give up anti-fascism?

[FreddyB]

This isn't anything new though. I think the person who said this is all good but how are we going to do it, has a point.

I've supported a lot the ideas of the IWCA and this mirrors a lot of those ideas. But nothing much seems to be happening. Anyone can think they are right, and maybe they are, but how can we actually get where we want to, other than posting on the internet.

Do stuff, the dull as dishwater community politics in your area, where the BNP have a position and you come into conflict win the argument.

 

[butchersapron]

they did have two councillors on Keighley Town Council, so it could well be there. Griffin thought he had a good chance of being elected - or at least getting a bloody good vote - when he stood. Since then there presence in the town seems to have shrunk significantly.

Well, it was the Bradford councillor who generated all the headlines and who HnH and the UAF targeted (of course having two town councillors will have helped). Either way, his case is wobbling all over given the above facts above. 62 members, the same number of candidates as ever and a smaller vote in the proper council elections does not equal his claims of no organisation and no candiates in the town. If he wanted to specify the town council he should have said so.

 

[Nigel Irritable]

Well, whether he's right about his full claim or not, it is interesting that the BNP went from 1 ordinary Councillors and 2 Town Councillors to none at all, isn't it? And that their vote went down considerably at the same time.

 

[TremulousTetra]

Is the concept of 'concentration camps' so anchronistic.

With conflicts in regimes and western military policy still see camps and holding areas where war crimes, crimes against humanity are commited as being just as important and effective as they ever were as counter insurgency.,

Right wing Nationalists and Fascists used such tactic fifteen or so years back in Bosnia & Former Yugoslavia, Russians in Chechnya, Islamicists in Darfur and possibly Algeria and from what can be gathered from reports coming out of Sri Lanka at the moment similar tactics and attrocities to the Tamil population.

The BNP leadership and inner circle were in and highly influenced by the political soldier wing on the far right, much of which is founded upon Strasserism, which if , hypothetically had won the power struggle would have been as equal if not more brutal than Hitler. Hypothetically, if the BNP did come to power do you not think they would use such tactics. Griffins idea of having 'peace lines' is a way of ghettoising Southern Asian Muslims. BNP have supported regimes such as Serbia who have used camps and by murdering the inmates as a form of Ethnic Cleansing.

and the BNP put a leaflet into Oldham at the time of the riots, advocating peace walls, like Belfast.

 

[butchersapron]

Well, whether he's right about his full claim or not, it is interesting that the BNP went from 1 ordinary Councillors and 2 Town Councillors to none at all, isn't it? And that their vote went down considerably at the same time.

Yes, it might be, if we had more info - as interesting as the places with similiar starts where the BNP have moved up to another level entirely despite a heavy HnH and UAF presence adopting the tactics that PM supports - places like Barking and Dagenham or Stoke - i'm not sure? It's certainly not enough to show that HnH's approach works across the board though - it doesn't even show that they work in Keighley, which we should remember has had a pretty unique set of local condtions over the last 5 years as well. There are probably more places where the BNP have got off to the same sort of start (or better) as Keighley and have fallen off in influence with no HnH presence.

 

[durruti02]

altho there is much of intererst and worth in the article, that bit was the worst part imo, and utterly wrong.

We dont oppose fascism because it might put a block on leftist forces developing a rteal pro-wc organisatin, we oppose it because it is wrong and positively harmful for workers of all races, and creeds. to put it the way the author does leaves a gaping hole for HNH to attack - as Meszaros does. And, sadly, he's right. it also poses a good ol' false dichotomy between 'anti-fascism' and building up a real alternative. A real alternative has always been a part of the fight against fascism, its just that now the alternative is so, so much weaker, and it is therefore and even more important part of the struggle.

But just cos we do need an alternative, that is no reason to say we should dump all 'anti-fascism'. We shouldn't, we need to do both. Because fascism is bad.

no i disagree as i think this misses the thoretical underpinning in 'anti -fascism' .. anti fascism ( whether anti fa like it or not) has ALWAYS seperated fascism off from any other political ideology .. so the cultures that wiped out aboriginal communities in southern south america and tasmania and nearly annihalted them in north america, this is NOT fascism, the culture that sent millions to their deaths in WW1*, this is also not fascism, the politics that bimbed nagasaki and hiroshima with nukes, this is again not fascism, vietnam, iraq etc etc etc and we are supposed to ally with these regimes AGAINST tiny fascist threat?

no anti fascism is nothing if it is not a defence of bourgois democracy.. it can not exist outside of that.

it is that passage that is the most crucial .. the BNP are NOT going to take power .. they are ( probably) state funded ( or tacitly encouraged) as a bulwark against communism ( as was hitler) .. in the current period tehre is no NEED for capital to have Griffin take the reins .. they have far more capable people


* The total number of casualties in World War I, both military and civilian, were about 37 million: 16 million deaths and 21 million wounded. The total number of deaths includes 9.7 million military personnel and about 6.8 million civilians. The Entente Powers (also known as the Allies) lost 5.7 million soldiers and the Central Powers about 4 million.

 

[durruti02]

Well, whether he's right about his full claim or not, it is interesting that the BNP went from 1 ordinary Councillors and 2 Town Councillors to none at all, isn't it? And that their vote went down considerably at the same time.

surely the more interesting question is is the w/c movement in keighly stronger now than it was then?

 

[durruti02]

Well, it was the Bradford councillor who generated all the headlines and who HnH and the UAF targeted (of course having two town councillors will have helped). Either way, his case is wobbling all over given the above facts above. 62 members, the same number of candidates as ever and a smaller vote in the proper council elections does not equal his claims of no organisation and no candiates in the town. If he wanted to specify the town council he should have said so.

the bnp cllr on bradford was the one who didn't turn up to meetings got sacked and publically slagged off her local BNP for not supporting her ( though she said she still supported bnp) and they slagged her off .. so maybe that had something to do with it

 

[Steve Booth]

Anne Cryer?

On another point re Meszaros' reply - why do people think the BNP have shrunk so far and so fast in keighley?

Anne Cryer?

-Which comes back to the flaw in the "Oppose the BNP and vote Labour" argument.

 

[durruti02]

Anne Cryer?

-Which comes back to the flaw in the "Oppose the BNP and vote Labour" argument.

he he .. same as the great "1979 hey we defeated the NF!!!! yippee!!! er oh so we got thatcher!! ummmm hey never mind WE DEFEATED THE NF!!!! YIPPEE" story

and precisely the point of the article is that the BNP is used to push everything to the right and block the development of a real w/c ( though tbf i think cryer was generally left wing no??)

 

[One_Stop_Shop]

JimW not at all. But we need a way of moving forward and what is that? Nothing has been successful, so where do we go from here?

We can all agree that the UAF and their lot are a load of rubbish so where from here?

 

[durruti02]

JimW not at all. But we need a way of moving forward and what is that? Nothing has been successful, so where do we go from here?

We can all agree that the UAF and their lot are a load of rubbish so where from here?

er thats what he Red Pepper article is about!

 

[BalhamCloud]

and the BNP put a leaflet into Oldham at the time of the riots, advocating peace walls, like Belfast.

Can you source that one about the peace walls please? IIRC Griffin predicted peace walls, rather than advocating them.

 

[The39thStep]

The article very usefully summarises discussions held on this board and others.It throws down direct challange to those supporting the anitifa , hnh and UAF positions.

Re Resitances commnets re this bloke he knowws. I know quite a few like that and a lot who resent what they see as foriegners in work or in housing when they are unemployed or living in overcrowded houses. In the absence of a progressive working class community orgnaisations to advocate you inevitably end up trying to pursuade them not to vote BNP.One group of my mates vote UKIP for example to stop immigration and to get out of the EC precisely rather than the BNP because me and others have tainted them.On the otherhand the local BNP member we know is an affable reasonably articulate blokey sort of bloke who rode out the BNP list pulication, distances himself from golliwog burning ,eats in local curry houses and quietly argues his politics. Its hard just to dismiss him as some sort of Nazi.

I end up arguing the alternative that a local working class organisation might bring but there is always someone who asks the very pertinent question-where is it?

 

[Stoat Boy]

.One group of my mates vote UKIP for example to stop immigration and to get out of the EC precisely rather than the BNP because me and others have tainted them.

Thats a good point. I wonder how the BNP would have done in the Euro elections if the UKIP had not been standing ?

And whilst I am usually very dismissive of the whole UAF/HnH approach it is undeniable that within the wider electorate there is a distaste for the BNP which has to be put down, in part, to the efforts of UAF/HnH.

However I also think that there is a very real tipping point which may come in the shape of some future event (terrorist attack, outbreak of rioting that is perceived as being anti-white and so on ) in which the revulsion felt towards the BNP is over come by what I can only (badly) describe as what I feel is a real and growing sentiment that something has to be done and that our current political establishment is unable to do so.

 

[The39thStep]

Thats a good point. I wonder how the BNP would have done in the Euro elections if the UKIP had not been standing ?

And whilst I am usually very dismissive of the whole UAF/HnH approach it is undeniable that within the wider electorate there is a distaste for the BNP which has to be put down, in part, to the efforts of UAF/HnH.

However I also think that there is a very real tipping point which may come in the shape of some future event (terrorist attack, outbreak of rioting that is perceived as being anti-white and so on ) in which the revulsion felt towards the BNP is over come by what I can only (badly) describe as what I feel is a real and growing sentiment that something has to be done and that our current political establishment is unable to do so.

good point and that is exactly what a series of EDF/asian youth town centre battles might become.

 

[butchersapron]

Just briefly going back to Keighley, there's good reasons why an experienced operator like PM picked the place - firstly, it narrows the focus away from the failures in the rest of the Yorkshire area that PM as HnH Yorskhire spokeseman is 'responsible' for - the fact that he is now represented by a BNP MEP for example, or the 17% the BNP picked up acrosss Barnsley, the 16% across Rotheram in the euros or the similar scores across both those towns plus Bradford, Calderdale, Kirklees, Wakefield, Leeds, parts of sheff etc in the locals. Secondly, Keighley is what the UAF and HnH fell out over - over the accusations of 'grooming' of young girls by muslim gangs that Anne Cryer took up and the UAF rubbished as default racism. He's oposing the UAF to HnH.

 

[One_Stop_Shop]

No one has come back on what Mr T was saying. This article is nothing new, people have been putting these arguments for years.

You can say do stuff, but what and why isn't an alternative being successfully built?

 

[durruti02]

And whilst I am usually very dismissive of the whole UAF/HnH approach it is undeniable that within the wider electorate there is a distaste for the BNP which has to be put down, in part, to the efforts of UAF/HnH.

However I also think that there is a very real tipping point which may come in the shape of some future event (terrorist attack, outbreak of rioting that is perceived as being anti-white and so on ) in which the revulsion felt towards the BNP is over come by what I can only (badly) describe as what I feel is a real and growing sentiment that something has to be done and that our current political establishment is unable to do so.

oh yes ...

 

[durruti02]

good point and that is exactly what a series of EDF/asian youth town centre battles might become.

which is why some on here emphasised them ;D

 

[durruti02]

No one has come back on what Mr T was saying. This article is nothing new, people have been putting these arguments for years.

You can say do stuff, but what and why isn't an alternative being successfully built?

ok and that IS what we have talked about before BUT YES it is the key question

imho ..

1) the negative influence of the worst of leninist/trot politics always on about building a party and refusing to get involved in communities ( e.g. swp absented themselves from anti poll tax camapign well into it as they argued ( and continue to argue) that community politics is somehow unimportant .. only the SP has consistently got involved with local politics of the left groups)

2) the middle class dominace of leftist politics which alienates many w/c people .. almost all leftist politics is based on middle class ideology that the system is badly run and a new class of technocrats needs to take over ( and much on the russian revolution which was pretty well a bourgois revolution) .. this is why it attracts students ansd other m/c and not w/c people

3) the obsession with minority or outsides or 'the other' which is partial m/c guilt and partially a remnant of evangelism ( moses in the desert and all that bollox jesus and his small group of disciples ) but also pure and utter short term opportunism whereby these tiny sects think they can slingshot themselves to glory by picking on one disadvantaged group or another ..

4) the obsession in trying to help people in places you have absolutely NO influence over whatsoever, palestine, venezuela whatever .. this 'solidarity' politics is an utter dead end

5) desperation .. people quite rightly want quick solutions and dog shit politics is not neccessarryly quick .. but the quick solutions demos placards and lots of shouting simply do not work as we have seen

6) and as i tried to kick off with the Reich thread there is much psychology which most on the left ignore .. why is it that people are so insular and sectarian? why are people frightenned of standing up? why do people go to the right not the left? etc etc

7) a legitimate desire to not get thinks wrong and so emphasis on 'correct' politics .. but ending up not getting involved

so this article has tried to kick off this debate which is the first stage in any debate BUT BUT BUT essentially we need a revolution in how we see progressive politics .. we need to really look at what we do with a TOTALLY open mind and ask ourselves is it working what is it acheiving

 

[Nigel]

no i disagree as i think this misses the thoretical underpinning in 'anti -fascism' .. anti fascism ( whether anti fa like it or not) has ALWAYS seperated fascism off from any other political ideology .. so the cultures that wiped out aboriginal communities in southern south america and tasmania and nearly annihalted them in north america, this is NOT fascism, the culture that sent millions to their deaths in WW1*, this is also not fascism, the politics that bimbed nagasaki and hiroshima with nukes, this is again not fascism, vietnam, iraq etc etc etc and we are supposed to ally with these regimes AGAINST tiny fascist threat?

no anti fascism is nothing if it is not a defence of bourgois democracy.. it can not exist outside of that.

it is that passage that is the most crucial .. the BNP are NOT going to take power .. they are ( probably) state funded ( or tacitly encouraged) as a bulwark against communism ( as was hitler) .. in the current period tehre is no NEED for capital to have Griffin take the reins .. they have far more capable people


* The total number of casualties in World War I, both military and civilian, were about 37 million: 16 million deaths and 21 million wounded. The total number of deaths includes 9.7 million military personnel and about 6.8 million civilians. The Entente Powers (also known as the Allies) lost 5.7 million soldiers and the Central Powers about 4 million.

Good point.
Better to deal with the causes than put all the weight on the symptoms.

 

[Nigel]

Can you source that one about the peace walls please? IIRC Griffin predicted peace walls, rather than advocating them.

He advocated peace walls, or at least said they would be beneficial in interview with Paxman on Newsnight.

 

[One_Stop_Shop]

durutti that's all very well, but everything you are saying has been said before and it's still not getting us anywhere. You can write posts on the internet all day long, but there needs to be some practical results at some point.

The article is saying things that have been said over and over for years.

 

[butchersapron]

No one has come back on what Mr T was saying. This article is nothing new, people have been putting these arguments for years.

You can say do stuff, but what and why isn't an alternative being successfully built?

Actually no, these arguments have not been appearing in left publications (or any others for that matter) 'for years'. You might be confusing them appearing on bulletin boards with them appearing in print. Show me where searchlight or the left (or any publication) have put these arguments?

You appear to have missed the suggestions for action at the end ofg the article - here they are again:

I offer a few positive suggestions towards a new approach.

1 Community unions
We could form ‘community unions’, unconnected to Labour, possibly funded by trade unions but with organisational independence assured, that would work directly on helping to meet the needs of those politically abandoned working-class communities where conditions are deteriorating by the day. These would be based around the self-identified needs and plans of those communities – which can only pit them head-to-head against the BNP and the political mainstream.

The types of small victories that can be won on this terrain should be viewed not only as being worthwhile in themselves, but also as contributing to the re-emergence of community confidence in political self-assertion, the necessary first steps towards achieving further-reaching change. There are already existing groups engaged in this sort of practical activity, such as the London Coalition Against Poverty, Haringey Solidarity and the Oxford and Islington Working Class Associations (see Red Pepper Oct/Nov 2007).

The need for these to be open membership union-type organisations rather than party membership-type groups is a simple practical one. People will join unions at work as they recognise collective needs that exist over and above the heads of political disagreements, and the same is true of community needs. And once there is widespread identification (even passive) of the needs of an area/workplace with the existence of a union it becomes very hard to shift; that identification becomes a power in itself. Parties are too narrow to play this role under today’s conditions – they exist on a different level – but there is no reason why they cannot play a role within these broader open groups.

2 Focus on policy
We should develop the ‘expose them’ model into one that, instead of revealing ineffective details about individuals, concentrates on why their polices will not deal with the social problems driving people into their arms. If we cannot make this clear to those already intensely concerned with these issues then our propaganda is failing and is at best talking to those who would never vote BNP anyway. This will require a direct challenge to Searchlight/UAF and other mainstream anti-fascists as they continue to empty their publications of all but the most inane type of content criticised above. This, of course, needs to be linked to the activity of the ‘community union’ type groups mentioned above.

1. This means approaching your union branch and trying to get money for groups that try and address the issues that are driving support for the far right, it means pushing for this at a national level, it means setting up those groups - groups that attempt to deal with anti-social behaviour, with dodgy landords, with debt, with sub-standard housing, with problems with the social - it means contacting existing groups, tenents groups, volunteer groups etc to tey and orgnaise into a local network, one of the open access community union type groups talked about, it means organising community activities in order to develop a local public political sphere based around participation and identification - from football tournaments to film nights to mechanics workshops on the evenings.

2. That meams setting up information gathering networks seprate from those of Searchlight and publishing stuff that confronts with the failure of BNP policy and practice to deal with the problems that are pushing people right-wards -and linking that with the activity of the above groups that can gain victories on this level.

What do you want? Operation Overlord?

 

[butchersapron]

durutti that's all very well, but everything you are saying has been said before and it's still not getting us anywhere. You can write posts on the internet all day long, but there needs to be some practical results at some point.

The article is saying things that have been said over and over for years.

Say something. Make some criticisms. Make some points. What are your practical suggestions? All is see is better to stick with the devil we know.

 

[butchersapron]

This would be an excellent time to link to this article:

The dog shit politics panacea

Nazis do it. Greens do it. Even socialists do it sometimes. Every day graft, listening to people, asking them what they want, and putting in the work to try and get it for them.

The dog shit politics of making sure the little things are dealt with, and that groups set achievable targets, winning things that non-activist people are actually interested in. It helps build a rapport between people and political groups, and keeps people grounded in everyday life.

Left-wing or pro-working class groups should be at a natural advantage in this arena. In the first place they´re supposed to have a deeper understanding of the forces that are behind attacks on working class communities, so should have a better understanding of how to fight back. They don´t have the big disadvantage that far right groups do, in that they aren´t trying to peddle racism and they don´t have quite the pariah status that Nazis do.

 

[durruti02]

durutti that's all very well, but everything you are saying has been said before and it's still not getting us anywhere. You can write posts on the internet all day long, but there needs to be some practical results at some point.

The article is saying things that have been said over and over for years.

as BA says below .. some peopel are doing these things, in oxford hackney haringay etc .. only yesterday i was talking to someone from battersea and wandsworth trades council about setting up community unions so it IS being discussed , but yes we need a sea change in how we look at things ..

 

[One_Stop_Shop]

Actually no, these arguments have not been appearing in left publications (or any others for that matter) 'for years'. You might be confusing them appearing on bulletin boards with them appearing in print. Show me where searchlight or the left (or any publication) have put these arguments?

I don't care what is in left publications. No-one reads them and they have no influence in the real world.

I'm not saying stay with the status quo of the left at all. What I'm saying is that these ideas are nothing new. A few examples have been mentioned about where these things are being tried but they seem very far and few between.

If people having been raising these ideas for god knows how long and there is very little to show for it, why is there any faith that this will change?

 

[durruti02]

I don't care what is in left publications. No-one reads them and they have no influence in the real world.

I'm not saying stay with the status quo of the left at all. What I'm saying is that these ideas are nothing new. A few examples have been mentioned about where these things are being tried but they seem very far and few between.

If people having been raising these ideas for god knows how long and there is very little to show for it, why is there any faith that this will change?

why is there faith ANYTHING can change? if you think it do it some of think this way and we not only do it but we argue it in magazines and on the internet too