Today’s apparent assassination attempt on the prime minister confirms the escalation of conflicts fed by the capitalist class. Ignoring the material needs of the population and looking for false enemies (in minorities, the public media, NGOs, the elderly, and other groups) is increasingly proving unsustainable.
We can assume that the government will use this assassination attempt to take disproportionate action against the (not only parliamentary) opposition. Without knowing any more details about the attacker, several members of the governing coalition have accused the opposition parties of having created an atmosphere in society that made the assassination possible.
The truth is that the atmosphere among supporters of the opposition and the coalition is, in many cases, antagonistic. However, the creation of such an atmosphere has never been unilateral; every party represented in Parliament has tried to dehumanise its opponent in some way and make him the cause of all of society’s problems.
The capitalist parties (i.e., those that “represent” us in parliament) are subservient to the ruling bourgeois class. They try to maintain the balance of power in society so that the workers can continue to be exploited and so that the bourgeoisie can continue to increase its profits. This leads to a deterioration in the living standards of the workers.
In order to maintain their position while ignoring the needs of the workers, the bourgeois are forced to present us with false conflicts. Whether it is the Roma, the LGBT, the environmentalists, or the media, each false enemy turns the workers’ gaze away from their exploiter, the capitalist.
History has shown us that positive political change is not achieved by individual action, let alone terrorism. If we disagree with the options presented to us by parliamentary democracy, we must work sophistically to build a better alternative. While as individuals we are powerless against the system, by working together, people oppressed by capitalism can overthrow injustice. The struggles of the ruling class are not our struggles. Only by educating ourselves, organising, and agitating in our communities will systematic change get the chance it deserves.
