Racist nonsense on mainstream media and from politicians The "race" card is something that gets brought up in most election campaigns. Racist NZ First leader Winston Peters is notorious for his racism. The usual accusations against immigrants are that they are "stealing our jobs," and "bludging off our economy," increasing crime "on our streets" and these are all the reasons why immigration should be limited. As I mentioned before, pulling out the "race" card is not something new. It has happened time and time again in New Zealand, against Chinese, against Pacific Islanders in the 1970s, and more recently against Asians in general.
History of Immigration control in NZ Socialists say something quite different to what even liberal politicians say. We oppose all immigration control. That’s because immigration control is racist. For most of New Zealand’s history, "immigration" control has actually meant Chinese control. Cantonese migrants were first invited into the country in 1865 by the Dunedin Chamber of Commerce to work in the gold mines. Only Chinese migrants had to pay a poll-tax of 100 pounds to enter NZ. At a time when the vast majority of immigrants were from the UK and Ireland, no such tax was put on them. This is blatant anti-Chinese racism. Many people know about the racism of Australian colonialism “White Australia has a black History,” but few people know about the White New Zealand immigration polices.
It is worth delving a bit into this history because it gives us an insight into how the immigration issue first came up and how we can combat racism today.
The history of what we now think of as NZ was established by one wave after another wave of immigration – Maori, Irish, Scottish, English, Pacific Islanders, Asian and so on. NZ was secured by Britain for two specific reasons. To keep expanding the British empire and to provide a base in the South Pacific (to keep it away from the rivaling French). But crucially to get rid of surplus workers in the face of massive economic downturn in the mid 1800s, by promising workers that they will get the chance of a new life and independence through land in NZ.
Thus, even from the very start British expansionism into NZ it had its own motives: The securing of land.
For the NZ ruling class they faced two serious problems. On the one had, NZ was a remote island nation with a very small population, thus an invasion from another country could’ve been done with relative ease. On the other hand the growth of the economy was continuously hampered by a shortage of labour. For politicians in NZ there were two solutions: one was to populate NZ as quickly as possible, but the other was to make sure that Britain maintained a strong military presence within the South Pacific.
They did this by insisting that migrants had to be British, and therefore loyal subjects of the Empire, who could be counted on to defend British interests and to whom in turn Britain would be forced to provide some security. While NZ's Immigration Act was to restrict the entry of Chinese into NZ, an equally important component to this was the active promotion of not just any worker from any country, but crucially British workers into NZ.
Thus the racist immigration policy of NZ didn’t grow out of sheer racism of the colonialists as many historians put it, but from the needs of NZ capitalism and British imperialism.
What about now? I’ll now fast forward 100 or so years of NZ history and bring it to the present, because to halt the analysis there, would imply that racist immigration control is a hangover from NZ’s colonial days.
The racist arguments used today, have changed surprisingly little. There are still myths about Asians stealing "our" jobs, or Asians "flooding" the country.
Lets take these arguments point by point.
Are Asians "stealing our jobs"?
Sadly, this is an argument that strongly effected the Left historically in NZ, particularly the leaders of labour moments and trade unions.This argument is based on the idea that "there is only so many jobs to go around."
Let’s look at the facts.You don’t have to rely on me to hear that the answer is “No.” Immigrants don’t steal jobs. The report published in 1994 by the NZ Dept. of Labour (hardly the most radical institution in society) found that: Migrants created at least as many jobs as they filled. Why is this? First and foremost, every extra pair of hands available for work is another mouth to feed. Immigrants need housing, food and clothing. They need transport, education, furniture and household goods.
The other economic benefit is that migrants stimulate the development of larger industry, thereby allowing the use of the latest technology and bringing down costs of production. A larger population is more likely to make more efficient use of the transport and telecommunications infrastructure without adding any extra costs: telephone connections between Wellington and DN for example, need to be installed and maintained whether the NZ population is 1 million or 4 million.
What’s more, there is no evidence to prove that immigration leads to unemployment. In fact the opposite is true. That is, if unemployment is high in NZ, there is evidence to show that it actually deters migrants from coming. The rate of immigration is determined primarily by the bosses’ demands for labour and overseas workers’ desire to come to NZ, not by the amount of jobs avaliable. In the 1930s, NZ had high, high unemployment and immigration was virtually zero, except for small numbers of refugees. In the 1950s and 60s, by contrast, employers were desperate for immigrant labour. In 1947 the government changed their immigration policy and actually paid UK immigrants to come – this assistance later expanded to the Dutch in the early 1950s. The impact of immigration tends to be positive on the Gross Domestic Product.
The second myth is that: "Asians areflooding the country."
Well again let's look at the facts.The first point is that for most of NZ’s history the vast majority of immigrants were from the UK and Ireland. It was only in the late 1980s that large number of Asian immigrants started coming to NZ. Even now Britain remains one of the largest sources of migrants into New Zealand.
In 2001, British migrants were the third largest to enter NZ. The top two countries were China, comprising 17% of all migrants, followed by India on 14%. Britain while dropping to third place for the first time in NZ history (until 2001 they were the biggest nationality to immigrate to NZ) still follows close by comprising of 12% of migrants.
And when you look at the composition of the population as a whole, any notion of being "flooded" by Asians becomes even more absurd. In 2001, 80% of the population identified themselves as European, compare this to the 6.6% of the population who considered themselves Asian. One can hardly say NZ is being "flooded" by Asians.
So, it is quite clear from the data that when Winston Peters starts talking about immigration control and “the facts,” he is simply lying through his teeth. His campaign against immigration has more to do with skin colour than immigration itself.
How do we combat racism? It is clear that immigration controls, rather than controlling racism in society, merely strengthens it. Clearly the racism of immigration controls has nothing to do with the so-called “facts” presented by the media and politicians. It is however, in the here and now, a real everyday problem that so many Asians get constant racist attacks and harassment in their workplace, in schools, on the streets, in shops, and so on.
So how do we combat racism?
What’s Peter’s suggestion? He thinks that “The best way of keeping a tolerant, open and free society is to carefully plan and adopt a policy that allows for sustainable growth with minimum social disruption.”
What he’s actually saying is that immigration must be controlled to ensure good "race relations." This is both hypocritical and racist. He is saying "we don’t want to be racist, but we recognise that Asians are the problem and we’ll do our best to keep them out." Immigration controls increase rather than hinder the growth of racism.They concede to the racists that Asian people are the problem. Socialists make no concessions to this kind of rubbish. It is not Asian people that are the problem but racism itself.
But perhaps we’d expect this racism from the likes of Winston Peters.What about the Labour Party? Well Helen Clark gave her two cents and thought that New Zealanders' attitudes towards Asian people was going through a “transitional stage.” And basically that the white majority of NZ needs to get used to a more multicultural society. The Sunday Star-Times quotes her saying “people [immigrants] have to come from somewhere to pay the pensions and taxes for the health system. It means that maybe a lot more of NZ will look like Mt Albert. And all I can say is it works in Mt Albert”. Which to me seems like a woefully inadequate answer in the face of the real and everyday anti-Asian racism that Asian people have to constantly put up with.
Unfortunately, Labour’s immigration policy is dissapointing to say the least. While media attention may be on Winston Peters' constant racist attacks, Labour’s Lianne Dalziel announced just today that they would reset the English requirement at a higher level, making it harder for migrants from non-English speaking backgrounds to enter NZ. This policy is a blatant capitulation to Peters' campaign. Dalziel’s comments were that “All the evidence shows that migrants are able to settle far more successfully in NZ if they can communicate well in English.” We should have no illusions in a future Labour Government getting rid of anti-immigration legislation or fighting racism on our behalf. Again Dalziel is accepting the logic that somehow the migrant’s inability to speak English is the problem.This is not the problem, the problem is the racism!
Advertising company McCann-Erickson have started a media campaign to try and change the racist attitude to New Zealanders. Their slogan is “We’re all New Zealanders!”
Unfortunately this kind of campaign never eradicates racism. Most of these attitude-changing, educational, cross-cultural, good-will campaigns, end up merely entrenching stereotypes. The reason for this is that the ruling class, whether that be people in parliament or big business heads, have contradictory interests towards migrants and Asian people. The primary reason for ineffectiveness lies in the centrality of NZ nationalism – slogans like “We’re all New Zealanders” merely set out to enforce this. Nationalism has always been critical in generating support for NZ’s governments, sports teams, wars, cracking down on the unemployed, unionists, and of course anti-immigration policies. The ruling class cannot attack any of these ideas or institutions without threatening the major ideological tool justifying their rule.
But there is another key factor as to why the ruling class can never eradicate racism. Marx described the ruling class as "a band of hostile brothers." This is true of both NZ and Asian bosses. There is a well publicised mutual economic dependency, but there is also a serious component of competition. What most campaigns end up doing is merely stressing the importance of economic trade rather than looking at the human casualties that get affected by racism.
The Socialist Alternative The problem is racism! Socialists see changing attitudes and education, as important as they are, is not the solution. Why? Because these kind of tactics refuse to examine why racism should exist in the first place. Nobody is inherently racist or anti-Asian.
Racism exists because it reflects a material reality.People do have to compete with one another for jobs in order to survive. Capitalists or bosses are always going to look for the worker that they can pay the least in order to maximise their own profits.
Socialists ask not “Who is racist?” but “Who benefits from racism”? Karl Marx recognised this almost 150 years ago when he was writing about the huge migration of Irish workers into Britain.
The same racist tool is used today. Racism helps employers to use Asians, or immigrant workers as cheap labour. White racism not only makes it easier for the bosses to use different races as a way of pitting one race against another.
But we would still oppose immigration control even if there was no element of racism involved. Why? Because it is a consistent story that the ruling class like to use it to blame all social problems like crime, poverty, unemployment and housing shortage on there being too many people. This is a convenient excuse for the system of capitalism, where corporate greed is a priority rather than human need. Bosses don’t employ people because there are too many people. Bosses don’t employ people because the economic system is in crisis and because profit comes before people!
When capitalism is in boom, and capitalists need more workers, they’ll draw in a cheap form of labour; whether that be women, or immigrants workers. When the boom turns to slump nothing suites the capitalists more than to be able to treat these workers as “extra” and to suggest that they are the root of problem.
This is why merely “educating” somebody out of racism is so ineffective, it refuses to look at the underlying causes of why racism exists.
Revolutionary Alternative But whilst racism has real, material roots, there are material factors even more powerful that can form the basis to challenge it. That is the power of the working class. Why? Because the conditions of work and life that breed racism can also be a force making for workers’ unity. When workers are engaging successfully in battling their bosses, then native-born workers are more likely to place their confidence with collective organisation to defend their interests, and to see themselves as part of the same class as their brothers and sisters from overseas.
By contrast, when the workers’ movement is on the defensive and employers are generally able to impose their will, then workers are much less likely to look towards the class-based collective organisation and action to solve their problems. In the these situations, racism can increase its hold on white workers, both because of the psychological compensation it seems to promise, and because it offers a diagnosis of their situation that focuses their sentiments on a visible scapegoat: migrant workers.
The importance of overcoming racism within the working class is clear. NZ’s working class is a multi-cultural, multi-racial class. This means that any strike for better wages, if it wants to succeed, must overcome the racial divisions.
What can we do? When bosses say that Asians are stealing our jobs, we need to point the finger not at immigrants but at the boss with his/her obsence salary. When Peters' complains about the congested Auckland roads, we need to point the finger at the government cuts and underfunding. We need to make it obvious to our friends, workmates, family and flatmates that immigrants will have far more in common with us than wealthy mansion owners.
We need to build a movement that actively fights racism and ties these into the broader struggle. The struggle against racism is a struggle to convince workers to identify with the international working class, and to reject any identification with their bosses. This is not simply a matter of being "non-racist." It means active support for positive discrimination for the oppressed: be that migrants or Maori, and it means opposition to all immigration controls. We oppose all immigration controls. The capital of the bosses has always been free to go where it likes, so should we. Immigrants are prepared to make the massively difficult emotional, financial, and physical journey of leaving their home, family and friends.
It is an outrage that we live in world where human life and need are dictated by the corporate greed of the few. Our message to Asian people is clear: Asians are welcome here! Racists Go Home! Together we can build a movement across nation and identity to fight the system that breeds racism, oppression and exploitation.
If we’ve convinced you of any of the arguments you’ve heard tonight, then I urge you to join!
This talk was given to the Wellington branch of the International Socialist Organisation by Shomi Yoon on 26 June 2003.
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