Year 2005 No. 101, July 23, 2005 | ARCHIVE | HOME | JBBOOKS | SUBSCRIBE |
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Oppose the Creation of a Psychosis of Fear! Repeal the Shoot-to-Kill Policy!
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Statement of the Revolutionary Communist Party of Britain (Marxist-Leninist), July 23, 2005
At around 10.10 am yesterday morning, up to 20 armed police shot dead a man at Stockwell Tube station. An eyewitness told the BBC: "I saw an Asian guy run onto the train, hotly pursued by what I assume to be plain clothes police officers. They pushed him onto the floor and unloaded five shots into him."
RCPB(ML) condemns this killing and considers it to be an escalation of the terrorism and violence carried out directly by the state. With the assertion that four young Muslim men were responsible for the July 7 London bombings and were suicide bombers the government and media shamelessly set about creating a climate in which they can act with impunity. We condemn the "shoot-to-kill" policy and demand that the state agencies and the media calm down.
The government and state are responsible for security, for which there must be a peaceful climate in the country. Yet following the bombings on July 7 the source of which has yet to be revealed the opposite prevails. On July 14, the very same day speaker after speaker at the Trafalgar Square vigil affirmed the sanctity of human life and denounced the use of terror no matter what the source, the government announced that armed officers responding to alerts will follow a "shoot-to-kill" policy, aiming for the "terrorist's" head. One week later, in full public view, such an execution was carried out.
By creating a psychosis of fear, a climate is created which does not enable people to think. They are made to feel helpless; left to accept the attacks on their rights and the growing violence of the state. Rather than organising to deal with how to provide the problems they and the society face with solutions, people fall prey to being suspicious of one another and to the creation of hostility towards whole communities. Once the government and media are able to divide the polity on a racist basis, they are also able to blame the people for the ensuing mayhem.
Nobody can afford to be confused as to who is to blame for the problems facing the people, society and the world. The polity must be organised on the basis of the people working out for themselves how their interests can be defended. Anything less is the road to disaster which the government has taken.
RCPB(ML) calls on all its members, supporters and friends to go among their peers. Organise discussion on what measures can be taken to prevent this psychosis of fear. By working out our own interests within the situation, we can lay to rest the habit of discussing the speculations of the media, state agencies and their apologists which criminalise the polity, blaming young people and Muslims for all the problems. We can oppose the government demand that Muslims must take up the so-called British civilised values of tolerance and rule of law which the shoot-to-kill policy exposes as thoroughly bankrupt.
RCPB(ML) calls on the working class and people to demand that the government stop using force to sort out social, political, economic and cultural problems. The government must take up its responsibility to ensure a peaceful climate and abide by the rule of law. Demand that the shoot-to-kill policy be repealed and all other practices of state terrorism and violence be stopped immediately!
Oppose the Creation of a Psychosis of Fear!
Carry Forward the Work to Organise against State Terror at Home and Abroad!
Repeal the Shoot-to-Kill Policy!