Nazi threat to Reverend and the Makers
redletter | 18.06.2008 20:27 | Anti-racism | Sheffield
Jon McClure from Reverend and the Makers is speaking out in the face of death threats by Nazis on the Stormfront internet bulletin board and other fascist websites.
The threats against him and Babyshambles’ Drew McConnell came in response to Jon’s decision to organise a Love Music Hate Racism (LMHR) gig in Rotherham, where the fascist British National Party (BNP) gained two seats at the last council election, and a northern LMHR carnival next year.
“These fascists are saying that they’re going to fuck us up, but they’re not going to change anything. Why should we let these thugs stop us?” Jon told Socialist Worker.
“The BNP claims to be democratic – but this shows that their behaviour is fundamentally at odds with democracy. It shows them up as a bunch of thugs.
“Some people are thinking of voting for the BNP as some kind of protest vote. It’s important for them to realise they are actually voting for real Nazis.
“The BNP is not just against Asians and black people, they’re against everyone – the disabled, the poor, Jewish people.
“I was thinking about the 42 days detention law that’s just gone through- what would the BNP do with those powers if they got into government?”
The LMHR gig at the Magma centre in Rotherham is on 6 September and its line-up now includes Reverend and the Makers, Roll Deep and Cabaret Voltaire.
The Kaiser Chiefs have also been invited to join the line-up.
“You think about how music has changed in the last 50 years – we would have none of that mixture of music and culture if the likes of the BNP had their way,” said Jon.
“We thought rather than do the event in Sheffield we would do it in Rotherham and say to these people, ‘We don’t want you here, we don’t want your fascist shit’.”
Jon and other LMHR supporters will be performing at the national anti-BNP demonstration in central London this Saturday.
The following should be read alongside this article:
» United we will smash the Nazi BNP
» Could fascism take power today?
» How the BNP poses as a respectable party
» Building local groups against the BNP
To buy tickets for the Rotherham Love Music Hate Racism gig go to
» www.lovemusichateracism.com
The threats against him and Babyshambles’ Drew McConnell came in response to Jon’s decision to organise a Love Music Hate Racism (LMHR) gig in Rotherham, where the fascist British National Party (BNP) gained two seats at the last council election, and a northern LMHR carnival next year.
“These fascists are saying that they’re going to fuck us up, but they’re not going to change anything. Why should we let these thugs stop us?” Jon told Socialist Worker.
“The BNP claims to be democratic – but this shows that their behaviour is fundamentally at odds with democracy. It shows them up as a bunch of thugs.
“Some people are thinking of voting for the BNP as some kind of protest vote. It’s important for them to realise they are actually voting for real Nazis.
“The BNP is not just against Asians and black people, they’re against everyone – the disabled, the poor, Jewish people.
“I was thinking about the 42 days detention law that’s just gone through- what would the BNP do with those powers if they got into government?”
The LMHR gig at the Magma centre in Rotherham is on 6 September and its line-up now includes Reverend and the Makers, Roll Deep and Cabaret Voltaire.
The Kaiser Chiefs have also been invited to join the line-up.
“You think about how music has changed in the last 50 years – we would have none of that mixture of music and culture if the likes of the BNP had their way,” said Jon.
“We thought rather than do the event in Sheffield we would do it in Rotherham and say to these people, ‘We don’t want you here, we don’t want your fascist shit’.”
Jon and other LMHR supporters will be performing at the national anti-BNP demonstration in central London this Saturday.
The following should be read alongside this article:
» United we will smash the Nazi BNP
» Could fascism take power today?
» How the BNP poses as a respectable party
» Building local groups against the BNP
To buy tickets for the Rotherham Love Music Hate Racism gig go to
» www.lovemusichateracism.com
redletter
Comments
Hide the following 26 comments
clarification on death threats
18.06.2008 21:33
Don't mean to be overly cynical but sounds like a bit of hysterical cheap publicity on behalf of lmhr.
Threads in question [links broken]:
"Stick the BNP in the history books where they belong"
"Babyshambles urge music fans to make anti-racist stand"
[some unpleasant words from the Pan Aryan National Front forum]
"Babyshambles Man Takes On BNP"
Fair play to both jon mcclure and drew mcconnell for getting stuck in but let's not get too excited over trot bollocks.
anti-fascist (london)
Homepage:
http://www.antifa.org.uk
nazi are scum,which nazi wsa it who threatened them directly?
19.06.2008 08:58
James
agree with comment
19.06.2008 09:35
see it all before.
Love Music Punch fascists
Beware The BNP Neo-Nazi Trolls
19.06.2008 16:19
Just by calling yourself "punch fascists" doesn't add credibility that the poster isn't a bnp supporter in discuise troll mode.
For the lastest news on the BNP, visit the Lancaster Unity Blogspot
TrollBusta
Homepage:
http://lancasteruaf.blogspot.com/
not a troll
19.06.2008 17:05
Race = the colour of your skin: cannot be changed
Culture = a social construct: entirely voluntary
I would highly advise you and anyone else labouring under the illusion that the UAF, concerts and enjoying foreign food is smashing the BNP to read this:
L&S
Defend Multiculturalism
19.06.2008 20:39
(I.e., stark-raving extreme rightwing), mate!!!
It is to be remembered, wanky Redwatch photographer Nick Cass of the BNP claimed he put class ahead of race, by joining the BNP when he was a kid, along with his dad.
True Antifascist (unlike the BNP troll)
Islamophobia
19.06.2008 20:44
This was Nick Griffin's defence at the Leeds BNP racism trial.
Calling Islam "wicked" is 101% racist, dickhead!!!
Defend Muslims from racism and Islamophobia. Support Palestine.
NJ
Yet Another Troll
19.06.2008 20:51
It's clear Mr Troll Number Two ("NotATroll) sees the worst in Islam, and treats Muslims with the utmost suspicion.
Bet you're a member of the BNP in denial, my friend.
If not, you're a neo-Con not an anarchist.
Bet you were loving George Bush on his recent visit to the UK.
raj
Boris Johnson and the RISE festival.
19.06.2008 21:22
I agree totally with the Muslim poster above: -
We must defend multiculturalism from a craft, cunning, and increasingly trolling emeny keen to dismantle all anti-racist and commnunity cohesion.
Guess who is banning anti-racist campaigners from the RISE festival? And banning the Cuba Soladarity Campaign from the festival stage?
Boris Johnson, neo-con, casual racist and loather of anti-racist music events.
You're in bad company.
Billy Boy
Interesting
19.06.2008 21:58
"Professor Frank Furedi, one time mentor to the now defunct RCP is sure-footed on this subject at least: "today it is the race relations lobby and particularly New Labour that finds it difficult to avoid the temptation of playing the race card. By treating every routine conflict as racially motivated they are racialising everyday life. This process is as destructive as the old-fashioned racism."
It is a process he warns that can only end in "Everyday human contact" becoming "recast in racial terms, with the consequence that racism becomes normalised. This confuses and disorients people, breeding a climate of suspicion and mistrust." A by-product of this racialistion is that "it also trivalises the real experience of racism and distracts from confronting real cases of injustice" he concludes.
Currently there is much discussion on how the rise of the far right can be halted. The truthful answer is that an anti-fascism joined at the hip with multiculturalism cannot do so. Indeed the higher the activity of the likes of the ANL, and now, and even more ridiculously the SA, the more entrenched the respective working class communities will become. Put bluntly, 'racialising social problems' is the motive force of both euro-nationalism and multiculturalism alike. For purposes of anti-fascist strategy, if for no more principled reasons, multiculturalism is 'an idea that should have been dumped long since'.
- Don't know yet whether I agree, but it's definately got me thinking, thanks for posting.
word
Frank Furedi
20.06.2008 09:16
danger
Furedi is a c*nt but he's not the author
20.06.2008 10:49
He is still right on this particular point though. NOTE: FUREDIS NOT THE AUTHOR of that article. Reilly is ther author, he quotes Furedi and points out that furedi is dodgy, just write on this issue.
I have no truck with furedi, and many many people have made the same argument before and since then.
L&S
I'm an anarchist kids, get a grip
20.06.2008 11:04
I am told to a) defend islam and b) support palestine. Well to the latter, er yes - when i was 18 i joined the ISM and went to the west bank where i took part in direct action against the occupation, some of which involved coming under live fire. So we can tick that off.
a) defend islam. Why are you telling me to defend a religion? defend it agint what, character assassination? why - can't it do that itself? I fully fucking back people who suffer from bogus terror raids and i back communities being terrorised by the police, but that DOES NOT MEAN I SUPPORT THEIR RELIGION. It didn't mean it in palestine, and i doesn't mean it here either. They are free to beleive whatever they like, and i am free to criticise them for their beliefs.
This is the basis of liberal thought, its not even a radical concept.
And yet you are asking me to support a religion, when religion has been the main enemy of all progressive thought from day one....
as i say, binary thinking: the neo cons are using the spectre of Islamic terror to invade countries, and this is leading to some demonisation of muslims at home *SO* therefore you must support the religion istelf. Right. How about the middle ground of supporting everyone, equally? mad i know.
Anti-racism has nothing to do with celebrating difference. At the RISE festival Antifa heard Lee Jasper (a racist crook) telling the muslim women of the audience to 'wear their veil with pride'. What does encouraging people to conform to their religion have to do with anti racism?
We told him to fuck off.
anyway thats all for now.
L&S
talking of which
20.06.2008 13:46
As was said previously we are in bad company, and it's the company we keep that defines where our politics lie.
anti-fascist (london)
Homepage:
http://www.antifa.org.uk
Multiculturalism
20.06.2008 15:04
I think the libcom link was to an article by either Red Action or IWCA and is a very good article on the roots of multi-culturalism and its divisiveness. The BNP themselves use the premises of multi-culturalism to call for a return to the values of "british culture" and "british heritage", such a notion is ofcourse nonsense when you consider that there is no such thing as british culure, there is no culture that encapsulates all classes in england, there is no common interest between Gordon Brown and i just because we're both British. Likewise the average chap in the street whose brought up in a muslim family does not have the same interests as a wealthy landowner who also happens to be a muslim. Faith or lack of it does not dictate your social position, thus making alliances or pacts based on it irrelevant.
There is a trend by liberals to see multiculturalism as the be all and end all, the reality is it does little to promote the interests of working class people of all races and nationalities, instead it divides us up based on our colour or faith and puts these aspects of our life on a pedestall as if they really matter, when in reality they don't, they do not affect whether we can pay the bills or whether we spend all day doing a job we hate. Class unity is the only way we'll make the world a better place not through promoting religion and division.
BruisedShins
Neo-Cons Persecuting Muslims
20.06.2008 16:51
British tourists in Spain don't make much effort to blend in with the local population.
"Integration" is always a one-way thing, dictated by capitalists in the right wing media, especially American neo-Cons like George Bush.
Adolf Hitler stopped Jewish people practicing their faith, before going to murder millions of Jewish people in the worst hate crime of all time.
Destroying cultural identity in the name of "integration" is the first step to persecution.
Actually, it was Nu Labour who wanted Muslims to give up wearing veiled garments, as neo-Cons hate Islam and Muslims because of all the oil they hope to steal from Iraq and pipeline through Afganistan.
Neo-Con friends of Bush/Blair/Brown such as Ann Coulter make a living by stirring up hatred of Muslims.
What next after preventing Muslims from worshipping? Forcing them to drink alcohol and eat pork?
Getting them to wear badges on their clothes to persecute them?
Rounding them up and murdering them in concentration camps?
That's the BNP's idea in hounding Muslims, and painting all Islamic worshippers as fucking terrorists.
Ishy
A Big Worry
20.06.2008 16:58
Like it or not, minorities are persecuted for their religious beliefs, just as they always will be.
No-one is going to become athiests or change faiths to become like the majority - nor should they be forced to do so by a fascist state or a right wing media.
Laila
Laila
20.06.2008 17:45
I think they'd probably feel the same about far right activists fire bombing anywhere else, they'd think it was absolutely abhorrent. I really don't understand why there are people equating being critical of multi-culturalism with being a fascist, no ones talking of forcing people to do anything, people have merely pointed out that multi-culturalism undermines class based politics and works to sew divisions in society along lines of race, nationality and religion, as well as often contenancing reactionary and oppressive practices and beliefs in the name of culture. People make culture, it is not something that you have to adhere to it is something you choice to participate in and create.
If someone believes that a god has decreed that they act, dress or eat in a certain way then i'm not going to stop them doing it, thats their choice, even if i do see it as being irrational.
BruisedShins
Multiculturalism Or What L&S?
20.06.2008 20:48
I have had the great pleasure of seeing such in the person of Drew Mc Connell at various gigs and not only is his politics cool, he is a top musician with a Jools-Holland-like ability to get the best out of the wide range of musicians he gets on stage at gigs.
And If LMHR because of the public profile it has built with help from the likes of McConnell, can get funds from the EU then what’s wrong with that. The EU represents 400 million people for sure some of its money should go to fighting backward racism.
The most insidious contribution above came from “I’m an anarchist kids get a grip” L&S. So you went to Palestine with the SWP when you were younger. That proves nothing. I took LSD when I was younger and that proves nothing either.
What matters L&S is what youse are doing now!
Nobody is asking anyone to defend Islam as you say. But some people are saying defend Muslims from knee-jerk Islamophobia whipped up by desperate capitalists, seeking a solution to terminal economic crisis, by the only way history demonstrates they know how. Namely the destruction of surplus capital and surplus working-class populations through war.
By the way, Lee Jasper is neither a racist or convicted criminal as L&S declares. Good on Jasper saying to Muslim women wear what you fucking want! And I say to the US’s Amish community ride your horse and cart and good luck to you!
Hu
'multiculturalism' as a term
20.06.2008 22:15
As for multi-culturalism i think the tension that is obvious here has arisen between the different meanings being applied to it.
For some multi-culturalism as a merely descriptive term i.e of many cultures, which of course in that sense the uk is, and long may it continue to be so.
But i think both l&s and bruised shins are referring to multi-culturalism as an specific ideological tool fostered by the political elite (and cheerledered by liberal left) that actually neglects, and denies class as a basis for collective action.
This plays into the hands of reactionary forces - be they the bnp of indeed islamic fundamentalists. The terrain then shifts to one of competing ideologies, entrenching social divisions by amplifying cultural differences and reducing class dynamics to mere social convention which allows the far right a legitimising voice.
That is why the article l&s linked to above is explicit in its assertion that multiculturalism (in the ideological sense) joined at the hip with anti-fascism cannot defeat the far right.
What some of us would add to that is that a militant & radicalised working class can.
to cheer everyone up:
anti-fascist (london)
Homepage:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GzKv5gjOzTA
Anti-racism and the EU
21.06.2008 14:12
"And If LMHR because of the public profile it has built with help from the likes of McConnell, can get funds from the EU then what’s wrong with that. The EU represents 400 million people for sure some of its money should go to fighting backward racism."
and
"Nobody is asking anyone to defend Islam as you say. But some people are saying defend Muslims from knee-jerk Islamophobia whipped up by desperate capitalists, seeking a solution to terminal economic crisis, by the only way history demonstrates they know how. Namely the destruction of surplus capital and surplus working-class populations through war."
I certainly agree that disdain for scapegoats, from muslims to mirgant workers, is whipped up by the capitalist class in order to distract attention away from themselves and the inequality and alienation that their practices, policies and laws create. They do this to divide and undermine those that they fear, the working classes.
But don't you think that the EU is a creation and tool of that same capitalist class? Does the EU not represent the interests of European capitalists and a stable European capitalist economy? This is where the contradictions of liberal anti-racism/anti-fascism come to the surface. Liberal anti-fascism sleeps with those who benefit from the spectre of fascism, who promulgate fascistic legislation and who benefit from a divided and fragmented working class. I don't doubt for a minute that were there a large progressive working class movement in europe that those who run EU nations would quite happily resort to fascist practices to undermine and dismantle that movement. Thus looking to the EU for support in fighting fascism is both contradictory and ineffective. Not only that but liberal tactics of this sort also push people disillusioned with those in power further into the hands of the likes of the BNP who are made to look like the "radical alternative" to those in power.
If anti-fascism is to be truly effective it needs to be part of the wider struggle against capitalism, the very economic and social system that gives rise to fascism.
BruisedShins
Antifascism is about social cohesion
22.06.2008 11:11
Multiculturalism is about splitting people up into little groups. Each group easily tagged and bagged. Fundamentally, liberals are just one more of those groups. They like to parade around persuading everybody that liberalism is tolerant, good, nice, cuddly and such a long list of positive words. Liberals are nothing of the sort. They value liberty - that is property and the contracts of property - over freedom.
Freedom to define which part of culture you happen to participate in. Freedom is not a contract and those, the liberals, that insist that is are are the friends of the BNP, NuLabour, Thatcherism and the Neo-Cons. Liberals are one tiny community - a very privileged and wealthy community - in a multicultural world. Multiculturalism, as liberal technique, allows the ruling class to cry foul every time someone attacks their community - witness the liberty of fox hunting. It allows the ruling class to scream for compensation every time their community is discomfited - witness the liberty tax cuts. It allows them to scream about their liberties in "freedom of speech" when confronted for their wickedness - witness the BNP race hate trial.
It's all very well to slag off people for having an interest in supporting Muslims because they live in that community, but there is a wider community that needs defending. It is not about multiculturalism - which is just a politicised description that people live in definable communities - but about human freedoms against liberty.
Liberty should never be allowed to be put before freedoms. The BNP blur the line between liberty and freedom which is part of an increasingly authoritarian social contract. That is their biggest danger. Yes, they are racist thugs, but they are also fascists. Who worship power over human dignity.
The endless squabble that is repeatedly stirred up on the left occurs just about the time that the right is in danger of having to make concessions. Such as conceding that multiculturalism means fuck all, that real issues are poverty, fascism, overindulged supermarkets, overpampered banks and any one of a hundred other things that benefit from the distraction of multiculturalism.
The Left was originally named so because they were the Jacobins - the Radicals - who sat to the left of the chanber of Deputies. The most urgent problem of the Left at this moment is the Terror that the Right have entrenched as public policy. That terror that Liberal Culture is systematically imposing on all cultural expressions except their own neo-Liberal, power worshipping elite.
The BNP are, like the Brownshirts, just footsoldiers.
not a liberal lover
Be vigilant of cleverer neo-nazi trolls
22.06.2008 13:57
I ask everybody to be vigilant and be cautious when using Indymedia, as not everyone on here is anti-racist.
Thanks!
Johnny Smash
be vigilant...
22.06.2008 15:27
Cheers for that john boy, adds nothing to the debate and tells us something all of us know anyway.
It's not the far right being cleverer, it's a thread of an argument forwarded by genuine anti-fascists that those on the liberal and authroitarian left seems to have little or no ability of comprehending.
If we simply continue to key into buzz words without the means to examine, and be critical of, just what those buzzwords signify we gain no further access along the road of fighting fascism, both physically and ideologically.
The authoritarian left, thankfully, have ceased to have the monopoly on fighting facsism, and long since relinquished their role as moral guardians of our social well-being.
If we are to be vigilant it seems to me we must start with the likes of hu, ishy, laila and the like.
Unless of course you were refering to hu, ishy, laila and the like...
anti-fascist (london)
oah - maybe THEY are the trolls.
22.06.2008 21:41
Unfortunately its a fucking good impression.
L&S
So as to overcome the suspicions...
23.06.2008 10:28
They are both long standing and active militant anti-fascists whom I am proud to call my comrades.
In order to have an open and honest debate on the nature of multi-culturalism and it's relationship with fascism why not pop along to the London Anarchist Bookfair where Antifa England will be holding a meeting and stall.
Even better why not join Antifa on the 16th of August when we will be closing down the BNP's Red, White and Blue festival that is due to take place near Nottingham. Call 07522 034032 for more details.
If you come along we can have a debate whilst fighting fascism at it's root.
Rudeboy
Homepage:
http://www.antifa.org.uk