race,ethnicity,identity

i am not a prophet,nor do i agree with what i believe is now called identity politics-that seeks to dissolve notions of class and class struggle by establishing alternative and different and competing notions of personal identity.it seems to me this seems to deny both wider social context of social forces and sets up some kind of unresolved competition between factors of or individual identies.what anomie or alienation is this.but neither do is side with a mechanistic,hierarchical or determinist marxism that supports all the features of individual or social identity under class.

all that said,i remeber in many discussions in the last years or months of the last century saying that race,ethnicity and identity would be key issues in this century.now i dont expect to be around to see the proof or disproof of my own assertions but it is clear that so far,without dissolving those ideas into nothingness that race and ethncity,borders,immigration and their consequnces are a key faultline in the system of capitalism and capitalist states.

it also seems to me that the notion of the decadence of the system is highly relevant here.in a sense whatever way our rulers and particularly the "political class/elite" move,they will be stuck with the contradictions of their own social system.that whatever way"they cut it"race will bite back.gone are the days when a statement about race simply called the racists from their dark corners-thje dynamics of racism have grown yet more complex than they ever were.

current con-dem policy on limiting immigration to this country is riffled with problems and contradictions.that same government is forced to acknowledge that some of its and the previous labouyr governments policies have fed discontent that can appear to be about race when that previous governmenmt and too many local authorities in poor areas of the north and elsewhere adopted policies where local relations appear as seperate develkopment and apartheid but are actually about the widening poverty gap and falure of services and service provision.local authorities have allowed or been indifferent to a community development such that it is possible though never right to draw some kind of race line on the map and on the street.the capitalist press do not have morals but have pointed out that the cut in immigration is illusory and in the interests of the capitalist class that it should be so.it is for structural reasons that most of the jobs created over recent years have gone to migrant labour from europena countries not "indigenous"or other workers.such distoryions are consequences of signing international and primarilly european agreements and/or the result anomolies in wage and benefit patterns and structures.

current attempts to reduce immigration to thousands rather than tens or hundreds of thousands of people,is undermined by the need of their own class for specialist,trained and skilled workers not already within the british labour market.this ought to push that class into a reformist job creation strategy that rebuild some kind of genuine apprecnticeship scheme and which users "old"skilled and retired or redunandant workers to train new,young workers.but not only has that never been the british way in job creation but a previous conservative government rampaged through and sold off so much of industry that it still now lacks the base on which to build such a system.it will bend the rules to import members of its own class but not for example allow cooks from south asia to staff the artisanal,"indian"restaurants.

i am aware that i only touch the edge and tip of the iceberg.thes paradoxes are the product of their inability to organise their own system.if there is racism her,it is of their class not ours but it does leave increasing numbers of us scrambling around the world for less and less crumbs in efforts to try to lead better lives.

when we see clearly,it is increasingly crystal clear that workers have no country but the whole world.whilst we are deprived of the better world we are capable of building,it is also increasingly clear that the mass of us who do.do it for fewer crumbs and no influence-whilst those who decide are showing that even in a world in which they make most of the decisions according to their own rules,they are increasingly less capable of clear,sensible decisions.whilst professor dawkins wants to replace god with science it is also clear that those who rule and own and control worship only one god,a jealous god-of profit.

humanity needs none of this.