The Joint Committee of the East Indian Defence Committee, the West Indian People’s Organization and the Canadian People’s Defence Committee has launched a vigorous campaign against racist attacks organized by the state. The Committee has organized a series of meetings in the Toronto area in preparation for the November 6 demonstration against state-organized racist attacks to be held at Toronto City Hall. The purpose of these meetings is to explain to the Canadian people, including the immigrant communities, that the rich minority is to blame for racist attacks and that the immigrant communities and the entire Canadian people can resist these attacks only by relying on their own strength and fighting back, not by appealing to the very state which is organizing racist attacks.
The first in a series of militant meetings was held on Thursday, November 3, at the University of Toronto, where students and workers heard speeches by the representatives of CPDC, EIDC and WIPO. The Joint Committee will be holding two more meetings in Toronto prior to the Sunday demonstration and rally: On Friday, November 4, at noon, there will be a meeting at Bethune College of York University, and on Friday evening at 7:30 p.m. there will be a meeting at Woodgreen United Church, 875 Queen Street East. Supporters of the Joint Committee have distributed hundreds of leaflets announcing these meetings and containing the Joint Statement issued by the Committee.
At the U of T meeting, the representative of the CPDC presented the views of his organization on the causes of and solution to racist attacks on the immigrant communities. The rich in Canada and their state are organizing these racist attacks. To depend on the rich and their state for salvation is like expecting a cure from the gods of plague. The only solution for the communities under attack is to keep the initiative in their own hands, vigorously defend themselves and fight these racist attacks.
The EIDC representative stressed that racist attacks are not just a problem for the immigrant communities. Attacks on the immigrants go against the basic interests of the entire Canadian people, and it is important that the rest of the Canadian people support the immigrant communities and join the struggle against state-organized racist attacks.
Actual life experience has shown that racist attacks on the immigrant communities are organized by the state. The state has a hand in virtually every racist attack in one way or another. Some attacks are organized and carried out directly by the police, while others are committed by fascist gangs with the open protection of the police. As well, the state issues large amounts of propaganda designed to incite racists to attack the immigrants. The EIDC representative spoke of recent examples of this in Toronto, and also referred to the notorious “Green Paper” on immigration and the anti-immigrant Bill C-24 of the Trudeau government.
The West Indian and East Indian communities have learned through their actual life experience that no amount of appeals to the state can bring a halt to racist attacks. The Canadian state is the state of the rich. It does not represent the interests of the vast majority of the working people; rather, it is their oppressor. Genuine freedom from racist attacks can be achieved only by the masses of the people relying on their own efforts.
The view that the Canadian people are racist, and that the people must rely on the state for their salvation, emanates from the state and the rich minority. Persecution of immigrants and racist attacks are organized by the rich, not the people. It is the rich and their system of private ownership of the means of production, which is the source of all the problems facing the people, including the immigrants. The sole interest of the big money-bags is to get richer and preserve their dark and oppressive rule. Faced with a deepening crisis of the monopoly capitalist system, a crisis to which they have no solutions, they are stepping up the persecution of immigrants and racist attacks on the national minorities.
The EIDC representative told the audience that the Canadian state has always been racist and has persecuted East Indians from the time they first arrived in Canada. But East Indians have never been intimidated by these attacks, and have fought back and defended the honour and integrity of their community. He cited numerous examples of the racist activities of the state and the heroic resistance of the East Indian community in Canada, emphasizing the attempt by the state to deport the entire East Indian community to British Honduras and the attacks on the ship Kamagata Maru in the port of Vancouver.
Through their protracted struggles the East Indian people have learned that they can not expect solutions from the state. The EIDC was organized in 1973 on the basis of the slogan Self-Defence Is the Only Way! Since then, this line has sunk deep roots in the community. Many racist punks have received just punishment when they dared to attack the East Indian community. The EIDC representative noted that as a result of the work of EIDC, the state has been driven into a frenzy, and is now frantically trying to organize opposition in the community to the correct line of Self-Defence Is the Only Way!
The speaker from the West Indian People’s Organization pointed out that the state is trying to cause splits within the West Indian and East Indian communities by giving the impression that it is only the “South Asians” who are under racist attack in Toronto. He stressed that racist attacks are also escalating against the West Indian community. Just recently, a gang of about 30 police raided a party near the U of T campus, beat up West Indians at the party, and charged them with “assaulting police”. Immigration Department goons are also extremely active in the West Indian community, raiding workers’ apartments supposedly looking for “illegal” immigrants, and issuing deportation orders against West Indians who have lived in Canada for many years.
The WIPO representative explained how the police first incited racist gangs to attack West Indians in the Regent Park community in Toronto last year, and then defended the racists. These attacks only ceased when the people began to fight back. Then the police arrested several West Indians, and not the racists. The West Indian community has always fought back against racist attacks, and they have never been deceived by the lies of the state that the people should rely on the state for solutions.
The West Indian community has responded to these racist attacks by organizing itself into WIPO, and by uniting with the EIDC and CPDC to wage a campaign against state-organized attacks on the immigrants.
As part of its campaign of opposition to state-organized attacks on immigrants, the Joint Committee is calling a vigorous mass demonstration in Toronto on November 6,1977 at 2:00 p.m. in front of City Hall. All those who are opposed to state-organized attacks on immigrants are invited to vigorously participate. The demonstration will be followed by a rally against state-organized racist attacks. The main speaker at the rally will be Comrade Hardial Bains, Chairman of the Communist Party of Canada (Marxist-Leninist).
BLAME THE RICH AND NOT THE PEOPLE FOR RACIST ATTACKS!
DOWN WITH STATE-ORGANIZED RACIST ATTACKS ON THE PEOPLE!
FIGHT RACIST ATTACKS THROUGH REVOLUTIONARY MASS STRUGGLES!
SELF-DEFENCE IS THE ONLY WAY!
(People’s Canada Daily News Volume 7 No. 264, November 4, 1977)