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Home | Friday 28th April 2006 | Issue 541

WAKE UP!! WAKE UP!! ITS YER FLUFF BUSTIN’...

SchNEWS

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Story Links: One Goose-step Beyond | Scrapped Arrest of the Week | King Comeuppance | An Eye On Zion | Glasto Mud Slinging | SchNEWS In Brief | Anarchism06 | ...and finally...

ONE GOOSE-STEP BEYOND

BNP LOCAL ELECTION BREAKTHROUGH?

Far-right racist British National Party are fielding an unprecedented number of candidates for the local council elections on 4th May. Their campaign feeds off the natural disillusionment people in the UK have with New Labour’s cut-throat capitalist policies, which have flogged off public assets for the profits of a small elite of wealthy individuals, while clamping down on civil liberties with authoritarian laws. The BNP uses this dissatisfaction to promote its racist agenda by blaming all these problems on immigration and building up the fear-mongering myth of Islamic extremism. Its inflammatory leaflets use the tried-and-tested tactic of divide and rule to create divisions within society along racial lines.

Initially the BNP’s mid-nineties reorientation to electoral politics was the result of defeat on the streets. Their strategy of ‘march and grow’ where ‘rights for whites’ were to be secured with ‘well directed fists and boots’ collapsed under the onslaught of Anti-Fascist Action and the Anti-Nazi League. However the bulk of the party now, publicly at least, supports Nick Griffin’s strategy of ‘respectable’ action through the ballot box. The BNP are not on the verge of forming a government – they only have currently 20 councillors up and down the country and nothing like a majority on any local authority. Even if extremely successful they can only hope to double that number. But significant numbers of people are willing to put their cross down next to a party that among other things promises repatriation of every non-white individual to their country of ‘ethnic’ origin.

OPPORTUNISTS KNOCK

If people are gravitating to extremist organisations, it is because the mass organised Left has collapsed and the centre has proved to be an illusion. After 1997, some people held a naïve hope that things would improve after the nightmare of Thatcherism, but of course Neo Labour only continued the capitalist project, adding their own peculiar twist of authoritarianism and sinister doublespeak (while fascists threaten to bomb Muslims, Neo Labour are actually doing it all over the world). The BNP’s propaganda attempts to step into this political vacuum by latching onto legitimate issues like unemployment, the state of the NHS, privatisation and in fact any bandwagon with more than three wheels. While seeming to promise everything to everyone in an attempt to gain support, their answers consist entirely of racism and hot air, returning relentlessly to the pseudo-problem of immigration.

The danger they represent is more in the influence they have on mainstream media and politics than any prospect of jack boots in Whitehall. Parts of the media, notably the Murdoch press, are pushing an openly racist agenda, with the likes of Richard Littlebrain (yeah, he’s working for the Mail now) leaving no fact undistorted to blame social ills and inequality on immigrants. Nick Griffin has described the tabloids as “one of the BNPs best recruiting agents” and expressed his satisfaction with government immigration policies. The BNP’s success has been to get immigration considered a ‘problem’ right across the board, dragging the debate inexorably down and to the right.

The racist political and media campaign has real consequences - last Friday, 18 year old Christopher Alaneme was stabbed to death in Kent in a racist attack, and the British Crime Survey estimates that there are more than 200,000 racially motivated incidents every year. The fact that the Tory party’s election campaign echoed the BNP’s stance on immigration and law ‘n’ order, with Neo-Labour playing second fiddle, is an indicator that all parties consider that playing the race card is a potential winner. While the Mirror may have recently attempted to stem the tide of anti-immigration propaganda, the recent furore of Charles Clarke’s failure to ensure the control of ‘foreign’ prisoners shows that many in the so-called political ‘centre’ are willing to play with fire when it comes to using latent racism to score political points. Politicians and journalists assume that the electorate - particularly the ‘white working class’ - is racist, so their tactic to restore confidence in the ‘centre’ is to promise to be ‘tougher’ with an endless series of crackdowns and fear-mongering against the most marginalised people in society. The centre party’s ceaselessly irrigate the cesspool in which the BNP swim.

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The bungled attempt by the state to prosecute Nasty Nick Griffin twice for the same offences of race hate were certain to fail while giving free publicity to the disgusting ideas he has carefully cleaned up to remain within the law, and served mainly to soften up public opinion for more laws restricting freedom of expression and the erosion of double-jeopardy protection.

One of the central ironies of the BNP’s attempt to surf the zeitgeist of terrorism paranoia and Islamophobia (the party tastelessly reproduced images of the bus blown apart on July 7th with the slogan “Maybe now it’s time to start listening to the BNP”), is that the far-right produced its very own homegrown terrorist – David Copeland. His association with the BNP in the early nineties fuelled his psychosis, leading to him placing three nail bombs around London in 1999 in an effort to spark a “racial war...so that all the white people would go and vote BNP”. Curiously, in all his rants about the danger of terrorism from immigrant communities Old Nick doesn’t dwell on his own organisation’s flirtation with suspect devices.

Neo-Labour are using the BNP as an electoral scare tactic. In an effort to avoid an electoral referendum over their own cowboy job while in power, they’re attempting to use the fascist bogeyman to scare voters back into the fold and make their own authoritarian racist policies seem relatively moderate. Sadly the main anti-fascist organisation, the Socialist Workers’ Party-inspired Unite against Fascism (UAF), while providing a network of activists prepared to combat the BNP electoral threat, has chosen to emphasise the message of ‘using your vote’, i.e. voting for either of the other authoritarian anti-immigration parties on offer. So what’s a good anarchist to do? Leafleting with the UAF at least destroys the idea of mass consensus around a right-wing agenda, but it is no alternative to building real anti-fascist coalitions willing to take on the authoritarians in power as well as the fascists on the street.

On St George’s Day, for example, Sussex activists chased the BNP off the streets of Crawley, Ifield and Southgate. Meanwhile in Bristol recently, local people got together and acted to shut down a neo-Nazi website run by an organisation called November 9th Society, after noticing stickers appearing around the city. Residents tracked down who the site was registered to (one Kevin Quinn, for the record) and where it was hosted, and then complained to them. US-based Excellence Host acknowledged that the site stuffed full of race-hate and other trash breached their terms of service and so suspended the site on their servers.
In a way, this represents the true political situation in the UK. The mass organised Left are not out in the streets fighting fascism, and it has come down to networks of individuals organising ourselves to fight the BNP without relying on the dubious authority of state or party.

• For info about anti-fascist direct action see www.antifa.org.uk
• To find where the BNP are standing candidates in your region, check www.stopthebnp.org.uk/index.php?location=ec2006
• www.uaf.org.uk contains useful information, although their leaflets do urge people to vote.
• www.uaf.org.uk/news.asp?choice=60423 lists anti-BNP events around the country.

SCRAPPED ARREST OF THE WEEK

After spending 5 days on remand in Lewes prison and over a year on bail, anti arms trade activist Jaya Sacca has had trumped-up charges of assault, ABH and breach of injunction dropped. He was arrested after being assaulted by security guards at the EDO MBM arms factory in Brighton in July last year. Charges will be formally dropped at Lewes Crown court next week. Jaya is the twenty fourth victim of spurious arrest in connection with protests against EDO MBM to have their charges.

Weekly demos continue every Wednesday, 4-6pm at EDO MBM, Home Farm Road, Brighton (off Lewes Rd)

* See www.smashedo.org.uk

KINGDOM COMEUPPANCE

Following on from last week’s coverage, our man in Kathmandu sent us this update...

He’s not an avatar of vishnu, he’s a very naughty boy...

“Kathmandu and the entire nation of Nepal is no longer under siege from its ‘own’ army. (See SchNEWS 540). Nepal’s massive and inspiring democracy movement finally forced the king to hand power back to the people. Late on Monday night he made a surprise TV appearance, looking more like a tired fat haddock than ever. Making minimum concessions he offered condolences for the 17 dead and 5,000 injured by the brutal repression he had ordered, and that was that. Not with a bang then, but a whimper.

The next day hundreds of thousands marched, sang and did the funky chicken along the ringroad where many of the protests and the bloodshed had taken place. The mood was positive, but people knew that this was just the beginning because they’ve been let down by leaders so many times. This time they’re determined not to let it happen again. When the political elite disappeared to negotiate the carving up of power with the king, crowds outside demanded the politicians came out to tell them what they were up to. Twice in one day they had to stop the talks to come out and promise not to cut any dodgy deals!

Back on the streets unimpressed demonstrators burned effigies of the king. Setting up puppet governments is a tried and trusted game in Nepal. The people, meanwhile want the real thing. The international ‘community’ on the other hand, was well up for selling out Nepal’s popular revolution ASAP. The king, Western leaders said, had made a generous offer. Sections of the media portrayed the protesters as unreasonable for not accepting a crappy deal that left the corrupt murdering fish-faced king still running the show. Reuters and others have simply reprinted lines straight from the palace propaganda department which claimed that the enormous nation-wide movement was a Maoist plot. Demonstrations were described as “violent” after the army fired live ammunition into unarmed crowds.

At best this might be because they weren’t bothered about reporting and had pickled their brains in the local moonshine bars instead. At worst their political bias told them that an inherently violent status quo is better than the risk of ‘instability’. Chaos is bad for the market, after all, and nobody wants that. Either way, an enormous massacre was narrowly averted, despite the king ordering troops to shoot ANY group of people in the streets last Tuesday. Two million were expected to march on the royal palace and only a last-minute climb-down by the king stopped a huge bloodbath.”

Pressure’s still important. Help squeeze the king out and get the political prisoners out of jail. Picket the Royal Nepalese Embassy, 12a Kensington Palace Gardens, London W8 on Saturday 29 April, 2006 at 1pm.

* For more see www.kantipuronline.com

AN EYE ON ZION

Brighton activists with the International Solidarity Movement (www.palsolidarity.org) are currently based in Tel Rumeda near Hebron in the Occupied Territories. The Palestinian inhabitants of Tel Rumeda are subject to constant harassment by extremist Israeli settlers. Here’s an account of a typical day April 22nd …

“A gang of 30 militant Israeli settlers attacked a Palestinian grocery shop, and assaulted the owner’s son and several others.

International Human Rights Workers were also attacked when they stood between the shop-front and the gang. The settlers only stopped when confronted by soldiers from the Israeli Army. The gang, composed of teenagers and older boys, all in Orthodox Jewish dress of white shirts, black pants and skull-caps and led by an adult man, then moved off into a near-by Palestinian olive grove, where several Palestinian families live.

Tension had been building all afternoon. Settler children spat at, and verbally abused human rights workers in the mid afternoon…Some hours later, at approximately 3:45pm, the gang of youths marched through Shuhada Street, in the old city near the illegal settlement of Beit Hadassa. They then turned left just before the Army checkpoint and marched up the hill where they attempted to attack human rights workers who had become concerned for local Palestinians’ safety. The HRWs were backed up against a wall and only saved by the intervention of a squad of Israeli soldiers who happened to be patrolling at the time. The gang continued up the hill, where the attack on the shop took place.

The settlers have a long history of violence and intimidation against the Palestinian population of Hebron, but the Passover holiday period has seen a dramatic rise in the number and ferocity of their attacks. During the weeks around Passover, the settlers receive thousands of visitors, some of whom join in with attacks on Palestinians, Palestinian property, and the HRWs who attempt to protect them. Attacks have become common. HRWs report an average of two to three attacks occur each week in Tel Rumeida. Today’s attack was the third such organized attack to occur on Shabbat…”

For more of this excellent blog go to www.brightonpalestine.org

GLASTO MUD SLINGING

Usually around this time of year we get to hear how quickly it took the Glastonbury Festival to completely sell out. Just because there’s no Glasto this year, doesn’t mean that there’s no story. But this time the sell out is to Clear Channel, the pro-anything- right-wing broadcast business which has just bought out the Mean Fiddler Music Group who own a 39% stake in the festival.

Clear Channel’s been edging its way over to the UK for a while, co-sponsoring events with Mean Fiddler as part of the courting process. The Texas-based company’s responsible for almost 70% of all ticket sales for American concerts, running 1,250 radio and 37 television stations in the US (and interests in 250 radio stations across the globe for good measure). The station pulled the Dixie Chicks off its stations the moment they came out as anti-war and company bosses have supported pro-war ‘Rallies for America’ and helped fund the campaign that put Bush in office. Back in a 2001 publicity stunt, Clear Channel’s Tampa station DJ, Tod Clem, was arrested for castrating and then butchering an un-anaesthetized pig in the station’s car park. Perfect partners then for drug-addled corporate mudbathing pseudo-hippies at the nation’s favourite festie then.

SchNEWS In Brief

• Don’t attack Iran Protest, Sat 6th May, Churchill Square, Brighton, 2pm. Organised by Sussex Action for Peace www.safp.org.uk For more info contact cath4peace@yahoo.com / 07815 983022. For info on the national campaign: www.stopwar.org.uk
• It’s the last Friday of the month, so get down to the Level in Brighton at 6pm for the latest Critical Mass. www.tinyurl.com/dfkc2
• Support’s needed for demonstration at Broadholme Farm, Irthlingborough, nr Wellingborough, against neglect, starvation, animal abuse and cruelty. Meet 29th April at Tesco Carpark off A45 in Turnells Mill Lane, Wellingborough at 12pm
• Get to the Manchester Anarchist Bookfair, 29th,12-5pm at The Basement, 24 Lever Street (off Piccadilly Gardens) Manchester www.bookfair.org.uk
• Stop the Seal Prison Demo, Sat 13th May, against the Sealife centre’s application for seal and otter pools in Brighton. Meet at Sealife Centre 12pm. Help needed at 11.30am to set up stalls and banners
• Sea Shepherd Talk+Films - Come and hear tall tales of high seas whale-saving piracy from a nautical ne’erdowell. Cowley Club Brighton Weds May 3rd 6pm.
• ‘Simon Jones Was Someone!’ is a play about Simon Jones’s death at Shoreham Dock in 1998 and the subsequent campaign for justice. Performed by The Dingle Community Theatre on May 8th & 10th. Casa Club, Hope Street, Liverpool at 8pm, free entry with donations to the Simon Jones Memorial Campaign www.simonjones.org.uk
• The 1 In 12 Club Bradford is celebrating its 25th Anniversary with a party on the 28th at 9pm. For listings of other ‘1 In 12’ events see www.1in12.com
• Benefit for Russian mobilisation against the G8 summit 2006. With stalls, films, speakers and free vegan food. 28th April, Old Howardian Club, Clifton Street, Cardiff 8pm. £3 entry.

Picket UK’s number one arms-dealers BAE SYSTEMS’ AGM. BAE Systems sell £11 billion worth of weapons every year to such freedom-loving regimes as Saudi Arabia, Indonesia and Israel. are currently working on a $3.5bn contract to refit the Bradley fighting vehicles being used in Iraq and Afghanistan. At QEII Conference centre on London's South Bank. (Tube Waterloo or Charing Cross). By Campaign Against Arms Trade (CAAT). For more info ring 020 7281 0297 or e-mail enquiries@caat.org.uk. www.caat.org.uk For travel from Brighton call 07891 405923

Anarchism06 - 21st Century Ideas and Action.

A two day conference on April 29-30th celebrating the ideas of... er anarchism. With debates and discussions about social centres, autonomous workers struggles, the IWW, recent protests in France, and more. Plus a benefit gig for the sacked Gate Gourmet workers (See SchNEWS 510) with music and films on Sat night 8.30pm-1am (£5/£3). The Square Social Centre, 21 Russell Square, London WC1. Nearest tube: Russell Square.

* For more see www.londonsocialcentre.org.uk

...And Finally...

Do you want a View To A Kill? A stint serving Queen and country? It seems that the latest Thunderballs from the Dr No-brainers On Her Majesty’s Secret Service is advertising for recruits. This week the Secret Intelligence Services – better known as MI6 – actually stuck ads in a number of newspapers for budding 007s. Perhaps the traditional recruitment techniques of a word in the ear of promising looking chaps at Oxbridge just isn’t delivering the same unswervingly loyal, morally bankrupt KGB agents it used to. The ads asked for “people we can depend upon”...although to do what exactly was left unclear.

The photographic montage of exotic locations, aeroplanes and balaclavaed man holding a machine gun may have been providing a clue...“We operate around the world to make this country safer and more prosperous”, claim the spooks, scaring the Living Daylights out of us and leaving us shaken, but not stirred to figure out just how ruthlessly these aims might be pursued - we already know that the World is Not Enough for these puppets’ masters. So don’t be an Octopussy, pull yer Goldfinger out and get a For Your Eyes Only application pack...or join the SchNEWS and become the Man (or woman) with the Golden Pun.

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