The Labour Government is to deport a Chilean refugee who fled from Chile after ine minary coup m 1913 Olga Conche, a social worker living in Newton Ayeliffe, County Durham, gave birth to a baby on 15 October next day was told that she would have to leave the country by 15 December. Her boyfriend Carlos Gomez is also an exile from the military regime in his country. Uruguay, and has been refused permission to join Olga and their daughter by the Government. He has currentiv living in Olga has appealed to Newton Aycliffe and Darlington trades councils for support for her right to remain in Britain. Her case is being raised at the next General Management Committee meeting of Darlington CLP and by the MPs for Darlington and Bishop Auckland.
The Home Office is refusing to recog nise viga as a pontical rerugee on the cynical grounds that she has [not surprisingly] rejected offers to live in Spain and Since the military coup in Chile, Britain has had one of the worst records of any European country taking political refugees from the junta. If Olga is deported, any credibility which the Labour Government may have had for its verbal opposition to the junta will have been finally destroyed.
Olga's final appeal is currently being considered by the Home Office. OpponA hundred and fifty black and white militants filled a meeting organised by the London International Marxist Group on the southern African revolution last Friday. The first two speakers, Tariq Ali of the IMG Political Committee and Billy Nannen of the African National congress, spoke or ine situaton in sourner Africa and its impact on world events.
The final speaker was Tsietsi Mashinini, the leaden of the Soweto students, who gave a moving account of the struggle of and workers Soweto and meted out to them repression vanimo Teloiei andor hie cheech hy reading iwo noems one di
culture.' September 1976, Tottenham central idea of a return of black people to Africa.
USA and its relevance today. A SUPPOSEDLY WISE Zen philosopher once said something to the effect that the answer is not to solve a problem but to eliminate it. This seemingly simple dictum -has at various stages been adopted by black movements in America as pointing the way to the liberation of the black Blacks in America have found themseives the mistorical victims or a tnoroughly racist and oppressive white dominated society. Faced with this reality there cust inree rundamental choices open to blacks, as with all other oppressed people - (a) do nothing; (b) attempt to solve the problem by overcoming the hegemony of the oppressor; and (c) eliminate the problem by removing themselves from the The call for a mass exodus of blacks from America has been one of the major manifestations of the third approach. The idea of 'back to Africa' has its historical roots in slavery. The slaves compared themselves to the people of Israel in Egyptian bondage; Jerusalem or Zion stood for Africa, which through time retreated into a mythical past. The slaves believed that through time they would be redeemed, and led from the land of persecution to tneir ancestral nome.
Consolation The degree to which blacks have responded to the call for a return to Africa has to a great extent depended on the severity of their oppressed state.
"back to Africa' movement. There emerged in the early 19th century a number of colonization societies aimed at encouraging and facilitating the return of blacks to Africa. These schemes brought together a variety of whites, shareholders who wanted to get rid of troublesome slaves. Northern whites who feared the consequences of the increasing number - a black youth speaking. colours are those of the Ethiopian national flag. The beliefs associated with them are those of the Rastafarian cult. Their creed includes the Below, TUNDE ANTHONY examines the political roots of the Back to Africa' current within its original American context, in the first part of a series dealing with the experience of the black movement in the runaway slaves wno made iner way North, liberals who, not understanding their society, could see no hope for the blacks in White America. were meny suspicious or and nostie to these schemes, but their general oppression led a large number to take up the opportunity provided by the schemes. Most of those who actually reached The American Civil War and the period of reconstruction which followed of emancipation equality. Subsequently the idea of African colonization withered to the background. But as events proved, black people's salvation never materialised, their conditions saw no maraco improvement, cy were merely transferred from a state of direct slavery to indirect slavery. In the Southern States the economic and political discrimination to which blacks were subjected was supported by State legislation Blacks were effectively deprived of the Iranchise by poll taxes, meracy tests, and other devices which sought to keep them in a perpetually subordinate and depressed status. Acts of terrorism and violence were used in an attempt to break their will: between 1884 and 1900 almost 2.500 blacks were lynched and another 1,000 were similarly murdered in the first fourteen years of the 20th century.
After the post-civil war migration to the North blacks suffered the harsh existence of unemployment and deprivation. There seemed to be no escaping the brutality of slave existence - the idea of 'back to Africa' became revitalised. One of its exponents, Turner, wrote in 1901, 'The Negro race has as much chance in the United States ... of being a man... as a frog has in a snake den. Emigrate and gradually return to the land of our fathers.
Impact It was after the first world war that the of slogan back to Africa' It is a sad fact that many student Many blacks and Marcus Garvey gained some prominence in Afro-American thinking. brand of black nationalism, there is no doubting his impact upon the black masses. Garvey was a populist par excellence. He energised the black masses with a display of flamboyancy and explo sive rhetoric unmatched in black history.
Oppressed
Henry evacuated from Africa.
tion of inter-continental human reshuffiadvanced Garveyite recruiting meeting in the USA.
No matter what view one might hold of Garvey's Garvey preached that as long as the Negro and white races live in close proximity, the former will always be rica.' oppressed by the latter, for the whites possess the political and economic means Defeatism of human liberation. The logic of his position led to the conclusion that blacks should return to Africa and whites be Although advancing the slogan back to Africa', it is highly debatable whether Garvey actually believed that his advocaing based on racial origins was a feasible It is a mistake to say that students are and practical proposition.
What is clear is that the overwhelming majority of Afro-Americans who followed Garvey did not envisage their returning to Africa or anywhere else. As C.L.R James told Trotsky in 1939. "Garver raised the slogan "back to Africa", but the Negroes who followed him did not believe for the most part that they were really going to Africa.... but they were cae to tolew us mutant leadersno And there is the case of the black woman who was pushed by a white woman in a street car and said to her, "You wait until Marcus gets into power and all you people Will be treated in the way you deserve. Obviously she was not thinking of AfThe idea of leaving America (Babylon) as an answer to black oppression is undoubtedly defeatism and a reflection of -noDe essness. one contao une actor to this resort has been the failure of the white labour movement and socialist organisations to lend support to the black pRi struggle and embrace this struggle as an integral part of the struggle against capitalism. Until the 1920s the American white left viewed the oppression of blacks burely and simpiy as an economic prob lem, a part of the general struggle between workers and the capitalists, deserving no special attention. It was with the advent of the Russian Revolution and the publication of Lenin's theses on the National Question that a different approach was adopted. But the taking up of the black struggle was accompanied with such opportunism and inconsistencies that a SuDs cHai amoun or an was const quently done to the relationship betweer blacks and the radical left.
Today. both in America and Britain it is crucial that the labour movement actively support the struggle of blacks agains ine racism endemic to these capitalist societies. Needless to say, if such support is not forthcoming it can only lead to the isolation of the black struggie, une alvision or une working clas and the turning inwards of the black struggle.
Tunde Anthony
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Before the American Civil War (1861-65) many blacks sought consolation in the
When the youth wear the red, green and gold hat... parents say don't wear it to avoid trouble... a lot of young blacks are trying to find their