Anarchist bookfair this weekend - but where are all the anarchists?

gty | 24.10.2010 20:40

Went to High street kensington this afternoon to see around 30 people having a counter demo against the edl... but...

...where was everyone from the anarchist bookfair? Alot of people were in London this weekend for the bookfair but why didn't they make the trip to west london today?

There must have been around 300 edl there and a small group of around 30 students with a couple of uaf blokes in the counter demo.

What happened?

gty

Comments

Hide the following 8 comments

More to the point

24.10.2010 20:53

Where were UAF? Apart from the two guys with the banner and a couple others, they called this event and then didn't turn up themselves.

Long Live Palestine!

allt this hard work...

24.10.2010 21:29

... they must have been 'exhausted' from all that 'direct action' that took place 'on the streets' to 'fight' the cuts last week. Poor show on saturday's march too...

man dem

It's a trust thing

25.10.2010 19:33

Most anarchists don't want to attend anything organised or linked with UAF. Having been previously marginalised, shouted down, manipulated and even handed over to the police by UAF and its stewards, the trust is pretty much gone.

Plus the fact that most UAF demos consist of meeting in a pre-arranged place agreed with the police, chanting 'Nazi Nazi Nazi' for half an hour and then going home means that they end up being pretty ineffectual anyway - was this one really going to be any different?

annon

True but...

26.10.2010 11:01

@annon

Not an excuse for anarchists doing nothing at all

Definitely not an excuse for UAF not turning up to their own demo! Totally agree about the uselessness of mindlessly chanting 'Nazi' but there weren't even enough forces to do that convincingly!

Long Live Palestine!

Anarchists against anti-Semitism

26.10.2010 15:50

Some anarchists boycotted the protest for two reasons. We are not going to stand with the UAF who have handed anarchists up to the police. Others refuse to stand with the racists of the Muslim Defence League who sent racist threats to WAG and posted anti-Jewish comments on MDL facebook.

anon

Disinformation.

26.10.2010 19:50

Why amidst the trolls and accidental repetitions did indymedia hide my comment saying the attacks on MDL appear to be foundation-less? Anyone can post a comment on Facebook and the MDL does not appear to be anti-Semitic in any way I can see.

As I said in the original post, the people who were there were very few but very mixed in terms of religion, politics, age etc. There simply weren't enough people there to do anything useful there.

Maybe it's cos the anarchists all had hangovers after the bookfair. Or they've bought this divide and rule stuff about not uniting with Muslims.

Or more poignantly it's maybe cos not only did UAF not really mobilise for its own demo but that in the lil bit of mobilisation it did do it was so busy contorting itself to get 'soft' Zionists to oppose the EDL on the ground they are 'nazis' and repeatedly stated that it (UAF) has 'no position' on Israel/Palestine that it ended up appealing to no-one...

Long Live Palestine!

No to divide and rule

26.10.2010 19:58

My hidden comment (which now I've looked in the 'view all posts' I guess you hid cos you hid the one it was responding to, but I'm reposting cos people keep making this same divisive point about the MDL) said:

No to divide and rule
25.10.2010 11:33

@anarchist

That is shit. Of the few (30 inside the barrier, about another 20 outside) there were a few UAF, a few Palestine activists of various political/religious backgrounds, a couple of FRFI people, some, mainly Bangladeshi, school kids and some Hassidic anti-Zionist Jews. No-one was racist or provocative to anyone else. We put up as good a show as we could but there just weren't enough of us.

Stop trying to divide and rule.
Long Live Palestine!

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Long Live Palestine!

hot air to support own standpoint

27.10.2010 11:55

you're all trying to make political points and conjecture about it. i was at the bookfair, and there was nothing about it, no leaflet etc. I knew nothing about it, otherwise I'd have been there. That's all

or...