People Together People Together
Searchlight Magazine October 2009 by Nick Lowles | Monday, 19 October 2009
Nick Lowles explains how the threat from the English Defence League should provide us with an opportunity to promote the society we want to live in.
People Together
Nick Lowles explains how the threat from the English Defence League should provide us with an opportunity to promote the society we want to live in.
We are living in dangerous times. Over the past few months small groups of football hooligans, racists and assorted fascists have whipped up fear and violence in towns and cities across the country.
Thirty-five people were arrested in Luton in May after hundreds of racists, hooligans and thugs ran through a predominantly Asian area of the town, attacking property and people. Over 150 people have been arrested in three disturbances in Birmingham over the past few months. More recently, ten people were arrested in Harrow protesting against an attempted anti-Islamic demo outside a mosque.
Over the next few months we will undoubtedly see more events and unfortunately more incidents of disorder. The English Defence League is planning protests this month in Manchester and Leeds. Their Welsh counterparts are organising events in Swansea and Newport and the Scottish Defence League will be protesting in Glasgow next month.
So far the disorder, with the exception of Luton, has been on a small scale. This might not always be the case. An EDL protest in Dewsbury, Oldham or Bradford could well lead to mass disorder. But there are potential flashpoints all over Britain.
Last month 60 people were involved in a mass brawl in Swansea. Four white men stood outside a mosque during Friday prayers and began hurling abuse. One ran in and threw some punches. Some young Muslim youths came out to confront the racists and soon afterwards dozens more white men came out of a nearby nightclub, some armed with bottles and chairs, and a mass fight ensued. Now the Welsh Defence League, hoping to capitalise on this trouble, has anno-unced a protest for later this month.
There should be no underestimating the potential damage this disorder can cause. We only have to remember the events of 2001 to see how the actions of small groups of white racists – some nazis, some not – triggered three riots which ripped communities apart and catapulted the British National Party into national promin-ence. The scars from these disturbances still run deep today.
And these riots were before 9/11. They were before the BNP had become firmly implanted within many communities around the country. They were before British troops were dying in Afghanistan.
A new wave of disturbances could have more serious consequences. In 2001 there was widespread chatter among football hooligans about travelling around the country to join in the disturbances. Very few did. Now it appears that far greater numbers are willing to get involved – perhaps not in travelling across the country but certainly in their own areas.
Islamic fundamentalism has replaced the IRA as the biggest perceived challenge to British identity and masculinity among football hooligans. Chants of “No Surrender”, which once dominated pubs and sections of football grounds on match day, have increasingly been replaced with racist “anti-Paki” songs.
On the other side of the spectrum there are growing numbers of disillusioned and angry young Muslims who will defend their communities and meet violence with violence.
On 26 May 2001 a few dozen football hooligans and nazis sought to provoke a violent reaction from Muslims in Oldham. They repeatedly tried to get into a predominantly Asian area of the town but failed due to Searchlight intelligence and police intervention. During one exchange, one of the Oldham hooligan leaders told police: “There’s going to be a riot tonight”.
Later that evening 12 of the group ran down an Asian street smashing windows and attacking people. Residents came out of their houses to defend themselves and their families. When the police arrived they took the white men into protective custody hoping it would stop the trouble. The sight of the whites being given protection infuriated local people and the police became the target of their anger. The Oldham riots had begun.
It is the incendiary concoction of racism, alienation and suspicion that is so dangerous. The EDL is not a fascist organisation but there are fascists in key organisational positions and it is fuelled by Islamophobia and racism. That it is not an open fascist organisation and can mutate and manifest itself in different forms and in different places actually makes it more dangerous.
Meeting the challenge
It is against this backdrop that the HOPE not hate campaign has been pushing for the authorities to ban EDL events. The racists themselves and the violent reaction they seek to incite will have consequences well beyond that day’s activity. Violence breeds fear and fear breeds more violence. Only extremism wins.
In Luton we proved successful. Over 14,000 letters were sent to the Home Secretary and Bedfordshire Police calling for an EDL demo to be banned. It was. We won.
In Birmingham, over 5,000 letters were sent to the city council from local people urging them to prevent the EDL gathering there but we were ignored and 90 people were arrested. We are now using our online network to campaign to stop the EDL in Leeds and Manchester. For Leeds, we sent out 9,800 emails and as a result over 8,200 letters of complaint have been sent to the council and West Yorkshire Police. In Manchester, we are working with the city council to urge the Home Secretary to intervene and over 3,500 people have added their support.
The online campaign has been effective in mobilising awareness of the EDL threat and giving our supporters a simple way to make a difference. But it is not enough.
Firstly, there are only so many times we can ask people to carry out the same action. People will complain once but it is harder a second time, especially if the first action has not succeeded.
There are limits to what the authorities can do. Organisers of a demonstration need to give police at least seven days’ notice of a planned event. For a static protest they do not. Timing, location and stewarding of a demonstration need to be agreed with police beforehand but not for a static protest. Following the Luton ban the EDL changed tactics and has begun calling for static protests, which limits the ability of the police – and ultimately the Home Secretary – to ban them outright. Other measures can be employed but most of these can only be carried out on the day of a protest. The loose nature of the EDL also makes prior intervention, such as stopping known individuals from entering a town, harder.
More fundamentally, we need to start being more proactive. At the moment our actions are simply reactions. The EDL does not operate in a vacuum and while few people would support its violent intent, many would unfortunately share its negative and hostile view of Muslims.
The EDL, and other hardline anti-Islamisation groups, oppose Muslims. They might claim they are opposed only to Islamic fundamentalism but their actions tell a different story. In Birmingham their supporters held up placards reading “No more mosques”; in Luton they indiscriminately attacked Asian shops and people; and in Harrow a protest outside a new mosque to oppose a Sharia court soon turned into a 9/11 memorial after the mosque leaders strenuously denied any such courts would be held there.
We must also recognise that by attacking the Muslim population they are attacking our modern multiracial society and that is an attack on all of us. As a result we must not only defend the Muslim population but defend our society.
The HOPE not hate campaign is launching a People Together initiative as a way of mobilising opposition against the EDL and other racist bigots such as the BNP, and in the process defend our multiracial society. We aim to bring together people of all religions, and none, the labour movement, the political parties and ordinary people around a simple statement opposing racism and defending our society.
The statement can be adapted locally and support for it can be built online and offline. We want all those who oppose racism to stand together and stand up for what unites us.
The bigger and wider the campaign the more likely we are to succeed. We can challenge some of the racist stereotypes that exist and also build alliances within and between communities, which hope-fully will be useful when combating the BNP in future.
Opposing the EDL cannot and should not be left to the Muslim population. They might be the targets of the current wave of racism but if it were not them it would be another minority group, like so many times before. This might involve taking to the streets if the authorities do not or cannot act, but we will do so as a mass movement – a cross section of society – positively saying no to racism and fascism.
In 1946 Pastor Martin Niemöller made a series of speeches, later reproduced as a poem, in which he said that it was failure of people to stand together that allowed the Nazis to win. The context might be different but the sentiments are the same.
The EDL and BNP attacks on Muslims are attacks on all of us and we must defend them together in a positive and constructive way.
