I Intend To Escape ......................And Come Back

How Puny The Olympic 2012 'Legacy' Looks

Going on the basis that politicians usually exaggerate, and that the reality is eventually somewhat different from rosy predictions, take a look at the text of the leaflet the London Mayor has delivered to homes in Hackney this week.

Point 7 of Boris Johnson's leaflet is headed "Ensuring a true Olympic legacy - 11,000 new homes and 10,000 new jobs". That is underwhelming - Hackney has 27,000 households on its council waiting list alone - 11,000 new homes, across 32 London boroughs with similar housing pressures? That is barely a drop in the ocean.
No further details are given on the 10,ooo new jobs - are they full-time, part-time, fixed term for the duration of the games itself, or for the wider period of the Olympic building project? How many have gone to local residents in east London, or to Londoners more generally?

I reproduce the rest of Boris' text in full:

"Boris johnson is ensuring we all benefit from the Olympic Games.

Boris has delivered the Games infrastructure on time and budget. A saving of £10 million was made on the building of the Olympic Stadium and he has ensured that existing facilities are upgraded and used wherever possible. Hackney will benefit from the lasting legacy of the Games as 12 organisations have received funding to offer free coaching and Boris has funded seven sports participation programmes".

So far, so modest. That really is it. Perhaps to make sure we do actually think there is some benefit to the whole 2012 shebang the leaflet then adds:

"Thanks to Boris, Londoners will benefit from the jobs created by a £5.2 billion economic boost from the Games."

A few points arise:

1. Boris seems to take all the credit for 'delivering' the Games. Clearly the hatred between the British Olympic Association and London Organising Commitee of the Olympic Games (LOCOG) has created a gap for one man to heroically organise the entire event.

2. If £10 million has been saved on building the stadium, what has that money been spent on? Where has it gone?

3. Which existing facilities have been upgraded? As a Hackney resident I should presumeably be able to name several - none spring to mind.

4. 12 organisations are getting free coaching out of this. Not much of a return from the biggest sporting event in the world coming here is it?

5. Boris has funded seven sports participation programmes. Again no details, but isn't that the sort of thing Mayor's are supposed to do anyway?

6. What and where is the £5.2 billion economic boost from the Games?All the economic news I seem to hear concerns a double dip recession.

All this is not to single out Boris Johnson as any worse than Ken Livingstone would have been (he isn't it) but to raise the single question:

If the projected gains from the Olympics are so modest now, how modest are the actual gains likely to be after the event?

 

Hackney Not United: Hackney Hustings Descends Into Chaos

I spent this evening at the Hackney Unites hustings for the London North East GLA constituency at the Arcola Theatre in Dalston.

Hackney Unites is a local pressure group which has grown out of the Hope Not Hate initiative, formed by the anti-fascist magazine Searchlight. Following a split in Searchlight in 2011, Hope Not Hate has continued as a separate body, and now finances Hackney Unites newspaper, which is currently being distributed across the borough.

The hustings came with a very fixed format. Firstly we had speeches from Hackney Unites Chair John Page, then Hackney Unites employee Andrea. After the starters came the main course. The politicians  selected to attend the hustings followed the format that has dominated media coverage in London – Labour, Lib Dem, Conservative and Green. Not invited, despite outpolling the Greens both nationally and in London were the UK Independence Party, nor were the Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition selected for the top table. Both deserved a hearing.

Those who made it were the incumbent – Labour’s Jeanette Arnold, the Tory’s Naomi Newstead, the Lib Dems Farooq Quereshi and Green Caroline Allen. Those attending were invited to submit written questions, which were handed to Hackney Unites Jane Holgate, which were then shuffled into an order based around a preliminary discussion of the subjects the audience felt important. Questions were read out, and each politician given one minute to answer.

This format soon brought problems. Hustings means different things to different people, and what we most certainly did not have here was a debate. Politicians give politicians answers, and without the chance for the audience to come back on what was stated, events soon became stilted. For example Conservative Naomi Newstead claimed to be opposed to tuition fees – a somewhat unusual position for a Conservative politician, and certainly not one that appears in her election literature. This was the first time I had seen Labour’s Jeanette Arnold (perhaps best described as a poor man’s Diane Abbott) more impressive on a personal level were Lib Dem Farooq Quereshi and Green Caroline Allen. Interestingly Ms Allen rarely missed an opportunity to speak of Green MP Caroline Lucas, whilst barely mentioning the Green’s fluffy Mayoral candidate Jenny Jones.

As the meeting wore on, frustrations grew at the lack of real debate. One man who wanted to make a verbal contribution was repeatedly told by Chairman John Page to write it down, when it would have been far easier in such a small meeting to let him speak (at its peak I counted 47 present, including the candidates) It is also the case that not everyone is as confident at writing political views as they are at speaking them, and London North East – as with any constituency – will include people who may not be able to read and write as well as others.  Eventually after several calls for order from John Page, and a description of developments as “disgusting” the guy was allowed to ask his question “Why is it we never see you again when you get elected?”

This provoked a rambling answer from Ms Arnold that seemed to centre on how rarely she misses important events in the Greater London Assembly – which was not of course the question posed. Things got difficult when the Conservative candidate justified cuts, leading to anger in the audience, and calls from John Page for the audience to show some respect. Tactically, this was a big mistake – people have very little respect for the three main parties now – respect has to be earned, and the one thing the British political class has not done in recent years is earn our respect.

Sitting in the audience was ‘Hackney heroine’  Pauline Pearce, who came to fame arguing with anti-social elements during the August 2011 riots in Hackney. Pauline is standing for the Lib Dems this month, and clearly had come along expecting a debate, and to be able to cross-examine the candidates. When told to ‘show some respect’ by John Page, she announced she would leave – at which point the meeting boiled over. A dozen walked out – including nearly all the black people in the audience – and those remaining seated were treated to the bizarre spectacle of the tiny Jane Holgate trying to shepherd towards the door a black guy who must have been a good 15 or 16 stones. Pauline Pearce’s closing words were “You’re staunch Labourites”, whilst John Page accused the big guy of attending the meeting to disrupt it. With all that said, the door was closed behind those who had walked out.

The rest of the meeting was a bit of an anti-climax, although even here Hackney Unites inflexibility remained. With formal questions finished at 8.45pm, the meeting could have been thrown open to the floor – assuming the room had been booked until 9pm. Instead, the event closed, more with a whimper than a bang. The bang of course, had happened already.  

So what to make of it all? Well debate needs to happen. This was an example of how an attempt to structure a meeting in a particular way, with only particular candidates, can blow up badly in the faces of those with a particular agenda. It does not have to be like this………..

For the record the Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition have a public meeting in Hackney on Tuesday 1 May at 7pm at the CLR James Library in Dalston. The campaign website of the UK Independence Party, whose Mayoral candidate  is Lawrence Webb, can be viewed here.

Ahmed Rashid On Pakistan Again, On The Brink - Again

Ahmed Rashid is probably the best writer, working in English, on the political and religious movements in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

All the more reason to tune into Radio 3 on Tuesday 17 April to hear him on Night Waves with Anne McElvoy, discussing his new book, Pakistan on the Brink.

London Met: Common Sense Bites Back

Ever since the Vice Chancellor of London Metropolitan University, Prof Malcolm Gillies, spoke of the need to respond to the rise in numbers of Muslim students by reducing the presence of alcohol and portrayl of sex on campus, a backlash was due. I am pleasantly surprised at how sophisticated, and encouraging, it has been.

All of the quotes below are taken from the Times Higher coverage of the case, and in particular the comments area below the article. One interesting response, from the trades union the UCU, is to see Gillies intervention as softening up London Met for cuts, using some old fashioned divide and rule tactics:

"Gillies is currently selling off large sections of the university estate, including 'The Hub' - the student union facility (inc student bar) at the City Campus. The VC's comments need to be seen in that light - i.e., they are simply a convenient cover for reducing student social facilities."

Similarly it seems London Met is hardly awash with wall to wall drinking anyway. From Rob Thoyts:

"Alchohol is currently offered for sale in only two of the University's eleven or so buildings, the "two fantastic (Student Union) bars" according the the Londonmet website, "which are regularly featured in the London Time Out magazine". Therefore the only part of the University where the sale of alcohol could credibly be banned would be in these SU bars. Umpteen canteens exist in the University which do not sell alcohol, therefore any suggestion that students who may disapprove of alcohol have nowhere to go, is entirely false."

Prof Gillies claim that some female students attend London Met only with an escort from a  chaperone also met a firey response:

"I find the sight of women in headscarves and veils who have to be chaperoned everywhere by men offensive. However, I would not expect them to be banned from certain parts of campus so that my strong political and moral sensibilities can be protected."

What seems so needless about this story is that there does not appear to be any evidence  Muslim students are agitating for any ban or restriction on alcohol. Instead this change is being offered to them, (and imposed) on others by the management's interpretation of cultural sensitivity. This is Niall:

"A great lesson, if you want one, in how to foster resentment, division and confusion. Muslims and other minorities so often get the blame for being 'over sensitive' but it's the ridiculous policies of institutions and politicians that are stirring up problems. I really hope all Met students stand up against this hideous proposition."

Dr David however feels a policy does need to be stated: 

"To be fair having areas which don't serve alcohol seems reasonable. For instance you could serve alcohol in bars but not in the lecture theaters. Or the other way round."

Perhaps the oddest section in Gillies quoted remarks was when he decided to talk about sex. Or rather he didn't:

The vice-chancellor also said that London Met was "much more cautious" about the portrayal of sex on campus than universities had been 30 to 40 years ago. "Now we've got a younger generation that are often exceedingly conservative, and we need to be much more cautious about [sex] too," he said.

No sex please we're British (and Muslim!) All of this is too much for sadtoworkatLondonMet

"Under what circumstances is Londonmet "portraying" sex on campus. I can think of only two possibilities; discussion of sex-related issues in classes, and sexual health information provided to students. So, in both of these areas we are supposed to exercise greater "caution" (whatever that means) than would have been the case in 1972? Yes, very progressive Malc!"

All too often discussions about race and religion (especially Islam) leave almost any reader feeling depressed and isolated. I have to say Prof Gillies has removed that depression at a stroke.  Reading the Times Higher comments I feel both invigorated and hopeful for the future - there actually seems to be a silent, sensible majority out there, and when pushed, they push back.

For that at least, we need to thank the Vice Chancellor!

 

 

 

Things Have Changed At London Met

The comments of Professor Malcolm Gillies of London Metropolitan University, that the University may restrict the presence of alcohol and take a more 'cautious' approach to sex, due to the rising number of Muslim students on campus, have produced a storm.

Things certainly seem to have changed since I worked in the library at what was then called the University of North London. The first job I had in the capital, from 1992-3, was as a 'Graduate Trainee Library Assistant' working a term each at the University's sites in Highbury, Holloway and Kentish Town. One of the main challenges library staff faced at the main site on Holloway Road was something politely referred to as "Asian students socialising in the library, especially in the evenings".

This 'problem' involved staff on the first floor in the evenings always having to make as much noise as possible before going into quiet corners of the library, in case we interrupted a couple who were either at it or heading in that direction. Older hands explained to me that as Asian students (we rarely used the term Muslim then) often could not take partners home, and tended not to go to pubs or clubs, the library was an important place for their liaisons. 

I am pleased to say the staff rather collaborated in all this. I do hope that Prof Gillies is respectful of such traditions, and that the science periodicals, especially on a Friday evening, still see a number of students hard at it..............

George Galloway: The Robert Kilroy-Silk of the Left?

I have been thinking recently of figures on the British left who have made some sort of 'breakthrough' in the past few decades. By breakthrough I mean in terms of electoral success and/or significant public recognition. And by 'the left' I mean to the left of Labour.

I can name only three - Derek Hatton of Militant, Tommy Sheridan of Militant and then the Scottish Socialist Party, and finally George Galloway of Respect. All three share certain characteristics - charisma, good looks, the ability to relate to and engage with working class voters when canvassing, a confidence in their own abilities and a belief in the justness of their cause. This continues - even taking into consideration the block vote of the mosques, in the Bradford West by-election Galloway utilised his attributes to relate to voters across the constituency in a manner few other contemporary politicians could.

I have never met George Galloway, but am in little doubt as to his ability to inspire those around him. Last year when interviewed by him on Press TV and Talk Sport (on 9/11 conspiracy theories) we spoke by telephone and he made me feel a million dollars by clearly having done some research into my writing and talking to me as if my ideas were important. I could well understand how previously loyal Socialist Workers Party hacks like Kevin Ovenden  could side with Galloway when Respect split between the SWP and Galloway loyalists in 2007. Yes you could go back to selling half a dozen copies of Socialist Worker on a Saturday lunchtime outside Tesco's, but why would you?

Of course the other element shared by Hatton, Sheridan and Galloway is that their political journeys, having united disparate elements on the left by the force of their personality, always end in tears. Anarchists in particular were to be found in Glasgow when the SSP was its peak, making awkward comments about "our Tommy" that fell on deaf ears. A bit of success can go to anyone's head. But on the left, success is so rare, no one wants to listen to tricky questions during the good times. By 2006 the Anarchists were to be found saying "I told you so" when the SSP split irrevocably, "Our Tommy" found to be not a latter day Lenin but a latter day Jeffrey Archer.

Over the past week I have been reading Mark Daniel's excellent history of the UK Independence Party "Cranks and Gadflies: The Story of UKIP". The most interesting passages concern UKIP's brief fling with the former BBC presenter Robert Kilroy-Silk, who rapidly became a UKIP MEP, and just as quickly left the party after a farcical leadership bid.

Reading the book reminded me how much George Galloway and Kilroy-Silk have in common. Both had substantial careers as Labour MP's in old Labour heartlands, yet rather underachieved in the party. Contrary to what some may expect, Kilroy was a well known champion of prisoners rights (especially women inmates at prisons like HMP Styal in Cheshire) and an articulate critic of the EEC from the left. Galloway survived, but did not prosper as a Labour MP in Scotland, whilst Kilroy eventually limped from the fray after being an MP from 1974-86, seen off by arguments with the far-left in his Merseyside constituency.
Both were at their best pressing the flesh with working class constituents (Kilroy's double barrel comes, not from the aristocracy, but from taking the names of his father, killed in the War, and his stepfather) and enjoyed the media spotlight at every opportunity. Galloway and Kilroy's careers were each greviously damaged by comments they made about the Arab world - Labour expelling Galloway for his words about British forces and the second Gulf War, the BBC sacking Kilroy for making sweeping comments about Arabs as a race.

What is fascinating about Daniel's analysis of Kilroy's time in UKIP is that it seems UKIP's leaders knew they could never control him, that he was not only a loose canon, but a canon that would eventually fire at them. Yet they still decided, on balance, to get into bed with Kilroy. Speak to leading members of the Socialist Workers Party about George Galloway, and you will have heard identical sentiments in 2005, and we are hearing them again, post his by-election success in 2012. A horse is running, and even if its known he is going to eventually throw his rider, people still bet money on it.

Spend five minutes on Twitter, or on certain blogs where the last century left discusses what passes for ideals, and there are only two shows in town - supporting Ken Livingstone's candidacy as Mayor of London (again) and the opportunity the Bradford West by-election offers to 'reforge' the left.
Already the Green Party candidate in that election, Dawud Islam, has defected to Respect. Plenty of others will no doubt follow, indeed in Tower Hamlets the period 2005-2011 saw some Muslim councillors switch between Respect, Labour and Independent almost annually (Yorkshire's Dawud Islam is ex-Labour, then Green, now Respect)
It is probably in such political versions of the okey-cokey that the roots of the next split in Respect will be found - those jostling to be the parties candidates in the next month will contain the principled but also the career driven, the crooked and the feckless. The left is unlikely to play any significant role in this process save for cheerleading those who deliver the votes - the Muslim 'community leaders', youth groups and Mosques. And as happened last time round in Respect, such currents will soon tire of the left if they begin to get in the way.

In the long term, UKIP had the last laugh over Robert Kilroy-Silk. When he flounced out of the party, his splinter, Veritas, came to nothing. He is political history. George Galloway is not - yet - but the roots of his parties downfall are all around us - if we could but see it.

 

Terrorism and the Olympics: Let The Silly Season Begin

The first in a series commenting on media stories about terrorist and public order 'threats' to the 2012 Olympics in London.

An impressive one to start with from the Sunday Telegraph of 1 April (and no it was not an April fool). Firstly the Telegraph's David Barrett did have the basis of an actual story. He reports that MI5 believe Akhmed Zakayev, who styles himself as the exiled Prime Minister of the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria,  is under threat of assassination in London. They understand his death has been ordered by Chechnya's Prime Minister Ramzan Kadyrov, and are attempting to deport a suspect, named only as E1, who was also involved in the plot. 

Then it gets silly. Firstly we have the move to attach Venessa Redgrave to the story, as she is apparently friends with Mr Zakayev. This leads to the tabloid style heading "MI5 warns of death plot against Redgrave friend", and a picture of Zakayev and Redgrave that corresponds nicely with Telegraph policy of having posh totty on the front cover at least once a week.
As a general rule of thumb I adopt the political position that it is nearly always correct to be on the opposite side, on any issue, to Vanessa Redgrave, so will say no more about the politics of Zakayev. What is noticeable however is that despite this being an explicity Chechen story - all those directly involved - Zakayev, E1 and Kadyrov being Chechens, Barrett decides that this is a story about Russia, and Russians in London.

This gets particularly silly when Barrett not only connects (albeit loosely) this alleged plot with the actual shooting of Russian banker German Gorbuntsov in east London last month, but worse, the Olympics. Try this nonsense on for size:

"And it comes amid growing concern among the security services over the number of Russians in Britain who could present a danger to security, particularly with the London Olympics, identified as the biggest single target for terrorists in British history, fast approaching".

No suggestion is actually made that Russian gunmen (or Chechen?) pose a direct threat to the Olympics - probably because to attempt to do so would make Barrett look even more silly. Instead possible targetted acts of violence amongst one or two exile communities in London are  placed in proximity to an entirely seperate issue - that of Olympic security - with the hope that readers will put two and two together and get 76.

There is now 114 days left until the Olympics. I am going to do my best to log and comment upon silly stories of this type - it surely cannot be long until the Evening Standard dusts off its usual scare stories about Anarchists and public order and places them somewhere in the direction of Stratford - and we can no doubt expect an English Defence League 'threat' to be hyped out of all proportion.

I would be grateful if readers could send me examples of silly season stories that you spot. David Barrett and the Sunday Telegraph have made the early running - plenty of other lame old nags will no doubt follow.

 

Why The Banks Have Money And Their Customers Have Debts

My experience this afternoon, which is replicated by thousands of people every day.

I tried to set up a standing order online. Despite going through the process four times, each time I was told the bank account I was trying to send money to was "non-existent". I checked - it is not.

I then phoned my bank, on their 0845 number. After going through a series of requests for information about me, I was told I had come through to the wrong section. I was transfered (from Liverpool to Belfast) More security questions. Some waiting. Then finally an outcome - you will have to go into branch and check the sort code.

12 minutes that took. It has made my bank money and it has made my telephone provider money. Tomorrow I will take time out from what I should have been doing, to join a queue in a bank.

The system must work for somebody. It does not work for me.

Why Trades Unionists Should Not Vote For Ken Livingstone

The quote below is taken from the Rail Maritime  and Transport Union's official history "Never on Our Knees: A History of the RMT, 1979-2006" (London: Pluto, 2006) by Mike Berlin:

"The issue of PPP became bound up with an increasingly acrimonious Labour party wrangle over the choice of candidate for the newly created office of London's mayor. The front-runner, former Greater London Council leader Ken Livingstone, was excluded from the post of Labour's candidate for the mayoralty by a mixture of chicanery and backroom manoeuvring and ran for the post and won as an independent on a ticket which explicitly rejected part privatisation of the London tubes. Livingstone's victory usehered in a year long battle with the government to stop the implementation of PPP in which the RMT gave him vocal support. It was even willing to work with Livingstone's transport czar, Bob Kiley, who had reputedly 'saved' the New York subway system but who also had a reputation for union busting and once worked for the CIA. The RMT gave fulsome support to Livingstone's camapign for the mayoralty and against PPP. Livingstone was to prove a false friend to the union, and on being readmitted to the Labour Party in April 2002 he moved rapidly to the right, calling on members to cross picket lines during the strikes on the Underground of July 2004." (p.139)

 

Anarchist Terrorists?

I have just spotted this little gem in the January 2012 issue of Searchlight magazine.

In a two page piece by Dr Matthew Feldman of the University of Northampton's Radicalism and New Media Group, "A 2011 Report card on the faces of the British far right" comes this claim:

"Whatever his insantity ruling by Norwegian courts, that Brevik could succesfully navigate the 'terrorist cycle' alone and undetected - while simultaneously writing a far-right manifesto in excess of 1,500 pages - demonstrates an ideological commitment and willing recourse to violence which is the hallmark of self-activating terrorism, whether undertaken by anarchists, jihadi Islamists or far-right extremists."

With the exception of state terrorism, surely all terrorism is 'self-activating'? Secondly where are all these Anarchist terrorists Feldman appears to see?

The Asian Youth Movements

Britain's Asian communities have a long and progressive political tradition - one often overlooked by contemporary controversies surrounding Islam, Islamism and Islamophobia.

The Asian Youth Movements of the 1970s and 80s have been discussed by academics like Anandi Ramamurthy and contemporary writers like Kenan Malik - now it is the BBC's turn, with a Radio 4 documentary by Zaiba Malik at 1100 on Monday 26 March. 

Ramamurthy's archive of the Asian Youth Movements literature, Tandana, is here.

For further reading on the AYM's I would also recommend her 2006 article ‘The Politics of Britain’s Asian Youth Movements’, Race and Class 48: 38-60 ISSN 03063965. It is remarkable (and a little depressing) how much has changed in such a short space of time..............

 

UDM Leaders In Court For Theft

Readers with long memories will recall Neil Greatrex, leader of the so-called Union of Democratic Mineworkers, which emerged in the attempts to crush the miners strike of 1984-5.

Greatrex, who was given the code name Silver Birch by the industrialists working for Mrs Thatcher, is currently on trial at Nottingham Crown Court, along with the Union's former General Secretary Mick Stevens.

They face 14 counts of stealing from the union between 2000 and 2006.

Anarchist Books From AK Press

Earlier this week I received the new AK Press 2012 catalogue in the post. 

I have been buying books from AK for over twenty years, and the AK catalogue seems to be getting bigger - it is now an A3 newspaper with some 76 pages. Anarchists do history well, and there were certainly new titles here on and by Nestor Makhno - to take one example - that I will buy. The million and one small pamphlets available - on subjects as diverse as anti-fascism to health and safety at work - are another reminder of the Anarchist movements strength (and its weakness?) -  its incredible diversity of ideas and approaches.

In the time AK has been going, it is noticeable that the Anarchist movements modest progress has been matched by the decline - arguably far greater decline - of the orthodox left in the shape of Marxist, Marxist-Leninist and Trotskyist parties. In part I would argue this is because Anarchists take self-education so seriously, and are thus better equipped to cope with a fast changing world than those still working through the required titles on their party's reading list and preparing for the weekly paper sale outside Tesco.

That is not to say AK Press are without faults. In Class War we used to have a bugger of a job getting money out of them, and there are some niggling clerical errors in this catalogue which could have been tackled by looking for what is now out of date, rather than simply adding the new titles in.
AK is US based, and it is probably from the American left and/or Anarchist movement that certain silly traits slip in. On the front page, amongst the list of subjects is 'indigenous' as in indigenous peoples struggles. This may have some relevance in 'settler' societies like the US or Canada, here in the UK it simply looks odd. I did look through in vain for a title on indigenous culture in London (perhaps a book on the Pearly Kings and Queens?)
More seriously in Europe it is now the far-right which talks of 'protecting indigenous communities' in the multi-cultural metropolises such as London, Paris or Brussels.  Those who would racialise politics from the left need to note how readily such an  approach can be turned around from the right.
AK has also adopted the left's obsession with the Palestinian question, fielding scores of such titles, whilst other Nationalist struggles - from Irish Republicanism to the Basques - are given the type of scant coverage you may expect from an Anarchist publishers and distributors.

Overall though, AK Press have been doing good work for a long time. Why not buy your books from them instead of Amazon?

 

 

A Thank You To The Hackney Gazette

It is not often I am surprised by anything that happens in Hackney.

I was delighted though to see the editorial in the 15 March issue of the Hackney Gazette not only mention this blog, but to use the article I wrote on gentrification in Hackney on 2 March, as the basis of their own  editorial.

Gentrification (or if you prefer development) is a process over which Hackney residents appear to have little or no control, and which almost seems to slide along without any real political debate. In many parts of the borough, it is community development without the community. It happens to us, not with or for us. And seeing a newspaper with the circulation of the Gazette talking about these issues is a small, but important step.

More please.

Class War Front Pages

One of the great things about Class War the newspaper was its front covers.

They made you think, made you laugh and even managed to sometimes capture the spirit of the time. Phil Gard, who designed and printed several of the best CW covers, is giving a talk about them on Sunday 18 March at 2pm at the Calthorpe Arms, Grays Inn Road, Kings Cross.

It beats reading the Sunday Sun!

Islamic Awareness Week Bingo

This is Islamic Awareness Week at Universities across the country.

I like to play ISOC Bingo at these events, trying to spot the most dubious and unpleasant leaflet in amongst the slick salesmanship and cups of tea. Congratulations should go to the University of East Anglia's Islamic Society for managing to slip some Saudi titles in amongst the usual Islamic Dawah Centre International material. I look forward to reading "Human Rights in Islam and Common Misconceptions" by Abdul-Rahman AlSheha writing from that shining beacon of human rights - Riyadh.

But what's this - bingo! Unpurged from the dawah leaflets is Dr Zakir Naik's contribution on "Islam and Terrorism." Memo to all University ISOCs - when trying to distance non-Muslims from any association they may have in their minds of Islam with terrorism and extremism, perhaps it is not a good idea to distribute leaflets written by a man banned from the UK by the Home Secretary for being............well a little bit extreme.

The theme of this Islamic Awareness Week is love. Go on You Tube and listen to Dr Zakir Naik - there's not a lot of love to be found, but there is certainly some hate! Just to finish, here is Islamic Awareness Week's expert on terrorism on why "9/11 was an Inside Job".

 

Wot No Anarchists?

The quote below is from today's Telegraph Review, where amongst the book reviews Dan Jones considers Paul Preston's work on the Spanish Civil War and its fascist butchery, The Spanish Holocaust.

Jones writes:

"Ernest Hemingway, George Orwell and the rest sent back graphic dispatches from the front line, and their work has left the historical impression that Europe's first open war between fascists and the combined forces of communism, socialism and social democracy was well covered and understood. Yet away from the eyes of the war reporters, argues Paul Preston, there was another Spanish Civil War, in which thousands of civilans were systematically murdered, and their deaths subsequently obscured".

Whilst accepting his latter point, the former is a re-writing of history. In this analysis, all those Anarchists in Barcelona and much of southern Spain must have been a figment of the imagination. I do hope that Preston's book is considerably better than Jones' summary above!

Kingsland Basin: Surrounded On Three Sides

I took the picture below at Kingsland Basin, just off the A10 Kingsland Road, recently.

It shows the area for canal boats run by the Canals In Hackney Users Group (CHUG) What is also noticeable when you are there is that the boats are now boxed in on three sides by new build developments, such as Kingsland Wharves.  I could work for two whole lifetimes and not be able to afford a family property in one of these developments, but then again they are not aimed at the likes of me.

The effect of these changes is already noticeable on nearby Downham Road, where the Duke of York is gone. The local (mostly) black faces in that pub have been replaced in the new bar and 'kitchen' by white twenty somethings.

In the long term I fear for Hackney, and what this area will be like in twenty or thirty years time. My guess is that it will be mostly populated by the wealthy, city workers plus young artists and musicians, broken up by pockets of those so helpless (or hopeless) even Hackney Council will not be able to wriggle out of supporting them. And in between that - there will be no one.

Today's Look-Alike: Moazzam Begg and Welf Herfurth?

My picture below shows the cover of British Islamist Moazzam Begg's memoir "Enemy Combatant: A British Muslim's Journey To Guantanamo and Back".

It is followed by the cover of German-Australian fascist Welf Herfurth's memoir "A Life In The Political Wilderness".

Could they by any chance be related?

The Tommy Robinson Show

Some comments on last nights Proud and Prejudiced documentary on Channel 4, which profiled local Islamist Sayful Islam, and English Defence League leader Tommy Robinson, in their home town of Luton.

Whenever I want to know about events in Luton, I usually phone some of the old Class War members in the town. After the 2009 booing of the Royal Anglian Regiment by Al-Mujihiroun I was quickly told that shariah was not about to be declared in the town "its the same 20 idiots who have been giving out leaflets in Luton town centre for years".

The description of Tommy Robinson is also one that has stayed with me:

"The problem with Tommy Robinson is that you and me could do Tommy Robinson far better than he does Tommy Robinson" - in other words the act of merely being opposed to Islamist extremism is good, but not what it could be.

In last nights programme, he probably did Tommy Robinson as well as it ever could be done. At times his arguments were sophisticated - talking (albeit clumsily) about that must uncomfortable of subjects demographics for example. Claiming that multi-culturalism has not failed, it is just religion that has failed, outflanks at a stroke a whole series of political actors from David Cameron and Angela Merkel to Nick Griffin (who was grumbling away on Twitter about that very point)
The claim that multi-cultural society actually works pretty well save for areas like Bury Park is one with its adherents - all usually unrepresented by mainstream political discourse.  The difficulty is that including most EDL members in those with a broadly positive view of multi-culturalism is being generous.

Sayful Islam was interesting in that his focus was on his religion and obtaining shariah. We should be wary of those trying to style al-Mujihiroun and its successor groups as solely political actors - their goals and the core of their practice are religious, and they are just as much a part of British Islam as its nice, cuddly adherents that get invited inside the big political tent. Whether they remain a tiny minority remains to be seen - as on any issue it is all to play for in the future. 

There are plenty of criticisms to be made of Proud and Prejudiced. Whilst Robinson's racism eventually bubbled through the surface in his stupid comments about Anders Brevik or as he fled from to Limehouse to avoid arrest, the EDL's proposed hook up with those well know purveyors of multi-culturalism the British Freedom Party went unexplored. It is possible that may well be the death knoll for the EDL - social movements tend to lose some of their magic when they enter into the formal political arena.

Equally Tommy Robinson was allowed to make the curious claim he had been to a BNP meeting in 2004 but was unhappy at them not admitting black people (presumeably from Luton's football firm) yet the EDL's origins in those who provided security for Luton BNP meetings has been well discussed by the likes of Larry O'Hara in Notes From the Borderland magazine. Disappointingly Qadeer Baksh from Luton Islamic centre was styled as a 'moderate' - compared to how Sayful Islam presents himself he may be, but they could just as easily have been portrayed as  competing sides of the same Salafi coin. Indeed some of the deeply unpleasant views circulated from Luton Islamic centre are in the public domain.

I have long argued that the EDL are a distraction from what will become one of the big issues in British public life - the role - if any - for Islam in this society. Those debates will intensify - with or without Tommy Robinson.

 

The British Liberal and Religion: A Paradox

Battling through yesterdays Telegraph Review, I came across a two page feature on Lloyd Newson's "Can We Talk About This" a dance production scheduled to run at the National Theatre from March 9th to 28th.

Newson's work looks at the clash between Western values of freedom of expression and the rise of Islamism in the West, and covers the era from the Rushdie affair to the murder of Dutch artist Theo Van Gogh. What struck me about the article was how closely Newson's experiences matched some of my own, both around the British left and within academia. He states:

"A lot of my liberal friends are very happy to criticise Catholicism, Christianity and Judaism but when it comes to Islam, it feels as though all the same principles are disregarded."

And that is one of the great paradoxes of our age......

Still Looking Into The Shadows: Lobster Issue 62 – December 2011 Reviewed

I was a fanatical reader of Lobster, the UK’s first journal of parapolitics, which ran in print form from 1983 to summer 2009. 

Since that winter it has been available twice a year as a downloadable pdf, something that I must admit rather cooled my enthusiasm. You can’t read theory on line, indeed I would go as far as to venture that you cannot read seriously online.  A few articles, a newspaper piece, a blog update – yes, but anymore than that does not seem to work. If someone bought me a Kindle I would give it back, even though deep down I know that we will all, eventually, be bounced into buying them by certain titles only being made available in that format.

Online Lobster is perhaps a curious beast. Issue 62 opens without any contents page or opening comments from editor Robin Ramsay, although the titles of the articles are listed on the front cover. The large font size makes it easier to read on-line, but is less practical for someone who quickly wants to print an article, or the whole thing, out. Don’t try this at home, as the saying goes.

One of the characteristics with this issue of Lobster is how Political (with a capital P) it is. The first two articles – William Clark on what he terms the ‘Cuntocracy’ and Dr T.P Wilkinson on the Tottenham riots and the era of George Soros shout at you in a way the print Lobster rarely did. Throw enough darts and you do eventually hit the bullseye – Wilkinson’s second article, on the manufactured figure of President Ronald Reagan contains a marvellous aside about Barack Obama’s lack of any political history. To see Obama as a synthetic figure, mentioned in the same breath as Reagan, is long overdue. Of Obama’s Presidential campaign, Wilkinson talks of a man “whose entire campaign relied on the illusion that there was a mass movement to which he did not even belong” (p.21) – has anyone summed up Obama better?

Some articles are still pure Lobster. Take T.J Coles on how the RAF attempted to interfere with the weather, leading to suggestions the Lynmouth flood of 1952 was man-made. This leads into a much wider consideration of weather modification as a method of warfare, and the restrictions that have been placed upon it. Old stagers also remain – Corinne Souza appears to have been writing on spook PR since I was in short trousers – although by covering the arrival and departure of Gadaffi’s spymaster Moussa Koussa she brings back to our attention a murky period in recent MI6 history. 

It is still the case that the most cogent pieces in Lobster are those written by editor Robin Ramsay. His assessment of twenty plus years of the UK’s ever changing relations with Libya rather falls flat however  – it is too short and ends before it gets going. Better is his analysis of the economic crisis and the problem it presents the Labour Party, which for a good 25 years has accepted the City as a force for good, and manufacturing as so ‘last century’. I had long forgotten Labour’s Bryan Gould – Ramsay takes us back to 1987 and Gould’s analysis which called for tougher action against bankers, and a Labour economic strategy in support of the domestic economy as opposed to the international. Gould’s arguments fell and stony ground within Labour (even though he had the initial interest of Neil Kinnock) and he eventually took his bat and ball home to his native New Zealand. Perhaps it is time Gould himself, or someone close to him, re-released his analysis? Those on the Labour left, such as Owen Jones, who at least appear interested in thinking differently from new Labour orthodoxy, may wish to consider it.

 View From the Bridge remains Lobster’s highlight. Ramsay’s asides are often spot on politically, and as a source for stories you may have missed in the previous six months, there are few better. Importantly Ramsay is aware – on topics such as Carroll Quigley or the Bilderberg Group, that material can be ‘contaminated’ by conspiracy theorists, but that does not mean the issues themselves should be ignored permanently.

 Here there is – at last – critical comment on the passing of Prof Paul Wilkinson, the doyen of UK Terrorism Studies researchers. Ramsay may not always have the energy to pick through contemporary issues, but when stirred on past events is often exemplary – his recall of Wilkinson’s role in smearing army whistleblower Colin Wallace brings much needed balance to some of the hagiographic obituaries since Wilkinson’s death in 2011. That Wilkinson lost his role as terrorism analyst to ITN for trying to foist dodgy information about Wallace onto Channel 4 should not be forgotten. 

Elsewhere Tom Easton reminds us of the importance of alumni of the British American Project to not just the Labour party but the BBC, whilst the book reviews either make you want to go out and buy the book (Robert Green’s book on his aunt Hilda Murrell) or make you wonder if the reviewer could be bothered to read more than the introduction (Anthony Frewin on Mark Olden’s Murder In Notting Hill). John Newsinger’s analysis of former BP Chief Lord Browne saddens and infuriates at the same time. How many students, struggling to pay tuition fees, know the lineage of the man who headed the Committee employed to draft higher education reforms?

The review of Ken Livingstone’s memoir prompts the (probably accurate) assessment that he will leave no real legacy, something Simon Matthews explains – at least in part – to the political commitment Livingstone and others have had to regionalism, as opposed to a civil service/Treasury Home Counties domination of our politics. Matthews has the basis of a good future article in that very argument, yet it is worth noting that new Labour tried regionalism, with a referendum on a North East regional parliament – and it was soundly defeated.

In conclusion, if you can cope with reading a download rather than an actual bit of paper, Lobster remains important, with food for thought on (most) of its pages. I would still prefer a magazine though…..

 

Anti-Fascism In Nazi Germany

Of all the anti-fascists to make a stand, perhaps the bravest are those who did so in Nazi Germany.

Jean Julich was one of the Edelweiss Pirates, teenagers who rebelled against Nazi society, and physically fought the Hitler Youth, at great cost to themselves. Jean died in October last year aged 82, but I have only just come across this excellent obituary from the Telegraph of 7 February 2012. It is a tremendous testament to the ability to resist.

The 'Independent' Police Complaints Commission: An Apology of an Organisation

The quote below is a couple of weeks old, but nothing sums up the IPCC more than its practice.

As an entity, it should not have survived the De Menezes affair in 2005. It then proved itself incapable of dealing with the killing of Ian Tomlinson in 2009. Come the shooting of Mark Duggan by the Metropolitan Police in August 2011 - hey what a surprise, the IPCC was in over its head. To know why, we should perhaps consider the quote below, from Andy Halliday, the team manager of the GB Men's Hockey team. Halliday was formerly a public order training and firearms training instructor with the Metropolitan Police, and was part of the team of officers who shot dead Jean Charles de Menezes at Stockwell tube station in 2005.

Profiled in The Sunday Times on 22 January 2012, Halliday said this:

"It seems extraordinary, looking back, that I had my interview with the Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC), where I expected a grilling for a number of hours on the Menezes case, on the same day in 2005 as I had my interview for the England hockey under-21 manager. I was in with the IPCC for about five minutes and I was with hockey for about an hour and a half thoroughly grilled by the performance director. "

So the IPCC spoke for just five minutes to an officer who entered the tube train where De Menezes were shot, and he faced tougher grilling for a job teaching jolly hockey sticks.

The IPCC should be abolished.

Ziauddin Sardar and Hajj Diplomacy

I spent an excellent afternoon yesterday at the British Museum's exhibition "Hajj: Journey To The Heart of Islam".

Going at half-term was possibly a mistake - the event was clearly at maximum capacity, but I just about got to see everything. If you go, I would recommend getting the exhibition's book, edited by Venetia Porter. Coming in a at a whopping £25 in the museum bookshop, it is a more agreeable £16.32 on Amazon, and contains pretty much everything in terms of pictures, artwork and analysis that you see as you go round.

Amongst the chapters we have British Muslim intellectual Ziauddin Sardar weighting in with the "Hajj After 1950". This period sees the rapid expansion of pilgrimage, as factors such as the development of the jet engine and coach travel, the Islamic resurgence and Saudi oil money dramatically alter both supply and demand.
Anyone who has read Sardar's excellent "Desperately Seeking Paradise: Journeys of a Sceptical Muslim" will be aware of his work at the Hajj Research Centre, carrying out analysis on the effects of millions of pilgrims travelling to Saudi Arabia. The work of these British exiles briefly brought them into conflict with construction company the Bin Laden Group “as zealous in its development work as it was in its religious outlook” (p.133) In time Sardar was to be repelled by the commercialisation and over-development at the country’s religious sites.

As might be expected from an exhibition sponsored by (amongst others) the King Abdulaziz Public library in Riyadh, there is no mention of the Bin Laden group's sterling work on re-developing Mecca. And whilst Sardar's chapter tells us much about concern for the environment, or new extensions and development work to the Kingdom's religious sites, and even the Saudi Princes overseeing such work, there is diplomatically no mention whatsoever of the company who actually did that work.

The Bin Laden group is placed, for western public consumption at least, firmly behind the scenes.

 

An Anti-Fascist Archive

A new blog to check out is Anti-Fascist Archive, which looks to bring together historical documents from the militant anti-fascist tradition in the UK.

Posted at the moment is a video promoting the Anti-Fascist Action book Beating The Fascists, the old BBC2 documentary on Anti-Fascist Action from 1992, local anti-fascist bulletins from Manchester and Leeds, several issues of the Manchester United fanzine Red Attitude and a full set of Fighting Talk, the journal of Anti-Fascist Action.

I have most issues of Red Action from when it became a magazine, but only two or three copies of Red Action the newspaper. Whilst the small font on the centre pages used to give me a headache, I would like to read some old RA papers. Lets hope they follow!

Of Greens, Deep Greens and Terrorism

In the 1990s, the UK, very briefly, enjoyed a unique period in its modern history.

For a little while at least, Britain appeared to lack an enemy. Communism had been defeated, collapsing in on itself. The Irish peace process, whilst experiencing fluctuations was at making the possibility of a world without Northern Ireland terrorism possible. No one had heard of Al Qaeda or the Taliban, and few, outside of Foreign Office Arabists or his London associates, of Osama Bin Laden.

Perhaps not surprisingly, some began to look rather crititically at the police Special Branches, and in particular at the domestic security service, MI5, and the Secret Intelligence Service, MI6. Who were these guys? What did they get up to? And how did they manage to spend so much of our money doing it? Whether related to such questions or not, these actors suddenly began to branch out, offering their expertise in other areas. The danger of emerging Russian organised crime (to take just one example) was presented as a mortal threat to our communities, and MI5 began to target alleged British gangsters such as Paul Massey in Salford. 

Suddenly we were being told in the media that the UK was awash was the potential threat of domestic terrorism. Be it from the far-right (who remembers Combat 18?) from the Animal Liberation Front, to deep greens and environmentalists. There was even a nasty World In Action hit piece on anti-fascists, never mind the usual scare stories about Anarchists. One of the few people to really research all this at the time, certainly in book form, was Larry O'Hara in his 1994 "Turning Up The Heat: Mi5 After the Cold War" - others, at some stage will no doubt follow. I certainly intend to.

Many of 'green terrorist' scares in the UK came courtesy of the Sunday Times. Eventually sustained police action followed the media, leading to the failed prosecution of the Green Anarchist group in the Gandalf Trial. I am not as familiar with the environmental movement in the United States, so do not know if the US political fringe experienced a similar odysessy in the early to mid 1990s. What did happen in the United States is a much more substantive radical environmentalist movement emerged, for example in the shape of the Earth Liberation Front.

On Monday 13 February at 10pm BBC4 is showing Marshall Curry's documentary "If A Tree Falls - A Story of the Earth Liberation Front" which covers the ELF, its actions and the states response to it. This is part of BBC2's Storyville series.

In teaching Terrorism Studies, one of the tools I have used in recent years has been to get students to consider groups like the Animal Liberation Front or SHAC and ask - is this terrorism? Is there a line where political violence is crossed,  and terrorism begins?
This attempts to circumvent the rather sterile formula of students struggling with the countless definitions of terrorism and going round and round in circles chipping at them, as it allows the discussion of actual recent cases. Marshall Curry's documentary takes a similar path - it focuses on ELF activist Daniel McGowan and the arson attacks he was accused of.

Over to you. Is this terrorism?

Matt Salusbury on Spooks and Sinners

Last week Her Majesties Inspectorate of Constabulary published a review of the police 'domestic extremism' intelligence gathering units.

The best assessment I have read of this so far comes from freelance journalist Matt Salusbury, who deserves a more serious location for his writing than his own blog, and the odd outing in Fortean Times. I am not sure that this blog provides such a platform, but I do encourage my readers to consider his analysis.

Talk To South London Anti-Fascists - Weds 25 January

It's time I put the text of my speech to the South London Anti-Fascist Group's AGM online.

The talk nearly did not happen. Much to my surprise, Hope Not Hate objected to me speaking, describing my presence as 'intolerable'. Hope Not Hate's predecessor organisation, Searchlight, long enjoyed a monopoly over media coverage of the far-right - it is worrying if Hope Not Hate believe they have a similar monoply over analysis of fascism, or even of opposition to it?

Anyway, after the AGM's business those present had a talk by Hackney Unites on their work in east London, and performances by Dean Atta and the Ruby Kid. That gave me the most difficult slot of all - the last one. Here's what I said:

Talk To South London Anti-Fascists

I am slightly embarrassed at being described as an activist. I'm as active as anyone with 3 part time jobs, twin sons and a PhD to finish.

I was very active for best part of two decades, a member of Class War for 16 years, I was involved with Anti-Fascist Action on an occasional basis (those who remember Red Action will know Anarchists were always kept in reserve for when the numbers were short, we were the auxillary force) and a founder member of No Platform and Antifa.

If I have theme this evening it is that things are very different today to 1992 or 1993 – but in some ways they can still be rather similar.

In 1993 anti-fascists had to contend with a large, fluid group of disparate young men, ostensibly protesting about terrorism. Their numbers certainly contained organised fascists, loyalists and ex-soldiers, but also from football firms, people with little or no political background, and people looking for a scrap. Those anti-IRA demonstrations – the cries of No Surrender – were the precursors of the EDL demonstrations of today.

Those demonstrations passed.  Indeed they were a distraction from doing what was necessary – reaching a mature peace in Ireland.  And the EDL are a similar distraction

Back in October 2009 on my blog I argued there were 3 dangers in the emergence of the EDL:

1. The first is that they will stimulate racist attacks - either on lone Muslims on the fringes of demonstrations, or as we have seen in Luton in an attack on a mosque.
2. That EDL actions will stimulate racist attacks by Muslims on whites. At the counter-demo to the EDL in Birmingham at least one white passer by was beaten up, with footage of the incident displayed across the papers.

With hindsight, there are other dangers we could perhaps add, although I have to say the idea of the EDL as an electoral force conjoined with the British Freedom Party is one that at this stage I don’t fear. Social movements tend to lose something, some of their sparkle when they try and become political parties.

3. The third danger I saw, which is by far the biggest, is that the EDL retard debate about Islam, and more importantly Islamism, in the UK.  There is something different potentially about the EDL to the anti-IRA – read anti-Irish -  demonstrations of the 1990s.

Lets consider where the EDL emerges – in Luton – following the Al-Mujihiroun demonstration against the Royal Anglian Regiment. Historically Luton is a town with comparatively good race relations. It has good relations between white and black, and good relations between Irish and British. It has very poor relations between Muslim and non-Muslim. Those problems long predate the EDL.

In 2009 I argued the presence of the EDL runs the risk of dividing debate into racists on one side, and professional anti-racists and Muslim representative organisations  on the other, with little or no space for anyone else to operate in.  Melanie Phillips on one side and the Muslim Council of Britain on the other. And that divide excludes the vast majority of people in this community, and indeed the UK. 

There is a problem, for people on the left, in considering issues in those terms. Look at the hysterical reactions from some on the left when, I think it was Nick Lowles, made the comment that Al-Mujihiroun and the EDL were two sides of the same coin. It was hardly a bizarre comparison to make.

There are problems, and indeed real concerns with some of the brands of Islam we now see in the UK. In Tower Hamlets, the most important political institution is not the Labour Party, trades unions or a particular community group - it is East London Mosque. How we articulate and discuss these issues is an even bigger challenge than dealing with the EDL. They are another distraction from where we want to go, from where we want society to be.

I want to say a few things about multi-culturalism. It is something I suspect everyone in this room is comfortable with. As an Englishman of Irish descent with an African wife, I know I am. A London where we get on with our neighbours and our workmates precisely because they are our neighbours and colleagues. That gives us shared interests and things in common.  A multi-culturalism where we see people as people, not as representatives of particular ethnic or religious groups, to be spoken to and interacted with on those terms.

I don’t usually see the need to articulate most of the problems of London in racial terms. That is not to say racism does not exist – it does. But there are two types of multi-culturalism. Kenan Malik’s attack on a top down multi-culturalism, where identities are imposed by authorities – read his book From Fatwa to Jihad – is I think essential reading. He sets out how in Birmingham identities were imposed, by the local authority, and funding and power allocated on that basis. And within two decades, you have blacks and Muslims fighting each other in the streets. In the 1980s they had been fighting alongside one another against the police.

Onto the contemporary far-right. As in the early 1990s, the main far right party is underachieving. The spivvy nature of Griffin’s BNP has been understood by his own supporters, taking a lot of his base away. Griffin’s sole priority is probably to get re-elected as an MEP – those who have served two terms in the European Parliament get a very significant pension. It is hard, but not impossible to see him getting the BNP back to where it was.

These are still challenging times though for anti-fascists. I would recommend to you some of the work Matthew Goodwin of Nottingham University has done on far-right voting patterns and opinion poll data across Europe. In most countries the populist (read fascist) party has a rising vote – Norway and the UK being the most noticeable exceptions. It is not hard to see why the vote is collapsing in Norway – in Anders Breivik, they have seen fascism in action. In France and Austria the majority of white working class voters indicated they would vote for the ‘populist’ party.

I am not sure anything about a trend ensures its continuation. To me, a whole series of dangers exist, but one of the most dangerous is to play into the hands of fascists. If there is such a thing as ‘the black community’ or the ‘Vietnamese community’ or the ‘Muslim community’, with fixed leaders, structures and needs, can we really wet our pants in shock and distress when someone says “I represent the white community vote for me”?

Yes we need multi-culturalism. It is what I live. But we need a bottom up multi-culturalism, not a top down government approach that plays into the hands of our enemies.

No Platform, which I tried to uphold for two decades, is harder than ever to implement. Firstly because of police repression – consider the six Antifa members jailed last year, the amount of CCTV, the limitless expenses these specialist police units seem to have. Secondly look at the rise of social media and the Internet – the BNP could be prevented from leafleting, but that same leaflet placed online and seen by hundreds of people within minutes. Which makes no platform more of an occasional tactic than part of a sustainable, permanent programme.

We have to beat the fascists in argument. And we can. Our ideas are better than theirs.

Thank you for listening. 

Egypt: Rewriting History?

History is written by two groups - the victors, and the middle classes.

I am reminded of this following an interview/book review with Egyptian author Ahdaf Soueif, by Julie Tomlin, in the current issue of the Camden New Journal. Ms Soueif, who divides her time between Cairo and London has a book to promote "Cairo My City, Our Revolution" and talks wearily of the 'betrayal' of the Egyptian revolution by the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF).

What did annoy me was this little quote from Ahdaf Soueif's interview, where she states:

"The fact that people could act with such unity; that a civilian population could, unarmed and non-violent, force the removal of the head of a corrupt and brutal regime was a general cause for optimism."

She was a lot closer to the action than I was. But anyone following the news this time last year could see that the Egyptian people were anything but non-violent. How else can you describe the pitched battles in and around Tahrir Square between Mubarak's supporters and those who wanted change? How else do we account for the presence and perhaps critical involvement of Egyptian football hooligans in the fighting in Cairo against forces loyal to the dictatorship?

The good news is that the anti-Mubarak forces won, at least in terms of the battles of Tahrir Square. As the dust settles, it seems probable that they won the battle but lost the war. But that is no need to re-write history. I do hope Ahdaf Soueif's book is better than the interview suggests............

 

East London Advertiser: The Poor Pay More Than The Rich?

The East London Advertiser is now re-named the Docklands and East London Advertiser. It is the dominant local newspaper in Tower Hamlets, but also sells well in Hackney and Newham.

Many years ago George Orwell outlined how the poor pay more for goods than the rich. The wealthier you are, the easier it is to buy in bulk, and therefore to buy more cheaply. Two loafs of bread are often cheaper, in real terms, than one. A modern variant of this is where the wealthy pay less for the same item than others - for example the student discounts given at take aways and clothes shops to usually middle class students living in many inner city areas.

Another example exists in east London. Buy the Docklands and East London Advertiser in Hackney, Newham or Tower Hamlets at your local newsagent, and you will be charged 60 pence. Go to Canary Wharf, and amble down any of the shopping malls - and the East London Advertiser is free.

Clearly those working in Canary Wharf are considered more valuable customers than those living in the heart of east London?

Anarchist Studies Conference 3-5 September 2012

The last Anarchist Studies Conference was in 2008 at Loughborough University - and very good it was too.

An appeal is now going out for session organisers for a second conference, to be held later this year - again at Loughborough. It is below - those who want to put a suggestion forward should so by the end of January.

We live in interesting times. The Arab Spring, Occupy X and anti-austerity protests are only the latest and most visible examples in a long tradition of grassroots social movements in which ordinary people create democratic alternatives to hierarchy and inequality. Here and everywhere, people are getting together and making connections between their own everyday experiences and wider patterns of relationships and power, official and unofficial. They (or we) are making connections with each other, personal and political. New patterns evolve as people experiment with different ways of organising, of relating, of connecting, of thinking. Scholars, artists and activists observe, theorise and participate in various ways, helping to make connections, both in social movements and in the movements of everyday life. Feminists, in particular, have foregrounded intersectional approaches to power, privilege and oppression. Race, class and gender; sexuality, ecology and (dis)ability; age, species and faith -- each of these and more interconnect in numerous ways, both subtle and overt.

The Anarchist Studies Network (http://anarchist-studies-network.org.uk) is hosting a conference to acknowledge, celebrate and deepen these diverse efforts to understand and transform our world, our lives. We want this conference itself to be a space for making connections, both intellectual and personal. It will include a blend of more or less traditional panels, participatory discussions and experiential workshops, extended breaks and social events. This first call is an invitation to propose thematic streams, workshops or panel topics by those who are willing to take a role in organising them. Further calls will invite papers, participation, performance. We're particularly keen to make connections across borders of identities, movements, disciplines and practices. We invite contributions from students, academics and unaffiliated researchers, activists and artists, health practitioners and care workers, trade unionists, community organisers and those without labels. Above all, we would like to nurture a convivial atmosphere in which to make connections with others, explore areas of both overlap and difference, create or simply meet, to learn and to share.

Our intention is for this to be a scholarly conference with a difference. Scholar means both student and teacher. By bringing together a diverse group of participants, who share in common a desire to learn and a commitment to acknowledging and creating alternatives to rigid hierarchies and exploitative relationships, we hope that each of us will have something to offer others and much to learn. The process of organising the conference is decentralised, with the conference initiators welcoming proposals from a diverse range of session organisers covering a wide variety of engaged and engaging topics. We also invite session organisers to consider playful, participatory and/or experimental panel and workshop formats. This might range from a traditional three paper panel followed by a discussion using alternative facilitation techniques (e.g., open space technology, fishbowl, or sitting in a circle with a facilitator) to more interactive workshop-style discussion or experiential sessions. Our intention is not to be transgressive for the sake of it, but to encourage a variety of methods in order to facilitate making connections.

If you're interested in organising a stream or a session but are new to the role, feel free to contact us for advice about what this is likely to involve (you can also see how the 1st Anarchist Studies Network Conference in September 2008 was organised by linking to the following web page, where thematic streams and their organisers are indicated in bold print: http://www.anarchist-studies-network.org.uk/documents/Final%20Schedule.pdf). Likewise, if you'd like to do something a bit playful or different, but are not sure how or just need a little advice, please get in touch. Finally, if you are keen to be involved in a session, but not wanting to take on the responsibility of organising one, let us know and we'll see if we can match you up.

Occupy X
* Race & Radical Politics
* The Arab Spring
* Anarchism & Feminism
* Embodiment & Practices of Freedom
* Anarchist/Queer
* Alternatives to Capitalism
* Direct Democracy in Action
* Revolutionary Theory and Practice
* Science, Technology and Ecology
* Non-Western Anarchisms
* Anarchism and Utopianism
* Class-Struggle Politics and Anarcho-Syndicalism
* Anarchist History
* Anarchism & Religion
* Post-anarchism
* Anarchy and Education
* Politics & Emotion
* Art, Literature & Social Transformation
* (Dis)ability
* Nurturing Autonomy
* Zapatismo, Via Campesina
* Borders, Walls & Fences
* Spaces of Resistance

And others we've not yet thought of. We welcome surprises. Please send your proposals (no more than 500 words) by 31st January 2012 to Alexandre Christoyannopoulos <a.christoyannopoulos@gmail.com> and Ruth Kinna <R.E.Kinna@lboro.ac.uk>.

With warm regards,
Conference Initiators

Matthew Adams, Alexandre Christoyannopoulos, Laurence Davis, Oisín Gilmore, Jamie Heckert, Petar Jandric, Ruth Kinna, Alex Prichard, Chris Rossdale & Matt Wilson

MediaCity Salford: Locals Need Not Apply?

Many years ago Class War's Ken Keating commented on redevelopment in Salford, and argued that it would in practice not bring jobs for local people - the companies that came "would bring their own people with them".

Ken did not live to see the completion of the BBC's flagship MediaCity in Salford, but the figures seem to bear him out. Just 26 local people have been employed by the BBC - probably fewer than if a new Wetherspoons had been opened instead.

Speaking On The Far Right Today: Weds 25th January 7pm

South London Anti-Fascists have invited me to speak at their AGM in Clapham on Wednesday 25th January at 7pm. 

You can find more details here. These are challenging times for the far-right in Britain, and as such challenging times for anti-fascists. The fascists traditional under achievement, arrested by Nick Griffin, has returned, and the BNP now face the perfect storm of declining membership, financial scandals and emerging rivals on the right.
The English Defence League maintain a street presence and a degree of cultural resonance, but have to juggle vastly differing internal currents. All this to a backdrop that should provide fertile ground to fascists - economic decline, a weak coalition government, the European Union discredited like never before and reinvigorated debates, especially in London, about race, racism and multi-culturalism.

So, not much to talk about then? Do come along on the 25th.

Nazi Leaks

The current issue of the Jewish Telegraph has an article about the German website nazi-leaks.net which it says has published details from 11 websites from far-right groups. Nazi-Leaks are described as Anarchists and supporters of Julian Assange.

There leaks apparently include details from Blood and Honour here in the UK. All very interesting, but for reasons which are not explained we are told Nazi-Leaks is only vieweable in Germany. Has this information been made available anywhere else? If not, as this blog has at least one German based visitor could I ask he make himself useful for once by casting an eye across it?

A Happy New Year From Hackney Homes

On Saturday morning a charming new year missive from Hackney Homes landed on my doormat.

Dated 27 December 2011 (letters from them always take a long time to arrive, I think they must incubate on Mare Street) it announces an average rent increase from April of 7.08%. I am sure there are some Hackney residents who will recieve a 7% pay increase this year, but they will all live in new builds in the borough, not social housing. Indeed for the security work I do, basic rates of pay have remained the same since 2008.

Hackney Council loves to blame everyone but itself for large rent increases, telling us rent needs to change 'to achieve the government formula' by 2015/6. Just to illustrate this is nonsense, consider the increase in service costs Hackney has also implemented - an eye watering 6.1% for block cleaning, estate cleaning, communal lighting and concierge services. There are not many certainities in life, but one is that Hackney's concierges will not be getting a 6% pay increase - the Council is simply milking its residents again.

All of this is of course accompanied by a school dinners approach to services - you get what you are given. Under the Decent Homes programme I got a new front door. I did not ask for a new front door, I did not need a new front door, and there was nothing wrong with my old front door - but it was changed anyway. A government standard needs to be met, and someone I have never met decried that was one of the ways of doing it. If only the money spent on a front door had actually been spent on insulation in my kitchen, my flat might be warmer, and fuel bills lower. Still, why ask tenants what they need doing? We only pay the rent!

There are not many certainities in life - but one is that 2012 will see a lot more of this type of nonsense.

The Radical History of Hackney

Easy to forget when looking at Meg Hillier, Jules Pipe, Luke Akehurst,Diane Abbott and the Labour gang in Hackney, but this is one London borough with a truly radical history.

Archiving this, on an occasional basis, is The Radical History of Hackney, a blog where the radical pamphlets, leaflets and publications of yesteryear are placed online for us all to see. Todays post is on the Angry Brigade and Stoke Newington Eight. Other offerings cover the campaign against the first Gulf War, Class War, the Hackney Community Defence Association and local squatting campaigns.

Lets Hear No More From The Bishops

In 2011 we saw the Church of England divided about the issue of Occupy protestors on church land at St Pauls Cathedral. We have also seen the Bishop of London and Archbishop of Canterbury criticise the excesses of the City and bankers.

Let us hear no more from these hypocrites in 2012, and let us loudly denounce those gullible fools, from Occupy to Terry Eagleton, who would include sky pilots in the struggle for a better world. Lets us consider yesterday's Evening Standard, and its excellent City Spy column which talks of:

...the Church Commissioner's investment strategy of an "acceptable level of risk" to achieve "the best possible total return for the shares" they own which are worth £3.2 billion. They hold another £1.6 billion in commerical property.

As with any good capitalist institution though, the Church of England now concentrates its investment abroad (those English workers want too much money!)

In recent years they have scaled down their holdings in UK company shares and invested more in global company shares and private equity.

With assests of £4.8 billion, the Church of England could wipe out poverty in Britain at a stroke. They don't - because they don't want to. Having a rich and a poor, having 'good' works to do, is for the religious actor as natural as day and night. And as such, it is high time we realised they are not part of the solution - they are part of the problem.

 

 

 

Farefail: What Happened To Past Labour Promises?

Labour activists have been out across the region leafletting rail and tube stations about the terrible fare increases that have come into effect from today.

I have only two comments. Firstly did they not notice the significant increases that occured every year when Labour was in power, and particularly in London where Ken Livingstone looked to price people off the tube and onto buses?

Secondly those of us with long memories can recall Tony Blair being elected with a manifesto pledge to renationalise the railways. He did not do so. Why then, should we believe Labour commitments , such as Ken Livingstone's fares pledges, now?

Estimating Rip Off Britain

How much money is ripped off from consumers every year in ordinary, legal and legitimate capitalist enterprise? Often without them even noticing.

Estimates exist of how much money is lost each year through tax avoidance (figures beloved of the left) and how much money is lost each year through benefit fraud (figures beloved of the right). I know little of how estimates of tax avoidance are reached, but do know from my time in the Employment Service that the official figures on benefit fraud are greatly prone to exaggeration. Imagine that Miss Y is caught making a fraudulent claim in the first month of the financial year. Her claim is stopped and she is prosecuted. The powers that be assume that fraud would have continued for the remainder of the financial year, and calculate the money saved by the fraud officer to be equal to 12 months fraud. This ignores the possibility of Miss Y doing any of the things that could stop her claim -  dying, moving abroad, being sent to prison, or even forgetting to go and sign on. The structure encourages an inflation, not a deflation, of the sums. 

The Taxpayers Alliance and Adam Smith Institute have produced some fascinating figures on just how long the average worker has to work before they have paid their years income tax to the government, and when they have paid for the cost of regulation.  That such work appears to be the preserve of the political right, rather than the left, tells us all we need to know about why the last century left struggles for relevance, even at the height of this recession.

What is lacking though is an estimate of just how many days we have to work to pay for goods and services that are unfairly and unjustly levied, or that we do not even know we are paying for. The Con-Dems recent suggestion that they will act against credit card surcharges is one such example (presumeably New Labour never noticed this injustice in 13 years in office).

Last month my wife booked four tickets for us to take the boys to see Father Christmas at Westfield in Stratford. It was free, but there was a £1.50 booking fee to limit daily attendance to an agreed number. Only a week later, when printing out the email, did she notice she had also paid £16 to 'insure' our booking. This was not something we had asked for, we did not want it, but as she had failed to opt out when completing the order, we had accidentally purchased. Four minutes on the phone to an 0845 number (more revenue for the company concerned) and our insurance was cancelled - but how many people were caught out?

I have no idea how you would go about calculating such a figure, or even constructing an estimate. But it may well dwarf those hit by devious credit card charges................

Don't Worry, 2012 Will Be OK

Amongst my Christmas gifts was a hagiography of Barack Obama for teenagers, written by Tim Alexander.

I am assuming 'Barack Obama Hope For The World: Everything you wanted to know about the President, and more!' (Orion, 2009) was written as a deliberate attempt to provoke heart attacks and haemorrages across the US right - it is impossible to see what other purpose it serves. Think of a combination between a Jackie annual and the manifesto of a student union candidate, and you are about half way there.

As we enter 2012, there are a lot of things to be fearful of. Take your pick from continued recession, debt, the rise of restrictive technologies and new laws, the lack of credible political alternatives to the Con-Dems, the prospect of conflict between Israel, the US and Iran, religious extremism, ongoing climate change and overpopulation. But, it seems I am being pessimistic:

"Behind us there stands years of war, global warming, economic difficulties and inequality. Ahead there is the hope of peace, freedom and a world where men and women of different colours, beliefs, and religions can live in harmony. A genuine change is taking place and we have a front row seat. One man has stepped forward to bravely lead the world towards our future." (p.5)

The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo

Having now seen the first English language adaptation of Stieg Larsson's The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo - I can only recommend others go and see what is likely to be the film of 2012.

In terms of acting, the development of tension, occassional outbreaks of humour and genuine suspense, director David Fincher has done a remarkable job, although he was working from very strong source material.

Whilst his publisher styles Stieg Larsson as one of the world's foremost experts on the far-right, referring to him as such on the dustjacket of his books, I was never a fan of Larsson the man. His relationship with the anti-fascist magazine Searchlight (a malign influence in the UK anti-fascist movement in for a generation) attracts my suspicions. Larsson edited Searchlight's Swedish sister magazine Expo. I am also informed that even though Anarchists form the backbone of the anti-fascist movement across Scandanvia, Larsson made comments about such activists that were prejudicial and indeed stupid. A proper reassessment of his political work is overdue.

As a crime novelist however, I suspect Larsson will be regarded as unsurpassed - he is the man who left too soon.

Not My Cup Of Tea

Leonard Zeskind and Devin Burghart have a big article on the US occupy movement in the November issue of Gerry Gable's Searchlight magazine. I think it best to use the term Gable's Searchlight, as we know that former Searchlight editor Nick Lowles is launching his own magazine in the new year............

Zeskind and Burghart cover what they see as as the threat posed to the occupy movement by the Tea Party, supporters of Ron Paul and the conspiracy theories of Texas snake oil salesman Alex Jones. What is noteable about this thesis is however just how overpowering an organisation as diverse (and some might say contradictory) as the Tea Party is viewed as being by the authors. Take the hyperbole of this opening:

"For the past two+ years, the Tea Party movement has had a death grip on the American political discourse. The Tea Parties strangled any move towards an equitable system of single-payer health care. They dominated the November 2010 congressional elections. They came within a hair's breadth of driving the United States itself into insolvency".

And there was me thinking Barack Obama had been President of the United States since 2009! Indeed many of his supporters were at one point insisting Obama had delivered on healthcare, and that this would be seen as the key success of his Presidency!
This approach is a classic example of how political commentators give the ruling elite a get out of jail free card. Any failure of Obama to deliver in the United States is not the fault of the man himself, the Democratic Party or even the US economic system - we can instead blame those on the right who are criticising Obama, for 'impeding' change!

As important as it is to be aware of the likes of distractor flares like Ron Paul or Alex Jones, it should not mean people take leave of their critical faculties. If the US neared bankruptcy, perhaps Obama (and Bush before him) should have spent a little more wisely and a little less on defence projects? And perhaps Zeskind and Burghart could consider where the buck stops in the American political system, rather than attacking easy targets?

Is it too hard to accept that if President Obama has not been 'radical' in office, it might actually be because he was never radical in the first place?

Anarchist Studies: Colin Ward Issue Published

The new issue of Anarchist Studies (Vol 19, No.2) has landed on my doormat.

It is a special issue devoted to the later Anarchist writer Colin Ward, best known for his writing on housing and his attempt to put anarchist ideals into practice in the challenging circumstances of post War Britain. Ward's legacy is considered by Carl Levy, Peter Marshall, Pietro Di Paolo, David Goodway, Brian Morris, Carissa Honeywell, Robert Graham and Stuart White.

You can find out more online about Anarchist Studies, and the Anarchist Studies Network.

When Is A Political Prisoner Not A Political Prisoner?

.............When he or she is an Anarchist.

I guess at my age I should be too old to get annoyed by the Socialist Workers Party, or indeed by the wider socialist/marxist milieu in the UK, of which the SWP is representative. Every now and then however they still manage to press my buttons, in a way that it surprises me how much I can still rage at their idiocy and perversion of ideals.

The Socialist Worker website currently has an article and list of prisoners it suggests we write to over Christmas. It is a mixed list of those jailed in the student revolt, alleged and actual miscarriage of justice cases, plus a couple of examples of very long term prisoners who have been in correspondence with left wing groups for many years.

Needless to say the five anti-fascists still in UK jails for attacking members of the fascist Blood and Honour organisation in 2009, do not get a mention. I can think of no reason for this other than the fact they are Anarchists. They simply do not exist in Socialist Worker's ethos.

One thing that does exist in that rose-tinted view of the world is a 'war against Islam'. Curiously two of the men who were allegedly behind the most important British Jihadist website, Azzam.com are listed on the SWP's support list. Azzam.com, named after the spiritual founder of Al-Qaeda, Abdullah Azzam, played a key role in supporting the struggle to establish an Islamic theocracy in Chechnya, receiving praise from the likes of Ibn ul Khattab.

This article sums up the level the last century left has slumped to. Five working class men in jail for fighting Nazis on the streets of London are not worthy of a mention, yet a veteran of the Bosnian Mujahideen, like Babar Ahmad, is.

I have never really believed the argument that concepts of a 'left' and a 'right' in British politics are no longer relevant. However, on this type of evidence, and more generally on issues surrounding race and religion (especially Islam) I really can't see where the divide exists any more. That a division between the gullible and the realist exists, I am sure. How to articulate that it wider political terms, I am, at this stage, less sure about. Perhaps my PhD is a step towards doing that.

2012: Jean Vigo Coming To Our Cinema Screens

Forget Mission Impossible 24, or whatever Tom Cruise's franchise is up to now. January and February 2012 sees several UK cinemas showing L'Atalante, by the French Anarchist film maker Jean Vigo.

The British Film Institute's preview should hopefully garner your interest, although it sadly avoids any examination of Vigo's politics. For that - consider this overview from the Daily Bleed, and this copy of the now defunct Jean Vigo website.

Thanks to the ever patient Muriel for introducing me to the importance of Jean Vigo.

 

Christopher Hitchens Crossing Swords With The Enemy

As a tribute to to the late great Christopher Hitchens, my favourite Hitch clip:

 

Libya: The Things People Miss

I have only just come across this BBC piece from 31 August "Fears Over Islamists Within Libyan Rebel Ranks".

Written by Dr Omar Ashour of the University of Exeter, it contains two significant omissions. Whilst covering the re-emergence of Abdul Hakim Belhaj, who was known as Abu Abdullah al-Sadiq when he headed the jihadist Libyan Islamic Fighting Group, the author neglects to tell us that this gentleman, who's presence was apparently worrying Western governments - once lived happily in exile in the UK.

Secondly whilst we are told the LIFG attempted to kill Gaddafi in 1995 and 1996, and that Belhaj also served time in Gaddafi's jails, no mention is made of allegations that the 1996 plot was a joint enterprise between the LIFG and our very own Secret Intelligence Service, MI6.

Clearly if we all agree to not mention Londonistan, and forget that historically Britain has so often worked with Islamist actors against Nationalist, Socialist or Communist currents that 'threatened' our interests, everything will be alright.

Fingers crossed everyone!

1 in 12 Club Appeal Fund

Aside from activism, the Anarchist movement in the UK rather lacks things to be a part of, or to go too.

That is perhaps why Anarchist Centres like the 1 in 12 Club in Bradford are important - they provide a possible alternative to the routine of marching, leafletting and being followed by police officers with cameras. The last time I visited the 1 in 12 was in 2008, when I drove up London Class War's enormous collection of foreign language Anarchist material, which was given to the 1 in 12's library as a donation. Earlier years saw some marathon drinking sessions there with Wakefield Class War (RIP) although I have to say every band I ever saw play at the 1 in 12 was uniformly pisspoor!

All the more distressing then that the 1 in 12 club faces a series of threats, which could ultimately end in closure, due to actions by the Fire Brigade. Clearly the FBU has forgotten about all the Anarchists who hooted their support when the firemen were campaigning for a £30,000 salary! Freedom covers some of the particular assistence the club needs, but financial support is also required. The 1 in 12 sets out what you can do to help on their website - if you can, do so. Anarchism generally, but Bradford in particular, would be a poorer place without the 1 in 12.

Oh - and as a reminder of how long the club has been kicking fat Tory arse, here is the 1989 Pickles Papers, about Bradford Tory leader Eric Pickles, now better known as MP for Brentwood and Ongar and Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government.

Anarchism: It's About Laughing and Crying

What else can you do when you read a statement like this:

"Turritopsis Nutricula is a multi-gendered, multi-cultural, multi-generational collective of individuals with varied sexual orientations, subcultural affinities and favourite foods.  We are a
Revolutionary household.  By this we mean that we are opposed to police, prison, borders, racism, sexism, heterosexism, homophobia, transphobia, ableism, ageism, body-policing, speciesism, fascism, capitalism and any other form of oppression."

Apparently this collective is a week in to a squatted occupation in Seattle. You can read more details here. Oh, and a Turritopis Nutricula is apparently a jellyfish. They look a little like this: