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. “
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."
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.
