Demonstrate against racism and xenophobia

May Day is our day, the workers' day. It is the day when the supreme ideals of democracy, freedom, solidarity and justice must be at the top of all speeches. These ideals are indivisible and must be applied in all countries and to all people. The entire world is going through very difficult times. And, as many times in the past when war, dictatorship or natural catastrophes hit a country, a region or a continent, this causes waves of migration. But even more fundamentally, the continuing underdevelopment of many parts of the world forces many people to seek an escape from poverty by leaving their homes. It is simply an essential part of the human constitution that we do not want to suffer. Whether slow or hurried migration, this inevitably creates a reaction from people already living in the countries and areas to which the migration is directed. This is the beginning of the problem. When people start moving from one country to another, this sometimes creates opportunities to organise illegal activities, to the benefit of criminals - Mafia, drug barons, traffickers of all kinds. At this very moment, populist and irresponsible movements such as the National Front in France, Lega Nord in Italy, the Freedom Party in Austria, the Danish People's Party in Denmark, etc. take advantage of a social problem and turn it into nationalistic demagogy. The typical approach is to blame all immigrants for illegal activities carried out by the very smallest fraction. "Every immigrant should be sent home," the xenophobes claim. Or "the foreigners are criminals, and they steal our jobs." Or "cultures shouldn't mix." And so on. You've all heard the arguments. Nevertheless, all these arguments are wrong and fundamentally stupid. First of all because we and our cultures are enriched by the people who bring them to us, but also because the solutions the racists propose only detract from the real problem, that economic underdevelopment of huge parts of the globe continues and even grows. This is the root we must attack. If one looks back at the history of mankind, we will discover that every single existing subject is a result of a mixture. I challenge anybody who does not agree with that. The Romans mixed with the Greeks and Arabs, who mixed with the Persians, who mixed with the Indians, who mixed with the Chinese - and this is an ongoing process. Mixing of cultures and traditions is in fact a condition for development and not an obstacle, as racists and xenophobes want us to believe. In my job, I meet every day with people who have their origins in different countries. I do not know a single country where one nationality exclusively makes up the total workforce. Many trade union leaders, in most countries, have their roots somewhere outside the country in which they live and work. I know Jewish and Muslim trade unionists working together in the USA. Black and white in Brazil. Arabs and French in France, Indians and English in Great Britain, Turks, Greeks and Germans in Germany, Maghreb, Italians and Spaniards in Italy and Spain, Finns, Serbians and Swedes in Sweden. All these represent great assets for the whole trade union movement of the world. Being a migrant worker myself, I have always found my place in the trade union because it has given me the opportunity to integrate into a society which might have excluded me otherwise. The trade union is an important link which can play a great role in a modern society to unite people, with all their differences and particularities. It can do this because it represents the fundamental ideals of democracy, freedom, solidarity and justice. Make May Day into a big manifestation against racism and xenophobia.