Join The Anti Nazi League

Join The Anti Nazi League

via Ray Radlein

Originally shared by Peter Strempel

1978: MY ANTI NAZI LEAGUE MARCH
Back in the Pleistocene of my youth, unimaginable to at least two generations of youngsters now, for a lack of ubiquitous internet, mobile gadgets, and PCs, I showed up for a massive demonstration organised by the British Anti-Nazi League.

Sure, I was as opposed to being beaten up by skinheads and boot boys as the next kid, but I did this because I had Jamaican friends … and there was this girl …

My father almost disowned me. ‘Don’t you realise who’s behind this?’ he fulminated. ‘It’s the Soviet Union! You are being used as one of Lenin’s “useful idiots”!’

Even at that time I was not naïve enough to suppose this wasn’t at least partly true. The Anti Nazi League was in fact established by the Socialist Workers’ Party, and enjoyed some funding directly from Moscow. The later 1970s were still a high tide in the Cold War.

What my father didn’t understand is that I had no reason to cleave to his post-war experiences, and every reason to align myself with Jamaican friends, who were being targeted by the police as much as by the Nazi skinheads.

There was a house in Brixton where I was always welcome. It was divided into four flats, all tenanted by Jamaican immigrants who nevertheless lived as one large community, everyone contributing what they could, with enough to spare to lavish on a skinny white boy like me. They were soulful, decent people. Generous and kind like no one else I met during my childhood sojourn in Britain. Sometimes I went there to talk and listen to Blue Beat Ska and dub reggae. Sometimes I slept there. They always fed me. They always gave me things they thought I might need.

It seemed like the most natural thing in the world to align myself with their concerns about racist violence directed against them.

People not alive and conscious at the time might find it really difficult to imagine the era. Jimmy Carter was POTUS. Labour’s James Callaghan was UK Prime Minister. Leonid Brezhnev was the Soviet General Secretary.
Rock Against Racism, a collaboration of bands taking sides had been formed in 1976 because some established stars spoke racism openly.

Eric Clapton – yes the Eric Clapton - had spoken in favour of Enoch Powell, who had made his famous speech forecasting ‘rivers of blood’ as the consequence of coloured people from the former British Empire’s outposts actually moving to Britain. Clapton had told fans at a Birmingham gig 'I think Enoch’s right ... we should send them all back. Throw the wogs out! Keep Britain white!’

Also in 1976 David Bowie – yes, that David Bowie – said to Playboy magazine and other publications: ‘I think Britain could benefit from a fascist leader. After all, fascism is really nationalism,’ and ‘I believe very strongly in fascism ... People have always responded with greater efficiency under a regimental leadership. A liberal wastes time saying, “Well, now, what ideas have you got?” Show them what to do, for God's sake. If you don’t, nothing will get done. I can’t stand people just hanging about.’

And then, of course, there was that Irish girl, Sandy, from a big family of socialists. I had such a crush on her. And she was organising a whole bunch of us to come to the rally. There was really never a question about it, my father’s blessing or not.

On the big day, Sunday, 30 April 1978, we were bused to the gathering points near Trafalgar Square that was already crowded when we got there. Crowding Trafalgar Square and its approaches is not a casual thing to do. From there we were to march to Hackney. It was a festive atmosphere. There would be a concert later. There was a genuine cross section of people there: old guys in suits; lots of young people like me; conservatively dressed Indians, natty Rastafarians, women who looked like housewives, and women who didn’t look that way at all; gays and straights, punks, rude boys, rockers, and hippies; and grandparents with their kids and grandkids.

We marched. There were trade union banners and political flags. There were megaphone sloganeers, and we chanted as expected. There were thousands upon thousands of people. It was like the entire city had turned out.

And then the skinheads turned up.

Not very many. Two to three hundred against several thousand of us.

But I was scared. There was a group of about thirty of them right there, ten feet away, jeering and throwing beer bottles and cans. I couldn’t see any police. I was young and not really a street-fighter.

We all linked arms to face them and the march stopped right there.

Then a bunch of big men – trade unionists, Rastas, turbaned Indians, and even some of the older lads I knew at the time, pushed to the front of the no-man’s land between us and the skinheads, and stood in front of us with their arms folded across their chests. The message was pretty clear: ‘Come on then you wankers! We’ll give you the beating you came for.’

It didn’t happen. The skinheads weren’t that suicidal. And eventually the police turned up to stand between the two sides. I have seen similar things since, but I was always struck by the imagery of a few black Bobbies among the white faces of their colleagues, protecting thugs who would have gladly kicked the shit out of them in a late night tube station, or a dark alleyway anywhere from Birmingham to the East End.

The march lasted a long time. I remember my feet being sore and my voice being hoarse from yelling slogans.

We came to the end in Victoria Park, South Hackney. The Clash, X-Ray Specs (Polly Styrene almost bursting eardrums as she screeched ‘Oh Bondage! Up Yours!) Generation X (Billy Idol’s old band, though I don’t actually recall seeing them), the Tom Robinson Band (a kind of anti-bigotry Billy Bragg before Billy was out of short pants), and Steel Pulse (roots reggae) were playing. It was a euphoric experience where I thought everyone was friends and we all shared the same ideals.

Later that evening a few of us travelled back to Camden Town by tube. I thought we might run into skinheads again, but there was just a sea of people sporting the distinctive red, black and yellow Anti-Nazi League buttons, and the stark black and white Rock Against Racism badges.

Our destination was a party where the kids from my school had organised to meet up if we got separated during the march – and of course we did.

There was punk rock and heavy dub reggae, reefers and beer, girls and … did I mention girls? Some of us watched the news on the telly: 100,000 marchers! Some scuffles between the skinheads and the demonstrators that I didn’t see up close and personal. Some broken National Front heads. Few arrests. Talking heads saying we had behaved well.

That night had a magical feel to it. Like we had achieved something. Like we had made a difference. I got very drunk on mixing cider with beer and was miserably sick for a few hours, but it didn’t matter: my friends and total strangers stuck with me and made sure I was OK.

I don’t know that we did make a difference. Margaret Thatcher was elected Prime Minister a year later, and about nine months after that I emigrated to Australia.

I never did get together with Sandy, for whom I was probably too young and politically too uncommitted.

There has been no need to march against Nazis since; Australia has been blissfully unafflicted by all but the smallest minority of such thugs. And yet, as our dull-witted politicians struggle to make themselves relevant, they emulate what they see in the USA and UK, adopting some of the most nauseating traits of collaborators with far right groups. That does embolden a redneck racist fringe here. Guess where they get their examples from.

And that is why US politics is so important here, down-under. Why a sustained stand against fascism in the USA is so important to me personally.

I hope, in a way, that I will never have to march against fascists again. But I will if I need to. This time as a middle aged white guy in a suit, to say openly that resurrecting fascism is not OK, even for middle aged white guys in suits.

I hope there are still middle aged white Americans who feel the same.