Pickman's model
Starry Wisdom
Yeh, anyone can edit wikipedia, but it's usually best if it's done by people who are familiar with the subject: which you by your own admission aren't. It's curious behaviour imo to say the least.
Beating the Fascists: The authorised history of Anti-Fascist Action
- Thread starter cogg
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BobFromBrockley
Member
I was very active in an AFA branch in my hometown from 1988 to 1993ish, participating in a couple of regional and national events too. I moved to London temporarily in 1991-2, when I was in South London AFA and attended a national conference. I was then in South London AFA from 1997 it was folded in 1999 and remainde in London AFA until (I think) early 2000. I was never in the Stewards' Group and just a rank and file branch member, but I took part in several different activities. So, I'm not an expert, but don't see why it's curious to edit the AFA wikipedia page.
Fozzie Bear
Well-Known Member
I think the problem with the AFA page is that it's been edited by a number of people who are ignorant of, or hostile to AFA. Cases in point being the clown who thought that Nicky Crane was an "alleged" fascist. Or that AFA was "well known for supporting the IRA".
According to his blog, Bob was involved with AFA so is presumably sympathetic and knowledgeable about some aspects of its history.
Frankly editing wikipedia is a pain in the arse, you have to familiarise yourself with its rules and end up in all kinds of tit for tat battles with idiots who have more time on their hands than most.
Bob's edits today seem to have improved the article:
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Anti-Fascist_Action&diff=542211010&oldid=542202151
(see the right hand side column for what he has put in)
But how long that will last is anyone's guess.
TopCat
Putin fanboy
OK that explains things.
love detective
there's no love too small
The problem with that one was not so much that it appeared in the first place, but when it was edited to something along the lines of a 'notorious frontline fascist' along with a footnote giving a flavour of Mr Crane's CV* (his multiple convictions for racially motivated violence etc along with references etc..) this was all taken out literally the day after the edit was made and the article reverted back to the use of the word 'alleged' - this edit tennis went on for much longer than it should have done before it settled at something a bit better than it was originally but still not ideal
edit: in fact just looked and the name of Nicky Crane has been removed completely now, so we now just have a nameless 'neo-Nazi skinhead activist' which diminishes the history somewhat - i gave up trying with wikipedia a year or so ago due to crap like this
*Nicolas Vincenzio ‘Nicky’ Crane, a 6ft 2in heavily built and tattooed bonehead, began his career as a front-line fascist in the late 1970s as a member of the British Movement. He first came to prominence in 1978 when he led an attack by 200 skinheads on the Asian community around Brick Lane. In 1980 he was branded as “worse than an animal” by a judge at the Old Bailey when sentencing him to 12 months for an unprovoked attack with a bottle on a black family waiting at a bus stop. During the 1980s Crane served two further prison terms for politically motivated and violent offences. During one four-year sentence for organising an attack by up to one hundred skinheads on a largely black cinema queue in Woolwich, he lost any possibility of remission after he attacked and badly injured a number of prison officers with a metal tray. In between prison terms, he had served on the Leader Guard of the British Movement, was a key National Front activist, and later Ian Stuart’s right-hand man as head of security for the B&H organisation. By appearance and reputation he was the epitome of right-wing idealism: fascist icon and poster boy
audiotech
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past caring
The Cathars were right
So you'll know me then. I'd be interested to know who you are - you know how the PM thing works on here? Nothing sinister, just interested...
BobFromBrockley
Member
I don't know how it works, but I'll work it out in the morning.
Pickman's model
Starry Wisdom
click on past caring, start conversation, go
Joe Reilly
Well-Known Member
Scratching my head over how you can have been in AFA and not known about C18 - featured in at least 3 documentaries plus endless news stories - or the controversy over Welling in which the 'left wing' World in Action (as well as national media BBC, Times, and London Evening Standard) all fingered AFA for what is widely acknowledged was a police riot.
Joe Reilly
Well-Known Member
Meaning?
BobFromBrockley
Member
Basically, I don’t know enough about the AFA dimensions of Welling or C18 (or about the Leeds debacle) – including what is speculation and what is provable fact – to be qualified to write a clear, informative sentence or so on each of these in a sufficiently neutral and evidence-based way for an encyclopedia article. I’m also not 100% sure how important these are to a beginner’s article about AFA of a couple of hundred words. There’s nothing to stop any of you going to the article, clicking on edit and writing in the right sentences if you think it matters.
Btw, I was at Welling, but not with London AFA: I was with my hometown AFA branch, who went on the march. I think I’d just moved back to London then, and not re-joined London AFA.)
Pickman's model
Starry Wisdom
others?
audiotech
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Those not "Trotskyists", as Thatcher thought there was "a lot" at WIA.
Joe Reilly
Well-Known Member
So what's your point?
butchersapron
Bring back hanging
Can anyone ID the nightmare climbing through the window behind the charming Mr D Day here?
Joe Reilly
Well-Known Member
There is unsurprisingly a considerable amount of dis and misinformation surrounding all three cases (Media/police/Searchlight) (SB/Searchlight) and Leeds (Searchlight again)but I would have thought BTF provides sufficient back-up for proveable fact to be seperated out?
audiotech
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krink
I'll do it this afternoon
is that malcolm mclaren narrating? im sure i've seen this film before.
*or is it rotten? is this from Jubilee?
butchersapron
Bring back hanging
That's taken from the start of the filth and the fury, Julien Temple's sex pistols film - it's footage from a news prog or doc though. Lydon will surprised/angry that you mistook him for Maclaren!
I don't like Lydon or MacLaren but it always cracks me up when Johnny says "we mustn't speak ill of the dead but he was a cunt"
BobFromBrockley
Member
Stupidly, the other day when I did the Wikipedia edits (in my lunchbreak at work) I left BTF at home. I'll have a look a look later, but my instinct is to stay away from those sorts of topics, given the amount of personal abuse I got got for Wikipedia edits I wasn't even responsible for!
As a serious question, though, do you think that those three incidents are important enough in the AFA story that they ought to be in a short Wikipedia article? I think probably C18 is, Welling just maybe, but Leeds I wouldn't have thought so?
Joe Reilly
Well-Known Member
Stupidly, the other day when I did the Wikipedia edits (in my lunchbreak at work) I left BTF at home. I'll have a look a look later, but my instinct is to stay away from those sorts of topics, given the amount of personal abuse I got got for Wikipedia edits I wasn't even responsible for!
As a serious question, though, do you think that those three incidents are important enough in the AFA story that they ought to be in a short Wikipedia article? I think probably C18 is, Welling just maybe, but Leeds I wouldn't have thought so?
Well Leeds is referenced already - but inaccurately. You invited corrections so I pointed it out. in the round probably not significant enough to put in, but if it is it should at least be correct.
As I understand it the Wikipedia articles are there to both inform and give a flavour of the signifigance of the subject.
Now given that the far right believed C18 was needed to protect the already uber violent BNP among others from the attentions of the AFA stewards group in particular, it provides a strong indication that AFA was something other than the type of run of the mill anti-fascism associated with the ANL mark 2, UAF, Hope not Hate and so on.
Welling on the other hand was a police riot. I think that is broadly accepted? Yet it was AFA that was signalled out by the media, police and a WIA documentary as a, according to the Times editorial, a 'threat to democracy' or words to that effect.
In Anti-Fascism in Britian, Nigel Copsey, argues that the clear intention was to intimidate people from getting involved with AFA - but as he also points out, militant anti-fascism continued to grow.
With the end result that it was, beginning with the BNP, the far-right who were the ones left feeling increasingly vulnerable.
A vulnerability that culminated in the BNP formally abandoning the historic Moselyite 'march and grow' strategy in March 1994.
Which, precisely because it is the most arresting fact in the whole struggle is entirely ignored and thus denied by revisionists who would like people to believe that a) AFA had no effect on BNP thinking and b) it was not the far-right at all but AFA (under the 'treachorous' leadership of Red Action natch) who cried uncle.
(If 'brevity/importance' is the issue why the reference to Dover at all - utterly insignificant in the scheme of things?)
Finally if these were the only dates:
July 1985 - AFA formed
March 1994 - BNP abandon 'marches, meetings, punch-ups'
it would serve as a better and briefer epitaph than what the hotch potch of 'facts' served up previously.
BobFromBrockley
Member
Yeah, I agree. That's why I added the "dubious" tag to the Leeds claim. My feeling is that shouldn't be in the article at all.
I don't think the article needs to be brief, just that care needs to be taken to not give "undue weight" to things that don't deserve it. I agree, Dover's a good example: it's not significant enough to use up words and I'm not sure why it's there. Welling and C18 probably do deserve some space in the article.
Out of interest, do you think the article is still a hotch potch? I think it still needs work, but don't think it's too far off now.
Joe Reilly
Well-Known Member
Far more coherent I would say. However I have to take issue with this para:
"In 1995 London AFA responded with its Filling the Vacuum strategy,[15] which involved offering a political alternative in these communities instead of concentrating on challenging the fascist presence on the streets. Red Action and its allies campaigned within the AFA Network after 1995 for AFA as an organisation to adopt the "Filling the Vacuum" strategy. However, given that AFA contained a number of political groups, with differing political programmes, this, and the decline of street action by the BNP as it embraced "respectable electoralism", contributed to the breakup of much of the AFA network, with much internal recrimination.[16"
1. The IWCA is counterposed to" challenging the fascist presence on the streets". But as we have pointed repeatedly after 1996 there was no fascist presence on the streets.
So the IWCA was not the alternative to fighting fascists - it was the alternative to doing nothing.
2. Filling the Vacuum was not a strategy - it was an analysis along the lines outlined above. Moreover it was analysis formally adopted by London AFA (by far the largest and most influential branch) and discussed nationally from that perspective.
3. The strategy the BNP pursued was not 'respectable electoralism' but 'euro-nationalism'.
4. When AFA was re-launched in 1989 the springboard for organisation nationally were the DAM, Workers Power and Red Action. It was through their extant branches that AFA was set up in structured democratic way (prior to that there were hardly any branches at all - everything was run top down) and crucially allowed unaligned individuals to get involved. Though it made a political contribution up until 1991 WP was by then feeling the strain and looking a for a way out.
WP left to join the ANL in I think 1992.
By about 1995, the DAM too was suffering internal difficulties and seemingly over-night morphed into the Solidarity Federation.
Interestingly, SF never affiliated to AFA. Outside of RA the only other group involved was the tiny Communist Action Group. In other words, contrary to the claim that AFA contained 'a number of political groups with different programmes' by 1996 the only two remaining groups actually became active sponsors of the IWCA. So much for 'internal recrimination'.
Thus the notion that RA pushed the IWCA down the throats of rival groups to the point where AFA itself felt apart is false. There is no basis for it at all. It should be struck out.
5. This is not to say that the whole FTV analysis was accepted hands down as many did not believe the BNP had abadoned the streets or even if they had, that euro-nationalism would profit outside of the 'special circumstances' of the Isle of Dogs. History shows they were wrong on both counts.And with a million or so votes recorded for the BNP just over a decade later - spectacularly so.
Instructively, the only real opposition to FTV and so forth was led not by any formal sponsor but by the entryist Searchlight entryist operation which dominated Leeds and Huddersfield branches and also sought influence in a couple of others. Their opposition increased as the evidence - that they were subverting AFA from within - mounted. After a painstaking 18 month investigation both branches were suspended in July 1997. Individuals were invited to re-apply for membership. Typically Searchlight sought to present this as an attack on 'anarchists' within AFA. Exactly the same line promoted when some of the same individuals sought to gangster Freedom Press - genuine anarchists - into dropping the publication of BTF.
It can't be stressed enough that the turning point for AFA followed the historic abandonment of the 'march and grow' strategy, (not just by the BNP but all the other smaller groups as well who just weren't strong enough to risk AFA's wrath) and after that, the odd physical force spectacular apart (Bloody Sunday 1995, Hoborn 1996) near everything else was in political terms very much after the Lord Mayor's show.
malatesta32
Not Serb. No, Really!
'after the Lord Mayor's show.' Sorry if im a bit thick but could you clarify this? you mentioned it twice.
Joe Reilly
Well-Known Member
Essentially, the BNP declaration in 1994 has been shown to be both seismic and historic and even though there were heavy weight clashes thereafter (with as many as 80 AFA fighters detained) following the clash with C18/Loyalists at Holborn in 1996 for example, it was pure and simply a mopping up operation ( hence ref to 'after Lord Mayor's Show') - dealing with loose ends.
In fact one the principal reasons for the daylight assault under the noses of 300 police, was because Searchlight had stated that such was the level of thuggery C18's was prepared to visit on it's opponents 'anti-fascists dare not confront them'. Though operationally impressive it really had no wider strategic importance at all.
malatesta32
Not Serb. No, Really!
thanks it was a phrase i have never heard and it sounds like it kicked off at the lord mayors show.finishing up the AFA section and we're pretty much done! hurrah!
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