There are anti-fascist events happening across the country this weekend.
Stop the NEI in Durham, Saturday 25th
In Durham the horrible neo-Nazi North East Infidels are set to march through the city on Saturday 25th attempting to stir up hatred against refugees. There have been multiple calls to oppose them.
StopNEI have made a mobilisation video (above) and a call-out for 1pm in Durham city centre. To get involved email: stopnei@riseup.net
This November, the AFN, together with other anti-fascists from around the country, has helped organise a speaking tour for a German anti-fascist comrade.
The rise of fascist movements and parties all over Europe has once again made it clear: organised antifascist resistance is necessary. In order to successfully intervene and stop fascism from spreading, it is useful to take a look at the different experiences built from movements in other countries, particularly the history of the Antifa movement which originally started in 1930’s Germany.
The speaker, who is a member of the “ums Ganze!” Bündnis and has been part of antifascist initiatives and organisations for more than ten years, tries to present the major strategies, struggles, defeats, victories, splits, and theories of the Antifaschistische Aktion from 1932 to the present. Afterwards, we will have a discussion about the lessons there are for the movement here, going forwards in 2017.
It’s an event that’s become mythologised, Moseley was able to carry on recruiting and indeed marched again within the week. A year later an equally large march was met with similarly fierce opposition in Bermondsey. It was one battle in an ongoing campaign, fascism isn’t that easy to put down. Anti-fascism is never just ‘the big demo’.
On the 4th October 1936 , tens of thousands of anti-fascists turned out to stop Moseley’s Blackshirts marching into the East End of London.
Barricades during the “Battle of Cable Street”
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re-blogged from crimethinc
Anti-fascism has arrived. Here’s where it needs to go.
Following the clashes in Charlottesville and the massive anti-fascist demonstrations afterwards in Durham, Boston, and the Bay Area, the struggle against fascism has arrived in the consciousness of the general public. Tens of thousands of people are realizing that the fight against fascism didn’t end in 1945—that today, as increasingly authoritarian governments collude with ascendant fascist movements, this battle is more pressing than ever. Read the rest of this entry »
All the EDL
The EDL had a pitiful turnout in London on Saturday, with a mere 50 of them on their national demo. They didn’t get to march to Parliament as they had intended and were harrassed and heckled by anti-fascists along the way.
EDL leader Ian Crossland had gloated and joked online about the murderous racist attack on worshippers at Finsbury Park mosque and the hate preachers at the EDL rally stayed true to form.
Everything is up in the air. The government is in chaos, risking peace in Ireland by making a pact with hard-line Ulster loyalists. There have been a number of terrorist attacks in quick succession. No one knows where Brexit negotiations will take us. The horror of Grenfell tower has created huge public anger which is spilling out onto the streets. On Monday night a terrorist inspired by the hate preachers of the far-right drove a van into a crowd of people outside a mosque in North London shouting “Kill all Muslims!”
These are vital times for those of us fighting for a better world and we are at a turning point. There is a real danger that the UK could see increasing attacks on Muslims and immigrants, fascists marching in greater numbers on the streets, a UK state allied with Trump, the bigots of the DUP calling the shots in government, hard Brexit. But the election showed a huge and no longer hidden desire for a different politics. There is the possibility that with renewed organising we could turn things around and create a future with more hope for working class people, for migrants, for everyone left out at the moment – turn around austerity, get rid of a brutal and racist government and drive the fascists back into shame and hiding.
On Sunday a demo that was initially promoted as a ‘Gays Against Sharia’ protest, timed to exploit the anniversary of the Orlando nightclub attack, turned into one of the largest and most violent far-right protests seen in this country for several years.
This has come as something of a surprise, coming only a week after a national EDL demo in Liverpool pulled about 100 people and was comprehensively outnumbered, blocked and laughed out of town.
