Date: Thu, 5 Feb 1998 11:25:23 +0000
From: James Heartfield <James-AT-heartfield.demon.co.uk>
Subject: Re: M-I: Re: Amsterdam Treaty


In message <199802050806.DAA06324-AT-mailbox.syr.edu>, Siddharth Chatterjee
<siddhart-AT-mailbox.syr.edu> writes
>Yes, "Europe today is irrevocably multicultural. Fifteen percent of 
>Sweden's population are immigrants". But, as you also note 
>above, this multiculturalism is superficial. Since these immigrants 
>are mostly from the third-world, they are treated in the true 
>"European" fashion by the people and the governments of the EU. The  
>immigrant population of little, democratic, hypocritical Sweden is 
>considered as unwanted aliens by Swedish society - and extrapolate 
>this to all the countries of Western Europe. They have very little 
>rights and rarely rise to top postitions in industry or academia 
>because of all-pervasive racism and discrimination. By the way, the 
>US is more multicultural than the European countries if one has to 
>make a comparison. Also, there have been mass civil rights movements 
>in the US, which have, however limited, garnered some rights for 
>and protection for minorities. These anti-racist movements, although 
>primarly, carried out by African-Americans, have yielded some 
>benefits to other communities also. There is no such comparable 
>historical record of mass anti-racist movements in the EU.

What this misses out is the way that the official political culture in
all the Western capitals is changing. White supremacy was a central
feature of European and American ruling class ideology when those
nations were in the ascendent. Today the official ideology is
'multicultural' while explicitly racist ideology is largely
marginalised.

There is much talk of fascism on the rise in Europe, but somehow it
never seems to get there. Instead all of the warnings about fascism only
indicate just how out of step the far right is with the official
culture. Sid says there is no record of anti-racist movements in Europe
comparable to Civil Rights. That is certainly true since most anti-
racism in Europe took place under the umbrella of the Social Democratic
and Communist Parties which were famous for their adaptation to national
chauvinism. I can well remember that any anti-racist initiative in
British Trade Unions used to be immediately torpedoed by the Communist
Party apparatchiks on the grounds that it would only provoke raical
strife in the workforce.

But in more recent times the only large demonstrations there have been
have been on the anti-racist theme. In Britian the Anti-Nazi League
organised massive demos in the early nineties. In Germany Chancellor
Kohl marched on an anti-Nazi demonstration that was the largest of its
kind. In France demonstrations against Le Pen and in favour of
immigrants are supported by the intelligentsia and up-and-coming
starlets, as well as the vast majority of young people.

I don't point out any of this to argue that Europe is in the grip of a
radical upsurge of progressive mobilisation. On the contrary, all of
this anti-racist activity only indicates how much the official politics
of Europe has assimilated a certain multi-cultural rhetoric. Time was
when those inpower would simply deny the existence of racism, and vilify
anyone that sought to draw attention to it. Nowadays every official
institution in the UK is solicitous of anti-racist initiatives: The
police give their officers anti-racist training, sending them to live
with immigrant families for the weekend etc; Only two years ago the
Manchester police cleared disciplined all the ringleaders in their
notoriously racist Moss Side station; where they used to deny the
existence of racial attacks (indeed they were often the prpetrators),
the police now diligently record them and publicise the figures; the
army is organising a big drive against racial bullying; the bar-council
is seeking the promotion of black and Asian judges; local authorities
and education authorities are the most advanced in the promotion of
positive discrimination in employment and service delivery. At the level
of official European Institutions multiculturalist policy statements are
everywhere.

What all this means is very hard to tell. In economic terms the
situation of immigrants is still pretty bad in the UK. Also, the police
record of killing West Indians in custody seems unabated - though it is
a subject of public criticism in a way that it would never have been in
the eighties. In Foreign policy Britain (if less so Europe) is still
willing to bomb Iraqi civilians.

The one area where British and European polcy is as explicitly racist as
ever is immigration, where the unspoken assumption is that this must be
regulated on grounds of colour.

But for all that I think you would find it very hard to identify the
explicitly racist outlook of a Margaret Thatcher (who famously warned
that we were in danger of being 'swamped' by people of an alien culture)
amongst any leading British politicans today - at least in their public
statements.
-- 
James Heartfield


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