Our people are demonstrating again, alongside with the people from the West Indies and the Canadian people against state-organized racist attacks. The East Indian Defence Committee which was established in November 1973 by the progressive community is spearheading the struggle against racist attacks. EIDC is organized all across Canada and has defended the honour and integrity of the community and has shown in concrete terms that the East Indians will not be intimidated.
The struggle against racism is an ongoing, protracted struggle. In fighting the racist attacks, we consolidate the unity and solidarity of our community as well as the unity of all Canadian people against our common enemies. Lok Awaz congratulates the Joint Committee of EIDC, WIPO and CPDC for organizing this demonstration on November 6, 1977, as well as applauds the Canadian people for their long history of struggle against racism and all reaction.
The “concern” that is being shown by capitalist politicians and newspapers around the Metro Toronto area about racist attacks has now exposed itself for what it really is. An attempt to blame the people for racist attacks, groom flunkeys in the East Indian and other communities and use them as Trojan horses against these communities under the slogan of “integration”, split and divide these communities so that the people of these communities fight one another instead of fighting the state-organized racist attacks and suppress the progressive and patriotic sections of the community. Events of the past two weeks clearly show what the state is up to.
The Attorney General and Walter Pitman, one PC and the other NDP, both blamed the people for racist attacks. They screamed repeatedly over the past two weeks: “We are all racists.” The capitalist politicians are of course telling the truth that they are all racists, but they are including the entire people in it in order to absolve themselves of their crimes. This just won’t work. We say that it is the state which is racist and the capitalist and opportunist politicians who are racist.
Capitalist newspapers have also carried editorials and news parrotting the false ideas of the Attorney General and Walter Pitman. But it simply won’t work. People know that it is not the ordinary people who make the laws and participate in the state affairs. It is the ruling class, the monopoly capitalists of both the U.S. and of Canada who control the state and it is they who make the laws. The ruling class ideas are ideas of racism and they are promoting these ideas far and wide and have made every effort to convince every person that they should adopt racist ideas. The “Green Paper on Immigration” was one such massive campaign by the government to popularize and incite racist feelings. It is not the ordinary workers, poor and other oppressed people who make the laws or whose ideas receive wide popularization and advertisement. Even though they make up the vast majority in the country, their ideas are suppressed and their political parties, for example, the Communist Party of Canada (Marxist-Leninist) is attacked and its leaders are persecuted. Comrade Hardial Bains has been denied citizenship for his progressive views and he has been repeatedly threatened with deportation. He now faces framed-up charges because he is progressive and represents the best aspirations of the workers, poor and the other oppressed sections of the community.
The state has spent a large amount of money in the East Indian and other communities to groom flunkeys in these communities. The “organizations” which prostrated in front of the Attorney General on October 30 are all groomed by the state as Trojan horses against the communities. These individuals and organizations are using the upsurge in the communities against the racist attacks in order to carve a position for themselves in the state apparatus, in order to work against the best interests of the communities. They have advanced the slogan of “integration”. But what does the word integration mean? Integration with the racists? Or integration with the point of view, customs and political forms of the racists? Yes, this is what in real terms this slogan means to these traitors. This is why Lok Awaz is vigorously opposed to it. The “integrationists” begin from the point of view of the ruling class, and in order to curry favour with it state that they are “professionals, technocrats,businessmen and educated”, and lyingly assert that they make up “sixty percent” of the East Indian community and that you can make use of their talents by carving a position for them in the state apparatus. Put us on the education boards, create positions if these do not exist, get us in permanent touch with the police, etc., and we will work for you. So they speak for themselves. Neither do they speak to defend the honour and integrity of the community nor do they speak for the ordinary workers, the poor and oppressed. Lok Awaz firmly rejects the slogan of “integration” advanced by the professionals, technocrats, businessmen, etc. Lok Awaz fights for the genuine and militant unity of all people fighting against the common enemy. The same state which organizes racist attacks against East Indians also passes Bill C-73 and other anti-working class laws. It is the same state which oppresses the vast majority of the people of Canada, commits genocide against the Native people and deprives the people of Quebec of their right to national liberation. Lok Awaz works for genuine unity and solidarity of all Canadian people against the common enemies.
Capitalist politicians and newspapers repeatedly label the East Indian community as Sikhs, Hindus, Muslims, etc. But the community cannot be described by which religion people belong to. Communities are composed of workers, intellectuals, professionals and businessmen, etc. Communities are divided along class lines, along the lines of those who stand for the best interests of the community and of those who are traitors. Religious groups do not obliterate division along class lines. On the contrary, they also sharpen the division. For example, there are genuine Sikhs who fight for the best interests of the community and then there are phoney Sikhs. Capitalist politicians and newspapers promote these phoney Sikhs, the traitors to the community. Mewa Singh was a genuine Sikh, a genuine patriot who defended the best interests of the community by wiping out the policeman Hopkinson in 1914 who was organizing against the community and inciting divisions and grooming agents in the community. Bela Singh was a traitor to the community and a phoney Sikh. People punished him justly for his crimes against the community. Phoney Sikhs are again trying to use religion in order to split and divide the community. They are being groomed by the state and are in their service. These phoney Sikhs are openly assuring the state that it can rely on them to “wipe out” the progressive and patriotic people from the community. The state, in turn, has shown a very nice attitude towards these phoney Sikhs.
For example, a brother of one of these phoney Sikhs (who is being floated as the “leader” of the Sikhs) has received immigration to Canada even though he was illegally in Canada before, worked without a work permit and violated the laws of immigration, etc. Giving this individual immigration and publicizing his participation in what the Globe and Mail of October 19,1977 describes as a “riot” is part of the state-organized racist attacks against the people.
Our community has a long history of unity and struggle against its enemies. It has given birth to innumerable patriots while the traitors have been only a few and it has dealt with them severely.