BY TERRY COOGAN
AUCKLAND, New Zealand - Speaking at a rally here to protest attacks on immigrants, Freddy Li, who recently arrival in New Zealand from Taiwan, told a story he had heard from the United States. "A Vietnamese immigrant was murdered by racists. During the assault, he told his attackers he was sorry he had come to their country. Well, we are not going to apologize for being here."
This spirit of confidence and preparedness to fight back was shared by the more than 500 people at the April 25 rally, the big majority of them recent immigrants from China and Taiwan. Frank Shen, who came from Shanghai six years ago and who now is a production worker at a tannery organized by the Meat Workers Union, said he and others came to the rally to show they wanted respect. "Anyone should have the right to go anywhere in the world," he added.
Chanting "Stop Racist Attacks!", the protesters marched through the suburb of Mt. Roskill, where in March rocks and other missiles were thrown at a house occupied by a family of Somali immigrants.
The protest rally was addressed by representatives of various immigrant communities, the local Labour Party Member of Parliament, and spokespersons for political groups. Speaking on behalf of the Communist League, Eugen Lepou, a packinghouse worker and member of the Meat Workers Union, said that the problem was not some supposed deep-seated racism among whites, as another speaker had suggested. Rather, the effects of the growing social and economic crisis of capitalism allowed rightist political currents to get a response when they scapegoated immigrants.
Events like this rally were important, Lepou said, because they gave working people of all origins an opportunity to create unity in action.
Terry Coggan is a member of the Meat Workers Union in Auckland.