http://themilitant.com/2015/7945/794552.html
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Vol. 79/No. 45 December 14, 2015
SWP campaigns against war
drive, witch hunt of Muslims
BY NAOMI CRAINE
In response to stepped-up war moves and attacks on workers’ rights by
the capitalist rulers following the terrorist assault by the reactionary
Islamic State that killed 130 people in Paris, the Socialist Workers
Party and Communist Leagues in Australia, Canada, New Zealand and the
United Kingdom are campaigning against the imperialist war drive and the
witch hunt against Muslims.
“When a section of the population comes under attack as Muslims are
today,” New York SWP Chairman Norton Sandler said in a statement
released by the party there and printed in last week’s Militant, “the
working-class vanguard must immediately come to its defense. The
ultimate target of the rulers’ assault on Muslims is the working class.”
SWP members joined a Nov. 29 rally of several thousand protesting the
rulers’ assaults on the environment — similar to one planned in Paris
but banned by the French government — on the eve of the international
climate summit in Paris. Two young participants from France subscribed
to the Militant, saying they oppose the government’s attacks on Muslims
and state of emergency banning political demonstrations.
Four SWP members went to the Masjid At-Taqwa mosque in Brooklyn after
Friday prayers Nov. 27 and talked with people in the area.
“Everyone we spoke with expressed outrage at the murders of civilians in
Paris by Islamic State attackers,” Maggie Trowe reported.
“As Muslims we believe that all lives matter,” Muhammad Harby, owner of
Muhammad’s Place Islamic Books next to the mosque, told her. “We are
harming our humanity when people do this. We have to stand up for justice.”
“Do you have more copies of that?” a halal butcher asked, pointing to
the statement by Sandler, when Trowe went into his store. “I want to
pass them out.” He, his son and a customer bought copies of the
Militant. “In all we sold eight papers that evening.”
When members of the party visited a coffee shop in Fremont, California,
where there is a large Muslim community, one of the baristas subscribed
to the Militant and others got copies, Betsey Stone reported. “Islamic
State is not Muslim,” said Noor Ben Ali, whose family is from Tunisia.
Ben Ali said she participated in the 2011 popular revolt there that
began what became known as the Arab Spring. “I saw people standing up
together, united, sharing,” she said. “The police that supported the
dictator disappeared from the streets and we formed our own security.
Once you see people standing up, you know it can happen anywhere.”
She explained there is an island in Tunisia called Djerba, where a lot
of Jewish people live. “The Jewish people are Tunisians just like us,”
she said.
Evan Kurzrok, a 20-year-old student at Broward College, signed up for a
subscription when SWP supporters from Miami went door to door in
Hollywood, Florida, Cindy Jaquith reported. “To mark people by their
religion is exactly what Nazi Germany did to the Jews,” he said.
“Kurzrok asked why we thought there were so many ‘radical’ ideas, such
as Donald Trump’s proposal to register Muslims,” Jaquith said. “We said
that as the capitalist crisis deepens workers look for how they can
change things. Some are attracted to Trump because he scorns the powers
that be and appears to be outside the ‘establishment.’ But what working
people need is to organize ourselves politically independent of all the
capitalists and their parties, which is what the Socialist Workers Party
campaigns for.”
If you’d like to join in this campaign, contact the party branch in your
area, listed on page 8. And please send in reports, and photos, so we
can share these experiences in the pages of the Militant.
Related articles:
Rulers in US, France whip up attacks on Muslims
Communist League candidate denounces UK war drive
Kurdish fighters gain against Islamic State
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