Anonymous Comrade writes "WOMBLES - news Dec.14th, 2003

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1. Europe-wide day of action/ Jan 31st 2004

>>1.

It looks set that WOMBLES will back the Europe day of action in support of
migrants, “sans papiers”, and asylum seekers, and against “precariosness” and
the new slavery. A few specific ideas have been discussed and will continued
to
be discussed. The weekly gatherings on Tuesday night will be used to discuss
the ideas, analysist and confrontational direct action that will be used to
make an impact on this Europe-wide day of action.

Due to the binge-fest called Xmas, the last meeting of the year is Tuesday
December 15th at the usual place [see website]. The next meeting after that
is Tuesday January 8th 2004.

Below is the call to action

>>>>CALL to Action

EUROPE-WIDE DAY OF ACTION - JANUARY 31ST 2004 in support of migrants, “sans
papiers”, and asylum seekers, and against “precariosness” and the new slavery.

This day of action was agreed by migrants’ groups at last week’s European
Social Forum in Paris. The situation in continental Europe differs from ours
in illuminating ways. A striking common factor is the general lurch to the
right, in the late 1990s, aided and abetted by supposedly moderate left-wing
governments. As in Britain, the “get tough” policies seem to have been an
attempt to mollify the racist hard right, which of course has only endorsed
and strengthened them.

In France immigrants from ex-colonies were, for decades, given 10-year
residency permits, which tended to be renewed almost as a formality. In 1997
the Jospin (soft-left Socialist) government illegalised at a stroke tens of
thousands of the country’s established inhabitants and taxpayers, who are now
part of the articulate, angry army of the “Sans Papiers”. Unlike Britain’s
“illegals” and asylum seekers, they are a formidable political force.

They are thoroughly rooted in the community, and know the system. They have
links to similar groups in Italy, Spain and Germany, and a political message
that is winning widespread support: among trade unionists and campaigners
against casualisation of jobs, for example, as well as campaigns for refugees.

The word they use again and again is precariousness—a word that expresses the
way so many of us feel about our own situations, as well as those of our
refugee friends. For the Sans Papiers, the new war on asylum seekers and
migrants is all part of wider strategy (which includes the “war on terror”)
of making everyone insecure, in the interests of “flexibility”. We heard how
in Spain, Italy and elsewhere (as, increasingly, here in Britain) a “new
slavery” of work-gangs, composed of illegal and temporary-permit workers,
is being used to undermine pay and conditions in entire regions and
industries.

The Sans Papiers take the xenophobe’s argument that “these people are taking
our jobs” and stand it on its head, centre-stage. The solution is that if
everyone is legal, nobody can be used to undermine anyone else.