Speech by the General Secretary of the C.C. of AKEL A. Kyprianou to the Anti-racist Anti-fascist Demonstration on the International Day for the elimination of Racial Discrimination

AKEL C.C. Press Office, 17 March 2018, Nicosia

Lately, social media networks have been overwhelmed with horrific and deadly images of the victims of recent attacks in Syria. The tragic irony is that a section of the people who wrote tearful comments of sympathy to the victims of the war may themselves be the very same people who when the conditions in the refugee reception centre in Kofinou became a public issue, commented that “they”, “the foreigners” come and “steal our benefits, jobs and are altering our culture.”

Racism and nationalism find a fertile ground to convey their messages in times of crisis. This is no coincidence. At times where societies face acute socio-economic problems, it is easier to promote the message that “foreigners” are to blame for everything. Our political duty is to combat these approaches in practice by strengthening the anti-fascist and anti-racist front with initiatives and actions to reinforce our solidarity with refugees, empowering the organization of all working people to assert their rights.

Seven years after the beginning of the war in Syria, 6.1 million people have been forced to leave their homes inside Syria and 5.6 million have become refugees.

We Cypriots know very well what it means to be uprooted from your home; what it means to share everything or to lose your family; what it means to have your children packed into a refugee shelter; what it means for another day to dawn and to wonder whether a piece of bread will be found. We experienced it in 1974 when the so-called “patriots”, those who have turned us into refugees, opened with their criminal betrayal the back door to Turkey to invade our homeland. The majority of them and their political descendants are precisely the same forces who are calling on us today to throw the refugees into the sea, to expel the immigrants who have come here to live in search of a better life.

AKEL, by its very nature, opposes with all its strength the policies and practices that dictate or cultivate racism and nationalism. This is a historical task for us, but also a responsibility for the future. The People’s Movement of the Left in Cyprus responded to the call in a determined manner when Nazism and fascism threatened the future of humanity; when entire peoples were being exterminated in the name of “racial purity”.

The People’s Movement of the Left is today once again standing up and firmly resisting and fighting neo-fascism, which is represented in the House of Representatives. We do not share the view arguing that if we placate the neo-fascist monster it will somehow go away. It will very simply change its face, but it will never change its hatred for us, as the Poet said.

As AKEL, we choose the correct, but difficult path of struggle. We point out the inhuman content of racism. We cultivate the respect for every person and every culture. We stress that imperialism is the one solely responsible for the waves of refugees; that it is capital that is solely responsible for illegal immigration which through a modern slavery system is trying to curb the gains and rights of working people, both domestic and foreign. We project the correct view that the way to combat this threat lies not in a xenophobic inwardness, but by strengthening the organization of the working people and its struggles so that capital is forced to employ foreign workers with the same working conditions and terms of employment that apply to Cypriot workers. This is the only way capital won’t have an interest in rearing the modern slave system.

As AKEL, we highlight the unity of working people’s interests. This unity of interests exists regardless of any differences in race, colour, language and religion. For us, working people, both Cypriots and foreigners, produce with their great efforts and toil wealth through their own labour; wealth which they themselves do not reap, but a wealth that is enjoyed by those who exploit them. Migrants experience exploitation and oppression by those who use them as cheap labour, but also as a means of putting pressure on Cypriot working people’s gains. This intensifies the exploitation of domestic workers and exploits foreign workers even more.

Who can put an end to this contradiction?

The common class consciousness of people can. That is why the Cypriot and foreign workers are a force which must struggle united for its rights and gains. Cypriot and foreign workers have a common struggle to gain and defend their rights, the right to dignified work and pay, human working hours, to benefits, allowances and education.

For us, no immigrant is our enemy. He/she is an ally in our struggle for a better world. Together with the class-based trade union movement, we express our solidarity with the migrants living and working in Cyprus. We are fighting with them for the right to what should be self-evident: the right to life, education, work and dignity.

Together with them we assert the tomorrow that we deserve!