16 March 2024, UN Anti Racism Day
Unite the world against racism and the far right on 16 March 2024
On Saturday 16 March 2024, and over the course of the following week, we will be on the streets again as part of an international mobilisation against racism and fascism.
In the context of wars, climate collapse, growing economic crisis… governments are intensifying racism to divide and rule, to try to divert opposition to their policies.
In the current international context it is vital we build united opposition to Islamophobia and antisemitism.
The scapegoating of refugees and migrants leads to the intensification of all forms of racism: Sinophobia —racism against Southeast Asian people— and racism against Gypsies, Roma and Travellers, are also all on the rise internationally, alongside Islamophobia and antisemitism.
Refugees die in their thousands in the sea and on land routes, blocked in Europe by FRONTEX and by their equivalents in other parts of the world. Barriers of all types and pushbacks mean that the right of asylum for refugees and of legalisation for migrants has been severely undermined by governments, thus breaching international law. The shipwreck of Pylos with 600 dead refugees after a pushback by the Greek Coastguard reminded us that the Mediterranean sea has been transformed into a graveyard for refugees, with men, women and children losing their lives in their thousands because of the policy of closing the borders.
This has recently been worsened even more in Europe by the new EU Pact on Migration and Asylum, which means more externalisation of frontiers, and allows states to breach their obligations under international refugee and human rights law in exchange for money. Amnesty International states that the pact will lead to a “surge in suffering” and Human Rights Watch calls it a “disaster for migrants and asylum seekers”. It is therefore even more important for movements in Europe to act against the threatened growth of the far right at the European Parliament elections in June.
Against all this, we demand safe passage, and asylum and papers for refugees and migrants.
This state racism is helping the racist and fascist right to grow. The EU’s racist policies open the gate for the normalisation of far right and fascist parties. This is now a worldwide problem, as we have seen with the election of the far-right Javier Milei as Argentinian president, or the promotion of the Nazi-inspired “great replacement theory” by the Tunisian president, Kaïs Saied. Meanwhile, the demand for justice against ongoing institutional racism and police violence must continue to be fought for in the wake of the magnificent Black Lives Matter movement.
But there can be mass opposition to racism and fascism, as we have seen different times in many different countries. The enormous protests against the far-right in Germany, and against the new racist law in France, are a new and impressive example of this.
Even now, the far-right have to lie in order to win votes; even now most people do not accept the politics of hate.
It’s time to mobilise the antiracist majority. We must stand up together against racism and fascism.
The undersigned organisations call for broad and united protests against racism and the far-right on Saturday 16 March 2024, and during the following week, to mark UN antiracism day – a day inaugurated to mark the massacre of young people opposing the racist apartheid South African state in 1960.
World Against Racism and Fascism 