrant workers and refugees, instead of placing the blame where it properly lies, on the capitalist system that exploits workers and their families and the government and parties which support it. Migrant workers provide vital support to our education, health, social care and transport systems and to retail and hospitality.
The lame protests by the bourgeois and social democratic parties about anti-social behaviour belies their lack of understanding of the underlying issues and their failure to recognise the growing threat across Europe manifested in recent elections.
The growing threat of fascism and right extremism across Europe requires a response. Fascism does not exist in isolation from capitalism, it is a particular manifestation of modern monopoly capitalism under certain conditions. It is created by and is a product of capitalism. These events are taking place when there is increasing labour and trade union militancy and resistance to the conditions imposed by the capitalist crisis.
Posing as “radicals” and “patriots” these rightist and fascist elements seek to use the toxic narrative of nationalism to divide workers, to block and impede the action of those who are struggling under conditions of crisis for a transformation of the social system. It does not aim at replacing capitalism but seeks to preserve the social order based on exploitation.
These forces cannot be defeated by simple denunciations or calls for better policing, although the question of public security needs to be urgently addressed The problem must be tackled at its root. Racism, fascism, nationalism, religious sectarianism, communalism and reaction must be called out and confronted in the workplace, local communities and throughout society and through active solidarity and support for all workers and their families, including migrants and refugees. There can be no hiding place for the purveyors of hate.
However, these venomous ideas and actions, can only be resisted and defeated by the united actions of a strong working-class advancing towards the goal of creating a new society; a socialist society which ensures workers’ power, equality and social progress.
