Anti-racism

The Tories’ onslaught continues. Whether the war in Syria, the attempted imposition of an unsafe contract on junior doctors, vicious racism towards refugees and Muslims or the many other attacks, it’s clear that the need for a broad, united fight back could barely be greater. Yet the question remains — how can we build a movement, both in the streets and the workplaces, which can halt, beat back and break this government?

The late Labour prime minister Harold Wilson is widely reported to have declared that “a week is a long time in politics” during a period of economic crisis in the 1960s. Literally speaking this well-worn cliché is, of course, wrong. There is, however, some truth in the dictum that sudden and unexpected events can dramatically transform the political landscape. Such has been the case both in Britain and across Europe over the past 12 months.

Could you say something about the approach you take in the book? Why did you decide to interview and spend time with the likes of the EDL’s Tommy Robinson, and give their words space?

The sexual assaults that took place in Cologne at New Year were terrible. They sent a shockwave across society. We still don’t have definite details of the backgrounds of the perpetrators, but it is clear that many of the men who were arrested or identified had Moroccan, Algerian or other backgrounds — although some of them have lived in Germany for many years.

We chose Dunkirk, 30 miles east of Calais, because it had been hit by the recent floods, and the camp had doubled in size in the previous few weeks. Calais has an organised volunteer structure which means it is easier for the refugees at “The Jungle” to get what they need. Dunkirk doesn’t have this, with only a handful of volunteers coping with a huge amount of work.

Hate crime rose a staggering 18 percent in the year to October, with 83 percent of the increase fuelled by racist incidents. Official Home Office statistics reveal that another 11 percent of the increase was driven by bigotry and homophobia, 6 percent by religious hatred, 5 percent by incidents against disabled people and 1 percent involving attacks on transgender people.

In the late summer of 1958 racist violence broke out on the streets of Notting Hill, west London. At its origin were many complicated social, economic and political factors. Against a backdrop of slum housing, concerns over employment and “interracial marriage” was a nascent racism against the newly arrived African-Caribbean and Asian communities. This had been exacerbated by a renewed fascist movement around the Keep Britain White campaign orchestrated by the White Defence League and Oswald Mosley’s Union Movement.

In 2005 Tony Blair’s New Labour government launched a counter-terrorism strategy called Contest. This was set up after the London bombings of July 2005 and Prevent was a key part of it. Contest was widely criticised as being Islamophobic and fuelling suspicion towards Muslim communities. This was the same government that had led us into a bloody war in Iraq, costing the lives of millions of innocent Iraqi people. Innocent people in Britain also suffered the consequences of the government’s war when it made us a target in the London bombings.

Stand Up To Racism (SUTR) will be taking a delegation to Calais on 11-12 December to highlight the severe winter conditions refugees are living in and take over much-needed collections.

The group is asking people to collect cash at work, trade union branches or elsewhere and buy SUTR festive cards that they will take over to Calais with solidarity messages and collections for refugees.

All you punks and all you teds
National Front and natty dreads
Mods, rockers, hippies and skinheads
Keep on fighting till you’re dead.

This verse from The Specials song “Do the Dog” expresses both the diversity and the divisions of late 1970s musical youth culture.

The book and exhibition of photographer Syd Shelton’s work, Rock Against Racism, are a brilliant visual representation and record of this culture.