Source: Searchlight Magazine August 2010
The case against a counter-demo
Later this month English Defence League supporters hope to parade their hatred through the streets of Bradford and the HOPE not hate campaign is pulling out all the stops to prevent them. One thing we will not be doing however is to support a counter-demonstration. Nick Lowles explains why.
The English Defence League is calling its protest in Bradford “The Big One” and with good reason. There are few other places in the country where an EDL protest will be seen as more provocative. Despite pretending to be opposed only to Islamic extremism, the EDL is going to Bradford to provoke the city’s large Muslim population.
Almost a third of the people of Bradford are Muslim, the second highest proportion anywhere in England outside London. More signifi-cantly, the city experienced race riots in 2001 for which 200 people went to prison. The city’s reputation was destroyed, divisions between communities widened and deepened and the only beneficiary was the BNP, which began to make significant breakthroughs in council elections.
The scars of the 2001 riot run deep and the city cannot afford another. That is why we are doing everything now to prevent the EDL protest from taking place.
There have been a number of EDL protests around the country, most of which the HOPE not hate campaign has ignored, preferring instead to concentrate on the BNP electoral threat. We have not sup-ported counter-protests but we have not opposed them either. While we found it slightly surprising that activists in key BNP threat areas would travel to oppose the EDL in other parts of the country only weeks before the elections, we kept our thoughts to ourselves.
Now, in Bradford, we are speaking out against a counter-protest on the same day.
For this we have attracted criticism. It has been argued by some that we are allowing the EDL a free passage in the city, that we are somehow breaking the anti-fascist tradition of No Platform. We refute both these allegations.
We totally understand the desire of people to mark their opposition to the EDL and many find a counter-demonstration appealing. Perhaps in some places there might be a case for one but in Bradford we believe there is not.
No EDL protest has actually been stopped by a counter-demonstration so the argument about No Platform does not hold. In almost every instance the EDL has held its static protest regardless of the actions of anti-fascists. More worryingly, some have led to disorder.
To some extent the very fact that the EDL has been able to protest at all represents a defeat. That it has been able to do so regardless of counter-protests suggests that perhaps the tactic of counter-protests is not working.
We also question the impact counter-demonstrations have on local people. Unfortunately much of the media coverage of earlier protests has presented a scene of two groups of extremists. This has especially been the case when there has been disorder or large-scale arrests of anti-EDL protests. The media coverage in Birmingham, Bolton and Manchester presented the anti-EDL protests in a negative light – hardly the best way to win hearts and minds of local people.
Rather, we are putting all our efforts into stopping the EDL protest taking place at all. The Stop the March of Hate initiative, set up by the HOPE not hate campaign, is easily the most intensive anti-EDL campaign to date. We are literally going door-to-door asking people to sign our petition. Churches and mosques are distributing the petition among worshippers and trade unions have been mailing their members. A delegation of leading Bradford figures is going to see the Home Secretary and a legal case is being drawn up to challenge the EDL’s right to protest.
This, in our view, is our only option and sole focus. If thousands of EDL supporters manage to get into Bradford then we have already lost.
We believe that Bradford cannot afford further disorder and we fear that thousands of EDL protesters descending on the city, matched by thousands coming out to oppose them, could well provoke it. And this time the city might not recover.
Most progressive organisations in Bradford oppose a counter-demonstration, including local trade unions, political parties, faith groups and community groups. Last month Yorkshire and Humber TUC added its opposition to a demonstration.
And finally, let us be honest about what happened in 2001. Thousands of people came out to support an anti-fascist demonstration in protest against a planned National Front march. The NF demonstration was banned but a small group came into the city and began making Nazi salutes at the protesters. People had been standing around in hot weather for several hours with nothing to do, no direction and little purpose. They reacted to the racists, disorder ensued and two days of rioting began. Two hundred people, virtually all local Asians, went to prison for a total of 604 years.
Anti-fascists have a responsibility to those attending demonstrations and to the communities we are supposed to protect. Another riot is the last thing the people of Bradford need and we owe it to them to do everything we can to prevent one. And that means stopping the EDL from coming to Bradford in the first place.
The EDL is coming to Bradford to provoke another riot. Let’s not give them one.
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