I am really going through a shakesperian dilemma here: it all starts in the little conservative grim town of norwich, where the waters are usually pretty calm, except obviously from the chaos us 'wreckers' cause from time to time :) a while ago it came out that the owner of a little antique shop was putting BNP flyers on his windows as well as selling busts of hitler (alongside the queen and 'holy mary'!) ... the usual fascist scum that just deserves to have his shop burnt down you might think. well, after a first fairly big protest outside the shop that also got coverage on the local media and TV, things just started going weird: what you saw on the media was the ANL shouting the usual slogans and covering his window with stickers and this pretty tame-looking old man defending himself along the lines of: "this is a democracy and I have the right to express myself, it's them using the nazi tactics". bollocks you might think, but a lot of people (except obviously the SWP which proposed we convert him to socialism) actually saw that as, if not a 'valid' argument, a point that has to be reasoned with, and cannot be ignored. especially after the local paper run a piece basically saying: "the SWP (read=the Left) meets every week in town and you don't see the BNP (read=the Right) protesting them, because, unlike the SWP, they respect different views". clearly this is crap, 'cause we know what the BNP really stands for (and they don't have enough people in town for a protest!), but for many people on the left (not SWP!) here this represents a challenge. how do we respond to such accusations? does 'democracy' (what's left of it) also, unfortunately, give the fascists (therefore anti-democratic) a platform or should they not be allowed to use 'democracy' to promote anti-democratic ideas? where do you draw the line between what can be said and what cannot be said? I believe that 'democracy' doesn't give you the right to promote racism and discrimination, but a lot of people say this is just an 'opinion' and falls under the category of 'free speech' . they are turning it against us and saying: "look, it's them who's un-democractic, not us!" and many people believe that. clearly we know this 'democracy' is a circus show and isn't interesting how the anti-capitalist, anti-corporate, anti-government platform is ignored while so much space is given to the right? is there a clear strategy here, to divert the attention from the real issue? I guess what I'm trying to say is, how do we respond to those who say that 'everybody' (also the racists) has the right to free speech in a 'democracy', also considering our anti-capitalist critique to this so-called 'democracy', where we a are NOT allowed free speech?

In Solidarity,

kon4m