Mai, the leader of these bigots, Mathew Hale, who is based in Peoria,
Illinois, was yesterday charged by the US district attorney for contracting
to assassinate a judge who is presiding in one of numerous lawsuits against
him, in Illinois.  He is looking at a long prison sentence if found guilty.
Generally, when their leaders can no longer roam the streets, the losers
that follow just fizzle away in their area of operation.  I hope they throw
the book on Hale.

Chi Jaama

Joe Sambou






>From: Mai Sey <[log in to unmask]>
>Reply-To: The Gambia and related-issues mailing list
><[log in to unmask]>
>To: [log in to unmask]
>Subject: Fw: US: Racist campaign against Somali immigrants in Maine
>Date: Thu, 9 Jan 2003 07:04:27 +0100
>
>Hi Sis,
>
>I see this is in your neck of the woods.
>
>Love,
>
>Maikabir.
>
>http://www.wsws.org/articles/2003/jan2003/main-j09.shtml
>
>US: Racist campaign against Somali immigrants in Maine
>By Peter Daniels
>9 January 2003
>This article is available as a PDF leaflet to distribute
>
>Hundreds of people from throughout the state of Maine are expected to
>protest a January 11 rally that has been scheduled in Lewiston, the state's
>second largest city, by a white supremacist group calling itself the World
>Church of the Creator.
>
>The racist group, which is based in East Peoria, Illinois and claims to be
>the fastest-growing white supremacist organization in the US, is calling
>for the expulsion of all Somalis from the Lewiston area. More than 1,000
>Somali refugees have settled in the city over the last two years.
>
>Fleeing civil war and economic and political chaos in their home country,
>the Somalis have come to Maine by way of Kenya, where they were placed in
>refugee camps. They began immigrating to the US in the mid-1990s, many
>settling in the Atlanta, Georgia area. Unhappy with conditions there, they
>sought a smaller community. The first Somalis arrived in Lewiston in
>February 2001. There are now over 400 Somali adults in the city, and the
>Somali population, including children, may be as high as 1,500, a little
>more than 4 percent of city's 36,000 inhabitants.
>
>Lewiston is an old industrial city facing persistent unemployment and
>declining population. When the Somalis first began to arrive, they were
>welcomed. Soon, however, there was talk of property tax increases and
>baseless rumors of refugees receiving free cars and apartments.
>
>The racists of the World Church of the Creator see an opportunity for
>recruitment and publicity. They are scapegoating the Somalis to capitalize
>on the fears of local residents who face high levels of unemployment and
>cutbacks in social services. Like Hitler, whom they openly hail as a hero,
>their aim is to whip up racial and religious hatred in order to destroy
>democratic rights won over generations of struggle.
>
>The white supremacists do not act in a vacuum, however. They found
>ammunition for their campaign in the recent actions of the city's mayor,
>Larry Raymond. Raymond issued a three-page public letter in early October,
>calling for a moratorium on new Somali arrivals and claiming that the city
>could not absorb more refugees "without negative results for all."
>
>Seeking to shift blame for the city's social crisis on the newcomers from
>Africa while appealing to the most backward and reactionary impulses,
>Raymond's letter declared: "It is time for the Somali community to exercise
>discipline. We have been overwhelmed ... our city is maxed out financially,
>physically and emotionally."
>
>Many of the Somalis had been forced to turn to public assistance, but about
>half of the adult refugees have found jobs. The number of Somalis receiving
>welfare has dropped substantially, and the city has spent $450,000 to
>assist the refugees, a modest percentage of the local budget of $70
>million. Greater sums are undoubtedly spent on tax breaks and other
>windfalls for corporate interests and the rich.
>
>When the mayor issued his letter, Somali community leaders denounced it as
>"inflammatory and disturbing," and said Raymond was an "ill-informed leader
>who is bent toward bigotry." Local residents joined in this response,
>expressing solidarity with the immigrants. A march of some 300 people,
>mostly long-time residents of Lewiston and neighboring Auburn, proceeded
>from a Methodist church to a mosque where many of the Somalis worship, to
>express support.
>
>In order to fight anti-immigrant racism, however, it is necessary to expose
>the demagogy behind it and offer an alternative that can unite native-born
>and immigrant workers. As local press reports point out, this is not the
>first time that immigrants have faced attacks in Lewiston. Irish workers
>began arriving in the 1850s and French Canadians followed soon after. As
>the textile and shoe industries developed, these workers were absorbed into
>the local economy, and the same process took place on a vast scale
>throughout the US.
>
>Today, however, almost all of the old factories have closed. The vast
>changes in the global economy in the past quarter-century have produced a
>level of immigration unprecedented in the US for the last century, but the
>current wave of immigration takes place under conditions of stagnation and
>economic crisis. The immigrants are pitted against native-born workers in
>competition for low-wage jobs in the service sector of the economy. The
>fascists emerge from their holes because the profit system cannot provide
>jobs and a decent future for all.
>
>The Somalis are primarily political refugees. Though they are now told they
>are not welcome in the US, it is the policies of the US government that are
>directly implicated in their refugee status. Washington's cynical
>intervention in Somalia, leading to the disastrous UN-backed US
>intervention with 30,000 troops in 1992, created the conditions which have
>produced one of the world's largest refugee populations-about 500,000
>Somalis living in exile as of 1999, compared to 9 million inside the
>country.
>
>In the last decade the US has been largely been free of the widespread
>anti-immigrant sentiment whipped up by fascistic elements in European
>countries-in France, Norway, Austria and elsewhere-as a means of winning
>votes and gaining political influence. Anti-immigrant rhetoric has
>generally been played down by most establishment politicians in the US, but
>as the current economic crisis deepens this will change. Local officials in
>Holyoke, Massachusetts, for example, recently moved to scuttle a plan for
>the resettlement of Somali refugees.
>
>As cities and towns face an influx of immigrants, the issue of how to
>provide jobs and public services for all is posed with greater urgency. The
>Democratic and Republican politicians in the US, like their counterparts in
>Europe, will pander to anti-immigrant prejudice and open the doors to
>openly fascist elements because they have no answer to unemployment and
>social decay.
>
>The unity of the international working class, against the racial and ethnic
>divisions produced and encouraged by the profit system, is the only way to
>answer the forces that employ racism and xenophobia to attack the
>democratic rights of all working people. In the US, this means breaking
>from both parties of the financial oligarchy and fighting for the
>development of an independent mass socialist party of the working class.
>
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