racism | ukwatch.net

England, Britain and multiculturalism

tim — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 11:46:23 +0000

* Paul Kingsnorth: A clouded vision (a review of Ware’s Who Cares about Britishness)

* Vron Ware: A contested reality (a reply that assesses Kingsnorth’s Real England)

* Paul Kingsnorth: The heart of the problem

* Vron Ware: The climate and the choice

Paul Kingsnorth: A clouded vision

Ware lays her cards on the table in the first few pages. Britain, she writes, “may be a country, but it is not really a place”. When you come through the Channel tunnel, you are informed that you have arrived in England, and the signs at Heathrow welcome you to London. Britain is not a nation at all, but a composite of four nations. It has, she observes, “a standing army but not a football team. It has an anthem, a flag and a queen”, but no patron saint and no constitution. These are all good points, but Ware goes further. Britain, she reckons, is essentially rubbish. The most noticeable things about the Brits are their “flaws”: ‘they drink too much, swear too much, blame the government for everything and laugh at themselves when things get rough.” Pretty much the only good thing about this poor bloody country, in fact, is “its record of functioning multiculturalism.” In other words, the best thing about Britain is the bits that aren’t British.

What is it, then, apart from the political determination of its governing classes, which holds this messy historical accident of a nation together? What makes it what it is? This is the question that Ware is supposed to be answering, and to be fair to her it is a hard, perhaps an impossible, one. Just look at Gordon Brown’s floundering attempts to make “Britishness” sing in our hearts. Or, come to that, the words of his fellow-Celtic British nationalist Neil Kinnock (and chair of the British Council) who, in the book’s foreword, makes the usual liberal case for the historical illegitimacy of Britain (we’re a “mongrel nation”, the empire was bad, etc) but then flinches from the obvious conclusion and decides that, after all, Britishness is a good and necessary thing which just needs to be “re-invented” – perhaps, the reader may mischievously think, to get his beloved Labour Party out of a tricky political fix.

Ware has chosen to try and make her project work by using the device of asking foreigners – many of them from countries formerly colonised by Britain – what “Britishness” means. This is an intriguing idea and, in the right hands, could have yielded some fascinating results. And there are some intriguing nuggets in this book, gleaned from many conversations with immigrants now living in Britain and from people in other countries whose perspective on this hoary old debate can be refreshing.

Some of them are intriguingly counterintuitive. Ware interviews Tariq, a student from Lahore, Pakistan, who is studying for a PhD at Leeds University. He is astonished to see people wearing veils on the streets of Britain. Expecting to arrive in Brontë country he was surprised to see the city of Bradford’s council estates, and even more surprised to see Bradford itself. Tariq would prefer the Britain of the past – a Victorian nation of hard work and self-discipline, not the “benefit culture” he thinks it has become. He is astonished that British mosques are employing “crazy” imams from rural Pakistan who “would never get a job over there.” His British-Pakistani barber tells him to pray for his wife who is having trouble conceiving because he doesn’t trust doctors. “They are living in the Stone Age”, he says, shocked. He wants to go back to Pakistan because “it seems so primitive” in Britain. “This country”, he declares, “has a problem on its hands”.

The book could do with more of this kind of insight, from all sides of the debate. There are other examples – a man from Britain’s Chinese community, for example, complains to a Muslim friend that Muslims are getting all the media attention and the Chinese are being ignored. His friend tells him to be thankful. Roxana from Colombia observes that “London is a place for lonely people.” Ware asks Bano, a young Muslim woman from Blackburn, whether “a strongly defined national identity is a useful device for protecting and supporting minorities”. “Not if you keep calling us minorities”, Bano shoots back. Such ghettoisation, she insists, makes it much harder for anyone who isn’t white to ever feel British.

Bano’s objection to Ware’s question gets to the heart of the problem with this book: it is suffocatingly politically-correct (PC). So much so that it sometimes seems to have fallen through a wormhole in space in 1986 and emerged in the present day. Ware’s background is in writing anti-racist and feminist literature, and her reference-points – as she points out ad nauseam throughout the book – are in battles against the National Front circa 1979 and the strenuous defence of a very 1980s version of “multiculturalism”. Every few pages, it seems, we are treated to an anecdote in which she bravely stands up to fascists as a teenager in Buckinghamshire, or soapboxes about white western imperialism and the prejudice of the pasty-faced natives. Ware is not just agnostic about Britain and Britishness; she openly dislikes it. To her, Britain’s only saving grace is its population of foreigners. Not only that, but she seems to know very little about Britain as a place, as distinct from an idea (neither do most of her interviewees but they, unlike the author, have a pretty good excuse), save for a few London boroughs and a couple of northern industrial cities. Most of Britain, and most of its people, don’t even make an appearance.

The problem with this is twofold. First, Ware utterly fails to answer – or even, in most cases, ask – the question which the book’s title poses. Second, she is forced to skate over the many cracks which are currently appearing in Britain’s multicultural ideology – cracks which, ironically, are highlighted again and again throughout the book not by foaming, white-skinned Daily Mail columnists but by the very “minorities” who she is so convinced have been its beneficiaries.

Bano, in Blackburn, explains the problem well. Growing up in Sheffield, Bano – though aware of her Muslim and Asian heritage – always felt British. She went to an ethnically mixed school where people rubbed along. Then she moved to Blackburn aged fourteen and started at a school whose intake was 95% Asian. Suddenly, she says, she didn’t feel British anymore.

Bano’s point is clear to the reader, and painful to read: attending an “Asian” school, in which the teachers focused on her “Asian” identity, she felt immediately different to the rest of the country. She had been ghettoised. She was now a “minority” rather than just another British citizen. At this point, her friend Amar joins the conversation. “People live in an Asian ghetto, they go to the state school which is mostly Asian, they have their mosques … The system is designed like that”, he says. “In my day there were no ‘minority’ teachers, but I had a better experience … If you have to give up your identity as British, you will never belong.”

Bano and Amar have highlighted the painful paradox at the heart of the multicultural experiment: the act of defining people as “minorities” in order to better defend their rights also ghettoises them; sets them apart from the mainstream. A generation of this has led to areas of Britain in which ethnic and racial segregation are now a reality. Multiculturalism has led to less, not more, integration and more, not less, communal tension.

Yet Ware cannot see it. She is “surprised” by Bano’s story, and she doesn’t really take it anywhere. Instead, she falls back into her comfort-zone: “multiculturalism” (which she never, incidentally, defines) is a good thing because – well, because it just is. The unacknowledged contradictions are highlighted again when Peray, a Turkish Muslim woman, tells her of a “safer schools” conference she had attended. A member of the audience suggested that some young men needed to be told it was wrong to sexually harass women. Peray takes this as an “Islamophobic” slight and retorts that such things simply never happen in Muslim culture. Ware reports this approvingly: but who does she think she is helping by doing so? Some Muslim women in Britain suffer terribly at the hands of men whose actions are, whether Peray wants to admit it or not, tacitly or openly sanctioned by their communities in the name of culture or religion or both. Women’s refuges are full of them. For Peray, and Ware, to suggest that this is not the case does no-one any favours – least of all the most vulnerable people in society.

There were a number of books that could have been written here: a genuine inquiry into the nature of “Britishness”, perhaps; a spirited defence (starting with a definition) of multiculturalism; or an honest exploration of the pros and cons of life in multi-ethnic Britain. Ware seems to have tried to combine all three, and has ended up succeeding in none of them. By the end, all we are a left with is a frustrating series of questions.

If this is what Britain has come to, Gordon Brown is in even more trouble than we thought.

Vron Ware: A contested reality

I bought Paul Kingsnorth’s book Real England: the Battle Against the Bland (Portobello, 2008) a few weeks ago after reading a positive review of it. I was enthusiastic about his project of bringing an anti-globalisation perspective to the destruction of England’s distinctive environments as I also feel passionately about this. I have been writing about a particular English locality for ten years now, tracking the impact of global forces on every area of life. I’ve also been working on and against racism and nationalism, attentive to the past and future relationships between Britain and England. When I read him I realised that there are differences between us.

Now, Kingsnorth’s mean-spirited and inaccurate review of my book commissioned by the British Council, Who Cares About Britishness? A Global View of the National Identity (Arcadia, 2007) suggests that there is little common ground between us. Rather than just respond to his attack I’d like to assess his whole approach.

Kingsnorth employs the well-worn method of identifying the “real England” by travelling around the country to document a tale of damage, decline and neglect. The portrait of Englishness that he paints conveys a lament for better times, coupled with a reluctance to protest effectively at the destruction of “ways of life” and institutions that once developed out of local, English culture. I thought the book would also bring an added dimension, especially since George Monbiot’s recommendation on the front cover announces that the book “helps to shape our view of who we are and who we want to be”.

In particular, given his knowledge of the movement inspired by the World Social Forum I hoped he would combine an environmentalist rage with a critique of the racially coded nationalism which is often implicit in this genre of writing about England. Instead, he does not really address the question of who counts as English, and who the “we” are, talking vaguely of people “of all backgrounds”. The fact that he is prepared to define himself as a nationalist indicates that he is not interested in connecting his position to a discussion about the future of England as a post-colonial country at ease with itself and alive to the value of a cosmopolitan future.

The project of my book was entirely different, not least because Britishness is not an ethnic or cultural category that functions in the same manner as Englishness. Britishness is a construct with deep historical roots in the country’s imperial past, one that has left profound legacies in many parts of the world in the form of institutions, language, land ownership, and hierarchies of power. It made sense to travel outside Britain as well as within it, to see what could be learned about Britishness as a residual global concept.

I had two objectives in this project. First, I wanted to talk to young people in Britain whose opinions are rarely sought – those who had been migrants themselves or whose parents had migrated to Britain before they were born – to learn about and report on their experience and perspective. It was never my mission to go round to identify and learn about Britain itself “as a country”. I made this clear in the introduction, that Kingsnorth chooses to cite selectively to suit his own prejudices.

Second, I felt that it was important to learn from debates in other societies that had been marked by British rule – particularly debates about national identity. I was especially interested in how young people in those countries negotiated identities, whether political, cultural, sexual, religious or ethnic, often in situations far more difficult and dangerous than faced by their equivalents in Britain. A large part of the book entails listening to young women and men – in Bangladesh, Kenya, Pakistan, India and Ireland – struggling to define themselves within and beyond their nation-states. The signs are that there is a converging generation of young people in different parts of the world who are wary of nationalism in all its forms, having witnessed the catastrophic damage that it does to social and political life.

Kingsnorth wilfully misunderstands the scope of the book, and does not even attempt to discuss the second half. Very surprisingly for an anti-globalisation activist, for his own part he seems to have little interest in the idea of a global conversation. He is offended by my ironic summary of Britain’s shortcomings in my introduction, and misquotes me as saying that “Britain’s only saving grace is its population of foreigners”.

I find it significant that in his review he refers to people born and raised in the United Kingdom as “immigrants”. This suggests that he does not understand the stakes involved in interrogating terms like British or English. For example, he is so phobic about being seen to be anti-racist that he makes it clear he agrees with the “immigrant” view of what’s gone wrong with “multiculturalism”. For my part, I am not interested in defining this term because it means so many different things to different constituencies. The word is routinely used to denounce a range of past mistakes made precisely because there was no coherent governmental strategy to address racism and cultural diversity in the UK. By recounting a series of conversations with young British people I hoped to offer a glimpse of what it felt like to grow up in a society shaped by this confusion, representing a range of experiences that were unremarkable, positive, frustrating or difficult.

Kingsnorth is particularly irritated by one one of my interviewees, Peray, who dismisses a social worker who implied casually that Muslim culture endorsed the harassment of women by men. He is even more scornful of my failure to correct Peray by reminding her that “women’s refuges are full of Muslim women who suffer terribly at the hands of men”. Happily, in Britain violence against women is a crime whoever commits it. More important in this context, there is no evidence that Muslim women are disproportionately affected. Using culture as a stick to beat Muslims with is a familiar tactic among those who question their right to belong, whether in England or the whole of the UK – or in Europe for that matter.

Finally, for someone who claims to be an expert on England, Kingsnorth should know that Andover is in Hampshire, not Buckinghamshire (he should have heard of the campaign to block the siting of the Tesco mega-shed on the A303). And in damning my account of my run-in with the National Front on my home ground he betrays his impatience with a writing style not unlike his own: a mixture of polemic, dialogue, observation and reflection. The reason I traced the contours of anti-racist politics in the late 1970s and early 1980s is that I wanted to anchor the current discussions of Britishness within a historical context that is often forgotten and increasingly misrepresented.

Kingsnorth’s review clarifies what is so different about our respective efforts to engage in a political debate about Britain’s future. He finds my avowedly feminist and anti-racist perspective “suffocatingly politically correct”, which says more about his perspective than mine. He attempts to articulate a purified form of English nationalism, paying scant attention to the untidy, complex and contested history of racism. In my view this makes his enthusiasm to identify “the real England” appear opportunistic and shallow.

Paul Kingsnorth: The heart of the problem

My review of Vron Ware’s book Who Cares About Britishness? has evidently upset the author. I can’t deny a twinge of guilt: as a fellow-writer, I know the frustration of a bad review, and the things it can make you say. So I’m not surprised to read Vron’s retaliation about me, my review and indeed my own book, Real England, on OurKingdom.

I don’t respond from pique, but because this is, at heart, a crucial debate about the future of England and Britain, and about two competing understandings of what constitutes “belonging”. More than anything else, perhaps, it is about how that dread term “multiculturalism” has, in my view, undermined a shared sense of community in both England and Britain, and continues to do so.

Let’s start at the beginning. Vron Ware has managed the remarkable feat, as I pointed out in my review, of writing an entire book about multiculturalism without once defining it. Her response, when this is pointed out, is to say “I am not interested in defining this term because it means so many different things to different constituencies.” Er … well, yes it does. Which is precisely why a writer’s job is to define it for us, the readers; pin it down. Particularly if you are then going to spend 300 pages eulogising it.

But if Vron won’t do it, let me try. In my view, there are two distinct things we might mean when we talk about living in a “multicultural” society. First, there’s the on-the-ground reality of a nation in which a substantial minority of people – 8% in the 2001 census, and doubtless more now – define themselves as from “ethnic minorities”. Many are descended from – or indeed are – Commonwealth immigrants who arrived in Britain from the second world war onwards, and many more have arrived from east-central Europe more recently. For the most part we all rub along with each other pretty well, in that very British way that requires no fancy intellectualising about our “identity”. This is the reality of contemporary Britain: it contains many cultures and ethnicities, and I personally have very good reasons (which I’ll come to in a while) for believing that this is a good thing.

Then there’s the second definition: the “ism”. “Multiculturalism”, in this context, is an ideology; a theory; a political agenda which has existed in various forms since the 1960s and is now the dominant narrative about Britain in official circles, from education authorities to government ministers. It decrees that Britain – and especially England – is a post-colonial tabula rasa, onto which many distinct cultures have been dropped. There is no longer such a thing as a unifying or indigenous British or English culture – indeed, the very terms are “problematic”.

Britain now is a “cosmopolitan” society in which no one cultural identity has pre-eminence, and in which Englishness, Polishness and Bangladeshiness must compete on equal terms. The nation’s many “minorities” are not to be integrated into mainstream society (“integrated” is such a problematic word; and anyway, what is the mainstream?) but fenced off, theoretically if not physically: defined as “BMEs” [Black and Minority Ethnic], afforded “protection”, treated as victims, spoken for. Descended from Pakistani immigrants but born in England? Sorry, you’re still “Pakistani”, or “Asian” or “minority ethnic”. You can be British, if you like, because Britishness has been stripped of meaning and is therefore “inclusive” – but you can never be English (or, presumably, Scottish or Welsh, though this gets less attention) because Englishness is “racially coded”. Attempts to define it are thus potentially racist; it’s best if the English just shut up about it and get on with “celebrating diversity” instead.

This is the reality of the “multiculturalism” which Vron Ware hymns. It is a divisive ideology, divorced from place and history and largely meaningless to most people in today’s Britain, whatever their ethnic group. But it is also all-pervasive, and this is what I picked up on in Vron’s book. Throughout, she comes across people from ethnic-minority groups in Britain who reject this vision: who don’t want to be seen as “minorities” or patronised by pressure- groups; who want to be British or, hell, even English.

Yet when I mentioned this in my review, I was accused of being “phobic about being seen to be anti-racist”. This is pretty breathtaking – not least because it seems to be, quite literally, a meaningless sentence. I think Vron is trying to say that I’m not anti-racist. By which she presumably means that I am a racist of some kind. It’s a curious way to react to a reviewer who highlights quotations from your own book.

But perhaps this is also what she means when she accuses me of beating British Muslims with metaphorical sticks. In my review, I highlighted a section of Vron’s book in which the author attempts to deny that there is any problem within south Asian communities in Britain as regards the position of women. This is a good example of where the whole multicultural house of cards comes tumbling down. Desperate (or should I say “phobic”?) not to appear racist, Vron needs to pretend that there are no real negatives to living in “BME” communities in Britain. So there is, for example, no problem with violence towards women in south Asian communities; after all, white men hit their wives as well, right?

Right, of course – but there are few honour killings within the Polish community as far as I know. It’s well known, especially by British women of Asian origin, that male domination within the more traditional elements of this community is a real problem. A true feminist, surely, would want to acknowledge this? But not Vron: anyone who brings its up is apparently questioning Muslims’ “right to belong, whether in England or the whole of the UK – or in Europe for that matter”’ Got that? Mention the culturally-specific incidences of male violence within some Muslim communities and you’re with Enoch Powell, the Conservative politician whose “rivers of blood” speech in 1968 was a racist landmark. And who suffers from this stance? The victims of that violence – powerless Muslim women. How do we square this circle? We don’t: we pretend it doesn’t exist, and call anyone who mentions it a racist.

And it gets to the heart of the problem: utter confusion. Vron seems to assume that all critics of multiculturalism come from the political right. Well, here’s the shocker: I’m an anti-racist, feminist, anti-capitalist environmentalist – all “isms” that should surely meet with Vron’s approval. And I think that multiculturalism – the official “ism”, as distinct from the on-the-ground reality – is bad for absolutely everyone.

Perhaps I should come clean about my personal investment in this argument. Not only was my grandmother an immigrant – meaning that my own “racial coding” would probably not meet British National Party (BNP) requirements for true Englishness – but my parents-in-law were immigrants from India in the 1970s. This makes my wife, in the charming PC terms of which Vron is so fond, a “BME”, and my daughter of “mixed ethnicity”. It also means, according to both the BNP and Vron Ware, that neither of them can be truly English for, apparently, Englishness is “racially coded” – only for white people.

This would be news to my wife, who considers herself as English as me. But it is not news to me, for I have heard it many times before, and it angers me. I’ll confess that Vron’s book made me angry too. Angry because I want to live in an England – and a Britain – whose people, of all ethnicities, are united by place and a common purpose, not divided by race and mutual suspicion. Vron says that I “(do) not really address the question of who counts as English”, and that “this makes [my] enthusiasm to identify ‘the real England’ appear opportunistic and shallow”. I’m not sure what opportunity I’m supposed to be seizing (certainly not the opportunity for a decent book advance) but the “real England” I attempt to identify in my book is anything but shallow. It is, in fact, deep-rooted: in place, landscape and the cultures which spring from it.

And that’s the real point: culture springs from place, and “Britishness” or “Englishness”, as concepts divorced from the physical reality of Britain or England, are meaningless. My book explores the deep connection that many in England feel to their places; how this forges their identity and why they fight for it. Some of those people are from ethnic minorities. They are also English, because they were born and live and work and fight in England; because it is their home and they are changing it and it is changing them. They are not ghettoised, reduced to statistics, treated like foreigners in their own land. They are English because they choose to belong here.

Vron wraps up her response to me by asserting that I “attempt to articulate a purified form of English nationalism, paying scant attention to the untidy, complex and contested history of racism”. I have no idea what a “purified form of English nationalism” is (what would an impure form look like? Cloudier?) but I can tell Vron this for free: I am more than aware of the history of racism, and I think that the multiculturalist project perpetuates it. The England I would like to see, is one in which we all have a part in forging English cultural and institutional identity; an identity which unites us around our locations and our aspirations for the future, whilst being aware of our pasts – and paying scant attention to our ethnicity.

This, at the end of it all, seems to be the key difference between Vron and I. I am aware that an identity, a culture, needs to spring from and be nourished by a place. England is such a place, and so is Britain – they are not academic concepts, they are landscapes, urban and rural: the present woven from the past, the cultural from the literal and material. The English people are the people of England, whatever their colour or religion. My “nationalism” is intended to be a forward-looking, unifying project which brings them together; Vron’s multiculturalism, by contrast, is backward-looking, guilt-ridden, race-obsessed and divisive. And I’d rather look to the future than stay marooned in the politics of the past.

Vron Ware: The climate and the choice

For those who may be reading this, who perhaps haven’t come across my work before, I will say the following, simply and clearly, without any accusations of who is racist, race-obsessed, stuck in the past and guilt-ridden.

My book on Britishness begins with an exploration of what makes people feel at home in this country. It starts with a scene of ordinary life, in a café in Leytonstone, drinking tea with two young-ish British community workers with family origins in Somalia and India. We talk about shops, bars, housing, school and other mundane topics, including their experiences of growing up in the neighbourhood. Although it is debatable whether London fits into this discussion, since it is a world city with about one in three born outside the country, I wanted the conversation to illustrate the complex mixture of ingredients that allow individuals to feel a sense of belonging and connection to any particular place. I was intrigued by what Leytonstone had to offer as it was a part of London with which I was unfamiliar. When someone says they take being British for granted, but are proud to be from Leytonstone, it makes you curious.

Later in the same chapter I describe how I asked a young woman whose parents were from Pakistan whether she preferred Oxford, where she had been born, to Banbury, where she moved as a child. I listened to her talking about her experiences of growing up in Banbury, a very English place to which she was very attached partly because her parents still lived there. The fact that we had this conversation in Pakistan, where she was visiting relatives (including a cousin who had grown up in the UK and gone back to live in Rawalpindi) was largely incidental. I included it in my book as I thought it reflected a confident, transnational identification with two countries, strongly rooted in a particular place, but strengthened by an awareness of the family history outside it that had taken her there.

I could go on, but I hope I have made it clear that Paul and I agree that identity and culture have a dynamic relationship with place, landscape and locality. In this section I included an episode from my own experience in order to show that I too, English born and bred, had come from somewhere local but had not always felt at home there. I also wanted to include an insight I learned from writers such as VS Naipaul and Zygmunt Bauman: we can gain a better perspective on what is familiar if we deliberately allow ourselves to become estranged from it. For some this happens with exile and displacement. For others it needs conscious work and a readiness to listen to strangers.

Identity is often both simple and complicated at the same time. It is also about choice not just fate and here too Paul and I agree. For him, people from ethnic minorities are free to choose to belong here, and that’s enough to make them English. Of course it’s right to affirm that they can make a deliberate choice to identify themselves as English. This does not alter the fact that many people, whose Englishness is not in question, are not prepared to recognise that ethnic minorities are eligible to make that claim. It is not me who is saying, as Kingsnorth alleges, that Englishness is “only for white people” and I simply can’t understand why he doesn’t get this point. Fortunately there are signs that this rigid alignment of colour, culture and national identity is beginning to shift. As Mark Perryman and others have argued elsewhere, spectator sport is one area where England is revealed as a remarkably affable and open-minded community. Note that this is because of concerted efforts to eradicate racism from football. It did not happen organically.

But Paul blames multiculturalism for making minorities feel as though they don’t belong. He liked that part of my book where I quote young people from Lancashire saying how they hated their monocultural, segregated schools. But rather than caricature his views as crudely as he has done mine, I will carefully reiterate my own position. I have to say that when he says that my book is “a hymn to multiculturalism”, I wonder if he has read the same one that I wrote.

Who Cares About Britishness? is an exploration of the global relevance of national identity, rooted in the history and geography of Britishness. After the first chapter on home and belonging, the book I wrote takes the form of a travel narrative in which I interweave some of these local voices with episodes and conversations from my journey to cities in Bangladesh, India, Pakistan, Kenya and Ireland. The final chapter is called “organise, don’t agonise” and it explores some of the ways that young people in these different countries, including England and Northern Ireland, are actively trying to intervene to work for social justice. The word “cares” is deliberately intended to have a double meaning, clearly lost on Paul.

I will set aside the fact that the book was partly an attempt to draw attention to Britain’s relationship with the rest of the world. I realise from reading subsequent comments on this forum that this aspect is not – at least yet – of great interest to OurKingdom participants. But it should be.

My position is this: to be anti-racist means identifying and opposing the corrosive forms of racism that continue to diminish all our lives in this country. It is no more about treating people differently according to colour, ethnicity and faith than it is an excuse to denounce all white people as racist. It means being alert to expressions of race-hatred, xenophobia and supremacism (not just of race and ethnicity but also culture and civilisation) wherever they are found, and making an effort to demonstrate why and how they poison our public and communal lives. To me, anti-racism is a form of political practice, with its own genealogy and ideological influences, that is entirely separate from the doctrine that Paul characterises as multiculturalism. I think this has become a straw figure which is why I said above that I was not in a hurry to define it. But first Paul insists that my “entire book” is a eulogy to something he loathes, and then he obsesses about the fact that I did not “pin it down”.

After 2001 it became fashionable to blame “multiculturalism” for the way that life in some northern mill-towns had become virtually segregated. All the problems caused by neglect, default, ineptitude, bad planning, well-meaning initiatives, and the impact of de-industrialisation were attributed to what seemed in retrospect a faulty but coherent national ideology developed in the 1960s and foisted on the British public with no consultation. I believe it is essential to understand the local histories of post-1945 immigration if we are to deal with the consequences now.

In my book I recounted a episode from the 1960s campaign by Sikhs to wear turbans on the buses in order to remind younger people of the complex struggles of earlier eras. I tried to show that what happened in Wolverhampton was very different from events in Manchester, Bradford, London and other cities where it became an issue. I wanted to argue that each centre of settlement has its own history of negotiating immigration, and this has had lasting impact on patterns of housing, education, political representation and so on.

In recent years government policy has developed a focus on social cohesion in an attempt to distance itself from what has happened before, and even the adjective “multicultural” has become derided. It has become tainted with the charge of advocating separation, “special treatment” for minorities and advocating cultural relativism (particularly with regard to gender relations). The term “multiculturalism” has also become confused with the language of anti-racism which was apparently devalued by its fixation on diversity and minority rights.

This, by the way, is what I meant when I said that Paul was phobic about not being seen to be anti-racist. It would seem that it is no longer acceptable to speak about racism since it is “divisive” and smacks of “political correctness”. If I thought he was being racist I would say so, but it is a serious charge and I don’t for a minute think he is, and I have read his work carefully. I didn’t need to know those details about his family. His decision to personalise the argument in that way is symptomatic of his inability to understand anti-racism as politics.

In this climate it is more important than ever not to delude ourselves that we have moved beyond the need to talk about racism openly. The vociferous commemoration of the fortieth anniversary of Enoch Powell’s “rivers of blood” speech in the mainstream media this past year is evidence of a real ambivalence on the question of what it means to be English and who can rightfully belong.

A comment on OurKingdom is an indication of how this current not only survives but is being amplified in the present: “It simply hasn’t been possible to integrate the number of newcomers that have arrived, and their arrival (combined with a native population that didn’t want, or ask, to be multicultural) has displaced or destroyed urban, white, mostly working class, communities (see Billy Bragg [who now lives in Dorset] or Michael Collins).” This statement, which ventriloquises the resentment of the white working class rather than expressing openly the views of the author, gives voice to an old lament. Countless writers have shown how English nationalism has long been entwined with a strong sense of grievance that it is foreigners who are damaging this country, and that it is “real” English natives (and now landscapes) who are being injured as a result. Breaking that causal connection requires sustained, sensitive and imaginative labour.

It is not enough to wish away the connections between racism, xenophobia and nationalism and to pretend that the politics of belonging involves nothing more than an immigrant’s decision to make a commitment to her or his adopted country. Let there be no misunderstanding. It is naïve beyond belief to advocate a renewed English nationalism in 2008 without addressing the way that immigration has resurfaced on the national political agenda once more. Let’s not kid ourselves that the BNP is the only organisation either to take advantage of the growing inequality, poverty and powerlessness that tend to push people towards racism, or to speak on behalf of whole sections of society (like the “white working class”) in order to make a populist appeal.

Those of us who glimpse a more inclusive, non-racist and non-racial vision of life in England have to make our own choices to reject any form of nationalism that is complicit with racism.

Labour Pains

Ellie Keen — Sun, 22 Jun 2008 20:05:41 +0000

Stoke-on-Trent is a Labour city or at least it should be. In the mid-1990s the Labour Party held all 60 seats on the council and the three local MPs had five-figure majorities.

Those days are long gone and today we face the appalling prospect of the British National Party seriously challenging for mayor in next year’s election.

In May’s local elections the Labour Party won just four of the 20 seats up for election, leaving it with only 16 city councillors plus the directly elected mayor. The City Independents have 15, the BNP and the Conservative and Independent Alliance have nine each, the Liberal Democrats five, the Potteries Alliance two and there are three non-aligned and one Libertarian.

The BNP beat Labour in eight of the ten seats they both contested. Labour averaged 25% across the city, while the BNP averaged 24% in the wards it fought.

There are now two wards where the BNP holds all three seats, though its performance overall was overshadowed by the strong vote for the City Independents, who gained six seats. However, in next year’s Mayoral contest there are likely to be several independent candidates, who will no doubt split the vote, leaving the BNP to battle it out with an increasingly unpopular Labour Party and the former independent mayor Mike Wolfe, who himself used to be in the Labour Party.

In the first mayoral election in 2002 the BNP took 18.7% of the vote, missing out on going through to the second round by only 1,500 votes [see table above]. In 2005 the BNP polled 19%, which was a remarkable achievement considering that the election was on the same day as the general election.

Since then support for the BNP has grown. Over the past three years it has averaged between 24% and 28% in the wards the party has contested and the BNP has now moved out of its previous Stoke-on-Trent South heartland into other parts of the city.

A vote in excess of 20% is likely to take the BNP into the second round in next year’s mayoral election, in which the second preferences of the defeated candidates are distributed. Given the strong anti-Labour feelings in the city a run-off between Labour and the BNP might well see the fascist party gain its most high-profile victory to date.

Economic decline

Labour’s fall from grace in Stoke-on Trent began at the beginning of this decade, was reversed a few years later, but has gathered pace in the past two years.

There is no single explanation for this but rather a multitude of inter-related issues that have discredited the party locally.

The city was once home to heavy industry, manufacturing and skilled work, but much of this has now gone. The coal mines and the steel works have disappeared and there is little left of the ceramics industry, which once employed tens of thousands of people.

New employment has come in but much of it is in the service sector and short-term. “Many of the old jobs were tough work but they were well paid, they were secure jobs and they were skilled jobs,” says Jane Heggie, who works for Stoke-on-Trent South MP Rob Flello.

“The new jobs that have come in are less skilled, temporary and are not as well paid.”

The change in employment has led to the city becoming poorer over the past ten years. According to government statistics the city has slipped from 34th most deprived borough in 2000 to 18th in 2004 and now to 16th in 2007.

Movement out of the city reflects this declining economic situation. In 1981 252,509 people lived in Stoke-on-Trent. By 2001 the population had fallen to 240,636, with most of the decline in the latter part of this period.

Between 1991 and 2001 the population of Stoke-on-Trent fell by 9,000. By comparison the population of England and Wales grew by 2.6% over the same period, while the West Midlands experienced a 0.7% increase. Most of those leaving appear to be the more educated and qualified who have been able to move on to better jobs.

But there are also more local factors that have contributed to the collapse of Labour and the rise of the BNP. The mayoral system, which has handed almost total power to the elected mayor and the council’s chief executive, has been a disaster for the Labour Party and increasingly unpopular with the electorate. Many local councillors resent their weakened role and some Labour councillors have openly campaigned for the mayor’s abolition. Others have left the party.

In an effort to widen the decision-making process the current Labour mayor introduced a Cabinet to involve local councillors and, given Labour’s weak position, has formed a coalition of the three main political parties.

While this might have helped break down some of the factional infighting it has enabled the BNP to contrast itself with the old political establishment. An example of this emerged over the contentious changes to secondary schooling in the city, in which several schools will be replaced by fewer new schools. This has proved deeply unpopular and while many people in the Labour Party are opposed to the plan, including all three local MPs, the BNP has grabbed some local media headlines through its opposition.

“The BNP can present themselves as the only alternative,” says Jason Hill, of the local anti-BNP group NorSCARF.

Other commentators list a raft of unpopular council decisions which the BNP has exploited. Last year the council announced the closure of several care homes for the elderly and more recently the axing of the splash pool leisure facility at Dimensions in Burslem.

Jane Heggie points to a simple explanation for Labour’s decline and the BNP’s rise. “We are not addressing the concerns of voters and we have not been active enough.

“Of course the removal of the 10p tax rate had an impact, especially here where many people were affected, but there is a danger that we use the Government as an excuse. We really have to ask ourselves why is Labour collapsing here and not to the same extent in other areas which are doing even worse economically such as Sandwell or Manchester?”

Heggie cites recent results in Stoke-on-Trent South to support her case. Last year Labour won Fenton with a 400 majority over the BNP; this year Labour finished a poor third. “We had a candidate in his eighties who wasn’t able to campaign and simply had not done enough as a councillor,” she asserts.

In Longton North, by contrast, Labour has bucked the trend. It was once the city’s main BNP heartland, a ward the BNP had won three times in a row. Now it has three Labour councillors. “We have worked hard in the ward and people have responded positively.”

Certainly organisational factors and choice of candidates dramatically hampered the Labour Party’s chances in Mark Fisher’s Stoke-on-Trent Central constituency. Last year the BNP walked into a second seat in Bentilee and Townsend ward after Labour reselected a councillor who was in his late eighties, housebound and had just lost his wife. It was hardly surprising that the BNP won the election with very little campaigning.

The Labour Party in the constituency does not have any modern voter software, such as the new Contact Creator, and carries out little canvassing or Voter ID work. Not only is Labour unable to identify and so turn out voters in an election, but the lack of face-to-face contact with voters reinforces the impression that the party does not care.

The BNP alternative

Of course it would be wrong to place the entire blame for the BNP’s rise on Labour. The absence of other mainstream political alternatives, a common theme in areas where the BNP has emerged as a force, has resulted in the BNP appearing as the only alternative. However, given the economic and social make-up of the city it should be a Labour stronghold and much of the reason why it is not must lie in Labour’s own decline.

The BNP meanwhile has grown steadily over the past few years and has earned itself a reputation as a normal political party. Its councillors sit on committees, it is regularly quoted in the local media in the same manner as any other party and a growing number of people, from the editor of the local newspaper to the former mayor, believe it should be involved in decision making.

The BNP acts as though it is just another political party. Its recent election leaflets hardly touched on race, preferring to focus on local issues around schools, the closure of care homes for the elderly and jobs. However, it is quick to whip up racism and racial lies when it suits the party.

Over the past three years the BNP has repeatedly stoked up racism by means of a leaflet targeting plans for a mosque in the city. Full of lies, exaggeration and racial and religious stereotypes, it was designed solely to inflame the issue and whip up racial tensions.

A national priority

The growing respectability of the BNP puts it within reach of winning the mayoral election next year. Let us not be under any illusion about the severity of the situation as any success here would have national repercussions.

The job of anti-fascists must be to challenge the culture on the ground, not an easy job when the BNP is so entrenched in local communities and is viewed as a normal political party by so many people.

The mainstream political parties must finally get their act together. The Labour Party, regionally or nationally, must take control of the party campaign locally. Some will oppose this but unfortunately many of these same people have shown an inability to lead themselves. Locally, Labour needs to find a way to unite the party before next summer, address some of the more contentious issues and develop a clear understanding of the role of the mayor and its relationship with other elected officials and the voters at large. The stakes are too high.

The unions must also devote attention and resources to Stoke-on-Trent. There are thousands of union members in the area and these must be the focus of proper work and education. Some of it might not be easy but we have to take on the BNP’s arguments and dispel its myths in the workplace and in the community. For too long the regional unions have largely ignored the city, favouring other parts of the West Midlands, but again the stakes are too high.

The usual sort of anti-fascist leaflets are not adequate for the task. Producing leaflets that say don’t vote BNP because they are racists and fascists will simply not work in the BNP’s strongholds. We must produce local material which at least tries to address some of the issues that are making people support the BNP. Anti-fascists are not necessarily party political but we must highlight the shortcomings of the BNP approach while obviously reminding voters of its true intentions.

More importantly, anti-fascists can help identify and turn out the anti-BNP vote. This will require a more sophisticated approach than we have adopted so far and to achieve success will need a national anti-fascist effort. With a low turnout expected in the mayoral election, we need to identify and build up a relationship with 30,000 people who will vote for a party other than the BNP. While we cannot tell people whom to support we must convince people to cast their second preference vote for a party that they think can beat the BNP.

Searchlight and NorSCARF is calling for support from anti-fascists across the country to make Stoke-on-Trent a national priority. In addition to national days of action we will ask people from specific regions to work the area throughout the year.

Not to do this work could hand the BNP its greatest political prize to date. The stakes are that high.

Stoke-on-Trent at a glance

Stoke-on-Trent is the second most deprived local authority in the West Midlands, and 16th nationally. 33% of its 160 Super Output Areas (SOAs) – the geographical areas used in the Indices of Deprivation 2004 – are in the 10% most deprived areas nationally. Over 60% live in the worst 25%.
36% of Stoke-on-Trent’s SOAs are in the 10% most deprived nationally in employment (which measures long-term unemployed, people on incapacity benefit and those on New Deal schemes), making it the worst local authority in the West Midlands. Over 65% of the local population live in the most deprived 25%.
Stoke-on-Trent experiences the worst health deprivation in the West Midlands and ranks 12th nationally. 42% of its people live in the most deprived 10% of SOAs, while over 80% live in the worst 25%.
The city ranks second in the West Midlands in educational deprivation and 7th nationally. 34% of local people live in the most deprived 10% and 66% live in the worst 25%.
Stoke-on-Trent is the least deprived borough in the West Midlands, and 12th least deprived nationally, in the “Barriers to Housing and Services” domain, which measures ability to get local housing and homelessness. However, this figure reflects the declining local population.
22% of adults of working age are claiming a key benefit, compared to a national average of 14%. 13% of adults, twice the national average, claim incapacity benefit.
At the last census 42.9% of adults in Stoke-on-Trent had no educational qualifications, compared to a national average of 28.8%.

Rushing to Nottingham's Defence

Ellie Keen — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 00:00:00 +0000

Two academics from the University Nottingham have condemned the campaign in support of Hicham Yezza, an employee of Nottingham University charged over terrorism offences and released only to be re-arrested over spurious immigration offences. The two, Dr Sean Matthews and Dr Macdonald Daly, while expressing concern for the situation currently facing Mr Yezza who is being indefinitely held in immigration detention, condemn what they call the “irresponsible, opportunistic and unethical conduct of many colleagues involved in the campaign to support Mr Yezza.”

The authors of the statement start by making two substantive points. Firstly, that “we are confident that the University’s declarations about upholding academic freedom have been reflected in its response to the arrests.” Secondly, they claim that “we do not believe that the arrests constitute a challenge or threat to academic freedom.”

The argument therefore turns around whether the arrest of Hicham Yezza and Rizwaan Sabir, originally for downloading and printing an Al Qaeda training manual, was in contravention of academic freedom. Matthews and Daly contend that academic freedom has not been violated and that the University, in immediately reporting the matter to the police, was merely fulfilling its legal duty.

They also place the blame at Yezza and Sabir’s door by claiming that they acted irresponsibly by colluding to print out the document (Mr. Sabir, a student asked his friend, Yezza, a staff member to print the document out for him for free). Had they not done so, the matter would never have come to the notice of the authorities. In making this claim, the authors are noting that banal occurrences of this nature happen on a regular basis. What they fail to do is make the connection between Sabir and Yezza’s actions and the heavy-handedness of the response. As was noted in the letter signed by staff and students at Sussex and Brighton Universities, it is clear that if the two “culprits” were not of Middle-Eastern/North African origin, their actions would have gone unnoticed, given that the document they printed out is widely available on various official websites, including that of the US government. Simply, a two-tiered rule is being applied: one for those safe in the knowledge that their white privilege will shield them from the law, even if – as happens on a regular basis – they contravene “the rules” by getting a friend to do their printing for them; another for those on the “most wanted” list that connects them by skin colour, religion and/or national origin to those purported to be “out to get us”.

What is even more worrying about this case is the connection to immigration. Hicham Yezza is now being held in detention pending potential deportation from the UK for violation of his immigration status. This appears spurious given that he was working for the University, which must have been aware of his legal status, and about to apply for British citizenship based on his 13 years of residence in the UK. Despite this, the authors of the statement claim:

Had Mr Yezza been able to substantiate his claim to the University that he had the appropriate legal employment status, as all employees are required to do when they take up a post, or even had he been able later when the University asked him, as it is legally required to do, to provide documentation to substantiate such a claim, he would not have been arrested for immigration irregularities. Again, the responsibility for his arrest appears to relate to his own failure to provide appropriate documentation.

By putting the case in such procedural terms, Matthews and Daly are missing two points: Firstly, procedurally, no University in the UK employs anyone before their immigration status has been officially verified. Therefore, the immigration offences he is deemed to have committed appear mainly to be bogus. Secondly and more importantly, the authors fail to admit that current policy on “terrorism” works also to demonise “immigrants” as potential terrorists. Thus, by very virtue of one’s status as a non-citizen from outside the EU, the US, Australia, etc. one is potentially guilty of plotting against the British state. Countless people, many long-term residents of the UK, have fallen victim of this politics that condemns people, especially those of “Arab” or “Muslim” origin, to de facto suspicion. As is documented in the film Taking Liberties, this has led to individuals being condemned to indefinite house arrest or imprisonment in criminal and/or immigration detention centres despite no hard evidence being brought against them relating to their purported links to terrorism.

This leads back to the issue of academic freedom. Part of what the current attack on universities from government and big business is doing is to silence individual academics who have chosen this career precisely because traditionally it enabled us to speak openly and freely about issues that concern us. It is ironic that, on the one hand, the talk is of liberalisation and flexibility, and on the other, we are being asked to police our students, suspected of involvement with “radical islamists”. In the logic of the market, academics are styling their research funding applications to suit what they think will be funded rather than what they wish to research; what they believe will benefit society.

Ironicially, one of the biggest research areas identified by the research councils in tandem with government policy, is that of “security studies”. This is exactly what Rizwaan Sabir was engaged in, downloading a document that is considered by security specialists crucial to the understanding of why “they hate us” and how terror networks such as Al Qaeda function. The question left begging, thefore, is just what kind of research is admissible and who should be allowed to carry it out? In absence of a clear response, we are all left asking the question, who will be next to be picked off, and how soon before it is not someone who can be attacked through the vehicle of immigration offences as was the case in Germany last year. And what, in the present climate, will no longer be deemed admissible research? If these are not questions of academic freedom, surely little else is…

Hammering the BNP

Ellie Keen — Wed, 04 Jun 2008 23:25:15 +0000

It feels very odd to find any comfort from the local election results, but there is one outcome worthy of a small sigh of relief. The British National Party did not do as well as it might. It is true that it got Richard Barnbrook, its most personable, if absurd, figurehead, onto the London Assembly. But overall the party had a net gain of just ten councillors across the country, when it was hoping for, and many of us were dreading, some two or three assembly members and 40 more councillors.

It seemed that the BNP had everything going for it. It was exploiting the pumped-up fear of extremist violence and Islamophobia, aided by the media obsession with immigration and migration. The sudden media pre- occupation with the anniversary of Enoch Powell’s notorious ‘rivers of blood’ speech could hardly have been better timed. The party’s claim to have taken over Labour’s traditional role as the defender of the working class has had a great deal of resonance and could have put it in a strong position to take advantage of Labour’s collapse.

There are two obvious reasons for its comparative eclipse. The first and most obvious is that Cameron’s Tories swamped the BNP as they did Labour. But the second is that the anti-fascist magazine Searchlight and the trade unions combined in vigorous community- based campaigns against it, involving literally thousands of activists across the country. Nick Lowles, of Searchlight, says, ‘We have never had so many people involved in the anti-BNP campaign before. Against the odds, both political and climatic, decent people took to the streets and campaigned strongly for “hope not hate”.’

It is great to have something we can celebrate and I think we should. But most of these ‘decent’ people were from the left and we need to build stronger defences against the BNP across the board. Far from being down and out, the BNP is now a well- organised modern party and next year it will be seeking seats in several regions in the Euro elections, where low polls will assist it.

Combating the BNP involves an adjustment in the way we regard and describe the party, along with a surer and wider approach in society and in local government.

First, natural though it is to loathe the BNP, too often the left discourse sounds like an echo of the hate the BNP exploits. This is especially harmful when angry or violent expression spills over onto the people who vote for it. ‘Decent people’ can and do vote for the BNP, often with some shame, true, but defiantly nonetheless. It is not a protest vote, but a demand to be heard.

So tear off the party’s veil of respectability. Expose and broadcast the vile things that its members say and do. Keep watch on the performance of its councillors, show up their incompetence, deride the irrelevance of their statements and policies, complain to the local government Standards Board.

On the wider front, it is important to encourage people to take a robust approach to combating the BNP, especially in local government where councillors and staff often feel inhibited, either by fears that attacking the party gives it the ‘oxygen of publicity’, or that exposing the myths it propagates as lies will somehow breach electoral law. In the last election, a council official rang me and said that the other party leaders wanted to make common cause against the BNP offensive, but feared to draw attention to it.

Councils across the country have a duty to promote good race relations and social cohesion: combating the BNP’s lies simply fulfils this duty (on this point, see the Cohesion Matters website at www.cohesionmatters.co.uk).

Even in the Labour Party, I have experienced a reluctance to take on the far right. The most extreme example of this came some years ago when I was one of three people standing for election in Hackney. The agent (a man with real anti-fascist credibility) ordered us not to take part in a debate with the National Front candidate, Derek Day, a violent thug and prominent racist, on the estate where he lived and not to canvas the estate. The agent even came to the meeting to order us out. We stayed, trounced Day in the debate and won over people on the estate as we canvassed. In the pub one evening, my colleague’s handbag hit the table with a big thud. She was carrying a hammer, ‘just in case’.

I don’t advise carrying a hammer. But it is vital not to compromise or be intimidated. Resolute, informed, principled and persuasive argument is the way to combat the BNP.

Where Now?

Ellie Keen — Wed, 04 Jun 2008 00:03:45 +0000

The British National Party’s success in the London Assembly elections coupled with its small but continued progress across the country provides an ideal opportunity critically to assess where the campaign against the British National Party is going.

For the past few years we have successfully limited the advance of the BNP in local elections, even reversing its fortunes in some of its traditional heartlands such as Sandwell, Oldham and Bradford. Even Nick Griffin, the BNP leader, has publicly admitted that we have developed an election operation that can beat the BNP almost everywhere.

But the truth is that as each year goes by our job is getting harder. There is an ever-growing list of wards at risk to the BNP, it’s becoming more difficult to turn out our voters and even when we do prevent the BNP from winning we do so by increasing turnout rather than necessarily reducing the BNP’s support. In today’s political climate we can sometimes feel a sense of relief just by keeping the BNP down to 30% support in key wards.

It is perfectly feasible to continue this approach over the next couple of years. We will defeat the BNP in many more wards than they win and perhaps we can hold them at bay long enough for wider external factors to fundamentally undercut the BNP’s support.

Or we can perhaps try a radically different approach.

This essay will look at possible approaches. It is the opening of a discussion about where we go now. There are no simple or easy solutions of course, no one anti-fascist strategy can defeat the BNP on its own. However, as I shall try to explain, unless we do something radically different the situation will get a lot worse before it gets better.

To do that we need to really understand what is going on.

We are currently witnessing a tangible change in British politics. The old traditional voting patterns are fragmenting as voters increasingly shop around for a party that best articulates their concerns and even prejudices.

The emergence of the BNP is just one consequence of the change under way, and it is a change far more fundamental than many political commentators and politicians appear to register. It is also primarily an issue affecting the Labour Party.

Labour’s support among its traditional working-class voters has been shrinking for many years and this goes well beyond the current decline in fortunes for the Brown Government. In many core Labour heartlands the party’s support among social groups C2 and DE was at a lower level in 2005, when it won a general election, than in 1983 at the height of its electoral unpopularity during the Thatcher years. It is a point graphically made in the excellent book by Alexander Lee and Timothy Stanley, The End of Politics: Triangulation, Realignment and the Battle for the Centre Ground.

In 1997, 50% of C2 voters and 59% of DE voters supported Labour. By 2005 this had dropped to 40% and 48% respectively.

This drop has been even more pronounced in many core Labour areas. In Sheffield Central Labour polled over 60% of the vote in every election between 1983 and 2001, yet in 2005 its vote fell to 49.9%. In Burnley, Labour’s share of the vote dropped 38.5% during the same period.

“In Yorkshire and Humberside, the North and the North West the swing may have not significantly affected the return of Labour MPs to Westminster but majorities have been seriously diminished and the party’s share of the vote dramatically reduced,” say the authors of The End of Politics.

Some of these disappearing voters switched to other parties and in local elections this was often the Liberal Democrats, but far greater numbers simply stayed at home. A declining turnout and general lack of interest in mainstream political parties was the key winner.

For the Labour leadership this long-term shift has not mattered. In the current political system general elections are not won or lost in the Labour heartlands but in the swing marginals, where a few votes can turn success into defeat. It is these voters towards whom all the main parties increasingly gravitate.

Labour has relied on the fact that its traditional support, although declining, has had nowhere else to go. Many of these voters, whose communities were decimated under Thatcher, would never countenance voting Conservative. A few switched to the Liberal Democrats, others stayed at home but the bulk of those who did vote continued to support Labour.

But this is now changing. The BNP is emerging as the voice of this forgotten working class. A survey of the wards that produced the 25 best BNP votes in May shows plainly the profile of BNP supporting areas. All but one rank well below average in the Indices of Deprivation and the one exception, Queensbury in Bradford, is roughly average. Nearly all are among the top 10% most deprived areas.

In every single one of these wards, including Queensbury, the proportion of the population with no qualifications at all is well below the national average. Likewise, the proportion of people with a level 4/5 qualification (degree or teaching/social work qualification) is a fraction of the national average.

The result is that the BNP is now challenging Labour in many of its heartlands and the effect is startling. As we show elsewhere in this magazine, the BNP received more votes than Labour in the redrawn Dagenham and Rainham constituency. And it was not the only one. As table 1 illustrates, the BNP received more votes than both Labour and the Conservatives in the new Morley and Outwood constit-uency, which will be contested by Ed Balls, Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families.

The BNP also beat Labour in one of the two new Havering constituencies and would probably have polled more votes than Labour in Stoke-on-Trent South and Central if it had put forward more candidates.

It is also important not to view the BNP in isolation. Its rising support is just the most visible element of this changing political scene. Other areas, such as South and West Yorkshire and South Wales, have seen a rise in local independent groups.

Who would have thought that Labour could have lost the heartlands of Merthyr Tydfil and Blaenau Gwent in South Wales to independents? In Stoke-on-Trent, a city where ten years ago Labour held all 60 seats, the party could only win four seats this year. In Barnsley, where the BNP polled 21%, the Barnsley Independent Group holds one third of the seats on the council.

Fundamental shift

The breaking with Labour reflects a far more fundamental shift than mid-term blues. For an increasing number of traditional Labour voters the party no longer reflects their interests. Lee and Stanley in The End of Politics blame New Labour’s triangulation policy under which it has moved into the centre ground of politics in order to win the key marginals.

This view is echoed by Labour MP Jon Cruddas. “The politics of middle England become even more dominant in the minds of our political leadership. The danger is that we ignore the reasons for the strength of the BNP, and in so doing reinforce the conditions that have created this situation.”

Many of the people now turning their back on the Labour Party have not shared the economic prosperity of recent years. Many in areas such as Stoke-on-Trent and Dagenham now find themselves in a worse economic position than a few years ago. Great swathes of these traditional Labour voters not only feel ignored but are increasingly seeing in the BNP a party that articulates their interests. This degree of alienation with the mainstream parties was clearly demonstrated in the BBC polling that accompanied its White Season.

A number of studies, such as those conducted by Vision 21 and more recently by Democratic Audit, show clearly that a reoccurring theme among BNP voters is the sense that no one listens to them any more. Labour is increasingly seen as a middle-class party that prioritises minority groups and the interests of more affluent voters over themselves.

This is an international phenomenon. In the United States the phenomenon of Middle American Nationalism has emerged over the past 30 years, which despises the corporate elites above and the “undeserving” poor below.

Across Western Europe we have seen working-class voters turn towards far-right and populist parties. In Denmark working-class voters have shifted from the Labour Party to the Danish People’s Party (DPP). In France the Front National remains dominant in many traditional working-class communities. In Norway, the Progress Party has become the country’s main opposition.

“Workers’ support for the socialist parties has fallen away,” say researchers from the Danish Valgprojektet (Election Project). “There is a class-defined demobilisation … an almost total loss of support for the worker parties among the younger part of the working class, especially among skilled workers.”

Writing in this month’s Red Pepper, the Norwegian writer Magnus Marsdal argues that class politics still exists but these far-right parties are “in effect the new Labour party”. He points to Denmark where in the 2001 elections 61% of the DPP’s support came from working-class voters, nearly three times as many worker voters as the Social Democrats.

In an interesting parallel with England, almost all of these voters were from poorer and less educated sections of society.

All this represents a fundamental shift in British politics and the real fear is that we are heading the way of so many other European countries where large segments of the working class have broken with their traditional centre-left parties and moved to the right.

The root of BNP support

The BNP is a racist party fuelled by a leadership that draws its political roots from fascism. That much is clear. However, its appeal goes far wider than the issue of race. The BNP is tapping into political alienation and economic deprivation. It is providing a voice for those who increasingly feel ignored and cast aside by Labour. The BNP is articulating their concerns, grievances and even prejudices.

Race is obviously a key factor but it is not the only issue. Race was a defining factor in the initial rise of the BNP in 2001. Riots, growing racial tensions and international terrorism conspired to build support for the BNP. But this is less so now.

A cursory look at where the BNP is gaining support shows that race is not necessarily the dominant issue that it was in Oldham, Burnley and Bradford. There are very small non-white communities in Stoke-on-Trent, Barnsley and Nuneaton and Bedworth. These are traditional working-class areas where people feel abandoned and ignored. It is into this alienation that the BNP moves. Yes, race is certainly a central key, but more because it provides a prism through which people can see and understand the world and, more importantly, an easy scapegoat to blame for their own situation.

But the BNP provides far more than a racist scapegoat. It gives some voters a sense of belonging, an articulation of their own frustration – even a new white identity.

This point was graphically illustrated in the BBC White Season, particularly the film set in a working men’s club in Wibsey, Bradford. “I wish I could be happy again,” said Graham Anderson. In an increasingly complicated and disorientated world it is easy to see how the BNP can point the finger of blame while simultaneously offering a new sense of white community.

Whatever the merits of the Season as a whole it did reflect the sense of loss, political abandonment and a search for identity and belonging of a minority of people in this country.

In an increasingly complex world, in which Britain’s place has changed, Britain itself is fragmenting and the old economic certainties provided by traditional employment are long gone. It is no coincidence that the BNP has emerged in those communities that have experienced most economic decline and change, principally in the former coalfields and car producing areas.

Why does all this matter for anti-fascists? Unless we can understand why the BNP is growing we have little chance of defeating it.

Anti-fascism has to continue to focus around elections. After all, this is how BNP support is measured and nothing helps the BNP grow more than substantial electoral victories.

However, it is clear that our message also has to develop. Yes, we still have to identify and turn out the anti-BNP vote, as we have successfully done in so many areas, but we must also have something to say to potential BNP voters.

A simple “Don’t vote nazi” is an irrelevant slogan that needs to be discarded immediately. That is not to say that we should not highlight the real politics of the BNP and its leadership but we must address people where they currently are. And in terms of that, very few people see the BNP as a nazi party.

It is also clear that a simple Hope not Hate message is insufficient. “You tell us to vote for Hope not hate but there is no hope round here,” one voter told me in Dagenham. Similar reports came in from Stoke-on-Trent and Nuneaton.

We need to replace empty slogans with substance, and that means involving ourselves in the community as never before. If the BNP support is driven by racial prejudice, often whipped up by the national media, economic deprivation and a loss of identity, then these are the three issues we need to contest.

Nationally, we must challenge and expose the racist lies and myths peddled in the media while also ending the muscular bidding war between the political parties over race and immigration. Not only is this politically damaging (Labour will never appease its opponents on immigration), it is also quite dishonest. The economic boom of recent years has been built on the influx of migrant workers, our public services would collapse without its non-white workforce and the pensions crisis would be even more severe without newcomers replacing those British people moving abroad in record numbers.

But it is locally that anti-fascists must focus their energies. Searchlight has long argued for a localised strategy to defeat the BNP and the need for this is even greater now. Each area is different and requires a slightly different solution.

Thinking nationally, acting locally

In the recent election we found that our general Hope not hate leaflets worked in some places but less well in others. The general trend was that they were more effective where the BNP was standing for the first time. In other places, such as Stoke-on-Trent and Dagenham, where support for the BNP is deeply entrenched, we need a different approach and one that addresses local issues and concerns.

Where we produced more localised leaflets, in Burnley, West Yorkshire and Sandwell, our material appears to have gone down a lot better.

Of course there is a limit to how much localised material we can physically produce during a short election campaign. Over the past few years we have tried to prioritise the most high risk areas and those where we have the best local contacts. Two ways of overcoming this are to widen the pool of people who can produce leaflets, and to produce more localised material at other times of the year outside election periods.

To achieve this we need more local groups – and building groups with an ability to intervene locally must be our key priority over the next two years. A good functioning local group is likely to achieve far more success. It needs to be community-orientated, broad-based and non-dogmatic.

It needs to be able to address local issues and concerns while having roots within the community. It needs to be able to form partnerships with other local groups to address issues and improve the area, while also gaining credibility within the community to break down barriers and promote cohesion.

Two good examples of community campaigning are Keighley and Epping. In Keighley the local TUC and Bradford anti-fascists confronted BNP lies over grooming, where others had ignored what was going on, while simultaneously assisting local community groups through good old fashioned community development work.

The Redbridge and Epping Forest Together group has adopted a slightly different approach but it too has been successful. It has sought to build a broad coalition of political parties and the non-aligned, and has involved residents’ and faith groups. While it has not done the community development work of Keighley, it has helped alter the political climate enough to defeat the BNP in two of the three seats it was defending.

Forming local Hope not hate groups would also be an excellent way of involving trade unionists, many of whom refuse to do any direct campaigning for the Labour Party any more. In addition to bringing extra people into activity it strengthens the relationship between unions and the local community.

There are other groups that need to be included from the start. Among them are faith groups, residents’ associations, community groups and the voluntary sector – people who care enough about their local community to be active while also having the respect of others.

It some places, such as Barking and Dagenham, one of the fundamental problems is the absence of any mainstream alternative to Labour, so the BNP is the sole beneficiary of the anti-Labour vote. For anti-fascists, this is a problem as it is hard to build a political coalition in an area where there is no one other than Labour to work with.

In these areas community work is even more important. In addition to the basic anti-BNP material to dispel the party’s lies and highlight the inadequacies of its councillors, we must collaborate with existing community and faith groups to help rebuild civic society and create an alternative pole of attraction to the BNP. It is often the lack of local positive institutions and community organisers that contributes to the feeling of despair and inability to change things for the better.

Empowering local communities to improve their local area in a positive fashion through working with and mobilising local people is essential. This includes developing a leadership programme that can provide basic organising skills and give confidence to local people.

Searchlight is not opposed to concerts and large city-centre activities but these cannot be the main focus. Large concerts, costing hundreds of thousands of pounds to stage, do not deliver leaflets in the key areas nor do they address the concerns and grievances of the people likely to vote BNP. They certainly have a place in mobilising and organising activists but the important work has got to be done at a more local level. It might not be glamorous and it might not be easy but it is vital.

Political solution

Of course on a wider level the BNP needs to be defeated politically. While much of this is outside the remit and capability of Searchlight we will strive to argue that the rise of the BNP is the consequence of the shift to the centre of all the mainstream parties. There can be no disguising this fact.

There will be some who argue for a solely class-based approach to anti-fascism but a refusal to work with the mainstream parties will only hand dozens of seats to the BNP and quicken its electoral advance.

The majority of people are still opposed to the racist message of the BNP and while it is important that we mobilise these voters we must also begin to address, at a local level, the grievances and insecurities that are giving rise to the BNP in the first place.

The clock is ticking and time is running out. The economic downturn, the credit crunch, the housing collapse and rising living costs are only going to increase insecurities over the next year or two. The political parties, and in particular Labour, are letting down a large section of the British population. Without radical and immediate change, Britain could experience the political earthquake that is engulfing much of Europe.

Nigerians in the UK urge boycott of British Airways

Ellie Keen — Sun, 11 May 2008 01:00:54 +0000

British Airways has been criticised over its handling of a forced deportation and its treatment of Nigerian passengers on a flight from Heathrow airport.

Passengers on board the 27 March BA flight to Lagos began to protest about the manhandling of Augustine Eme, a Biafran independence activist, who was allegedly being restrained by up to five police officers while pleading not to be sent back to Nigeria where he feared he would be killed. (Eme’s brother has already been killed and his wife and children are missing.)

The police promptly removed Eme from the flight, but returned to arrest another passenger, Ayodeji Omotade. This prompted other passengers to complain about his detention, which resulted in the pilot ordering all 136 economy class passengers off the flight.

Omotade, who is from Kent, was on the flight to attend his brother’s wedding in Nigeria but was detained by police for ten hours following his arrest. In that time police confiscated £1,603 that Omotade had on him, stating that they had strong reason to believe the money came from criminal activities. Omotade was then returned to Heathrow without any money and having missed his brother’s wedding. He has also been banned for life from travelling with British Airways.

The flight did eventually go to Lagos, but with only Eme and first class passengers on board. British Airways defended its removal of the economy passengers, on the basis that their behaviour constituted a security threat to staff.

The incident has prompted calls for a boycott of BA from within the Nigerian community in the UK. Over one thousand people signed a petition sent to the Nigerian government demanding a written apology to all the passengers. The petition also called on BA to compensate Omotade and lift the lifetime ban against him, as well as lifting any criminal charges against him. The Nigerian president, Umaru Yar’Adua, has ordered an investigation into the incident at Heathrow.

British Airways recently came under fire from one of its own pilots for ignoring racism amongst its staff. Captain Doug Maughan, who has worked for BA for fifteen years, recently accused management of failing to deal with his complaints about frequent racist remarks made by senior BA employees.

Rebel Music

tim — Fri, 02 May 2008 11:53:47 +0000

“Art and politics don’t mix.” So we are told time and again whenever an artist or musician dares to speak out and be heard. Politicking, it seems, is best left to the politicians, and musicians are better off leaving it that way.

The Carnival Against the Nazis, staged by Rock Against Racism in Britain 30 years ago, was one of the many moments in history that prove what utter bollocks that is. While racism trolled the streets of Britain, this festival united black and white, immigrant and native born, punk rock and reggae in opposition. It was one of those iconic moments when the interplay between popular struggle and popular culture stepped forth for all to see. Yet again, it was proof positive that in the fight against oppression and inequality, music can indeed play a crucial role.

British journalist Sarfraz Manzoor summed up the influence Rock Against Racism had at its high-point on April 30th, 1978: “[F]or those who attended the original concert in 1978 it was a show that changed their lives and helped change Britain. Rock Against Racism radicalised a generation, it showed that music could do more than just entertain: it could make a difference.”

The Ugly Spectre

Looking at Britain in the late 1970s, it’s hard to argue that something different wasn’t definitely needed. The UK was in the grip of an economic crisis. Unemployment and inflation were rife. Earlier in the decade, the British government, broke, had gone to the International Monetary Fund looking for a bail-out. The IMF agreed, but with the stipulation that social services were slashed throughout the Kingdom. By the mid-70s, welfare had been gutted, and the financial security of the working class wasn’t any more secure.

It was only a matter of time until the crisis in the broad country reached the world of music. On August 5th, 1976, the legendary Eric Clapton took the stage in Birmingham’s Odeon Theatre and delivered a drunken racist tirade. He said Britain was on the verge of becoming a “black colony,” and that “we should send them all back.” He urged a vote for racist Conservative politician Enoch Powell in order to “keep Britain white.” Powell had become infamous in British politics eight years earlier when he delivered his infamous “Rivers of Blood” speech (as in “if Britain doesn’t stem the tide of immigration, rivers of blood will flow through our streets”).

There was, of course, a great irony to Clapton’s comments. Most of his music wouldn’t have existed if not for African American blues. And, of course, his career had been floundering until his smash-hit cover of Bob Marley’s “I Shot the Sheriff” a few months prior. For him to be promoting the complete separation of black and white was laughable.

Irony aside, there was a much more sinister context for Clapton’s diatribe: the rise of the National Front. The National Front was a political party founded in the late 60s by far-right former members of the Conservative Party and hardcore racists. They preyed on the fear of ordinary people by pointing the blame at Britain’s sizable immigrant community of Asians and black Caribbeans. The NF toed the line heard from the Minutemen in the US today: that thieving and depraved brown-skinned invaders were stealing the jobs of respectable, hard-working white people. Though the NF tried to couch their platform in legitimacy and distance themselves from the “racist” label, they allowed white supremacists and neo-Nazis to join their ranks from the beginning. Even more horrifying was their increasing profile in the mid 70s. By the spring of ’76 the NF had polled 40 percent in the northern city of Blackburn. “Paki-bashings” were becoming more frequent; in July Asian immigrant Gurdip Singh had been beaten to death by a gang of white youth. The public response of the NF’s John Kingsley Read was “one down – a million to go.”

Thankfully, the kind of ideas being spread by Clapton and the Front wouldn’t go unopposed. The initiative was taken by Red Saunders and Roger Huddle, two artists who had been radicalized by the global uprisings of 1968. Both had been fans of Clapton and most of the artists that had revolutionized music in the 1960s. As anti-racists, they were disgusted by Clapton’s comments. Upon hearing of them, they phoned up several friends and acquaintances, fellow artists and activists, and wrote an anti-racist manifesto that appeared in Sounds, Melody Maker and the New Musical Express, Britain’s three largest music rags, along with the Trotskyist newspaper Socialist Worker. To say the letter’s language took Clapton to task is an understatement: “Come on, Eric… Own up. Half your music is black. You’re rock music’s biggest colonist… P.S. Who shot the Sheriff, Eric? It sure as hell wasn’t you!”

More than just a letter, though, Saunders, Huddle, and their co-signatories called for the formation of a organise “a rank and file movement against the racist poison music” to challenge the message of the National Front head-on. The name of this organization would be Rock Against Racism. Almost immediately, hundreds of letters began pouring in from people expressing enthusiastic agreement and wanting to know how they could get involved.

Battle Lines Drawn

As it would turn out, Huddle and Saunders had impeccable timing. “The founders of RAR were all soul fans,” said Huddle, “but what really propelled it into what became a mass movement was the explosion of punk.” White youth in Britain had tired of the pre-packaged version of rock ‘n’ roll being fed to them by major labels. Punk, with its visceral, back-to-basics approach, and uncompromising willingness to tell it how it is had found an incredibly enthusiastic audience. To many in the punk movement, Clapton’s comments were yet more evidence that he was about as relevant to the times as woolly mammoth dung.

It seems that punk was something of a kindred spirit with RAR. Billy Bragg, a well-known politically active musician in his own right, made the connection right away: “I had seen the Clash on the first night of the White Riot tour and I remember thinking that the fascists were against anybody who wanted to be different – once they had dealt with the immigrants then they would move onto the gays and then the punks. Before I knew it the music I loved would be repatriated.”

In the black community, the urgency of the real world was also finding an expression in music. Jamaican reggae had taken an increasingly militant turn in the 70s thanks in large part to the low-level civil war in that country. That militancy clearly resonated with a Caribbean immigrant community targeted not just by the NF, but by the police supposedly keeping them safe. Three weeks after the Clapton incident, London police incited a riot during a Caribbean carnival in Notting Hill, in what would become a well-remembered uprising against police racism. Around the same time punk was forcing its way onto the charts, London based Caribbeans would start making their own version of the heavy roots sound emanating from the islands in groups like Steel Pulse and Aswad.

The fields were clearly fertile for something potent to grow. Three months after the initial call to form went out, Rock Against Racism held its first show in East London featuring Carol Grimes. RAR started popping up all over the UK. Kids would call up from smaller cities asking what they could do to set up a local chapter. They attracted immigrant and British-born youth, punks, rastas, artists, dock workers would show up to shows and work security. Groups of musicians were signing up left and right to play RAR benefits. Roots reggae stalwarts like Steel Pulse, Aswad, and Misty in Roots often headlined. The vanguard of the punk movement, including the Clash, Buzzcocks and Sham 69, were frequent endorsers.

The organization also reaped the benefits of, and in some ways helped foment, the burgeoning Two Tone movement. Two Tone was the logical result of the collision between reggae and punk: multiracial bands that played Jamaican ska with a decidedly punk attitude. Groups like the Specials, X-Ray Spex, and the Selecter had a look, sound and message that proudly touted racial solidarity and most were regulars at RAR gigs.

Before long, the organization was publishing a magazine, Temporary Hoarding, which, in Huddle’s words, was “the only really revolutionary cultural paper in Britain then or at any time.” Its first issue summed up their political and musical mission in a page one editorial: “We want rebel music, street music, music that breaks down people’s fear of one another. Crisis music. Now music.”

While the starting point for RAR was fighting racism, they made clear from the start their opposition to all oppression. Some of RAR’s earliest supporters were the Tom Robinson Band, a group of agit-rockers whose front-man, Robinson, had long been outspoken about his own sexuality. Organizers were keen on including women artists, and Temporary Hoarding frequently drew the connections between fighting racism and sexism, and commented frequently on the crisis in Northern Ireland.

After all, the National Front were also virulently homophobic; they were on record as saying rape wasn’t really a crime; and they were staunch believers that Northern Ireland belonged to the British Empire. The NF had made their cause out to be one side of a cultural war between what was “English” and what wasn’t. RAR also saw it as a clash of cultures, but reshaped the parameters. As the name of the magazine suggested, RAR were drawing battle lines. An early slogan was “Reggae, Soul, Rock ‘n’ Roll, Jazz, Funk, Punk – Our Music.” Another read “NF = No Fun.” This was clearly a fight between a culture of repression and one of freedom. Like Billy Bragg, RAR saw a direct link between fighting oppression and a vibrant and flourishing youth culture.

We Are Black, We Are White, We Are Dynamite!

That cultural war was only going to get more heated. In 1977, the National Front announced plans to march through the majority black neighborhood of Lewisham in London. Their move was made even more inflammatory by their slogan claiming that 70 percent of muggers were black. The NF’s momentum, however, was about to hit the mother of all brick walls. The call for their march simply angered way too many people. On August 13th, 1977, the NF attempted to march through Lewisham, and were faced with thousands of counter-demonstrators; community members, union workers, socialists and other militant anti-fascists confronted the racists as they attempted to march. It didn’t take long for the police line to crumble and demonstrators clashed. In the end, the National Front was prevented from reaching their final rallying point. What would come to be known as the Battle of Lewisham was a historic victory against the British fascists, and would inspire the foundation of the Anti-Nazi League.

The Anti-Nazi League and Rock Against Racism were natural allies. Both were uncompromising in their anti-racism and their belief that the Front should be opposed head on, leaving no platform for the Front to spew their hate. RAR and the ANL’s membership overlapped from the beginning. Bands associated with RAR would frequently attend ANL demonstrations. And so when the ANL planned a large march through the National Front strongholds in East London, it made sense for Rock Against Racism to provide the entertainment afterwards.

It’s somewhat funny that the Carnival is what’s remembered today given that the march was originally intended to be the main event. The Anti-Nazi League worked hand in hand with Rock Against Racism. While the march would send a political message, the music festival would be a celebration, a glimpse of the freedom and dynamism that a world without oppression might have to offer.

The day of the event exceeded all possible expectations. Richard Buckwell, a member of the organizing team describes it: “we expected 10 or 20,000 people, which would have been excellent, a big rise in the numbers who came on the marches and the demos. But on the day there were tens of thousands of people there.” The march started in Trafalgar Square with about 10,000. When it ended in Victoria Park, the ranks had swollen by thousands. People had come from all over the country: punks, hippies, trade unionists, immigrant shopkeepers, bohemians, women’s rights groups, gay activists; all had come to watch the carnival. By the time the headlining acts took the stage, the crowd was estimated at 80,000.

This naturally blew the organizers away. At most, they had expected 20,000. The PA system they had procured for the event couldn’t blast much louder to accommodate more than that. The Carnival Against the Nazis had no corporate backing, and was run on a shoestring budget, heavily dependent on donations and volunteer labor. Tom Robinson, whose band headlined, describes what it was like: “At the park the gig was a ramshackle affair. Nowadays outdoor pop concerts make us think of corporate sponsorship, backstage catering, TV crews, guest lists, security guards, hospitality and VIP areas. But the Carnival Against the Nazis had none of that – RAR operated completely outside the showbiz establishment.”

Perhaps that’s why so many in attendance found the show so electrifying. All the artificial filters imposed by the music industry (ultimately composed of the same people who argue against confronting the Nazis) were completely absent. Very little came between the message of the performers and the audience.

That message was carried throughout the day by the brilliant acts. More than that, RAR’s mission of fighting oppression with music seemed to actually work, if for no other reason than the sheer diversity and passion of the bands. The carnival was kicked off by X-Ray Spex, not only a Two Tone band, but one fronted by Poly Styrene, one of the most underrated front-women of the 1970s. Accounts of Steel Pulse’s performance seem to always include their performance of their single “Ku Klux Klan” with them wearing white hoods in a salty and provocative act of satire. The Tom Robinson Band’s performance of “Glad to Be Gay” was an explicit demand for solidarity between oppressed groups. And the Clash’s set has become the stuff of legend, with Sham 69’s Jimmy Pursey joining them onstage for their encore of “White Riot” (which had ironically been misconstrued as a white supremacist song upon its release; not that anyone could make that mistake now!).

And what of the audience? Did they just come for the music? Not likely. It seems that there were a good number in the crowd who had come to be inspired, who, through music, had been introduced to the idea that a world without racism may be more than just a pipe dream. Among the crowd was Gurinder Chadha, today a filmmaker, but in the 70s the teenage daughter of immigrants. She had to lie to her parents to come to the carnival, but it was something she wouldn’t forget: “The whole of the park was jumping up and down to the Clash,” Chadha says. “It was an incredibly emotional moment because for the first time I felt that I was surrounded by people who were on my side. That was the first time I thought that something had changed in Britain forever.”

It was the first of many anti-Nazi carnivals held throughout Britain. The next few years would see festivals in Leeds, Birmingham and Manchester, turning out tens of thousands. Countless other small shows were held, and an unknown number of people were inspired and moblized by Rock Against Racism. When the organization folded in 1981 at a carnival in Leeds featuring the Specials, the National Front was in shambles. Indeed, the Front’s former deputy would later state years later that both the ANL and Rock Against Racism were key in the organization’s collapse.

We Still Want Rebel Music

Today the National Front is a shadow of its former self. However, the threat of racist scapegoating at the ballot box is far from over. The economic ineptitude and soft Islamophobia of the Blair and Brown Labour governments has opened the door for the British National Party, whose origins lie in the NF, to use the same anti-immigrant racism as their predecessors to make gains in local councils. With the London Assembly elections taking place on May 1st, the BNP is within reach of getting a seat. Luckily, the fighting spirit of Rock Against Racism is also still alive, and the Carnival Against the Nazis is revered by anti-racists of all stripes.

Rock Against Racism was re-launched in 2004 as Love Music Hate Racism. It has been active over the past four years combatting the BNP’s influence with the help of Unite Against Fascism, heir apparent to the ANL. This past Sunday, the 27th, LMHR held a 30th anniversary festival commemorating the Carnival Against the Nazis in Victoria Park. Tom Robinson performed, along with some of today’s most dynamic acts such as Roll Deep, The Good the Bad and the Queen (featuring Paul Simonon of the Clash) and members of Babyshambles. The carnival was more than a celebration, though. Throughout the day, performers and speakers spoke of the need to openly oppose the BNP on the streets, campuses and in the workplaces. And, if only because it seems hard to top the original carnival, it’s amazing to know that over 100,000 turned out this time around!

There is a lesson for artists and activists on this side of the Atlantic, too. The notion of using popular music to organize political protest may seem a foreign one when surveying the pop-addled airwaves. There are plenty of signs for hope, though. The resurgence of garage rock in the mainstream has signalled a return to the gritty confrontation of punk rock. Hip-hop holds countless talented, politically active MCs in its ranks. And if anyone believes that the youth in this country aren’t angry, then they simply haven’t been paying attention. From a meaningless war to a hopeless economy, to our own homegrown versions of racism and scapegoating, it seems clear that youth are getting dealt a bad hand. What would happen if the same music kids listen to in order to escape and make sense was actually pointing the way to something better?

Rock Against Racism and the Carnival Against the Nazis answer that question brilliantly. Both are undeniable proof that music isn’t something merely to be bought and consumed. Music, ultimately, belongs to us. It reflects our experiences, our worries, our hopes and dreams, and if we fight hard enough, it can bust the walls down and give us a taste of what’s on the other side.

Alexander Billet is a music journalist, writer, and activist living in Washington, DC. He is a regular contributor to SleptOn.com, Znet and Dissident Voice. His blog, Rebel Frequencies, can be viewed at http://rebelfrequencies.blogspot.com, and he can be reached at rebelfrequencies@gmail.com.