Against a rising tide: racism, Europe and 1992
01 January 1991
Against a rising tide: racism, Europe and 1992
artdoc June=1991
BOOK REVIEW
Mel Read and Alan Simpson, Spokesman for Nottingham Racial Equality Council
and European Labour Forum, 1991. ¼6.95.
The authors give a brief tour of European institutions and the law-making
process and then turn to an examination of the Single European Act and the
Social Charter in their implications for black communities. They contrast
the European Commission's zeal in producing a set of rules for the creation
of a completely free market with its abdication of responsibility for
tackling racism in the member states, and the divisions engendered by the
Social Charter between EC citizen and non-citizen workers. They examine the
new nature of work, what they call the `contract culture' and the use of
super-exploited migrant labour as a consequence of free market economics
and a further cause of racism. They take the reader through the new groups
and agendas set up outside EC competence - TREVI, Schengen, the Ad-Hoc
Group on Immigration, the Coordinators' Group - to show how `Fortress
Europe' is being created. And they describe the effects of
institutionalised racism on the ground, with the growth of fascist groups
all over Europe, and the volume and growth of racist attacks. A section is
devoted to agendas for action against poverty, unemployment, and racism,
and for civic rights, at the local and national level. Appendices contain
the recommendations of the Ford Committee of Inquiry into Racism and
Xenophobia, and the Karlsruhe Declaration against Racism.
The book gives credit to the work done over many years by groups such as
CARF (Campaign Against Racism and Fascism), but is not so good in the field
of black and immigrant, migrant and refugee groups. The authors fail to
acknowledge the pioneering campaigning and organisational role played in
the fight against `Fortress Europe' by groups like the Refugee Forum and
the Migrants Rights Action Network. Because of this lack it does not always
address the issues faced by these communities in its recommendations. But
overall it is an excellent reference book which should certainly give
readers a clear picture of the scale and scope of institutionalised racism
within Europe.