Joe Reilly
Well-Known Member
Not just minor quibbles but gnomic gaps.
Beating the Fascists: The authorised history of Anti-Fascist Action
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Not just minor quibbles but gnomic gaps.
Joe Reilly
Well-Known Member
Normally, no. But given that it was you, the would be author, who took the opportunity to draw attention to what you consider your superior working method which you feel allows you to "kind of work what happened at the Enkell overall" for example, when such a, let's be fair, weasely revision of events can only be arrived at, if the hard facts of the case as outlined in some detail in BTF, are diluted and corrupted by the lies and whimsy of fascists and bitter sectarians. Now if the subjective result was to apply only to the Enkell it would be bad enough, but previous offerings on the subject of 'subjectivity' from yourself indicate otherwise.
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malatesta32
Not Serb. No, Really!
Normally, no. But given that it was you, the would be author …
Mal: 3 books, countless journalism, ¼ million words on anti/fascism.
… who took the opportunity to draw attention to what you consider your superior working method which you feel allows you to "kind of work what happened at the Enkelloverall"
Mal: it is important cross reference as there are clearly different versions of the same incident and I do not accept that the BTF is the ONLY version. It may be the most believable one and least disputed but the Enkell thing has been discussed in at least 3 different books so these need to be accommodated. I am not disputing anything in BtF but to say there is only 1 version is ‘subjectivity’ itself.
for example, when such a, let's be fair, weasely revision of events can only be arrived at, if the hard facts of the case as outlined in some detail in BTF, are diluted and corrupted by the lies and whimsy of fascists and bitter sectarians. Now if the subjective result was to apply only to the Enkell it would be bad enough, but previous offerings on the subject of 'subjectivity' from yourself indicate otherwise.
Mal: as far as fascism is concerned, to quote Martha Gellhorn forget ‘all that objectivity shit.’
Mal: 3 books, countless journalism, ¼ million words on anti/fascism.
… who took the opportunity to draw attention to what you consider your superior working method which you feel allows you to "kind of work what happened at the Enkelloverall"
Mal: it is important cross reference as there are clearly different versions of the same incident and I do not accept that the BTF is the ONLY version. It may be the most believable one and least disputed but the Enkell thing has been discussed in at least 3 different books so these need to be accommodated. I am not disputing anything in BtF but to say there is only 1 version is ‘subjectivity’ itself.
for example, when such a, let's be fair, weasely revision of events can only be arrived at, if the hard facts of the case as outlined in some detail in BTF, are diluted and corrupted by the lies and whimsy of fascists and bitter sectarians. Now if the subjective result was to apply only to the Enkell it would be bad enough, but previous offerings on the subject of 'subjectivity' from yourself indicate otherwise.
Mal: as far as fascism is concerned, to quote Martha Gellhorn forget ‘all that objectivity shit.’
The39thStep
Urban critical thinker
what were the other two books Mal and the journalism you mention about?
miktheword
Well-Known Member
Mal: it is important cross reference as there are clearly different versions of the same incident and I do not accept that the BTF is the ONLY version. It may be the most believable one and least disputed but the Enkell thing has been discussed in at least 3 different books so these need to be accommodated. I am not disputing anything in BtF but to say there is only 1 version is ‘subjectivity’ itself.
ok Mal, but there comes a point in historical enquiry that you have to discount other versions. keeping on the enkell thing, Joe, and (no-one I think ) is saying it's the only version but instead are questioning ,forensically if need be,those other versions . that's the point ,isn't it, to get the history right , rather that a blurred story that leaves all anti fascists content ...the political point is made in BtF, meaning this is what can happen when stock isn't taken of our forces to theirs (on the day in question , we had 12 that went down to 10 as 2 moved their motors ...odds of 8 to one in their favour it turned out...the lesson obvious I would have thought ...we can't afford to lose ...planning, assessing odds was paramount ..(.unlike football rows ,have a beer with the oppo, we'll do you next time etc, don't happen)..
.to have got seriously turned over in north London for the first time in maybe a decade ,would have emboldened them, their hangers on, weakened us, etc
as said , I refrained for years from straightening the k bullstreet 'version 'out of respect for the DAM. Now if I can swear down what I saw, can place myself as the only RA member who followed DAM into the adjoining back room , I reckon for 20 seconds max (told crying barmaid to call OB) returned to main bar and was there early enough in proceedings to shout for other side door to be closed , repeated immediately by Glasgow S next to me as he muttered about retribution ...I was unnerved for about 20 seconds ...have no trouble admitting it..doesn't make me look good, as said previously .
I was subject not just to wounding banter for the rest of the day, as told in BtF, but the rest of the year , and had to face severe questioning from fellow members absent from the day , as most of ours were at west Belfast interment festival . (and quite right I faced that questioning )
I never thought anything less of the DAM present, for reasons I outlined in an earlier post.
so much so that I still refrained from this correcting years back, when reading k bullstreet recollections .(repetition of this point for emphasis )
I couldn't understand why they inverted reality ...it wasn't as if the enkell thing diminished their overall record (just the same as I don't think a brief loss of nerve diminished mine too much over a 15 year period )
the reason for the detail is that ,to return to joe's point about equal weighting in 'versions' of enkell ..I will stop short of asking from them, for who else, apart from me in RA, was ever in the backroom, in these ,equally weighed , other versions. The question becomes rhetorical by me not asking it. Both me and whoever gave that fiction to k bullstreet, know that I was the sole member.
but the book , BtF, and perhaps more so this thread ,serves to clarify what happened .
throughout the thread ,and even before the book was published ,there were those who sought to muddy those waters for political reasons .
there are also those good anti fascists like yourself who may not have been around early enough for many of the events discussed and view any disagreements on this thread , as unnecessary sectarian personal feuds ...(see the popcorn and keep calm comments after k sharply posted )
people can believe different things as to why enkell panned out as it did. (until reading btf and reading other accounts ,including anarchist ones , I thought for years that the fash followed me back after I aborted my scouting trip having been convinced i was clocked by their spotter outside their boozer on the Holloway rd...turns out that they may have found it for other reasons ...but minor details don't matter )
but, as to what happened , there should be no ambiguity .I know what I saw in the pub,...and to this day am still amazed at what appeared on the k sharply/bullstreet site. both groups had respect for each other, can't think of a less sectarian group in dealings with us, than London DAM...(maybe the Scottish dispute came into it...?
that I can not only go into minute details but am also admitting it wasn't my finest hour ..surely carries more weight when a true anti fascist history is written ?
it may seem like I'm focussing unnecessarily on a single row, but aside from straightening the history , it's also crucial for future anti fascists to learn how unplanned bravado can set us back. this is central to BtF, (and the point is made in the book about the enkell re lack of planning ...let others see what can happen when bravado takes over ) every incident in the book is concluded with how it left them, us, politically and subsequently, the amount of state interest that ensued .
But , the historical accuracy is paramount ..and with respect , I don't think you've addressed Joe's point about weighting ,first hand accounts etc.
ok Mal, but there comes a point in historical enquiry that you have to discount other versions. keeping on the enkell thing, Joe, and (no-one I think ) is saying it's the only version but instead are questioning ,forensically if need be,those other versions . that's the point ,isn't it, to get the history right , rather that a blurred story that leaves all anti fascists content ...the political point is made in BtF, meaning this is what can happen when stock isn't taken of our forces to theirs (on the day in question , we had 12 that went down to 10 as 2 moved their motors ...odds of 8 to one in their favour it turned out...the lesson obvious I would have thought ...we can't afford to lose ...planning, assessing odds was paramount ..(.unlike football rows ,have a beer with the oppo, we'll do you next time etc, don't happen)..
.to have got seriously turned over in north London for the first time in maybe a decade ,would have emboldened them, their hangers on, weakened us, etc
as said , I refrained for years from straightening the k bullstreet 'version 'out of respect for the DAM. Now if I can swear down what I saw, can place myself as the only RA member who followed DAM into the adjoining back room , I reckon for 20 seconds max (told crying barmaid to call OB) returned to main bar and was there early enough in proceedings to shout for other side door to be closed , repeated immediately by Glasgow S next to me as he muttered about retribution ...I was unnerved for about 20 seconds ...have no trouble admitting it..doesn't make me look good, as said previously .
I was subject not just to wounding banter for the rest of the day, as told in BtF, but the rest of the year , and had to face severe questioning from fellow members absent from the day , as most of ours were at west Belfast interment festival . (and quite right I faced that questioning )
I never thought anything less of the DAM present, for reasons I outlined in an earlier post.
so much so that I still refrained from this correcting years back, when reading k bullstreet recollections .(repetition of this point for emphasis )
I couldn't understand why they inverted reality ...it wasn't as if the enkell thing diminished their overall record (just the same as I don't think a brief loss of nerve diminished mine too much over a 15 year period )
the reason for the detail is that ,to return to joe's point about equal weighting in 'versions' of enkell ..I will stop short of asking from them, for who else, apart from me in RA, was ever in the backroom, in these ,equally weighed , other versions. The question becomes rhetorical by me not asking it. Both me and whoever gave that fiction to k bullstreet, know that I was the sole member.
but the book , BtF, and perhaps more so this thread ,serves to clarify what happened .
throughout the thread ,and even before the book was published ,there were those who sought to muddy those waters for political reasons .
there are also those good anti fascists like yourself who may not have been around early enough for many of the events discussed and view any disagreements on this thread , as unnecessary sectarian personal feuds ...(see the popcorn and keep calm comments after k sharply posted )
people can believe different things as to why enkell panned out as it did. (until reading btf and reading other accounts ,including anarchist ones , I thought for years that the fash followed me back after I aborted my scouting trip having been convinced i was clocked by their spotter outside their boozer on the Holloway rd...turns out that they may have found it for other reasons ...but minor details don't matter )
but, as to what happened , there should be no ambiguity .I know what I saw in the pub,...and to this day am still amazed at what appeared on the k sharply/bullstreet site. both groups had respect for each other, can't think of a less sectarian group in dealings with us, than London DAM...(maybe the Scottish dispute came into it...?
that I can not only go into minute details but am also admitting it wasn't my finest hour ..surely carries more weight when a true anti fascist history is written ?
it may seem like I'm focussing unnecessarily on a single row, but aside from straightening the history , it's also crucial for future anti fascists to learn how unplanned bravado can set us back. this is central to BtF, (and the point is made in the book about the enkell re lack of planning ...let others see what can happen when bravado takes over ) every incident in the book is concluded with how it left them, us, politically and subsequently, the amount of state interest that ensued .
But , the historical accuracy is paramount ..and with respect , I don't think you've addressed Joe's point about weighting ,first hand accounts etc.
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Joe Reilly
Well-Known Member
The account in BTF is a blow by blow account signed off by eye-witnesses on the ground.
It explains what happened in precise detail and why.
Names are named.
It is not offered up as an 'opinion' as you seem to need to pretend.
Joe Reilly
Well-Known Member
The Scottish dispute had nothing to do with it except to say that bang-out lies emanating from a lone DAM member lay behind that too. So in that sense it does explain how easily tribal loyalties can be inflamed even within an organisation founded on anti-sectarian lines.
Oddly enough in the attachment from the recent Kate Sharpley post (which I have just read) the Glasgow incident is once again raised as if it represented unfinished business somehow, on the lines that the anarchists were hard done by.
Which is very odd because my memory of it was that the DAM negotiators in London were grateful to have been let down so gently given that the info they were privy too was liberally laced with falsehoods. Basically they had been offered a sectarian pup and bought without checking the pedigree. And as a result found themselves constantly on the wrong-foot during discussions on the matter.
Gl*n who was himself Scottish but operating out of South London admitted to me after the final meeting that he found whole affair "pretty embarrassing" and was glad it had been put to bed with no hard feelings on the RA side.
So why would ex-DAM wish to return to it now?
Intriguingly at least part of the reason behind the fall-out in Glasgow was the apparent belief by the main mover and shaker there that if he set up a rival AFA branch in the city, then the DAM who he was led to believe were the principal string-pullers in London could be relied upon to support it.
Wrong on both counts as it happens.
But if the KS post is anything to by there may well be some significant re-writing of militant anti-fascist history yet.
For example KS talks of the 'Northern Network being the oldest and biggest region' thereby clearly implying that as a consequence it was also the most influential in terms of AFA nationally and of course in terms of effecting the fortunes NF/B&H/C18/BNP, which would be more than a little misleading.
It also states that BTF is limited to giving first hand accounts of those events that the RA members quoted 'were directly involved in'. Suggesting that a) there were a host of significant events not covered in BTF as a consequence and b) that the individuals in question had been selected on the basis they were 'key RA members' first and foremost, when in reality those quoted had actually been central to founding AFA nationally in 1985 and were critical to the re-launch in 1989 and drivers in its development nationally region by region thereafter.
Or to put it another way, they were first in and last out; the same individuals who formed AFA literally turned out the lights in 2001, was the real reason the featured so heavily. That plus their availability and willingness to be quoted.
KS signs off with a wry remark about 'minding the gaps'.
Well if people think there are significant gaps then by all means fill them.
But if the KS offering and Malatesta's take on the 'Enkel thing' (and subsequent silence which may be as telling) are anything to go by, then I think anti-fascists should be rather wary about the type of material they intend to fill the gaps with.
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malatesta32
Not Serb. No, Really!
i reiterate that BTF is an excellent book but it is wrong to think it is beyond criticism from other members of a large, nationwide organisation. i said in the original review 'write your own.' there are very few anarchist voices outside of london DAM. there will always be disagreements.
malatesta32
Not Serb. No, Really!
butchersapron
Bring back hanging
Have you any interests?
malatesta32
Not Serb. No, Really!
yes, i spend most of my day thinking what you are doing.! i just happened upon it by accident and these threads are a useful repository for things. especially this one.
cantsin
Well-Known Member
butchersapron
Bring back hanging
So posting stuff that's already over the internet and has been know for nearly three decades. Why?
malatesta32
Not Serb. No, Really!
of what? that PTV are shit and crane is in the video. and buttcheeks apron, it is pertinent to previous posting.
butchersapron
Bring back hanging
The one made 6 months ago. This is getting pathetic. Just post shite from here and maybe copy it and you'll never have to think on your feet again.
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