Hiroshima - will they do it again?

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Her backs Solidarnosc 'I realise that some people will not understand why I support Republicans in their demands for an end to partition. The reason is quite simple. The bombs will continue as long as the war continues, and I wish to see an end to death in the North of Ireland and in The end to the war could be brought about quite quickly it the troops were brought out'.

GLC Labour councillor Steve Bundred, in a speech in Belfast which earned him hysterical abuse from ON Hiroshima Day, last week, no-one spoke up to justify the dropping of the atom bomb on the Japanese city on August 7, 1945. No-one said it was necessary that 140,000 should be killed through blast and radiation.

No-one questioned what is now generally accepted - that Japan was already willing to surrender, and the bomb was dropped only to assert Us military invite the people who organised the shooting down of miners - Tony Benn, Frank Allaun, Les Huckfield, Joan Maynard, Jo Richardson.

And all the left bar Laurence Coates of the LPYS united with the right and centre on the NEC to vote down an amendment from Dennis Skinner 'in which" as Skinner explains, "I called for a ban on all those representatives from parties with big business links, embassies and high commissions. might in the post-war world.

No-one said: 'We would do the same again"

But there are plenty who would do the same again. There are plenty who have done very similar.

With "conventional' firebombing, Britain's air force in February 1945 killed perhaps 100,000 civilians - many of them refugees - in the German city of Dresden.

The US assault on Vietnam from 1965 to 1975 -also using conventional weapons - was the biggest in human history. In just eieven . days (December 18 to 28, 1972), for example US bombing exceeded the total tonnage dropped by Germany on Britain in the whole of World War Two.

In El Salvador, imperialism's killing has mostly been done small-scale and by the local death-mongers rather than directly - but the toll over three years now stands at 30,000.

Small

That's still a small figure compared to horrors like the several hundred thousand (maybe one million) Algerians massacred by French roops and police, and by he settlers' racist gangs, during their country's fight for independence.

The ruling classes who were responsible for these slaughters did not even have their backs to the wall. The US ruling class did not want to lose Vietnam, the French did not want to lose Algeria, but in both cases the loss was far from fatal.

Choking to death in their recession-racked capitalist economy, desperately seeking new areas for exploitation, the ruling classes certainly will be ready to repeat Hiroshima many times over when they face real mortal threats.

If we let them ... For the ruling class can make war only with the assent of our class - the class London. which manufactures and transports the weapons and other supplies, and which fills the ranks of the armed forces.

There is, to be sure, no "peaceful road' to peace. Only if the main forces of the working class show themselves ready to fight, arms in hand, for liberation, can we hope to split the army ranks and to isolate and overpower the hard-core supporters of the warmongers.

But the Vietnamese and the Algerians won, and we can win. We have to win. The sure alternative, if socialism does not triumph, is the nuclear annihilation of humanity.

Britain's gutter press.

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Socialist Organiser no.93 August-t2 1982: Pege 3:

Martin Thomas reviews a new pamphlet "PEOPLE say it's victory for the Bradford 12. But it's not. It's freedom for us, but victory for black people generally: the right to defend ourselves.

"The end result will encourage black people to not simply lie down and be murdered, but to take happening. prevent it actions The decision of a Leeds jury on June 16 to clear the Bradford 12 on charges of making explosives and conspiracy to make explosives was a vindication, as detendant Saeed Hussain pointed out, of the fight for black self-defence.

The campaign for the Bradiord 12 is described in a new pamphlet just published by the Leeds Other Paper ("Self Defence is No Offence" , 60p from 59 Cookridge St., Leeds).

The 12 - black youths who had been active in antiracist campaigns in Bradford - were arrested on July 11 last year, while riots were raging across the country. They were bombs had bombs. They replied: yes, charged with making petrol they had made petrol bombs but it was selfdetence.

On July 11 Tarlochan Gata Aura, one of the 12, heard at a local left bookshop that racist skinheads were coming to attack Bradford. There was every reason to take the threat seriously.

On July 3 Southall had been invaded by racists. On July 2 an Asian family in Walthamstow had been murdered by a racist firebombing. In Luton on July 11 gangs of skinheads had roamed round Luton, abusing black people.

And, as defence lawyer Paddy ' O'Connor pointed out in the trial: 'There was no second class citizenship for British businessmen and soldiers who went to India.

Ghettoes

''But when Asians wanted to come here, they were degraded, pushed into ghettoes, and forced into second class citizenship. And when they see racist groups on the rise and racist violence increasing, "ignore it' • say the same people who went over to India and who pushed them into second-class citizenship when they arrived here.

'Who are you supposed to turn to? To the very people, the-very state, that took each of these steps?"

Tarlochan put it more simply: "My personal experience is that the police have never defended our community. There is an absence of a will to help" So the community had to defend itself.

Some of the 12 had been less involved in politics than Tarlochan. But they soon learned. Vasant Patel said: "It was my first real contact with the police. I really didn't realise the police could be such bastards. You hear stories about them, but you think they might be exaggerated.

"They tried to make us scapegoats for what was happening in the country at the time" - forcing "confessions ' out of some of the 12 by maltreatment and pressure.

The police officer in charge of the Bradford 12 case had previously said in public: "Police officers must be prejudiced and discriminatory to do their job. Prejudice is a state of mind drawn from experience.

"Searching long-haired -01P cO FREE THE 1133 youths in bedraggled clothing could produce drug seizures, and searching West Indian youths wearing tea cosy hats and loitering in city centres could detect mugging offences.

'Subordinate officers are expected to act in a discriminatory way; that is against those people who by their conduct, mode of life, dress, associates and transport, are most likely to be criminals."

Some of the 12 had helped found the United Black Youth League just a few months before the arrests. Saeed Hussain NO CONSPIRACY OLICE CONSPIRACY explains: "It was basically an anti-racist and antifascist organistion, aiming to unify the Asian and Afro-Caribbean communities. We were involved in various campaigns, against deportations and in defence of black people. "As far as I know, there isn't another organisation trying to unify both Africans and Afro-Caribbeans.

'We acted in support of the hunger-strikers, and openly supported all anti-imperialist movements. We felt very strongly the need for links with anti-imperialist movements nationally JOHN HARRIS and internationally. It was a class-conscious organisation."

Anwar Anwar Ditta - whose campaign to bring her children to this country from Pakistan Tarlochan helped lead - testified in court for the Bradford 12. Many others who have fought battles against the racist immigration laws -like Jaswinder Kaur, Nasira Begum, Cynthia Gordon, Nasreen Akhtar and Najat Chafee - also joined the mass pickets of N'esSeA Histirossa! yęnşıa×tşatııs SAT 3 APRIL LEEOS Gu6 ş 1 Rauns Park picket iy e k"

50* 26 -30553 the trial.

With support from the labour movement too, the Bradford 12 campaign won a great victory for the black communities' resistance to racism. But as Tariq Ali - another of the 12 - puts it, "It is unlikely that the state will leave this decision be as it is" The fight to consolidate the victory - to organise black self-defence, or united black/white anti-racist defence squads - will be a continuing one.

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