Beating the Fascists: The Untold Story of Anti-fascist Action by Sean Birchall (Freedom Press 2010)

Blows were exchanged. I took this tremendous punch in the forehead. Eamonn decked one of them; everyone was hacking away, A large bald fascist right in front of me took an iron bar straight over the nut. His whole face just went grey. Fractured skull for sure, I thought. Another one on his hands and knees on the floor dropped his iron bar - a great big silver thing with a screw through the top of it - and began shouting, ‘Enough! Enoughl’You’lI be lucky, I thought, as blows rained down.

“People started chasing the others over walls and through gardens. I think the van pulled away with only about half of them in it. Three were left in the middle of the road. A taxi stopped, and a woman got out, screaming hysterically. Someone pulled her back in. Everyone else ignored her.

“Without much discussion it was decided to carry on with the meeting. Though it was unlikely they would come back, I volunteered for sentry duty outside, more to calm myself down than anything else. One of the women who worked in the kitchen was carted off in an ambulance with a suspected heart attack. So I’m standing there when Labour M P Jeremy Corbyn opens the door of the centre and peeps out. ‘Have they gone?’ he says. ‘Yeah,’ I say. ‘Were they here for you or me?’ he says. ‘It was us,’ I reply. You could see the relief visible on his face. ‘Oh, good!’ he remarked cheerfully. Then, with a quick look in both directions, he skipped off down the road. I remember laughing at the time. How ironic, I thought. Here we have a Member of Parliament, no less, having to skulk around his own constituency for fear of rampaging fascists everyone else seems determined to deny exist.”

Children of the Sun by Max Schaefer (Soft Skull Press 2010)

As he put his coat on Philip said, 'You know what you've done? Speaking of history: it's exactly what you've lost sight of. Nicky wasn't an Übermensch conjured up in a black mass on some moor. Skinheads were produced by socioeconomic circumstance, like every bloody thing else. The Blitz. The redevelopment of the East End, which dismantled old social networks. Post-war immigration. Teddy boys, mods and rockers, rude boys, hippies, punks. Unemployment. The collapse of the social contract.'

'I know that. It's why I was reading about the strikes. But it's not enough. It explains why people like Nicky existed but not what it was like to be Nicky.'

'Then focus on that. Not the bloody occult. Nicky's out with his mates and they start queer-bashing. What goes through his head? He's in a club and sees a black and a white man snogging. What does he think? No, fuck "think": what does he feel? Does he feel sick, does it turn him on? Both? What's it like to be Nicky in his body - fucking and fighting? But enough with the magick, because if one thing's obvious from that programme, Nicky was a very pedestrian kind of nazi.'

'What do you mean,' I said, '"was"?'

Philip stared at me.

'The Register Office can't find his death certificate.'

'Oh for God's sake.'

'Funny, though, isn't it? Look, all I'm saying is you can't separate ideas from reality that neatly. Ideas create reality. It's all connected.'

'Everything's fucking connected. We know that by now, surely? Chaos theory: you have a wank and there's an earthquake off Sumatra. Doesn't tell us anything, apart from maybe you should wank less. I think I'm drunk. Come on, darling,' he said to Tom. 'Let's go.'

pages 175-176

'All right Tony?'

'What are you doing here?'
'Coppers can't tell the difference can they?' says Glenn. 'All just skinheads to them.' He smiles. He has somehow got right next to Tony; he speaks quietly, but does not whisper.

Tony can't hack the look in his eyes and turns away. 'Wanker.'

'There's a few of us here, not just me. Well, we're on CCTV now aren't we, don't want to do nothing heavy. But the nice officers are going to walk us all outside for your safety and that. And there's no cameras out there.'

'You're a fucking race traitor Glenn.' Tony, because he doesn't know what would happen otherwise, collaborates in the conversational hush: they could be queuing at a supermarket checkout. 'You're worse than a fucking nigger.'

'If you like. I just wanted to tell you before it kicks off. There's a truce between us as far as I'm concerned. For old time's sake. But I can't speak for the other lads, so I'd run if I was you. When you get the chance. Is this bonehead wanker a friend of yours?

He kicks both ankles of the man in front, who stiffens.

'Know him Tony do you?' mutters Glenn.

'No.'

'Good, because when we get out of here he's dead. Did you hear me you daft nazi cunt?' Glenn kicks him again. 'When we get outside I'm going to kill you.' The man is visibly shaking.

Slowly the police begin to move the group towards the far end of the concourse. Beyond the cordon, watching reds yell taunts and insults. Some get a chant going, 'Police protect - nazi scum!,' until the objects of their criticism set dogs on them. Near the driveway for postal vans two men in donkey jackets conduct - amazingly - a paper sale. 'Buy a copy, officer?' one calls as the tense formation troops past. 'Read about how workers pay for the government failures. One pound solidarity price.' He waves it after them : Workers' Power', it says on a red background, and on black, hands off iraq!

Glenn mutters: 'How's your love life then?'

'Fuck off all right.'

'Touchy aren't you? Don't they know you're a poof these mates of yours?'

Tony says nothing. They are nearly at the closed-off bit where the new station is being built. In two minutes they will be outside.

'Bound to be some likely shags in this lot Tony. You know what these Europeans are like.'

From behind, Tony watches the face of the man Glenn has threatened to kill. He is listening; his pupil trembles against the corner of his eye.

'I can big you up if you like,' Glenn offers. 'You always were good in bed.'

The subdued shuffle of the skins' boots as they are herded sounds like rain against the roof.

'Better than Nicky if I had to be honest. To my taste anyway. Probably because in your own way you were even more fucked up. Did you see him on telly the other week? Bet that upset a few people.

pages 333-335

Beating the Fascists: The Untold Story of Anti-Fascist Action by Sean Birchall (Freedom Press 2010)

This insidiously debilitating idea that racism was in "white peoples' genes", according to a National Black Caucus speaker (Black Flag, issue 203, autumn 1993), gained influence in the 1980s when it formed the basis for 'racial awareness training' (RAT) mainly used in the public sector. RAT was theoretically underpinned by the writings of an American academic, Judith Katz. She believed racism is "a psychological disorder . . . deeply embedded in white people from a very early age, on both a conscious and unconscious level" and that "being white . . . implies being racist" ('Racism, Myths and Realities', International Socialism 95, summer 2002).
From that perspective even the slightest hint of reslstance served only to confirm the original prognosis. For liberals who subscribed to the Katz theory, members of the worklng class needed to prostrate themselves completely simply ln order to be tolerated. In this world view the highest honour any whlte worklng class activist could expect would be to qualify, after serving a considerable time on probation, as a sort of 'racist anti-racist'. Not too surprisingly, militant body language was never going to be sufficiently humble to pass muster. Nor was Jasper's attltude so uncommon. Another Voice columnist, Tony Sewell, also took AFA to task for being "predominately white and male." Clearly it never crossed hls mlnd to consider what effect the common or garden prejudices regularly displayed by hlm and his fellow columnist may have had in discouraging black youth from doing their bit, thus ensuring groups llke AFA remained predominately "white man's business". Instead of any real insight, he offered up some cod psychology. "Their [AFA] deslre to meet violence with violence on behalf of oppressed black people is only an excuse for white men to have a good ruck. This type of rivalry has became a king of war game, where racism is the red rag for men to test their masculinity" (The Voice 28th February 1995).
Of course, in one way he was right. Because, for the vast majority of militants, the idea of AFA fighting are on behalf of oppressed black people would certainly have been regarded as utter nonsense. And while the casual racist comments ln the presence of any AFA activist at the time rarely went unchecked, wlth physical retribution not being an response, as an organisation AFA was at pains to make clear the underpinning for their 'war', as they saw, it had very little to do with race, and absolutely everything to do with class.