Jacob Zuma, the President of South Africa, has been in the UK meeting the Queen and causing a stir.

The Daily Mail has whipped itself into a frenzy, calling Zuma a “vile buffoon” and a “sex-obsessed bigot”, as well as repeatedly calling him “Zulu Boy”.

The Telegraph is appalled that he has been invited after  describing the British as “condescending imperialists” and think Her Maj ought to teach him some manners.

The BBC is obsessed with his multiple marriages.

The Guardian’s front page pictured the Queen next to Zuma’s wife Thobeka Stacey Madiba, as if to contrast liberated white womanhood against Mrs Zuma as chattel.

Let’s get some things straight. Jacob Zuma isn’t a very nice man. He’s a corrupt, homophobic, misogynist, rapist.

But most Heads of State and people of power are pretty distasteful, if you look in to it.  The Queen has hosted Mugabe and Ceauşescu, for goodness sake, as well as being big buddies with George W Bush.

So how come the media aren’t reporting on Zuma’s corruption, or his politics, or what he’s done in his role as President? How come they’re not using his actions to talk about issues of rape, women’s rights, gay rights, and equality in South Africa and the rest of the world today?

All we’ve learnt from the media coverage of Zuma’s visit is that we can all point and laugh at the crazy brown man, mock him and his culture and call him ‘Zulu Boy’ and get away with it. It all stinks of racism and white supremacy.

If the British media wants to criticize Zuma, maybe they could have reported on the South African feminists fighting for equality under Zuma’s regime, such as Pumla Gqola, whose wonderful myth-busting article on polygamy cuts right to the chase:

The point of the matter is not whether in a feminist republic we’d force Zuma to choose one wife or banish him… We’d probably banish Zuma for many more reasons, least of which his preference for multiple partners.

How come the white ruling class only give a shit about women’s rights when they’re trying to justify their own racism?

Here's a photo of the moments described in the letter

Most readers will have been following how two weeks ago thousands of anti-fascists mobilised on the streets of Edinburgh to defeat the racist Scottish Defence League through militant direct action.

If you haven’t, you can read what SSY had to say about the day here and here.

Although the day was a great success, one of the things that clearly needs to be tackled if we’re going to build mass opposition to the far right in Scotland is unity within the anti-fascist movement.

SSY and the SSP have argued that there was room for both a mass demo and rally against racism (even if we had some reservations about some of the characters on the platform, like Edinburgh City Council Leader Jenny Dawe) and for those willing and able to take mass direct action by peacefully occupying the streets.

But on the day there were tensions and disagreement between the Edinburgh Anti Fascist Alliance, who argued for direct action, and Unite Against Fascism and Scotland United, the organisers of the march and rally.

Now EAFA have written an open letter to UAF, arguing for these tensions to be resolved to allow us to make sure that the SDL won’t be able to march in Lockerbie later this month. We should stress that this letter is by the Edinburgh Anti Fascist Alliance, which involves loads of different groups and individuals, and it’s not just by SSY or the Scottish Socialist Party. Nevertheless I think it’s fair to say that SSY endorses pretty much everything it says.

Here it is:

“Subject: Open Letter to the UAF

Edinburgh Anti-Fascist Alliance Open letter to the UAF, 28 February 2010

Fellow Anti-Fascists,

We recognise the hard work of the UAF in building for the anti-Scottish Defence League demonstration, and were pleased with the cooperative relationship we had with Unite Against Fascism in the lead up to it. We were working together in the spirit of a united response to the SDL.

We were heartened to hear in the UAF meetings we attended, that the UAF considered that there was room for the two complimentary demonstrations on the day. We hoped that the problems that occurred in Glasgow were behind us, and that the UAF and Anti-Fascist Alliance could cooperate this time.

However on the day of the demonstration some members of the UAF intended to disrupt our protest, and take it back to the Scotland United march,despite these previous assurances, and the spirit of cooperation that existed before. Some UAF and Scotland United organisers spread disinformation, and said things that were known to be untrue, to the crowd as it marched to confront the SDL at the bottom of the Royal Mile.These untrue statements included: “there are no SDL in that pub, only Hibs casuals”, and “150 fascists are about to attack the Scotland United demonstration”. This led to confusion and people leaving.

Unity and superior numbers are our strengths against violent racists like the SDL. However these strengths were jeopardised by this behaviour, and put the safety of anti-fascists at serious risk. We would not like to imagine what the situation could have been like, had the depleted number of anti-fascists met a large group of SDL thugs at the bottom of the hill.

We hope that this letter will start a fraternal discussion about how we can avoid similar situations in the future, and how we can ensure greater level of unity and cooperation between the UAF and Anti-FascistAlliance so that we have the best chance of defeating fascism. We lookforward to cooperating with you against the SDL/EDL in Lockerbie and Bolton.
In Solidarity,

Edinburgh Anti-Fascist Alliance.”

Just a quick update to the issue we previously reported about the abuse of women detainees in Yarl’s Wood immigration detention centre.

Meg Hillier, liar and knobhead

The women have now been on hunger strike for three weeks,

demanding their freedom and better conditions in Yarl’s Wood. However, Meg Hillier, Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for ‘Identity’ apparently, has written to MP’s with a bunch of straight up lies about the situation in the centre. Never mind, I’m sure she knows what she’s talking about,

the government people working on Identity clearly aren’t clueless.

She writes that women aren’t really on hunger strike, and they are getting food brought in by visitors. In fact this is banned by the guards. 34 women have written from the centre to deny Hillier’s claims. She also argues that the way immigration cases are examined is fair, that women didn’t face serious health consequences as a result of recent events, and that no racist abuse took place. This is all contradicted by the women who are actually there.

Here’s the letter that they’ve written to let people know they’re still on hunger strike:

“We the undersigned have been on hunger strike since the 5/02/10 to date.. At no particular point in time have we gone to eat in the dining room, got food from the vending machines or at the shop. We would also like to point out that Yarl’s Wood has a no food, no drink policy, this has always been the case therefore saying that “visitors bring us food” is untrue.“

Scandalously, Hillier also claims that those on the outside campaigning to help the women are spreading lies that “cause unnecessary distress” to the women in Yarl’s Wood. In fact everyone helping to publicise what goes on in this private prison, run by a textbook creepy company, SERCO, are helping the detainees in their own small way. Publicity and public pressure on the government helps keep these women safe from further abuse. The Black Women’s Rape Action Project are in daily contact with them, and they ask for all of us to tell the world what’s going on to try and prevent the situation getting any worse.

They’ve also asked for supporters to email the government demanding freedom for detainees and an investigation into conditions in Yarl’s Wood. You can email:

· Phil Woolas MP, the Minister of State for Borders and Immigration woolasp@parliament.uk or http://www.philwoolasmp.org/emailPhil.html

· Alan Johnson MP, Home Secretary johnsona@parliament.uk or public.enquiries@homeoffice.gsi.gov.uk

· Meg Hillier MP, Parliamentary Under Secretary of State Home Office meghilliermp@parliament.uk or apc.secretariat@homeoffice.gsi.gov.uk

You can also find your local MP and email them via WriteToThem.com. I’m not generally a fan of writing to MP’s, you could do it all day on different important issues and it’s often quite a passive way of protesting. But in this case I think it might actually do some good to make the government feel under pressure, so why not take five minutes to support women in Yarl’s Wood.

You can ask your MP to support Early Day Motion 919, put in the Westminster Parliament by Lefty Labour MP John McDonnell. It says:

“HM Inspector of Prisons urgently carries out an independent investigation into reports of violence, mistreatment and racist abuse from guards, being kettled for over five hours in a hallway, denied access to toilets and water and locked out in the freezing cold, which women have made, and a moratorium on all removals and deportations of the women who took part in the hunger strike pending the results of that investigation”.

If you were in  a city centre or on the train over the weekend you might have noticed a much larger police presence than usual.

This follows the Home Office announcing the latest bout of the “don’t-be-worried-but-we-should-all-be-scared-shitless-game” with the raising of the government’s terror threat level from “substantial” to “severe”, meaning the government apparently believes an attack is “highly likely.”

Home Secretary Alan Johnson demonstrates the Government's raised state of alert

Telling people they shouldn’t be worried, whilst also telling them there’s a pretty fair chance they might get blown up, unfortunately for the government, loses quite a lot of its impact after 9 odd years of similar “scares”, and people just seemed to be ignoring the high police presence.

But if you weren’t worried about the imminent threat of exploding underwear, the security services have a new terrifying development in the world of ingenious terrorism – the “clean-skins”.

According to an article in the Sunday Telegraph, the wannabe-Jack Bauers are worried that al-Qaeda have been training women who may not be Arabs. These are what they call “clean-skin” agents.

The Telegraph's image of a "female terrorist". The balaclava kinda defeats the purpose though

“There are others who are still out there who have been trained and who are clean skins – that means people who we do not have a record of, people who may not look like al-Qaeda terrorists, who may not be Arabs, and may not be men,” said Richard Clarke, a former White House Chief Couter-Terrorism Adviser.

The term “clean-skin” has its origins in the War On Drugs that came before the War On Terrorism, in relation to people bringing drugs into the US from Latin America or elsewhere who did not fit their pre-conceived profile of what a smuggler looks like. Dictionary entries for the term offer “lilywhite” as an alternative, showing that, although officially about criminal records, immigration processes always were driven by a fair dose of racial profiling.

Now the term has transferred to the ongoing process of classifying people undertaken as part of the “War On Terror”. So, according to British government analysts, the London bombers, who were British citizens, would be classified as “clean-skins”.

Now apparently, security sources have said that it was “inevitable” that al-Qaeda would eventually turn to using women with a “western appearance” to carry out suicide attacks. The fact that such a blatantly racist term as “clean-skin” is reinforced here as meaning “white” without blushing really shows how much racism underlies most of what we get told about what the secret agencies we all fund get up to.

Anjem Choudary in happier times

Fundamentalist nutjob Anjem Choudary’s bottled it. After a week of hysteria in the British press over a planned Islamist march through Wootton Bassett, he has cancelled the demo – as many already predicted he would do. Choudary previously claimed to be organising a march for Shariah Law in London before bottling it, unfortunately not before the Daily Express ran with the story “Now Muslims Demand Full Sharia Law”.
In both cases the reasons for shitting it are obvious; Islam4UK has a membership base of only dozens and would be outnumbered in the hundreds if not thousands by far-right counter demonstrators.

Full credit must be given where it’s due however. While the Left and secular Muslims can hold sizeable demonstrations against war, terrorism and in defence of secularism they are lucky to get any coverage. Islam4UK on the other hand can picket a homecoming march with a couple dozen demonstrators holding placards and make national headlines.

People who demand that more secular Muslims speak out against Choudary, or that their voices are not being heard because they have sympathy for Islam4UK should remember how the media works. Choudary is given more publicity than any other religious Muslim leader (and possibly anyone of Muslim background in the UK) not because his ideas are popular but because they sell newspapers. A bearded lunatic raving about the flag of Allah flying over Downing Street, flogging drunks, attacking British Soldiers and generally acting like something Chris Morris would cook up is someone much more interesting to read about than some nondescript spokesperson for the Muslim Association of Britain – particularly when he’s on 25k of YOUR taxes Great Britain!

It’s this massive outpouring of hatred for Islam4UK that’s probably resulted in their banning. After being banned in their previous incarnation Al Muhjahiroun, they rebranded themselves as Islam4UK. Expect them to do the same in a couple of months – Jihad4Anglia? Scouser Muhjahadeen? Nice Cup of tea and a sit down Martyrs Brigade? The potential name changes for British Islamists are almost endless.

As much black humour Choudary and Islam4UK can provide with calls for a fundamentalist Islamic programme across the UK they are much more dangerous than their small numbers suggest. The coverage they obtain provides crucial justification for a variety of “think tanks” and a growing cottage industry of anti-Muslim bigots. Every time Islam4UK carry out a demo it can be used as evidence for massive, concealed sympathy for Islamist ideas among British Muslims. This is almost certainly Islam4UK’s strategy; punch above your weight with some mental slogans then when these are used to justify an anti-Muslim backlash pose as the defenders of Muslims.

One such organisation which has used Islam4UK to bolster it’s own anti-Muslim bigotry is the Centre for Social Cohesion. Their spokesperson agreed to debate with Anjem Choudary but then pulled out when he demanded the audience be divided into male and female. Who would have thought a religious fundamentalist would be so unreasonable. The Centre for Social Cohesion snatched headlines recently by conducting a poll claiming that one third of Muslim students supported killing in the name of religion.

The reality was that the poll showed completely different results. Only 4% of Muslim students thought it was acceptable to kill to “preserve and promote religion”. 28% thought it was acceptable to kill “only if that religion was under attack”. The second question was specifically designed to be vague enough to get the results the poll wanted.

In other questions asked, only 6% of Muslims believed that those who became apostates (converted from Islam) should be punished under Sharia Law. The poll reveals that there are only about 4-6% of British Muslims who support Islamist ideas. There were some disturbing results however – there were significant minorities who had “little or no respect for homosexuals” for instance. Also large sections of Muslims polled said they would welcome the introduction of an Islamic Caliphate, and Sharia Law in the UK. Unsurprisingly though the poll did not ask if they thought it should be forced upon non-Muslims through violence.

The only Sharia Law that is present in the UK has no legal standing whatsoever, where Muslims go to an Imam to receive a religious judgement on aspects of their lives. The Imam has no legal power and his authority is based on Muslims deciding to accept his judgements. This is not unique in the UK – Jewish Religious courts arbitrate on affairs in the Jewish community, but can only act when Jews recognise it’s authority.

Religious law shouldn’t be whitewashed – there is often pressure in marriages, families and communities to accept arbitration from religious figures even if they carry no official power. Deciding to reject it can come at a high cost in terms of personal relations with your friends and family etc. But the people who will suffer that will be Muslims and not non-Muslims in the UK, and Muslims won’t be able to challenge religious authority if there is a cloud of suspicion cast over all of them. Instead a siege mentality will develop, with these religious figures finding their authority in the community increasing.

Polling consistently shows tiny support for hardcore Islamist ideas in the UK – only 4-6% of the Muslim population support killing in the name of Islam even if its not attacked or punishment of apostates. And this is 4-6% of a religious minority. Across the UK Muslims make up 3% of the population. In Scotland it is only 0.8%. The base of support for turning the UK into an Islamic Republic would not be able to organise in telephone boxes – matchboxes would be more appropriate.

When people like Choudary are promoted throughout the media it’s not just to laugh at his ideas, or because of his sexist, and bigoted ideas. He is used by many anti-Muslim newspapers and commentators as a stick to bash all Muslims in the UK with, and to raise a nightmare scenario of Britain becoming an Islamic State. Once you have that nightmare vision you can go on to justify any kind of attack on Muslims that wouldn’t be suggested for any other minority in the UK. That makes Anjem Choudary very dangerous, but not in the way he or his opponents in the tabloid media would think.

After being convincingly routed last month the SDL are talking about having another march, this time in Edinburgh on February 20th.

The last time the SDL marched they were outnumbered 1,500 to 80 and were unable to march anywhere. They spent the day cooped up in a bar, a totally different situation from other parts of the UK where the EDL ran riot, intimidating Muslims outside Mosques.

SSY is supporting a planning meeting this Wednesday, December the 9th at 7pm in the Meadow Bar on Buccleugh street. I’ll be speaking and giving a brief background on the EDL/SDL and we can discuss and plan openly and democratically how to no platform the fascists – the same way Glasgow Anti-Fascist Alliance did in the run up to the SDL’s Glasgow demo.

Lets keep Edinburgh Fascist free, no pasaran!

Facebook group for the event

This poster was used by the anti-Minaret campaign in Switzerland

Switzerland eh, the most peaceful country in the world – four hundred years of brotherly love and all they produced was a cuckoo clock and an overdraft for Pablo Escobar. Unfortunately today it looks like Switzerland isn’t as nice and neutral as folk thought it was.

Despite opposition from the Government, and previous polls showing opposition to the proposal the Swiss have voted to ban the construction of Minarets in Mosques across Switzerland.

This is despite the fact that Switzerland only has four Minarets in the whole country, none of which are used to call Muslims to prayer.

The proposal was initiated by the far-right Swiss Peoples Party, who have followed the rest of the European far-Right in attacking migrants but specifically Muslims. They called for a ban on Minarets as it resembled “Islamic dominance” and was a step towards Sharia law.

The People’s Party has led other initiatives in the Swiss Parliament against immigrants – for example proposing a law that would allow the entire family of an immigrant who had committed a crime to be deported, following the same principle of “kin responsibility” the Nazis used to attack the families of criminals.

Switzerland – and all countries – are right to try to defend a secular society, and not let religion interfere with the state. But the proposal on Minarets was only made relating to Muslim places of worship. There is no similar law regarding any other religious group in Switzerland. Muslims have been singled out for attack, because the war on terror has made them a convenient scapegoat.

This vote shows that unfortunately it doesn’t really matter what Muslims do in countries they stay to avoid being attacked – there were only four Minarets in Switzerland, and no history of extremist preachers in these institutions. Most Muslims in Switzerland emigrated from Turkey or Yugoslavia. As Derek Wall pointed out on Socialist Unity it’s likely many of these Muslim immigrants had their Mosques destroyed by Serb Fascists in the 90s. No doubt they will join with the Swiss Peoples Party in defending “Christian civilisation”.

Another anti-immigrant poster the Swiss Peoples Party has used, subtlety obviously isn’t their strong point

It’s important that while the Left can recognise religious fundamentalism and oppose it – as the SSP’s comrades in the Labour Party of Pakistan write about in the latest edition of the Voice – that we also recognise where a scapegoat has been made. The singling out of Muslim places of worship today is no different than when Catholics were singled out as a danger in Glasgow by bigots.

The Scottish Trade Union Congress’ annual St Andrews Day march against racism in Glasgow is this weekend, and many SSY members will be going along.

The march assembles at 10.30 on Saturday 28th November at St Andrews in the Square (off Saltmarket), and heads off at 11, marching through the city centre, followed by speeches in the GFT.

Hope to see you there!

Despite over 250,000 incidences of racism in schools being reported since 2002, the Manifesto Group have called their report on the issue “The Myth of Racist Kids”.

According to civil liberties organisation The Manifesto Group, young children are being branded racist before they even know what the term means – and playground spats are being turned into full-blown racial incidents.

Little kids might not know what the word ‘racist’ means, but they’re more than capable of having racist views. Try telling this woman that there’s no such thing as a racist kid.

Report author Adrian Hart said:

…such anti-racist policies can create divisions where none had existed…

So, not only is racism is a myth – but by being actively anti-racist, you are creating racism where previously there was none? WTF?!?!

In all of the news reports on this issue, The Manifesto Group are described as a civil liberties organisation. Seriously? Civil liberties for who? White people’s right to be racist? Fuck off!

Ignoring the issue of race does not solve racism – only active anti-racist politics can do that.

Racism is a very real issue for children across the world, and if you don’t believe me, look at the impact racism has already had on the lives of these children.

Special Guest Post Exclusive by Honorary SSY Member Jo Harvie….

So it’s the morning after Griffin got on Question Time. The Guardian and Independent have slammed the oxygen feed to the fascists, the Star has called him a nuttaaaah, and every single telly programme and radio phone-in, from GMTV to This Morning has discussed the merit of allowing ‘Dick’ to sweat, giggle and stutter through an hour of flagship political discussion.

There’s been a mixed bag of views shared. A few surprising celebrities have argued passionately that there should never have been a place for the BNP on a programme like Question Time. Everyone on Twitter loved Bonnie Greer’s intellectual wasting of Griffin’s idiotic view of history. All the panellists agree he looked stupid.

But from the people phoning in, there’s an overwhelming feeling that it was a sin for him, the poor kid who hadn’t done his homework being hounded by a whole gaggle of strict teachers. One phoner-upper to The Wright Stuff actually likened Griffin to “Joan of Arc tied to the stake”. Well, I suppose he insists he can trace his ancestors back to William the Conqueror, making him, by his own standards, French.

NIck Griffin is no victim. From the second it was announced that the BBC had invited him onto Question Time he couldn’t lose. He looked inarticulate. He looked nervous. The bloke who made the South Pole joke made him look a total tube. But he was there. He was on our tellies, sitting opposite the ‘political elite’ he purports to despise so much. He touched Bonnie Greer’s arm several times. I hope she’s burnt her jacket.

And again, and again, last night and across all channels this morning, it’s been repeated that none of the politicians could answer the question about ‘the problem of immigration’. Labour, LibDem and Tory argued it out last night about who it was who’d let too many people in, and who would let in less in the future.

The argument I’m hearing today is that the mainstream parties are ’scared’ to debate immigration. That’s nonsense, they talk about immigration all the time. It’s just that they’re all saying the same thing – ‘we have to find ways to stop people getting in’. Between them, they have shifted the language on immigration so far to the right that they’re all living next door to the BNP.

Let’s hear the other side for a change. Britain is not ‘full up’. If the UK’s population is rising slightly (Scotland’s, on the whole, is not) it’s because middle class people are living longer.

The number of people making a new application for asylum in the UK rose, very slightly, this year, after dropping over the last five years. Not because people are looking to live comfortably on our benefits – our government forces people to live in absolute poverty, on £35 a week, while they wait for a decision on their asylum claim – but because Western armies have clattered through their countries spreading terror and chaos. People seeking asylum come, overwhelmingly, from Iraq, Afghanistan and Somalia.

Tory Baroness Warsi challenged Griffin’s use of the term ‘bogus asylum seeker’ – I think it’s the first time I’ve ever heard the term challenged on TV – because it’s an invented slur. There are no bogus asylum seekers, every human on the planet has the right to ask for sanctuary. Yet her party would still seek to limit the number of people to whom we offer that sanctuary, would send families back to the killing fields of Sudan and Somalia, to the war zones of Afghanistan and Iraq.

They argued over the number of people who arrived from Eastern Europe. So what? People came, they worked, they paid taxes. And when rich white people screwed the whole world’s economy, lots of people went home to try to work and pay taxes there. Like the British young people who troop off to work their way round Australia, then come home when they’ve had enough adventure.

Britain’s unemployment rate is soaring – not because of Poles or Romanians or Somalians, or even Australians, who are in fact the most regular visa overstayers in the UK – but because of an economic system that bleeds every profit it can from working people of every race, then dumps them when it’s expedient.

Griffin is bleating today about his beating last night. And as very, very funny as it was – ‘he’s not in the violent Ku Klux Klan’, ‘I’m frightened of men kissing’ – until we get voices on Question Time who don’t just pay lip service to the bounties of immigration, ‘yay for curry and Dizzee Rascal!’, but who say clearly that all political parties must stop pushing fear of the other, and really tackle poverty, unemployment and exploitation of all people, then the fascists keep winning.