Publications Index | Encyclopedia of Trotskyism | Marxists’s Internet Archive
Socialist Review Index (1993–1996) | Socialist Review 172 Contents
From Socialist Review, No. 172, February 1994.
Copyright © Socialist Review.
Copied with thanks from the Socialist Review Archive.
Marked up by Einde O’Callaghan for ETOL.
I disagree with Adam J. Powell (December SR) who says ‘the BNP has every right to march’. I make no apology for saying the fascists have no right to march on our streets, they have no right to intimidate immigrants and they have no right to speak for working class people. I make no apology for saying we must confront the BNP on the streets.
The reason is simple. The BNP is a fascist organisation. It denies the Holocaust. It says that 6 million Jews were not murdered by fascists in the Second World War. The BNP is not marching for democracy: it is marching to deny us democracy.
When Adam J. Powell asks the question, ‘Who are the real fascists?’ I agree with his explanation for the increase in sympathy for the BNP in certain areas, but this does not make the people of those areas fascists. The BNP do not say to people, ‘Vote for us, we are fascists, we want to take away your democratic right to vote.’
I must ask him, why are we fighting fascism again across Europe when our parents’ generation fought in a war that they were told was against fascism? The answer is, although the Allied governments ‘won the war’, they were not interested in ending forever the conditions which breed fascism: poverty, unemployment, bad housing, a run down welfare state.
Adam J. Powell says that violence does nothing but discredit the anti-fascist cause, that we should show concern for deprived people in Millwall and that this will end fascism. Concern is not much help to the people who have already died as a result of racist attacks.
Concern does not end unemployment, bad housing, homelessness, poverty nor does it give us back a decent National Health Service. Concern is patronising and will not end fascism. Uniting to end the iniquitous policies which allow millions of pounds to be poured into Canary Wharf while there are hundreds of thousands of homeless people in London will do more to show up the real enemy than love or concern.
Just because the BNP has won the respectability of an elected councillor does not make it democratic. If we allow the BNP the ‘right to march’ it will not stop there.
It will continue to scapegoat the group it considers to be the weakest and most vulnerable, the Bangladeshi immigrant community in east London. Wherever and whenever it suits the fascists they will pick on Jews, blacks, trade unionists, gays and lesbians, and every other group that they believe they can use to divide us.
After the election of the BNP councillor in east London and the horrific attack on Quddus Ali, one of the best anti-fascist demonstrations in the Brick Lane area was led by young men from the local Bangladeshi community. Weak? No, strong and united marching together, Asian, black and white ‘concerned’ people quite prepared to show up the BNP for what it is, quite prepared to fight them on the streets where they terrorise people and peddle their fascist filth.
Mealy-mouthed concern, liberalism and pacifism won’t stop the fascists. Fighting back together will.
|
|
Janet Evans |
Socialist Review Index | ETOL Main Page
Last updated: 7 March 2017