The deployment of heavily armed army forces on the border between Ceuta and Morocco is an example of an abhorrent migration policy rooted in repression and absolute contempt for human rights.
As in the events on the Canary Islands a few months ago, thousands of people who are fleeing from the misery and oppression of their native country faced, when arriving in the Spanish State, an apparatus that brutalises them, treating them like dangerous criminals, marching them to the border and immediately deporting them.
That a self-declared “progressive” and “pro-Human Rights” government is taking these decisions is no consolation for the migrants so savagely treated . In fact, it is very difficult to find any real differences between the migrant policy applied by Rajoy’s (the previous Spanish government, of the right-wing PP) and the current government.
Pedro Sanchez has called to defend the borders by every means available, as if we were faced with an armed attack. Nothing else could be expected from PSOE, but the complicity of Unidas Podemos is nothing short of scandalous. From their officials not even the smallest protest has been made against this brutal action, and the social media of PCE-the party that has 2 ministers in government- has justified this horrendous act as a way of “protecting national sovereignty” against Moroccos’ provocation. To read something like this on the Communist Party media is not only shameful. It is the demagogy also used by the far right to spread its message of hate and dogwhistles of “stop the invasion”.
It is clear that the demands written by Unidas Podemos on the programme for the last elections- zero deaths in the Mediterranean, closure of the detention camps, guaranteeing the civil rights of migrants and the right to asylum- were thrown on the garbage dump of good intentions for the benefit of “reasons of State”. But the State we talk about defends an imperialist foreign policy, bending to the racist policy of the EU in migrant issues.
Do not come up with the excuse of “sovereignty” when they have no scruples, neither this or previous governments, to economically, militarily and politically support dictators such as Mohamed VI and Erdogan to do the dirty work of border guards...
The attitude of the governmental left gives cover to the far-right, not just in the Spanish State but throughout Europe. The fascist Matteo Salvini, former vice president of the Italian government, has called on his own country's government to follow the same repressive policy against migrants enacted by Pedro Sanchez. And Vox, after seeing their demands of army deployment fulfilled, vomits its racist and xenophobic slogans with the hopes reclaiming centre stage.
It is undeniable that there are reasons for the far-right to rejoice. The use by the PSOE-UP government,of the same repressive policy against migrants as followed by the PP government, can only serve to reinforce the hostility between local and migrant workers that the ruling class has so assiduously promoted since the beginning of capitalism.
The restrictions to migration only favour the capitalists.
The history of the labour movement has demonstrated the complete falsehood of demagogic speeches that intend to oppose the rights and social conquests of local workers to the right of migrants to find better living conditions and run away from war, tyranny and misery.
Who, for decades, has attacked and eroded the living conditions of the working-class in the Spanish State, as in all capitalist countries, is the bourgeoisie and its State apparatus. It is austerity politics that have their roots in the systemic crisis of capitalism, which endanger the social rights and progress that seemed set in stone only a few decades ago. The higher or lower presence of immigrant workers does not determine better or worse living conditions for the local workers. The truth is that, it was when the working class acted together, overcoming differences of origin or race, that we have achieved the most important and numerous victories.
What actually contributes to deteriorate the living conditions of all the working-class, no matter their country of origin, is that left forces and trade and labor unions co-opt the xenophobic and racist words and ideas promoted by capitalists. It is when these left forces and unions, instead of fulfilling their historic task, get in the business of turning different groups of workers against others, due to their birth place, skin colour, religion, or any other excuses.
This is the safest way to weaken the working-class and to make us more vulnerable against the attacks of the ruling class. Instead of facing the attacks of the bosses with a solid wall of workers, armed with a combative and working-class programme that develops unity above any difference of origin or legal status, what it does is to feed the idea of privileging one or other group (of the “Spaniards first” or “first the ones that have the papers”) in order to keep the “social pact” and the effective support to the “‘78 regime”, the capitalist regime coming from the “Transition Agreement” and the betrayal of PCE and PSOE that enshrined a constitutional monarchy and the rankest capitalism as the rule in the Spanish state.
Down with Mohamed VI dictatorship!
The ranks of the PSOE-UP government have blamed the situation in Ceuta on the Moroccan government, echoing yet again, Vox, that has made haste in demanding EU sanctions against Morocco.
What disgusting demagogy! How rank is their hypocrisy! PSOE and UP pretend to ignore that the brutal dictatorship of Mohamed VI, as the dictatorship of his father Hassan II and his grandfather Mohamed V debfore them, are a direct creation of european imperialism, which in the end of the colonial era brought the Moroccan Royal Family back into power; protecting them militarily at all costs; collaborating in their worst polical crimes (such as the abduction, torture and assassination of the socialist leader Mehdi Ben Barka in french territory); and associating itself to billionaire ventures in Morocco, based in the most ruthless exploitation of its working class and the looting of its wealth of natural resources.
The coalition government has not moved a finger against the infamous military occupation of the former spanish Sahara, now the Western Sahara, which is a betrayal of the sarahui people and its rightful struggle for freedom and independence. This is an occupation that underpins the criminal dictatorship of Mohamed VI.
Instead of treating like criminals the people that flee the miserable conditions of their own country, a misery sustained by the EU, a left government would immediately sever its ties with the Moroccan regime and, with a genuine solidarity and socialist policy, help the working-class of Morocco to get rid of the dictatorship of Mohamed VI and to advance towards its emancipation.
Pedro Sanchez’ foreign policy, agreed by Unidas Podemos, has been clear: to keep supporting the imperialist agenda of the EU and US in all its fundamental aspects. Their scandalous attitude regarding the zionist massacre in Palestine and their complicit silence about Duques’ regime in Colombia are only the last significant examples. But the list is much longer. We would love to say the opposite, but this is the truth, although a bitter one for thousands of left activists.
For a revolutionary, internationalist and anti-racist left!
In migrant policy, as well as all other areas of government action, the hard truth is that the reality of capitalism in crisis overcomes everything. There is no place for “third ways” or “middle paths”. The inhumanity of the policies enacted by the government, the slippery slope of using the army to impose repressive actions, shows again that whoever renounces to change society and, in the name of something they call “realism”, choose to turn themselves into loyal managers of the interests of capital, find themselves swallowed in measures that not only go against their principles, but become the main obstacle for a politics that is able to solve the problems of the working-class.
To raise a revolutionary, internationalist and anti-racist left alternative is a task that cannot be postponed! Join us to build an international revolutionary left!
