English Defence League: racism, violence and division
The English Defence League has set in motion a
series of violent clashes around Britain. Although singling out Muslims
for special attention, it is clearly a racist organisation, with many of
its followers linked to football hooligan ‘firms’. At a time of
recession and crisis, however, there is a danger that its support could
grow. STEVE SCORE reports, outlining a strategy for fighting back
against it.
OVER THE LAST year and a half we have seen a series
of demonstrations hitting the headlines that have been organised by the
English Defence League (EDL). Many of these have resulted in violence,
and attacks on black and Asian people and shops. The EDL is organised
and led by racists who preach an anti-Muslim message. However, in the
violent assaults we recently saw in Leicester, and previously in other
cities, they did not stop to question people about their religion before
attacking anyone who, to them, looked ‘non-English’.
The EDL was formed around football hooligan crews
and utilise Facebook and the internet to build its events. On some
demonstrations it has been able to muster around 1,000 marchers, and has
now created local ‘divisions’ of the EDL.
It has appeared at the same time as we have seen a
growth of the vote for the far-right, racist British National Party (BNP),
and there are undoubtedly BNP members and neo-fascist individuals in the
EDL’s ranks and leadership. Searchlight, the anti-racist magazine, has
exposed a number of these individuals. For its part, the BNP for a
number of years has attempted to distance itself from street ‘activity’
and the trappings of neo-Nazism in order to gain respectability and
votes.
But does that mean that the EDL can be described
simply as the ‘paramilitary’, street-fighting wing of the BNP? Is it
enough just to equate the EDL with the BNP and Nazis in order to defeat
it?
The BNP has condemned the EDL, even claiming
recently that it is a Zionist conspiracy! The EDL claims it has no
connection with the BNP. It has even gone as far as burning a Nazi flag
at a press conference to demonstrate its anti-Nazi credentials. And
Searchlight says that Alan Lake, a businessman who it says bankrolls the
EDL, has stipulated that there must be no link with the BNP as a
condition for financing it.
The formation of the EDL came about from football
hooligan crews, the so-called Casuals United, and small anti-Islamic
groups from various areas. There is no doubt that an element in the EDL
events is fuelled by those hooligans who just want a ruck, and Muslims
and anti-racists are another enemy to oppose.
Targeting Muslims
THE CATALYST WAS events in Luton in March 2009, when
a tiny number of right-wing political Islamists, a splinter group from
Al-Muhajiroun, organised a demonstration at a parade to mark the return
of the Royal Anglian Regiment from Iraq. Their slogans – such as,
‘baby-killers’, etc – were aimed at the troops, blaming the soldiers
themselves rather than the government which sent them there. Despite the
fact that this was a tiny group of people, the press and TV made a big
issue of it.
This was followed in May by a demonstration
organised by a group calling itself United People of Luton, during which
they attacked a predominantly Muslim area, smashing shops and cars.
After that, they linked with other individuals around the country and
the EDL protests began to grow.
The EDL has tried to portray itself as ‘supporting
our troops’ in the ‘fight against terrorism’. It has often linked its
protests to the homecoming of troops, as in Nottingham. The EDL’s
official material puts forward its message in a careful way, claiming
only to oppose ‘Islamic extremism’ and ‘terrorism’. On its website it
claims to be ‘a multi-ethnic, multi-religious movement’, and even that
it has Muslim members. It is true that the EDL has a few black youth who
have appeared on its demos, and it has used a Sikh, Guramit Singh, as a
prominent spokesperson. The EDL tries to counter accusations of racism
by using slogans like ‘black and white unite’. There is even a
right-wing Zionist element, with Israeli flags sometimes appearing in
order to try to provoke Muslims over the issue of Palestine.
The EDL is paranoid about sharia law ‘taking over’
in Britain, and says that it supports women’s rights and gay rights in
opposition to right-wing Islam. It even claims to have an LGBT section!
But it does not take much observation of its activities to realise it is
scapegoating Muslims as a whole. Racist chanting on demos about ‘Pakis’,
and provocative chants, such as ‘Allah is a paedo’, indicate the truth.
Even its official campaigns such as ‘no more mosques’, implying that all
mosques are hotbeds of ‘extremism’ and ‘terrorism’, show that its target
is all Muslims.
The fact that Islam is a religion not a race and
includes people of differing colour does not undermine the fact that the
EDL’s stance is as pernicious as racism based on colour. It aims to
divide the working class in exactly the same way. Of course, it does not
take much to see that, having taken on one target, it could move on to
another.
The EDL is utilising the mood created by governments
since 9/11 to justify the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, the so-called
‘war on terror’. George W Bush, Tony Blair and other politicians created
an Islamophobic mood, backed up by the tabloids which constantly play up
the issues. The crackdown on civil liberties, such as the Patriot Act in
the US and various ‘anti-terrorism’ measures in Britain (detention
without trial, etc), has been justified in this way. This is what makes
the EDL more dangerous, as it is pushing at an open door of ruling-class
propaganda. The Daily Star ‘newspaper’ even printed some uncritical
reports about the EDL.
Scapegoats and division
THE EFFECTS OF capitalism’s economic crisis – the
lack of jobs, destruction of public services, low pay, housing
shortages, etc – are stoking up enormous anger among working-class
people. In the absence of a mass workers’ party, and also in the period
before mass battles by the working class against these attacks begin,
many people will look for other ‘answers’. Behind the anti-Muslim
propaganda on ‘terrorism’ is also the idea of looking for scapegoats to
blame for the lack of jobs and worsening conditions.
The EDL has attempted to build links with European
Islamophobic parties, such as the far-right Sweden Democrats and,
according to the Observer, the US Tea Party, inviting a right-wing
rabbi, a Tea Party activist, to Britain to discuss sharia law. This
could indicate elements within the EDL wanting to move in a more
political direction.
The EDL is riven with contradictions. There are
conflicts between the football crews and the more politicised elements –
even between the supporters of different football clubs themselves! – as
well as between the openly neo-fascist elements and those who want to
keep their image free from Nazism. And the non-white EDL supporters are
clearly in a contradictory position by standing alongside plain racists.
At the moment, at any rate, this has all held together, especially as
they think they are having some success. But the EDL is an unstable
grouping, and its character could change over time.
However, the danger still exists that its message
can get an echo. During the build-up to the EDL’s recent demo in
Leicester there were worrying reports of some polarisation going on in
certain schools between Muslims and white youth. We cannot wait for the
EDL to collapse due to its own internal contradictions. It has to be
opposed.
Missing the point
THE REACTION OF many politicians at a national and
local level to EDL demonstrations is either to ‘ignore them and they
will go away’, or to organise ‘cultural festivals’. The experience in
Leicester is instructive. The EDL demonstration took place on Saturday 9
October. The Hope Not Hate anti-racist campaign, linked to Searchlight,
organised a small rally on the day before, which was followed by a
religious service to pray for peace. The council organised a music
festival the day after the EDL demo, which it claimed was attended by
5,000. Of course, there is no problem about people wanting to attend
those events and making a statement that they oppose racism, especially
if they are fearful of possible violence on the day the EDL arrives.
However, these events do not defend the local
communities from threatened attack, nor do they convince those who could
be potentially influenced by the EDL’s arguments. They are events for
already committed anti-racists.
Unfortunately, moreover, these events were
counterposed to a demonstration against the EDL on the day. There was a
massive campaign waged by the police, council, Hope Not Hate, faith
leaders, local ‘community leaders’ and the local newspaper to keep
people away from the counter-demo. Various employers told their workers
to stay out of town. Mass leafleting by the police took place in the
city centre, with the political statement that people wanting to support
solidarity between different communities in Leicester should stay away
from the anti-racist protest. Consequently, the numbers who turned up in
the city centre to oppose the EDL were substantially reduced compared to
what they would have been.
All sorts of dire warnings were made on leaflets
given out to young people, threatening arrest, criminal records and the
consequent destruction of job prospects. Those under age would be
removed from the city centre by the police and ‘taken to a place of
safety’. Youth clubs were opened up and huge pressure put on youth
workers to stay open to attempt to distract young people away from the
demo. There was even a youth club opened up on a predominantly white
estate where the police aimed to take youth ‘sympathetic to the EDL’ – a
club which was mainly staffed by black workers, by the way – while other
clubs were for youth ‘opposed to the EDL’! At the same time, youth
workers were told not to discuss the political issues involved with
young people.
State bans
HOPE NOT HATE has pursued a strategy of attempting
to get EDL marches banned by the state. However, even where this does
happen, such as in Leicester, static protests are still allowed. Often
EDL members are led by the police from their transport to the static
protest area and stage a de facto march anyway! State bans against
right-wing organisations are more often than not used against the left
and the workers’ movement. In Luton (although not in other places) the
ban on marches was for a three-month period. What if trade unions wanted
to march against public-sector cuts during that time?
There was talk in Leicester of the police
cooperating with the EDL in order to allow a march in a nearby town on
the day. This did not materialise because of the EDL riot that occurred.
But this has been our experience before, with National Front demos being
shifted elsewhere while anti-NF demos are banned.
The ban on marches and allowing static protests are
accompanied with a huge police presence. Protesters against the EDL are
ordered into one area and sometimes kettled or ‘semi-kettled’ –
individuals can leave the cordon at times the police decide, but not
large groups – so that they do not come directly into conflict with the
EDL. Demonstrators against the EDL who attempt to stand elsewhere in
their own city centres are harassed and threatened with arrest by the
police.
Unite Against Fascism (UAF) does have a policy of
calling demonstrations to counter the EDL. However, on recent
demonstrations these have become set pieces that are totally controlled
by the police. In Leicester, for example, an area of the centre away
from the main shopping area was allocated to both groups, separated by
100 yards, a huge metal containment wall, dogs and riot police.
Community self-defence
AT THE SAME time, there were EDL gangs who were not
under the control of the police, who wandered around looking for people
to attack. Many black and Asian people and shops were attacked (see:
Community Organises to Resist EDL Thugs, The Socialist, issue 642, 14
October). The police then lost control of those at the static protest
and several hundred EDL supporters attempted to make good their threat
that they would march into the main Muslim area and attack a mosque. The
truth is that the police cannot be relied on to defend us.
On 9 October, it was the mainly Muslim community of
the Highfields area that prevented this attempt. Between 1,000 and 2,000
mainly young people blocked the thugs’ way on the edge of Highfields.
The response of the community was massive and had quite a degree of
organisation. The fact that Socialist Party members and other
anti-racists were there to stand alongside the local community, with
‘Jobs, Homes and Services Not Racism’ banners and leaflets, was
appreciated by most of the local youth. Discussions are now going on in
that community as to whether, in future, they should go further than
staying in their own area (other than the small bands of youth who did
venture into town). Should they go en masse into the city centre to
defend people there as well?
It is critical that the trade union and anti-racist
movements play a role in this community self-defence. The EDL wants it
to be seen as a ‘Muslims versus the English’ conflict. But what we need
is genuine community and workers’ self-defence across all communities.
Links need to be built with all the communities to assist in this.
United working-class struggle
THE POLITICAL SLOGANS and message of the anti-racist
campaigns are vitally important. The message EDL=BNP=Nazis, promoted by
the UAF, for example, is inadequate to answer the EDL, or the BNP for
that matter. It is necessary to engage in discussion with those who
might fall prey to the arguments that scapegoat Muslims, immigrants or
any other section of the working class. This is not aimed at the
hardcore thugs, but the wider layer around them who might just be taken
in, who are looking for the answers to why they have been condemned to
low pay, poor services and unemployment.
We have to explain that the real cause of those
problems is capitalism and the political parties which prop it up. Was
it Muslims who caused the banking crisis or recession? Are they cutting
our services? We have to put forward an alternative that fights for the
socialist policies that can eliminate those problems. We have to explain
how, in order to fight for those things, we need to build working-class
unity.
The problem is that New Labour politicians, along
with the other main parties, are complicit in the creation of these
problems. Their only answer is to say ‘no to racism’ and call for
abstract unity, but with no convincing alternative.
The slogans on the anti-EDL demos and leaflets need
to provide a class-based alternative. It needs to be taken into all
communities, including predominantly white working-class areas. When, in
Leicester, we raised at a UAF meeting about going into these areas to
build in advance of the EDL demo we were opposed by Socialist Workers
Party members, perhaps out of fear of the reaction they would get. But
how can we win the arguments without having a dialogue?
Building anti-cuts campaigns and class struggles can
cut across this potential for racism. The need for unity across all
communities then becomes crystal clear. But, above all, there is the
desperate need for the creation of a new mass party of the working
class. There is a feeling among many that they have been abandoned. A
political voice for the disenfranchised is needed if the danger of the
growth of racist and reactionary movements is to be avoided. The trade
unions have vital role to play in that. The Trade Unionist and Socialist
Coalition (TUSC), standing in the last general election, was a small
step in that direction. Next year’s local elections can also be an
important phase.
As socialists we need to initiate and participate in
genuine democratic, local campaigns against racism, and to take the
arguments out to all areas. But this is not separate from the need to
build a working-class based fight-back, to develop the anti-cuts
campaigns and build the movement for socialism.
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