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Tuesday, October 04, 2011

Atzmon and left antisemitism: some addenda

I published a longish post the other day about left antisemitism and its critics. I messed up the scheduling of posts over the last few days – mainly because I am not very good at counting – so it got hidden below one of my random bits and bobs posts on Friday evening. This post adds a few links and a few thoughts to my previous post, but if you didn’t catch it read the other one instead of this one. Also, since I wrote this post, I noticed more material, from CIFWatch and others, which I will have to leave for a later post.

Left antisemitism – or right antisemitism?
In the previous post, I questioned the extent to which Alison Weir or John Mearsheimer might be examples of “left antisemitism”, given that they are both right-wing. Subsequently reading Gilad Atzmon’s defence of his position via Andrew Coates and Rosie Bell, it occurs to me that this is true of Atzmon as well. Atzmon says, among other things: “One may wonder how come [Richard] Seymour, an alleged revolutionary radical Marxist, Andy Newman, a mediocre socialist and Neocon pro war [David] Aaronovitch are caught together naked holding ideological hands." "How is it possible that a hard core Zionist and ultra radical leftists are not only employing the same ideological argument but also performing the exact same tactics?... Zionism clearly maintains and sustains its `radical left opposition' and the logos behind such a tactic is simple- `revolutionary' left is totally irrelevant to both the conflict and its resolution.” In Atzmon’s worldview, “the conflict and its resolution”, and specifically the Jewish question, is the central, defining issue next to which everything else is irrelevant. He doesn’t care about revolutionary Marxism, or socialism mediocre or otherwise; he only cares about “the conflict and its resolution”. This totally refutes John Mearsheimer’s ridiculous claim that Atzmon is a “universalist” who “is the kind of person who intensely dislikes nationalism of any sort.” Whereas Richard Seymour’s or Andy Newman’s anti-Zionism proceeds (correctly or otherwise) from left-wing universalist values, Atzmon’s universalist pose proceeds from a particularist obsession with Jews.  So, Atzmon might have vaguely left-wing views on other things, but on his core issue, the Jews, his position is thoroughly right-wing, and the left-right dichotomy on other questions is just an insignificant diversion in his worldview.

Further evidence that he is not a left-wing antisemite comes from his book The Wondering Who, which Mearsheimer claimer to read. Gabriel A at Jews sans Frontieres shows where the book gets its wacko conspiracy theories from: a “writer who advocates something called "ethno-nationalism," published in the holocaust denial publication, The Barnes Review, the brainchild of Willis Carto, an American white-supremacist and a former affiliate of David Duke”. Atzmon, who has been much feted by Duke, belongs to this neo-Nazi swamp much more than he belongs to any anti-Zionist left.

So, to repeat what I said in my last post, Atzmon, like Weir and Mearsheimer, is in no sense an exemplar of left antisemitism. However, this makes the enthusiastic take-up of Atzmon, Weir and Mearsheimer by sections of the left (by the majority of Socialist Unity commenters, by activists in the Palestine Solidarity Campaign, by CounterPunch and its acolytes, etc) even more disturbing. What is wrong with leftists that they take these right-wingers seriously when it comes to Israel and the Jews?

Jews san Frontieres
Gabriel’s post at JSF is worth reading, and yet more ammunition against Atzmon (and Mearsheimer). Ash and JSF, as hardcore anti-Zionists, are perfectly entitled to point out that Mearsheimer’s implosion “does not mean that AIPAC is any less nefarious an organization than it was last week”. Indeed, Mearsheimer’s (and Walt’s) endorsement of Atzmon does not by itself invalidate their “Israel Lobby” conspiracy theory.

My reader Benjamin takes issue with Ash’s “As the authors of Zero books have noted in their protest letter about Atzmon, it is easy to be fooled by Atzmon's convoluted and pretentious claptrap.” Benjamin asks, “How, exactly, can one be 'fooled' into thinking that the vicious, anti-Jewish dreck the man spews can be anything else -but- anti-Jewish? The only way he could be even more overtly racist would be if he dolled himself up in a white sheet or put on a Reich uniform!” It seems to me, though, that University of Chicago professors and SWP bloggers are capable of quite a high level of stupidity, and we should go easy on them.

I found this interesting, the opening of Gabriel’s post: “Of course Atzmon is antisemitic. I think a lot of people who steered clear of him, including yours truly, have been loath to say that because of the way this accusation has been weaponized by Zionists, and the desire not to give them any credibility. But that kind of circumlocution quite often has a price. Had people been less circumspect, the implosion of Mearsheimer might not have happened.” This a courageously honest statement by Gabriel, and it should be remembered that some of Atzmon’s most consistent critics have been the most hardcore of anti-Zionists, such as Greenstein and Rance’s Jews Against Zionism group. It should also be remembered that Richard Seymour saw through Atzmon when the SWP was actively promoting him.

On the other hand, I think the idea of “Zionists” “weaponizing” antisemitism is deeply problematic. (JSF’s Levi9909 took a similar line in my comment thread, accusing Sarah AB of weaponizing, or at least instrumentalising, racism for racist reasons: “You don't seem to find racism repugnant. Rather you seem to instrumentalise antisemitism and the allegation of antisemitism in the service of your support for zionism and the State of Israel. That is, you condemn one form of racism because you support another form.”) Even if it were true that “Zionists” do “weaponize” antisemitism (and there are instances of this I could point to) and even if you accepted that Zionism is a form of racism (I don’t, but some of my best friends do), it seems to me that anti-Zionists like JSF and Jon Wight only take the most irrefutable accusations of the most extreme and absurd antisemitism with any kind of good faith. Their default position is that accusations of antisemitism are false accusations, and that making them is “weaponizing” done for malignant (“nefarious”) reasons by an almost mythical “Zionist” beast. For instance, taking Sarah AB as an example of this evil “Zionism” requires quite a tendentious reading of her blog posts and comments.

Antisemitism and anti-Zionism
On the other hand, some Zionists mirror the JSF position, and see all anti-Zionism as bad faith antisemitism. On Twitter, CIFWatch said my post failed to understand the antisemitism of all anti-Zionism. I completely disagree. I’ve stated this before but it seems to me that anti-Zionism that also takes a consistent opposition to all nationalisms (including Palestinian nationalism) is not antisemitic; Jewish religious anti-Zionism such as that of the Satmer Hasidim is not antisemitic; Jewish anti-Zionism which rejects the Zionist solution to the questions of Jewish survival and continuity (such as the position of the Jewish Socialist Group or others in the tradition of the Bund, folkism and other diasporist traditions) is not antisemitic; anti-Zionism from the perspective of Israeli citizens (Jewish or Arab) who want to see Israel as a democratic state for all its citizens (rather than a Jewish state) is not antisemitic; finally anti-Zionism which sees Zionism as a form of imperialism and takes a consistent opposition to all imperialisms without singling out Zionism as unique is wrong-headed, but not in itself antisemitic. All of these forms of anti-Zionism can be used as fig-leaves for antisemitism or be used to feed antisemitism, but they are not themselves antisemitic. If we assume that all anti-Zionism is antisemitic, we devalue the word antisemitic. (I think this devaluing happens with all forms of racism (including Islamophobia), as various factions are incredibly quick to yell racist... But that’s an argument for another time.)

However, there is an enormous gap between seeing antisemitism when it isn’t there to “weaponizing” antisemitism to justify oppression. To say these Zionist and anti-Zionist positions mirror each other is not to say that they are morally equivalent. Different racisms should not be placed in zero sum competition with each other, and a priori ignoring accusations of racism because someone has previously “weaponized” such accusations can never be good practice for the anti-racist left. A genuinely anti-racist left would always take accusations of racism seriously.

A good week for the anti-racist left?
I started my first post by quoting Reuben at the Third Estate, who said it was a good week for the anti-racist left, because of the Zero Books authors’ statement and Andy Newman’s Guardian article. So, was last week a good week? Yes, because a mainstream socialist blogger was unambiguous in calling out left antisemitism in a mainstream liberal outlet, while some influential far left bloggers made a clear public statement about the issue. But mainly no, because the opportunity was then given by a mainstream liberal outlet to publicise a defence of the blood libel and for Gilad Atzmon to engage in further dishonest self-publicity. And also no, because Zero Books remains unmoved, and have probably even established themselves as free speech heroes for many pseudo-radicals.  

Friday, September 30, 2011

For the weekend

Returning to something more like normal service, although I have another controversial guest post by a very different guest blogger coming up. Here's some stuff I've been reading in the last week or so.

[Added: meant to space my posts out better, but too innumerate to schedule for when I mean to, so don't miss my longer and more important post on left antisemitism.]

Site of the week: Southern Fried Chicken, documenting South London's favourite food (see Transpontine on Deptford as the deep South). For more South Londonism, Crossfieldswhat sets out the case against the Convoys Wharf redevelopment plans. See also: Deptford Is...

Cable Street stuff, and future and past anti-fascism: I hope you have checked out my Cable Street anniversary listings and worked out what you're going to. Meanwhile, here's Jim Denham on Cable St revisionism. There's more stuff at Steve Silver's blog. Silver is a bit of a tankie Stalinist, as far as I can see, as well as a Searchlightnik, so a pinch of salt, but do read his reviews of Roger Mills' book and David Rosenberg's book on Cable Street (both of which you should buy) and his post on Cable Street, the East End and Bolshevism. That mentions one of Silver's relatives who returned to Russia in 1917 and was never heard from again - a common story in the area: significant numbers of East Enders, especially anarchists (the dominant group on the left there up to 1917) must have died in the gulags. The Rosenberg review mentions both him and Rosenberg were in Anti-Fascist Action together in the 1980s "before it went through a leadership change" - there's a lot of history left implicit in those few words, as Searchlight and AFA split due to Searchlight being believed to be spreading lies about anarchists, fomenting divisions and passing information on activists to the police, while I presume Rosenberg went with the ARAFA group based in Islington, which advocated a more anti-racist, community-based policy for AFA. I'm slowly reading Beating the Fascists, which addresses the Searchlight split quite well but the ARAFA split very inadequately and possibly dishonestly. More on that in a future post. Incidentally, Rosenberg is one of the people viciously and personally attacked by Gilad Atzmon in his new book, subject of my last post here. And talking of anti-fascism, here's the Great Unrest on UAF triumphalism - I'll return to that post later.

More on the EDL: Paul Jackson, a Searchlight-linked researcher at Northampton, on the EDL as a social movement (h/t Flesh).

Anti-capitalism: There's a new print issue of Shift magazine out, and worth getting down to yer local anarchist infoshop to buy, or order on-line here. The riots are the main theme. The issue editorial is here, and editor Raphael Schlembach writes on "Insurrection and a conservative revolution" here. From a related place, here's Ross Wolfe on regressive resistance on Wall Street, and Doug Henwood's account of Occupy Wall Street.

Anti-Zionism: Slack Andy on Max Brenner, blood and chocolate in Australia. Matthias Kuntzel and Colin Meade on Gilbert Achcar: In the Straightjacket of Anti-Zionism: A critical review of Gilbert Achcar’s The Arabs and the Holocaust. Achcar responds.

The Arab Spring in its Autumn: Hussein Agha and Robert Malley on The Arab Counterrevolution.

Grub Street: James Bloodworth on why Hitchens is no Orwell. Everybody Hates a Tourist awards the Mail a fail.

Anti-Catholic racism: Andy Newman on a neglected topic.

Literature, evil, extreme heavy metal etc: Graeme's new place A Wandering Ghost.

Left antisemitism and its rejection: Credit where credit's due/blame where blame's due

Andy Newman on left antisemitism
Reuben at Third Estate describes this as a good week for the anti-racist left. Item 1, the Guardian published (both in print and Comment is Free) an article against left-wing antisemitism, by blogger Andy Newman of Socialist Unity.

Like my Shirazite comrades, I have been critical here in the past of Andy and his blog, but in general he has been forthright in condemning left antisemitism, both because racism is bad in itself and because its presence in the anti-Zionist camp besmirches the cause of Palestinian solidarity. Credit is due to him for raising this issue in a mainstream left-liberal outlet.

Andy uses a number of examples to show the current threat level of left antisemitism, including a new book by Gilad Atzmon (more on that below), the paranoia-porn of Zeitgeist: the Movie, and the promotion in the pages of the internet rag CounterPunch (Newman bizarrely calls it a "respected American leftist publication") of wacko blood libel conspiracy theories from Alison Weir.

Predictably, the good liberals below the line at Comment Is Free went nuts with Andy, and the Graun had to close the thread quite quickly. CiFWatch often seem a little hysterical about these things to me, but here they present an enormous weight of evidence for the scale of the Jew-hating there. And, sadly, the Guardian gave a platform to Atzmon to disingenuously and dishonestly reply to Andy too, and publishing former Graun journalist Jonathan Cook has written a similarly dishonest and disingenuous defence.

Alison Weir
Shamefully, the Guardian not only gave Weir right to reply, but direct readers to it prominently on the web page of Andy's article. (I don't recall them giving David Duke or Nick Griffin right of reply when their writers attack them.) I was saddened to see Weir validating her crackpot theories with a quote from Nancy Scheper-Hughes, an anthropologist who has written some extraordinary books about Brazil and other places.  "Israel is at the top. It has tentacles reaching out worldwide." The language here (the source is a CNN interview) is reminiscent of antisemitic imagery. But looking at Scheper-Hughes' talks and writings on the organ trade, I feel Weir has snipped it out of context, and really emphasised one element of her work and ignored others.

At any rate, Andy's key point is not that Weir talks about Israel's role in organ theft, but that she links it explicitly to Medieval myths and allegations about Jews consuming gentile blood, myths which Weir claims are at least based in truth. Andy, as a Catholic by background, is well attuned to this. For background, read Adam Holland on Alison Weir and her blood libel.

Bizarrely, and to my dissappointment, Weir found a defender in former anti-fascist Tony Greenstein. I was surprised, because Greenstein (along with Roland Rance, Mark Elf and Michael Rosen) have been among the most consistent critics of Gilad Atzmon (who I'll turn to in a minute) and his followers and friends Paul Eisen and Mary Rizzo, so it was odd to see Tony supporting another of this ilk.

Gilad Atzmon and Zero Books
Item 2 in Reuben's good week is a group of left-wing authors who have come out strongly against the publication of an antisemitic book by jazz musician and raciologist Gilad Atzmon. Atzmon's book, The Wondering Who, has just been published by Zero Books, a small UK-based independent publisher.

A number of people have objected to them publishing the rabid antisemitic rantings of such a poisonous person. They fail to get it at all. More here from Sarah.

It is greatly to the credit of some of Zero Books' leftie authors - including Robin Carmody, Dominic Fox, Owen Hatherley, Douglas Murphy, Alex Niven, Mark Olden, Laurie Penny, Nina Power, Richard Seymour & Kit Withnail that they have taken a firm stand against the publication. Seymour publishes the statement on his blog. He's another one I can't say I see eye to eye with, but to be fair he has consistently seen Atzmon's racism long before a lot of other people.

I think it was Reuben at the impeccably leftist if contrarian and heterodox Third Estate who first (or at least very early) raised the cry about Zero Books publishing Atzmon. Read Reuben's more recent response here.

Harry's Place, of course, has reams of posts on Atzmon, including Alan A on Atzmon, Salman Rushdie and Reem Kelani (recommended for jazz fans), Edmund Standing on Nazi apologetics, etc etc.

Gilad Atzmon and John Mearsheimer
I've already reported one of the twists in this saga, "" apostle John Mearsheimer endorsing Atzmon's book, although I don't think I've mentioned his colleague Stephen Walt defending him. David Bernstein, previously a defender of Mearsheimer, probably most clearly sets out what's wrong with Gilad Atzmon, a good starting place for the un-initiated. If you want more, Pejman Yousefzadeh presents a huge amount of evidence. Joseph W shows why Walt and Mearsheimer have got it so wrong and then does so again. As does Adam HollandAnother interesting take on John Mearsheimer by the excellent A Jay Adler - highly recommended.

Roland cutely entitles his post on this "Andrew Sullivan’s Favorite Jew Disparager Stumps for Well Know Anti-Semite". Sullivan had a couple of weeks ago been lauding Mearsheimer as "a man subjected to a vicious smear campaign because of his resistance to the Greater Israel Lobby". (Resistance? Like the Settlers have actually invaded Chicago now?) It took him a while to half-heartedly realise Mearsheimer might have stepped out of the pale now, and then finally the penny dropped even for Sullivan. (See also Pejman Yousefzadeh, another supporter who has seen the light.)

Roland adds: "Mearsheimer’s “The Tragedy of Great Power Politics” was a fascinating read, and there is no doubt the man deserves respect in the field of IR theory, but the critics of the book he produced with Stephen Walt were justified in their condemnations, and John’s support for an overt Anti-Semite surely doesn’t help his case."

Left antisemitism - or right antisemitism?
It is worth adding, as the title of this post mentions left antisemitism, that Mearsheimer is no leftist by any standard. Although he has become a darling of the anti-Zionist left, he himself is a right-wing conservative realist in the Henry Kissinger mold. See my categories and  on this, and especially "Walt and Mearsheimer: Kissinger's disciples?

I also think that Alison Weir is not a good example of left antisemitism. As one SU commenter correctly wrote, "
It strikes me that, whatever true facts such organisations [If Americans Knew and the Council for National Interest] may put out, they're aimed at American Patriots who want to ditch the alliance with Israel.So they carry quite a lot of material about such topics such as the “Liberty Belle” Incident, allegations of Israeli industrial espionage against the USA, Aipac members who are Israeli agents etc. In other words, they support of US Imperialism, but want to realign its foreign policy along another track." The Council for National Interest was founded by former Congressmen Paul Findley (R-IL) and Pete McCloskey (R-CA) and former CIA officer Philip Giraldi is Executive Director. Findley is also a Board member of If Americans Knew, which carries an endoresement from Republican politician Tom Campbell. Weir is regularly published by the pseudo-leftist CounterPunch (along with paleocons, ultra-libertarians, Paulistas and Reaganistes like Paul Craig Roberts, William LindSheldon Richman and Anthony Gregory), but also by the far right paleoconservative Antiwar.com. In other words, these are right of centre, Republican organisations, preaching (like Mearsheimer) an isolationist, America First version of American national interest.

The fact that Weir and Mearsheimer are right-wingers, though, raises a question. Why is the left so enamoured of them? Why is it the left that promotes their crackpot theories?

Socialist Unity
To return to where I started, I wanted to say a few words about Socialist Unity. Andy Newman, its main writer, is generally sound on issues of fascism and racism. As an ex-member, he is also pretty vituperative about the SWP sometimes, which is fine by me. I worry at the Stalinist drift of the site, for instance its adulation of China, its support for Third Worldist forms of state socialism, including Nasserite Arab nationalism. I think it gives an extraordinarily undue prominence to the Israel/Palestine conflict, to the detriment of coverage of other global issues, from Mauritania to Sri Lanka to Belarus. I also think it has a wacky, and very Popular Frontist, idea of what "progressive" means, and it has an unhealthy regard for populist reactionaries like Ken Livingstone, George Galloway, Selma Yaqoob. In this, I sometimes feel it is in the tradition of HM Hyndman or Robert Blatchford, a populist, right-leaning, nationalist socialism, despite its leftist "anti-imperialist veneer". I could live with all of that. I do have a problem with is the quantity of borderline antisemitism that appears in comment threads. This mirrors the Islamophobia below the line at Harry's Place. But HP does not moderate comments while SU does. And SU deletes a lot of comments. For instance, it has permanently banned Jim Denham, a person of very high integrity, for "racism". And it has John Wight as another major editor, who seems to promote this kind of borderline antisemitism. This vicious post by Wight, with its completely undeserved nastiness towards Sarah AB, is something that SU should never be publishing, although it gives a good indication of how devalued the word "progressive" has become. Wight and his clones below the line at SU reflect a deep sickness on the left, a sickness carried by the anti-Zionist movement.

Left antisemites - or left antisemitism
One final thing, even though I've said it before. It's interesting how all the apologists say something like "I'm not antisemitic", "I'm not a Holocaust denier", "Some of my best friends are Jews", "Anyone who knows him knows he wouldn't hurt a fly", etc. It seems to me irrelevant and unnecessary to argue if John Wight or Alison Weir or John Mearsheimer are really antisemites. What is important is the language, logic, structure and effect of what they say and what they do. Forget about whether they're antisemites, and concentrate on fighting antisemitism.



More on left antisemitism
The best resource on the web on left antisemitism is without doubt Contested Terrain, which you should all bookmark and visit regularly. At the top right you'll see brief news items, and the main body carries analysis of left-wing antisemitism from a radical, anti-capitalist perspective.

See also Marxist Humanist Initiative on left antisemitism (via Contested Terrain). See also A Drunk Man Looks at the Israeli Flag at Shiraz Socialist.

Wednesday, September 28, 2011

Cable Street 75

Cross-posted from Poumista

The 75th anniversary of London's Battle of Cable Street is fast approaching. here are some dates for your diary, if you live in this part of the world (plus one in Leeds), including one event in New Cross on the 13th.

On-going until 4th October
Restoring the Past: the Cable Street mural today. Exhibition at Studio 1:1, 57a Redchurch Street E2. Weds-Sunday 12 noon-6pm http://www.studio1-1.co.uk/butler/index.html

Friday 30 September
Manouche Cable St Cabaret at Wilton's Music Hall. 
On our street there are artist studios, recording studios, social clubs and corner-shops. We bring you the best in Cable Street Talent – it’s 1936 and we are going to sing, drink, dance and laugh as if we don’t have a care in the world. Manouche are an all-live, electrified, gypsy swing ensemble. Performing specially arranged works of Django Reinhardt and swing classics of the 1930’s, 40’s and 50’s, they fuse elements of Electro Swing dance beats and Surf Guitar into their own up-beat compositions. There will also be a photo exhibition kindly donated by the International Brigade looking at those anti-fascists who then went on to fight in the Spanish Civil War. We also hope to welcome the Clarion Cycle Club as they arrive from Edinburgh. Look up Manouche on Facebook. Or check out their music on the Manouche youtube channel

Saturday 1 October
11.00am Anti-fascist footprints: a walk through the East End, from Gardiners Corner to Cable Street Led by David Rosenberg, for theBishopsgate Institute Tickets: £8/£6 Info: 020 7392 9200

5.00pm Anti-fascist footprints: a walk through the East End, from Gardiners Corner to Cable Street Repeat walk, this time for Iniva Tickets: £6/£5 Info: http://www.iniva.org/events/what_s_on/anti_fascist_footprints_walking_tour

Dances and elegies at Wilton's Music Hall. 730pm This concert provides a frame for the Cable Street events at Wilton's - extraordinary music for extraordinary times. As the Spanish Civil war was starting, Benjamin Britten played his Suite Op 6 at a concert in Barcelona; the same evening, in the same city, the premiere of Berg's 'Violin Concerto' was played by Louis Krasner, who later became Peter Sheppard Skaerved's teacher. At the centre of the programme, a most English piece by a German composer - Paul Hindemith's extraordinary 'Trauermusik'-'Music of Mourning' for George Vth. This wonderful elegy for viola and strings ends with the chorale "Vor deinem Thron Tret ich hiermit"-better known here as 'All people that on earth do dwell'-the 'Old 100th'.

Jewdas: ¡No Pasaran! Cable Street – Party like it’s 1936! In a time of austerity, riots, and a rise in the price of beigels, Jewdas returns to Cable Street………. Live Bands, Film, Talks, Cabaret, Fascist Baiting and Revolutionary Borscht. Live Music from: Daniel Kahn & Merlin Shepherd – a mixture of Klezmer, radical Yiddish song, political cabaret and punk folk, accompanied by top UK Klezmer clarinettist; Klezmer Klub feat. David Rosenberg – songs of Yiddish London telling the story of the Jewish east end from 1900 to the 1930s; The Ruby Kid – Hip-hop and spoken-word poetry, influenced by the cinema of Woody Allen, the politics of Hal Draper and the music of Aesop Rock; The Electric Swing Circus – electro swing sensation.Big band swing. Gypsy jazz. Thundering drum beats. Phat bass lines; + Stephen Watts reciting poetry of the East End; + Full film programme of riots, resistance and rabbles; + Talks on Gandhian resistance, Spanish Civil War, Anti-fascist activism today as well as performance poetry. + Communist-Fascist Arm Wrestling, The Three Yentas, Live Guernica tribute painting, Cantorial Drag; + DJ Notorious spinning speeches, 30s swing and hard beats; +…more. Dress Code: 1930s chic. Fascist, Communist. Yiddish Musical Hall. Free entry for all who were there in 1936! For the rest of you its £7 on the door and £5 if you book in advance here.

Sunday 2nd October 
75th anniversary of the Battle of Cable Street.  March from Braham Street Aldgate at 11.30am to a rally at the Cable Street mural at 1pm. Speakers; Max Levitas Battle of Cable Street Veteran; Frances O'Grady Deputy General Secretary TUC; Matthew Collins Searchlight; Robert Griffiths General Secretary Communist Party; Bob Crow General Secretary RMT; Kosru Uddin Labour Councillor; Julie Begum Swadhinata Trust; David Rosenberg Jewish Socialists' Group; Gail Cartmail Assistant General Secretary UNITE; Diana Holland Assistant General Secretary UNITE; Akik Rahman Altab Ali Memorial Foundation. More info on UnionBook.

Noon-10pm: Exhibitions and events at Wilton’s Music Hall, 1 Grace’s Alley E1 8JB. info@alternativearts.co.uk   020 7375 0441 12-6 // 12-6 Stalls all along Graces Alley by campaigning groups, local organisations and supporters with street theatre and music by Spanish civil war re enactment group La Columna, The Lost Marbles, The Fairly Fresh Fish Co, Klezmania and The Cockney Awkestra. Plus, inside, Protest and Survive photo exhibition, featuring Phil Maxwell etc. // Launch of Five Leaves' five Cable Street books at 3.00pm with Bill Fishman and other Cable Street veterans as guests. // Five Leaves' panel on "Rebel Writers of the 1930s" at 4.00pm, with Andy Croft, Ken Worpole and Mary Jouannou. // Continue into the evening with Billy Bragg, Shappi Khorsandi, Michael Rosen and The Men They Couldn't Hang. // Produced by Alternative Arts for The Cable Street Group. // full programme here.

JEECS Walk: The Battle of Cable Street Clive Bettington discusses the events of the iconic battle and discusses some of the myths which have arisen. 2pm Tower Hill tube £10 (£8 Jeecs members) 07941 367 882. Booking recommended

Monday 3rd October
7.30 Crossing the Street, Wilton's Music Hall. Video installation by Shiraz Bayjoo and Jessica Harrington. Curated by Carole Zeidman, Commissioned by Wiltons Music Hall. The battle of Cable Street 75 years ago reveals much about the character of and the sense solidarity between its residents. The area has historically housed a celebrated mix of people from varying backgrounds, cultures and with different economic circumstances. The riots of 1936 were emblematic of an attitude and belief that people could be brought together successfully to fight for a shared interest despite other differences. 75 years on and the memory of Cable Street has entered local mythology, but how does it resonate with local residents now and what significance does the area hold for them today?

8pm -  David Rosenberg illustrated talk with readings to Leeds Jewish Historical Society at Shadwell Lane Synagogue
Tuesday 4th October: 
Film: from Cable Street to Brick Lane, by Hazuan Hashim and Phil Maxwell. Wilton’s Music Hall, 1 Grace’s Alley E1 8JB. From Cable Street to Brick Lane" is an independent documentary dealing with the fight against racism and fascism in the East End of London. The film will explore how different communities came together in the 1930's, 1970's and 1990's to challenge racism and intolerance. Focusing on the two iconic East London streets of Cable Street and Brick Lane, the film will feature interviews with veterans of the battle of Cable St and of the more recent struggles around Brick Lane. Driven by these eyewitness accounts and observations Hashim and Maxwell examine the impact of these interrelated historic events and how they relate to contemporary issues in East London. See www.cablestreettobricklane.co.uk for inspiration. info@alternativearts.co.uk   020 7375 0441.

The Battle of Cable Street at LJCC.  10.30am-3.30pm £35.00.  This anniversary falls during the Ten Days – there could be no better way to reflect on the conflicts of the past and prepare for the challenges of the future. Speakers will include Ian Bloom and David Rosenberg.

JEECS Walk: The Battle of Cable Street Clive Bettington discusses the events of the iconic battle and whether certain of the myths which arose are true 11am Hill tube £10 (£8 members of JEECS)   07941 367882 Booking recommended.

Wednesday 5th October
7pm at Housman’s Bookshop, 5 Caledonian Road, N1. Readings and discussion with authors Roger Mills and David Rosenberg about their East End/Cable Street related books.
David Rosenberg (Jewish Socialist Group) author of Battle For The East End and Roger Mills (Cable Street Group) author of Everything Happens in Cable Street discuss their new books, just published by Five Leaves Publications, in the context of the 75th anniversary of the Battle of Cable Street.

The Battle of Cable Street was a landmark event in British anti-facist struggles, when an estimated 300,000 demonstrators, including many Jewish, socialist, anarchist, Irish and communist groups, built roadblocks in an attempt to prevent a march by the British Union of Fascists, led by Oswald Mosley, through London's East End. Ignoring the strong likelihood of violence, the government refused to ban the march and a large escort of police was provided in an attempt to prevent anti-fascist protestors disrupting the march. Despite the actions of the police and the government the anti-fascist's motto of "They Shall Not Pass" won the day.

6th October 2011
Images of resistance 1936 in film: Films about Cable Street and the Spanish civil war At the Jewish Museum NW1. An evening of films documenting and responding to the anti-fascist events of 1936. The launch of Yoav Segal’s two commissioned films, The Battle of Cable Street and No Pasaran, supported by the Pears Foundation. Followed by Eran Torbiner’s film Madrid before Hanita about volunteers from the Jewish community in British Mandate Palestine, who joined the International Brigades to fight fascism in Spain. Meet veterans after the screening and join the Q&A. £10 including free entry to museum galleries. http://www.jewishmuseum.org.uk/whats-on?item=340

Sunday 9th October
11am inter-generational walk: How the East was won with David Rosenberg, for the Jewish Museum. For children aged 10+ accompanied by an adult. £15 for child+adult. This is part of the museum’s 1936 Radical Roots season

Monday 10 October
7.00pm Fighting Together for a Better Past: the story of Cable Street. Panel discussion with David Rosenberg, Tony Kushner and Nadia Valman
Jewish Museum London, 129-131 Albert Street, London NW1 7NB. Free with museum admission Info: http://www.jewishmuseum.org.uk/whats-on?item=341

Tuesday 11th October
Everything happens in Cable Street. Talks, presentations and walk with Bernard Kops, Roger Mills and David Rosenberg at London Metropolitan Archives, 40 Northampton Road EC1  in the morning and Cable Street Walk in the afternoon.Tickets: £15/£10
Info: ask.lma@cityoflondon.gov.uk, 020 7332 3851

Wednesday 12th October
David Rosenberg Reading/discussion at England’s Lane Bookshop, Hampstead.

Thursday 13 October
5.00pm David Rosenberg on The Battle of Cable Street Presentation with images and readings Small Hall Cinema, Richard Hoggart Building, Goldsmith's College, London SE14 6NW Info: info@fiveleaves.co.uk

16 October
Bernard Kops: The Battle of Cable Street, London Jewish Museum. 3pm. £10 including free entry to the galleries. Kops, who grew up in the East End and was 10 at the time, witnessed the events as they unfolded. In conversation with publisher Ross Bardshaw (Five Leaves Publications) Kops will read from his short play about the day’s events as well as from his memoir and his other written work. The reading and conversation will be followed Q&A.

18th October 2011
7pm 75 years on: the British Far Right. Discussion led by journalists on the strategies employed by far-right groups in Britain today. Join journalists James Montague, Rebecca Taylor (Time Out) and Nick Lowles (Searchlight) for a debate about activism, nationalism and political memor.  At the Jewish Museum. £10 including free entry to museum galleries. http://www.jewishmuseum.org.uk/whats-on?item=342

Thursday 20th October
6.30pm Brick Lane bookshop, 166 Brick Lane E1 David Rosenberg/Roger Mills reading/discussion.

Saturday 22nd October
Anarchist Bookfair, from 10am-7pm at Queen Mary College, Mile End Road, E1, includes meeting on the Battle of Cable Street at 11am.

Monday 24 October
10.30am-12.30pm for five weeks Jewish Responses to Fascism in the 1930s A course based on Battle for the East End. Includes a guided walk around the East End. Tutor: David Rosenberg. London Jewish Cultural Centre, Ivy House, London NW11 7SX
Info: www.ljcc.org.uk/courses

26th October 2011
7pm The rear-view mirror: art and remembering. An illustrated discussion with speakers including curator Corinna Till (Whitechapel Gallery, Reclaim the Mural) and art critic and writer Sacha Craddock, for an illustrated conversation chaired by Michael Keenan (curator, studio1.1 gallery), based on the exhibition Restoring the Past – the Cable Street Mural Today At studio1.1 gallery. £10 including free entry to museum galleries. http://www.jewishmuseum.org.uk/whats-on?item=344  7pm, tickets £10.

27th October
The rear-view mirror: art and remembering: Conversation with Paul Butler at the Whitechapel Gallery. 7pm.

Books:
Battle for the East End: Jewish responses to fascism in the 1930s
268pp ISBN: 978 1907869181 Five Leaves Publications, 2011, £9.99
During the 1930s, Oswald Mosley’s Blackshirts intensified their campaign against the Jewish community, particularly in London’s East End. As that campaign became more overtly antisemitic, and more physically intimidating, Jewish groups debated how to deal with the Fascist threat, ultimately building their own defence organisations, and forging alliances with other campaigners.  The simmering tensions in East London culminated in the Battle of Cable Street, when more than 100,000 people, especially from the local Jewish and Irish communities, prevented Mosley’s troops from marching through the East End.

In Battle for the East End, David Rosenberg charts the changing nature of the British Union of Fascists’ ideas about Jews and describes the growing rifts between the official leaders of the Jewish community and those who wanted to mount an active resistance to the fascists.

Battle for the East End is written by an anti-fascist activist with a real feel and connection both to the politics and the geographical area he writes about. For anyone who wants to understand the political, historical and cultural context in which the Battle of Cable Street took place then Battle for the East End is a must for the bookshelf.” Searchlight Educational Trust.
Order it online: To purchase the book online go to: http://inpressbooks.co.uk/battle_for_the_east_end_jewish_responses_to_fascism_in_the_1930s_david_rosenberg_i022676.aspx

Battle for the East End is one of five publications that Five Leaves are publishing to coincide with the 75th anniversary of the Battle of Cable Street. To see the other titles visit: http://www.fiveleaves.co.uk/: Roger Mill’s  Everything Happens in Cable Street; and re-issues of classic titles The Battle of Cable Street by the Cable Street Group; October Day – Frank Griffin‘s long-forgotten novel with a new introduction by Andy Croft, and Street of Tall People - Alan Gibbon‘s book aimed at 10-13 year olds.


Continue below for a couple of extracts from the Five Leaves blog.

Friday, September 23, 2011

Guest post: "Shit happens" versus "fascism happens"

A guest post by Jogo

This article is 80% bullshit.

The writer, a commieprof at Sussex University with impressive credentials, builds her argument with two of the most most-used leftist strategies:
  • Using stories of several people who got fucked to make larger points about "America" fucking people as a general practice. Rhetorically, this is no different from telling the stories of, say, several wretched immigrants who became millionaires to support a larger story about America being the land of freedom and opportunity.
  • Applying a Utopian benchmark to America. America's behavior is wrong and shameful compared to some non-existent, unspecified country that would in all ways behave admirably ... in "a better world." America is never compared -- by such people as this commieprof -- to other actual countries.

The first subject of the commieprof's article, Julia Shearson, is a "white American" who became a Moslem AFTER September 11! Why did she do that? What is the story here? We aren't told. She's not only a Moslem, she wears the total hijab and she is a director of the Cleveland chapter of the sinister quasi-anti-American outfit CAIR.

You might say it's nobody's business why she became a Moslem; it's her existential and civil freedom to become whatever she wants. That's true. But if you're using her story to bash America -- to paint America as totalitarian, cruel, racist and treacherous -- I think you owe the reader quite a bit more information.

The commieprof tells us that Julia Shearson is "white," as though that fact .... um ... tells us something about her. Also that "her family" came to America on the Mayflower. These factoids tells us nothing about her. So she's white. She actually sounds kind of uneducated and stupid. There are plenty of morons in this country who can trace their ancestry to the Mayflower, whose passengers started making descendants 400 years ago.

There were no Shearsons on the Mayflower. In 400 years of reproductive activity and marriages it is possible to be REMOTELY related to a passenger on the Mayflower. Does this confer some special status upon the person? Only to racist commieprofs and the millions of poor students whose minds have been fucked by them. Julia Shearson plays the Mayflower Card to give herself added credibility because -- yes -- it is highly unusual for a white person whose ancestry goes back to Plymouth Rock to become a Moslem.

Julia Shearson has a daughter who looks vaguely Arabic. But no visible husband. What is the story here? We are not told. But we remain curious. Was she an other-fetishizer, like Obama's wacky mother? Why is Julia's dear/sweet Moslem husband not with her? I'd like to know a lot more than I've been told about this story.

Now here's a question for you (asked in the REAL world, not the Utopian world): it's a couple of years after 9-11, imagine you're a Fed sitting at your computer looking for red flags turned up by an algorithm. Hmm ... what have we here? A woman in Cleveland, single mother of a child with a Saudi Moslem sperm-donor, works for CAIR, no previous political history, converted to Islam AFTER 9-11. Hmm .... after 9-11, now that's a bit weird. Is this a person of some slight interest? Shall we put her on a list? Yes? No? Might things start out OK (her merely being put on a list) and then -- not due to fascism -- go awry (her getting handcuffed at an airport)? You know, like "shit happens" rather than "fascism happens?"

If you don't like the real world, you won't like that question.

Wednesday, September 21, 2011

Mid-week miscellany

Here's some stuff I've been reading in the past week or so: Martin in the Margins on some of the better 9/11 posts. The Fat Man on John Pilger's abandonment of critical thought. Flesh is Grass on producerism and populism. Richard Landes on Islamism's end times. Peter Whittle on the riots in Woolwich (he blames the left). New Cross blogger Dommy interviews a drug-dealer about the riots. Christopher Caldwell on antisemitism in France (he blames the left too). Nick Cohen on the treachery of Julian Assange. Joseph W on John Mearsheimer on Gilad Atzmon.

Monday, September 19, 2011

Political influences 4: John Lennon

At the start of the year, I wrote a post on nations, states and the one-state solution, which ended with an invocation of John Lennon’s “Imagine”. It was pretentious, self-dramatising and exaggerated to talk about a “defining moment” in the way I did, and I cringe to re-read that final paragraph of the post. Hopefully, I am not alone in having lots of “defining moments” in my political life, moments that forced me to re-think my assumptions. This series describes some of those defining moments, the twists and turns in my political journey. I hope I keep on having them and that I am not eternally that fourteen year old in the back of the camper van.

That was my one and only visit to Israel, and the whole visit was probably a “defining moment”.

The British left (which I already felt a part of back home) then held “national liberation” as a sacred principle. This was the period when “national liberation movements” – and a whole pantheon of their various initials (FSLN, ANC, PFLP, PLO) – were worshipped by first world leftists. My experience in Israel forced me to think through that aspect of the leftist religion, and see its hollowness.

On one hand, I was surprised by the depth of emotion (“patriotism” in Orwell’s sense?) I felt for Israel, even though I was raised in a household without even the tiniest, faintest trace of Zionism. I felt a sense of belonging, attachment, recognition that was new to me.

On the other hand, the injustice afflicting the quotidian lives of Palestinians (for example, the difference between the bus service in East Jerusalem and that in West Jerusalem) was strikingly, shockingly apparent.

It was towards the end of my brief time in Israel that my “Imagine” moment occurred, and I had already been thinking about these issues. Driving past the Sea of Galilee in the soft warm night, within sight of the Golan Heights glowing the in the last of the sunlight, back to my cousins’ kibbutz in their battered old VW van, “Imagine” came on the radio. Probably just a singalong sentimental pop song to most people hearing it over the airwaves, it hit my adolescent ears pretty hard. Hearing “Imagine there's no countries/ It isn't hard to do/ Nothing to kill or die for” while in bullet range of the disputed border with Syria was, well, salutary.

All the madness I’d glimpsed in Israel – the frenzy of longing for the land on both sides, the killing that came out of this – was not, I thought while listening to John Lennon, emphatically not the “inevitable” result of “age-old” “tribal” loyalties and hatreds carried in our two peoples’ hot desert blood, as the British media would tell us.

The frenzy and the killing are products of hopes, dreams, fantasies, stories, songs. They are contingent, subject to change. And, surely therefore (as I pretentiously wrote before), can we not forge our own futures if we open our imaginations?

I took my new-found confused/sceptical sensibility home to Britain, and before long I was doubting some of the most basic shibboleths of my left milieu. For instance, I began to reject the Irish Republicanism that was also part of the cultural code of the British left. (The extent to which it was is probably clear from the fact that John Lennon saw no contradiction between the no borders sentiments expressed in “Imagine” and the ethno-nationalist sentiments expressed in “Sunday Bloody Sunday”.) Why, I thought, did oppression sanctify one people’s national self-determination at the expense of another’s? Why does the left compromise its universal humanism for the murderous ideal of the nation-state?

And the catastrophes of the last quarter century – the killing fields of Sudan, Rwanda and the former Yugoslavia, and the tragic unfolding of the story of Israel and Palestine – have done nothing to change my rejection of the idea that the nation is a sane way to imagine our world.

The First Intifada, the intifada of stones, began soon after I returned home. Having seen the mundane indignities that made up Palestinian life, I had a basic, visceral sympathy with the stone-throwing kids. But the part of me that was in that VW van listening to John Lennon knew that a genuinely “free” Palestine would not be created by Palestinian national self-determination, and that dignity does not come from nation-states. After the hopeful remission of the Oslo years came the Second Intifada, the intifada of suicide bombs and rockets. I knew then that the possibility of imaginations being opened was receding, but I still hold the faint hope that another world is possible.



Previous: Beautiful Boy; On nations and states; On the need for an anti-nationalist politics.
Elsewhere: Martin: From nationalism to Niebuhr and the nature of evil; HiM@N: Love techno, hate Britain.

Saturday, September 17, 2011

No-one like us, we don't care: The EDL, and some other stuff



The EDL

Owen at Third Estate has a post on the EDL and “anti-fascist obfuscation”, taking a similar position that Flesh and Sarah have taken in the comments thread here, rejecting the left’s obsession with “confrontation”. // Here (pdf) is an interesting analysis of the EDL from a year ago, by Nigel Copsey, historian of British anti-fascism. // Here’s Spinwatch on the EDL’s funders – they’re not so salt of the earth after all. More on the same funders from the Center for American Progress. They make much of their links to Anders Breivik. And here’s his manifesto mapped by the Guardian databloggers.

Here’s the RCP’s Brendan O’Neill on the class hatred at the heart of the anti-EDL clique. The fact is “that a great deal of anti-EDL protesting is driven by a barely disguised hatred for that apparently ugly, uncouth, un-PC blob of white flesh that inhabits inner-city council estates”. I think he’s half-right. You can see that sort of class conceit at work amongst liberals and wadicals – like Laurie Penney or the “twits” who called EDL thugette Angel Jo a “scrote”. (Scrote, like chav, is a keyword in the middle class imaginary about the white underclass; it’s a term that comes from the lexicon of the police.) And he is right that the left sees the white working class as somehow having failed the left, rather than the other way around (that’s a position he shares with Red Action/IWCA, see below). But he is wrong (a) to think of opposition to the EDL as coming from a “clique”, as if it’s some conspiracy from above by the liberal elite; and (b) to say that class conceit causes anti-EDL sentiment. O’Neill says: “it's becoming increasingly clear why Leftists have leapt upon this small political grouping and blown its threat out of all proportion – because campaigning against the EDL provides them with a PC platform from which to express their disappointment and/or disgust with the white masses” (emphasis added). But surely that is not the “why”; the “why” is that leftists see the EDL as fascists (mistakenly) and racists (correctly), and they don’t like fascists and racists.

Not only but also


Let's start with some South Londonism: Transpontine debunking some myths about Millwall and the 1926 General Strike. // Moving on, Sarah has had several good posts in the last few weeks at Harry’s Place, including this update on the Assange saga and this round-up of responses to the PA bid for Palestinian statehood. // Meanwhile, Alan Johnson makes the case against Palestinian statehood at HuffPo. // Worth re-reading (if overblown in places): Phyllis Chesler on a postcolonial attack on “white” feminism. // Also worth re-reading, from a very different angle (and also overblown in places): Red Action on multiculturalism, from 1999. // And, relevant to some of our recent debates, “Off the Nazis! ...but how?: Potential and Limitations of Militant Anti-Fascism” from Bring the Ruckus. // Finally, some new essential reading: Anti-National: Love Techno, Hate Britain? by History is Made at Night.

Soundtrack

The video at the top is Armenian South London rap hero Blade, with "Gripper the Pitbull", a song that takes me back to New Cross in 1992/3. For more info, see here. Seemed kind of appropriate to the themes of this post.

Thursday, September 15, 2011

Zionism/Apartheid/Stalinism/Trotskyism: going off on a tangent

[Amended 16 September]

Jessica Goldfinch writes at Greens Engage on what Greens might or might not want to affiliate to. This is interesting on the echoes of the anti-apartheid movement in the “Palestinian solidarity” movement.

For the record, I can’t remember any anti-white racism in my Anti-Apartheid branch, but agree about the brushing under the carpet of some of problems within the resistance in South Africa. More importantly, my branch was unusual in that there was internal dissent. There was a significant Trotskyist group, mostly affiliated to either the sensible (“Slaughterite”) faction of the Workers Revolutionary Party* or to Labour Briefing (with close links to South African Trots), who fought against the Stalinist leadership of AA and its slavish following of every ANC line.

In particular, the Trots drew attention to ANC murders of internal dissidents, many carried out by or on the orders of the Stalinist Chris Hani, who later became something of an ANC martyr when he was in turn murdered by far right white racists. Those in solidarity with the dissidents were treated as pariahs within the mainstream anti-apartheid movement, and denounced as agents of imperialism. (Worth adding that the denouncing was often led by Jewish South African exiles.)

My early exposure to this apartheid-era anti-ANC dissent inoculated me against the illusions many leftists would have in post-apartheid “black rule”. I think of this often now, as I watch the ANC repression of grassroots social justice activism (such as Abahlali baseMjondolo), its support for Mugabe’s dictatorial regime, the corruption and authoritarianism of the party leadership, and the racist demagoguery of the party left.

I was prompted by Jessica’s post to do a little googling around Searchlight South Africa, the group around Baruch Hirson and Paul Trewhela, South African exiles who had served time in apartheid prisons for their resistance to the racist regime who then fought to get the British left to recognise the totalitarian nature of the ANC leadership and its brutal treatment of dissenters. Few listened during the apartheid years, when most of the left wanted to see things in black and white (if that’s the right term to use!), and few listened during the presidency of Saint Mandela, but their warnings seem very relevant now. Here are some readings: the story of Searchlight South Africa; the table of contents; Inside Quadro, Trewhela’s expose of the ANC’s Stalinist repression; Trewhela on Mbeki and AIDS; Trewhela at Libcom; Hirson at MIA; Various documents on the Stalinism of the ANC (including “Inside Quadro”, mistakenly attributed to Hirson); Trewhela on John Pilger’s belated discovey of the ANC’s dark side; on the exile history of the ANCPanduleni: A comrade they could neither destroy nor buy.

In the 1980s, it was an article of faith across much of the left that apartheid defined the essential evil in the world, and that the ANC defined the essential good. More complex, critical, reflective thinking was almost impossible in this time. Those who raised questions about the ANC, such as the South African Trotskyists, were denounced as traitors and witch-hunted out of the mainstream left. It was right to resist the Stalinist groupthink then, and it is right to resist it now.

Previous: The indestructible beats of Soweto; Mbeki and Mugabe; RCP v WRP;

*Some day I will post my own recollections of this group of Trots. For now, Marko Hoare on the Slaughterite ("Workers Press") faction of the WRP.

Tuesday, September 13, 2011

Total nonsense 2011

I see Total Politics are drip-feeding us their award-winners. I didn't get around to voting this year, and don't seem to have placed. There's a different system this year, which separates "blogs" from "bloggers", which sensibly reflects the shift towards group blogs and authors who post in multiple locations rather than one place. 

Among green "bloggers", the top 20 contains few I ever read, apart from the great DocRichard at no.18, who I ought to link to more. However, I am happy to be introduced to Viridis Lumen, Jonathan Kent , Natalie Bennett and Nishima Doshi. Where are Weggis, Gordon and eh? And among "blogs", the greens include only one of my regular reads, Barkingside 21. Here's my favourite green blogs and bloggers in no particular order: Sue Luxton and Ute Michel’s Green Ladywell (read more about Sue here), Barkingside 21, Flesh is Grass, Richard Lawson’s Mabinogogiblog, Peter Cranie, Dean Walton's Green Blog, Adrian Windisch’s Green Reading, Weggis, Greens Engage, Isca Stieglitz, Jessica Goldfinch for House of Lords, Matt Sellwood of Hackney’s Anglo-Buddhist Combine, Gordon’s Green Feed, Greenwich Darryl’s 853 and, although he's semir-retired, Jim Jepps’ Daily (Maybe) (he's now here).

The "non-aligned" (what does that mean? in this context it mostly seems to mean "boring and mainstream") includes the great Nick Cohen, the also great Paul Mason, my friend Michael Ezra and the lovely Simon Hoggart (surely not a "blogger" by any definition). "Media" blogs, which seems to include both bloggers who blog about media and bloggers who are part of the mainstream media, two totally different things, actually includes a number of sites worth visiting, but that seem too mainstream to really be included in a blog award, which I guess shows how blogging has really gone overground in the last year or two, with both good and bad effect. So, I can't begrudge places for the Spectator Coffee House (no.1) and The Staggers (no.3) or the very smart and witty John Rentoul and the muck-raking Andrew Gilligan. More interesting are the tabloid-watchers of Five Chinese Crackers (no.24). Media "bloggers" overlaps a little, and includes a few more I'd recommend: Fraser Nelson (no.3), the fantastic Alex Massie (no.10), acerbic Peckham resident John McTernan (no.18), the genuinely original Madam Miaow (no.30), Danny Finkelstein (sadly behind the Times paywall, no.31) and David Aaronovitch (way down at no.49, but a columnist rather than a blogger, so no complaints).

Now we get to the real meat, as far as I'm concerned, the "left-wing" categories. Mostly, as usual, this is completely dominated by dull Labour party hacks. Under "blogs", you have to get to no.15 before there's a blog I actually read, the not exactly left-wing Harry's Place. Huge kudos to my comrade James Bloodworth for Obliged to Offend, a new entry at no.18. More comrade, Though Cowards Flinch, at no.29, Stumbling and Mumbling (no.31), Madam Miaow (no.52), Shiraz Socialist (no.55), the lesser Bob (no.56), Harpy Marx (no.58), Normblog (no.63) and Tory Troll (no.72) and Pickled Politics (just no.73). Left-wing "bloggers" appears to have been sown up by some Green Scottish syndicate voting. Apart from them, here's my choices (overlapping with the last lot): 6 Owen Jones, 8 James Bloodworth , 12 Chris Dillow, 14 top Londonist Dave Hill, 24 Rob Marchant, 38 the great Jim Denham (my personal no.1), 41 Adam Bienkov,
45 my friend Carl Packman, 51 Edmund Standing (not exactly left-wing), 55 David Osler (surely deserving of a much higher place), and 61 Harry's Place (not exactly "a blogger"!).

One disgraceful ommission (apart from me) is Harry Barnes' wonderful Three Score Years And Ten. Also missing (as far as I can see): Between the Hammer and the AnvilBoffyInfantile and DisorderlyLeft OutsideTendance CoatesyVery Public Sociologist. and most surprising, The Third Estate.

One thing worth noting is the completely inexplicable inclusion of Mehdi Hasan very near the top of a few lists. You can read the long version here and here, but in short the man is both a talentless writer and an apologist for the most obnoxious ideologies of our time.

Previous: 2010, 2009.

Monday, September 12, 2011

Template trouble

I seem to have fixed the column width glitch. Can't work out why the links, fonts and colours are all messed up when you look at the blog, but fine when you look at the individual posts. In messing around, I came across this theme, which I quite like. Am I weakening brand recognition by playing around. Onward to Wordpress, when I get around to it...

Thursday, September 08, 2011

The EDL in East London


In Tower Hamlets
I wasn’t in Tower Hamlets on Saturday, when the English Defence League attempted at “static” demonstration there, but I’ve now managed to read through a fair amount of commentary and reportage. It seems it was a victory for everyone. For the EDL, they mobilised something from 600 to 1000 people, got a lot of media attention, drank a lot and had a generally fun day – although they failed to actually get to Tower Hamlets. For the “anti-fascists”, endlessly re-living the Battle of Cable Street, they considerably outnumbered the EDL and managed to keep the bigots out of the borough – except it was the police and not them who managed that. For the police, there was relatively little disorder and mayhem, and Theresa May’s ban on a march managed to get enforced – although it took 3000 pairs of boots on the ground and undoubtedly a huge bill to pay.

The EDL and the Muslims
The English Defence League, parroted by many of its middle class apologists in the Harry’s Place comments threads, claims to be against “Islamism” or “Islamic extremism” and not against “Islam in general”. This claim is completely hollow. Here’s some comments from EDL supporters, to give you a flavour of their real views. Or, more to the point, watch this video of Stephen “Tommy Robinson” Yaxley-Lennon (the EDL’s cult of personality fuhrer) advocating Anders Breivik style policies in London on Saturday:
"Every single Muslim watching this video on youtube, on 77, you got away with killing and maiming British citizens ... you had better understand that we have built a network from one end of the country to the other end... and the Islamic community will feel the full force of the English Defence League if we see any of our British citizens killed maimed or hurt on British soil ever again."
As one Indymedia contributor says, “So if some Islamist terrorists carry out another 77 style attack, it will be the fault of any Muslim living in Britain and they should be attacked?”

Or, for more evidence, read some of the examples from Laurie Penny’s report, which is actually one of the better things she’s written.

Sarah AB quotes Maryam Namazie, who knows a thing or two about Islamism, on this subject in an HP comment thread:
“And it is also clear who [the EDL] are from their tactics, one of which is organising demonstrations in front of mosques and terrorising people passing by or entering. Look, if you are concerned about the political Islamic movement and mosques being funded by Islamic states to promotes Islamism, then by all means demonstrate but why not do it at the Qatar embassy (if you are concerned about the Burnley mosque for example) or for that matter Jack Straw’s office (who is thought to be responsible for the Emir of Qatar’s £1.5 million gift to the mosque). Yes I am opposed to faith schools but I wouldn’t stand with a group that brings out thugs in front of an Islamic school and threatens children going in who are sent their by their parents…”
I wouldn't, by the way, bother reading an HP comment thread on this topic. It’s full of the usual toxicity: HP below-the-line commenters, unlike the above the line posters, see all Muslims as scum and see the EDL as generally good “working class” chaps who are to be applauded for sticking it to the Pakis. Possibly the only perceptive comment I read came from one CBinTowerHamlets:
Unlike your regular extremist organisation, the EDL is not infamous because of its stated agenda, but simply because of its nature, the thuggery of its members and their general Islamophobia. If you were to define it by its stated objectives, namely opposition to [Muslims Against Crusaders, Anjem Chaudhury’s horrible extremist cult] and to compulsory sharia law, then it’s so mainstream that most Muslims would agree with it. If you define it by its members’ behaviour, then even most Islamophobes would steer clear of it. I don’t think it’s a “proper” extremist organisation, it’s just a bunch of angry pals, largely from the football hooligan fraternity, who decided to go demonstrate and enjoy a ‘day out’ doing so. They’re full of latent prejudice but haven’t developed an extremist ideology from it.

The EDL and the Jews
As reported here, EDL leader and Stephen Yaxley-Lennon (aka Tommy Robinson) broke his bail conditions to turn up at the demo – dressed in ridiculous comedy haredi rabbi disguise (under yet another nom de guerre: Rabbi Benjamin Kidderman. He’s a veritable Sacha Baron-Cohen!) – and on the arm of Roberta Moore. Moore, for those lucky enough not to know, is the frothing at the mouth former leader of the EDL’s alleged “Jewish Division” (a handful of American and Israeli Jews and British non-Jews on Facebook, with no real world presence apart from Roberta and a couple of her pals).

The first point about this is that Moore claimed to have parted ways with the EDL on account of it having Nazis in it. In turn, the EDL claimed that they couldn't stomach her because of her links to the Jewish Task Force, Victor Vancier’s vicious and fascist terrorist organisation. In fact, if I were the EDL, I’d want to be shot of her, because most ordinary Zionist Jews wouldn't touch her with a bargepole, as she’s someone who calls the Chief Rabbi a “kapo” for occasionally talking to Muslims. Looks like either they were both lying, or her and Yaxley-Lennon have patched up their differences. (A statement on the “EDL JDIV” website, which I won;t link to, does not clarify mjuch, but says Moore is re-taking leadership of the Division

The second point is the offensiveness of the rabbi garb. As Mark Gardner puts it: “the joke reveals a vital political lesson: The EDL is only interested in Jews (and Israel) as devices with which to try and provoke Muslims. No good will come of this for either Jews or Muslims. It is racist politics and anyone who sincerely cares about anti-racism, Jews, or Israel, should condemn it. “

In fact, it is not unlikely that the EDL’s love affair with the Jews will come to an end, and there is evidence that their Euro-populist kin in other places have already done so.

The EDL and global counter-jihad
Roberta Moore is one of the many figures connecting the EDL to the diffuse and diverse global counter-jihad movement. At the conservative site, American Thinker, Aymenn Jawad Al-Tamimi, an intelligent and interesting voice at the moderate end of the anti-jihad movement, whose blog is well worth following) takes up the story. He writes that one of the primary reasons Pamela Geller has declared her support for the EDL is that
the organization has featured a "Jewish division" (hailed by her main colleague as a "development much to be applauded").  The EDL Jewish division's leader -- Roberta Moore -- is described by Geller as the person she "most trusted" in the EDL; and when Moore fell out with the EDL amid professed concern on Moore's part over the presence of neo-fascists in the group, Pamela withdrew her support for the EDL too.  What is clear is that she wholeheartedly endorses Moore and the Jewish division, and it was their part in the EDL -- more than anything -- that apparently led Pamela to gush routinely about the EDL.  For instance, she once proclaimed how she wished she "could be there to stand with the English Defense League" in support of a rally for Geert Wilders.
In reality, however, the fallout between Moore and the EDL's leadership was not due to allegations of infiltration by neo-Nazis.  Rather, the EDL leadership and numerous members of the rank-and-file were alarmed at Moore and the Jewish division's alliance with and outspoken support for the American-based Kahanist group "The Jewish Task Force (JTF)," headed by convicted terrorist Chaim ben Pesach (aka Victor Vancier), who is also banned from entering Israel.
Vancier did much to set back the work of Soviet Jewish dissidents like Natan Sharansky in the 1980s with his bombing campaigns directed at, amongst other targets, an FBI informer's car and a hall where the Soviet State Symphony Orchestra was performing.  Unsurprisingly, Vancier has praised Baruch Goldstein -- perpetrator of the 1994 Cave of the Patriarchs Massacre -- as a "great hero."

In fact, the EDL is itself based on a cult of violence. Its roots are in football hooliganism. It has connections (via co-founder and ex-member Paul Ray) with both Anders Breivik and with organised crime. These people take the clash of civilisations thesis as seriously as al-Qaeda do, and they are working hard to hasten it.

The EDL and class
I was struck by the way in which EDL apologists in the HP comment thread constantly invoke the EDL’s working class, ordinary Joe credentials. This echoes the phenomenon in mainstream politics whereby, as Laurie Penny puts it well, “On both sides of the political spectrum, politicians and policymakers have urged us to try to understand the disenfranchisement of white, far-right groups like the EDL, rather than dismissing their protests as "mindless violence".” In other words, the white working class as beleaguered native becomes an alibi or a cipher for right-wing politics in the hands of privileged members of the political class.

This dishonours the vast majority of working class people, most of whom are not EDL supporters or frothing anti-migrant bigots. It conflates class with ethnicity, because it misses out the fact that most Muslim people in Britain are every bit as authentically salt of the earth working class as the EDL. And it misrepresents the EDL, whose rank and file might be mainly working class, but whose leadership are pretty well-healed and which is funded by American millionaires.

On the other hand, like Patrick Hayes, I also smell more than a whiff of class conceit among liberal anti-EDL commentators, including Laurie Penny, who harp on about the EDL’s cropped hair, football shirts and beer guts. Surely the liberal de-humanising of the EDL is not that different from Tory politicians talking about a feral underclass?

The EDL and fascism
Most liberals, as well as the sub-Trotskyists of the SWP, see the EDL as fascist. I’ve said this before on this blog, but I don't think this is a helpful appellation. Going back to CB’s comment I already quoted, I think this is a better characterisation, if less useful for turning into chants on a demo: “I don’t think it’s a “proper” extremist organisation, it’s just a bunch of angry pals, largely from the football hooligan fraternity, who decided to go demonstrate and enjoy a ‘day out’ doing so. They’re full of latent prejudice but haven’t developed an extremist ideology from it.” It is true that there are fascists and ex-fascists in the leadership of the EDL, but they lack most of the features that define fascism. I think they are more comparable to the “proto-fascist” anti-alien groups that operated in the East End a hundred years ago, like the British Brothers League.

However, that doesn't mean that anti-fascists shouldn't pay attention to them. Just as the anti-alien movement mutated into Mosleyism, the EDL have the potential to become much more ideologically malignant. And anyway the terror and hate they spread among Asian communities is reason enough to want to crush them. So, in the next part of this post, I turn to some of the issues around the anti-fascist response to the EDL.

Peter Tatchell and Islamist homophobia
Peter Tatchell bravely and honourably took a contrarian position at the demonstration, marching with placards saying "Stop EDL & far right Islamists. No to ALL hate" and on the other side: "Gays & Muslims UNITE! Stop the EDL". I find his brand of identity politics intensely grating, the notion that “the LGBT community” should be speaking with one voice on every issues, “as” LGBTs. (And since when did LGBT become a noun Peter, instead of an adjective?)

But I admire the courage and consistency with which he articulates it. Here, he notes the lack of such consistency among his fellow identitarians: “there were lots of LGBT protesters against the EDL. But I never saw a single one with a gay badge, placard, t-shirt or rainbow flag. It was as if they'd all gone back in the closet. Why? Normally, on other demos, they always proclaim their LGBT identity. How strange. We were the only visibly gay protesters in the entire anti-EDL demonstration.” And in this case, because the EDL claim to speak for LGBT people under attack from Islamists, there’s a very good reason to be there “as” a queer, to show the EDL don’t speak for gay people – a point Andy Godfrey made here.

Tatchell also records the abuse he received from a small handful of Muslim youths in Tower Hamlets and from their (presumably non-Muslim) LGBT fellow travellers. But he also records that he won many over, and that he was defended by Muslims too.

The only problem I have with what he says is that Muslim and LGBT appear as mutually exclusive categories in his formula “Gays & Muslims UNITE!", and his “LGBTs” seem to be normatively white. Of course, few mainstream practising Muslims are out gays or identify with the lilywhite, middle class, queer culture Tatchell speaks for. And in the identity politics game there is only really room for one identity, so if Muslims are under attack, as they are now, the Muslim identity is likely to have the trump hand. But I know there are plenty of lesbian and gay people in East London who identify as Muslim or who are ethnically Bangladeshi and from Muslim backgrounds, and Tatchell seems to be keeping them invisible here. There are indeed grassroots LGBT Muslim groups, like Imaan, who Tatchell ought to be working with.

However, where I completely agree with Tatchell is when he says this:
What too many anti-fascists refuse to acknowledge is that Islamist fundamentalism mirrors the right-wing ideology of the EDL (and the BNP). In fact, the Islamist goals are much more dangerous. They want to establish a theocratic tyranny, ban trade unions and political parties and deny women equal human rights. They endorse hatred and violence against Jewish, Hindu and LGBT people. Muslims who don't follow their particular brand of Islam would face severe persecution in their Islamist state. These fanatical sects condone terrorism and the suicide bombing of innocent civilians. Not even the BNP and EDL are this extreme.
The failure of many people on the Left to speak out against Islamist fundamentalism is de facto collusion with extremism and a betrayal of the Muslim majority. It also creates a political vacuum, which the EDL is seeking to exploit and manipulate.
Some anti-fascists argue that we should not condemn the Islamists because this will fuel anti-Muslim sentiment. Wrong. Protesting against the fundamentalists and defending mainstream Muslims is actually the most effective way to undermine Islamophobia.
In the absence of a left-wing critique of the Islamist far right, the EDL is able to pose as the sole critic of Islamist extremism and to mount indiscriminate attacks on the whole Muslim community.
This silence and inaction by many on the left is objectively (albeit unintentionally) colluding with both fundamentalist fanaticism and anti-Muslim prejudice.
To be credible and effective, opponents of the EDL need to be consistent by also taking a stand against right-wing Islamists. Only this way can we offer a principled alternative to the EDL that isolates and targets the extremists without demonising the whole Muslim population.
I endorse that point 100%. Yet Tatchell is little more than a lone voice making it. In fact, he is heavily demonised in radical circles. I’ve been told he is a “homonationalist”, a “queer imperialist”, and of course an “Islamophobe” and probably a “neocon” for speaking the truth on this matter. But while the ultra-radicals who use that language defend Islamists, they can never build a real alliance with them, or indeed with mainstream Muslims. They can be Islamism’s useful idiots, but they will never be respected on their own terms by any Muslim. Their defence is both dishonest and ultimately racist – the racism of low expectations: amongst their white friends, they talk the pro-choice, anti-heteronormative, morally libertarian dogma, but anyone who tries to impose this on brown people is a homonationalist or queer imperialist. In contrast, Tatchell’s refusal to pretend to be someone else for the benefit of the bigots, and his dogged insistence on honestly “engaging”, and on washing dirty laundry in public, is the only way forward for a meaningful alliance between the left and the communities under attack from the EDL.

Tatchell is also attacked by Simon of Latte Labour who trots out “liberal interventionist”, “decent left” and, crime of crimes, no longer “a lefty” to tar the man. Simon’s post makes some good points, but is incoherent. For starters, Simon says “We are not told which "Islamic fundamentalists" Tatchell has in mind.” I think it’s pretty obvious: the ones whose provocations in the East End and elsewhere (including “Gay-free zone” stickers) fuel the EDL. Simon says “Of course there are issues with [LGBT rights] amongst Muslims, as there are in all other significant religious and cultural groups.” But Tatchell isn’t talking about Muslim homophobia; he’s talking about Islamist homophobia. Simon says “After I've stood shoulder-to-shoulder to [a homophobic Muslim] on a protest march, or formed a line around his mosque, after he has witnessed a local LGTBQ group helping to defend him and his fellow worshippers from fascists - then the response might be very different when I challenge a homophobic comment than it otherwise might have been.” But that’s precisely what Tatchell is doing: standing against the EDL in solidarity with East End Muslims but as a gay man. I’ll stop there, because Carl refutes Simon’s post extremely well, so read him instead of me. (Andy Godfrey, more convincingly and at much less length, makes some similar points to Simon.)

Tatchell was attacked from the other side (well, attacked is too strong a word, because it was a very sympathetic attack) by Jonathan Narvey at The Propagandist. Jonathan tells of Peter for arguing with the homophobic kids. “You don't argue with haters. You walk away from them. You tell them to fuck off.Actually, if Tatchell’s account is truthful, it seems he won some of the haters over, so I think he took the right strategy. But I also felt Narvey’s position was a little hollow, given he thinks we should engage with bigots like the Jewish Defence League, who I think are well described as haters. “Tatchell clearly can't tell his friends from his enemies”, Jonathan continues. But it seems to me that Tatchell is one of the few people who sees that we have more than one set of enemies.

Hope not Hate and Islamism
Edmund Standing at Harry’s Place, an uncompromising opponent of the EDL, makes some strong criticisms of the main anti-EDL groups. I have mixed feelings about his take. He starts with Hope not Hate, and reprimands them for not demonstrating against Islamist extremism, a position that seems superficially similar to Tatchell’s, and a point related to one which Carl Packman made a while ago and reiterated here. Without wanting to speak for HnH, I disagree with Standing. It seems to me that anti-fascists should indeed oppose right-wing Islamism, for the reasons Tatchell sets out, but not because Islamism is some version of “fascism”. It is related to fascism, but it is different, and therefore it is not the business of HnH, as HnH, to take on Islamism.

Taking on Islamism should be a parallel project, ideally led by non-Islamist Muslims. It would be equally absurd to say that One Law for All, Quilliam or Muslims for a Secular Democracy should actually spend their time campaigning against the BNP. No doubt they do as individuals, but not as anti-Islamists. (Standing’s position reminds me of the standard Trotskyist line about more or less every issue, from defending local libraries to protesting GM crops, that it should “link up” to the class struggle, i.e. be subordinated to the Leninist party.) I think we need a smarter approach.

So, while it is right for anti-fascist individuals, like Tatchell, to protest Islamism and the EDL; protesting Islamism can’t be the main job of anti-fascist organisations.

Hope not Hate, liberal anti-fascism and state bans
Standing also criticises HnH for its links to Socialist Unity, “one of only 5 blogs linked to on Hope Not Hate’s website. Socialist Unity is a blog which routinely smears opponents of Islamism as ‘Islamophobes’ or ‘racists’. It is a website whose writers include John Wight, a man who has linked approvingly to a Holocaust denial website”. I agree that this is an unwise move, but it seems a relatively trivial indictment.

My criticism of HnH is different. I feel that its version of liberal anti-fascism – get the government to ban the march, get the police to arrest the EDL – is wrong and counter-productive. Getting the state to ban protests can never be a good thing. While I shed no tears at the march being banned, I can’t help feeling we’ll be paying for it later. We’ll be paying for it by letting the EDL (like the BNP) pose as the underdog victims of a liberal, politically correct elite. (Tommy Robinson has promised a hunger strike now he’s been re-arrested, so determined is he to play the martyr.) And we’ll be paying for it when it’s our protests that get banned.

Unite Against Fascism, “militant” anti-fascism and macho posturing
Standing also attacks Unite Against Fascism, noting that it is an SWP front and that its spokesperson Weyman Bennett has reportedly made antisemitic comments in the past. Many Harry’s Place types, as well as Andy Newman of Socialist Unity, also indicts UAF for its thuggery. The UAF these days likes to present itself as the “militant” alternative to HnH (after years of attacking AFA for “squadism” (see comment thread here), but to my mind they’re all mouth and no trousers, as the saying goes. Seventy five years ago, the Communist Party tried to force people to rally at Trafalgar Square when Mosley was due to march through the East End; only two days before the march, they caved into the Jewish East End rank and file and agreed to support the mobilisation that we know as the Battle of Cable Street, for fear of looking a bit pathetic at Hyde Park when the masses would stay in Stepney. History repeats itself, and about 48 hours before the EDL march, UAF switched from rallying at Weaver’s Fields to call for meeting on Whitechapel Road, i.e. where most East End anti-fascists would be anyway – and then took the credit for stopping the EDL from getting there. (As far as I can tell, there is barely a word of truth in the Socialist Worker tabloid’s report of the day.)

Islamist “anti-fascists”
Edmund Standing also attacks the Islamists involved in anti-EDL mobilisation in Tower Hamlets, including activists of the Islamic Forum of Europe (IFE), which is a Muslim Brotherhood organisation which has played a complex entrist game in East End politics, controlling Lutfur Rahman’s independent mayoral campaign and major slices of Labour, Respect and the other parties. IFE and the East London Mosque were major players in United East End, the third main group in the anti-fascist camp on Saturday. Carl gives us the reasons why this lot are not good allies. For example, “In 2009, the London Muslim Centre, which is part of the ELM, located adjacent to it, hosted a video link of 9/11 spiritual leader Anwar al-Awlaki, as part of a conference on the “end of days” – advertising poster of which illustrated bombs dropping over a darkened New York City.” You could get plenty more examples from Martin Bright.

Anti-Zionist “anti-fascists”
Another blot on the anti-fascist camp is those who try and reinforce the myth that the EDL are some kind of Zionist front. That’s what the BNP called them, but the sentiment is mainly shared by the anti-Zionist ultras of Respect, JBIG, Jews Against Zionism and so on, with Respect’s Carole Swords and JBIG’s Deborah Fink more or less perfectly mirroring Roberta Moore. The second part of Mark Gardner’s post is good on this topic:
“there are those in the anti-Israel brigade who appear unable to stop placing Zionism and Israel at the centre of their world-view [such as] Carole Swords, a senior Respect activist in Tower Hamlets, whom CST Blog recently noted as having told pro-Israel activists to “go back to bloody Russia!”. “Go back to bloody Russia!” is the kind of “Send ‘Em Back!” sentiment that the EDL can likely identify with; but Swords was most certainly not on the EDL’s side this (or any other) weekend. The boycott Israel activists, including Swords, can be seen in the below video. Its title, “Tower Hamlets kick out the EDL & their Israeli Propogandist [sic] allies”, dangerously alleges that there was some kind of meaningful and independent pro-Israel participation in the EDL’s anti-Muslim provocation. (Swords comes in at about 2.18, amongst those attempting to muster up “Free Palestine” chants from the anti-EDL demonstrators.)
 The potential and actual linkage between antisemitic incidents and anti-lsrael sentiment (e.g, see this hateful graffiti from Manchester last week) is blatant; and linking pro-Israelis with the EDL risks serious antisemitic escalations wherever EDL intensifies its actions.

So, what should we do?
I’ve used the second part of this post to basically criticise all the main and some of the minor forms of anti-fascism that were mobilised against the EDL, and had very little positive to say about anyone. So what do I think we should do? This question requires an answer on two levels. On the immediate level, there’s what we should do on days like September 3. The old militant anti-fascist physical force strategy seems suicidal in the current policing climate and when the EDL are mobilising a thousand bodies, so simply making our presence felt on the other side of the police lines is probably all we can do.

In the long run, though, I think we need to re-build the anti-fascist movement. We need an anti-fascist movement that escapes the left ghetto. We need a movement that faces in at least two ways at once. It needs to be able to orientate to the white working class constituencies the EDL attempt to mobilise, which means not “defending multiculturalism” or apologising for Islamism, but actually relating to the real, concrete concerns of people like Connor’s mum in Laurie Penny’s report. But we also need to orientate to the Muslims and other Asians who are under attack from the EDL terror. I think both these orientations require a very sharp critique of Islamism as well as a more mature analysis of the EDL.