On Sunday the 70th anniversary of the Battle of Cable Street, when Londoners massed and denied access to the East End to Masley's fascist blackshirts was celebrated in Cable Street with a parade and fair in the grounds of St Georges Town Hall.
'They Shall Not Pass' and Cable St Mural
October 4th 1936 was a great day in the history of the working class in this country, when ignoring the advice of almost all socialist and communist parties and organised Judaism, the people of the East End went in massive numbers to Gardiner's Corner to prevent Mosley's march through their streets. A barricade was erected in Cable Street and the people fought the police there. Eventually the march had to be abandoned.
Sunday's celebration was a joyous occasion. As well as a parade making a strong anti-racist statement and celebrating the event with street theatre, there were also exhibitions of old and contemporary photographs and a fine programme of socialist entertainment following the opening by Cable Street veteran Harold Rosen and his son, the author Michael Rosen. The highlight of this for me was a guest appearance by Karl Marx, aided by socialist magician Ian Saville. Bangladeshi Progressive Cultural Group 'Udichi Shilpi Gosthi' contributed some fine music, singing and dancing, and Klezmania klezmer band and Duende Flamenco gave lively performances. I was sorry to have to leave while Reggae Revolution were only mideay through their spirited set, and to miss the specially commissioned concert 'No Pasaran!' by the Grand Union Orchestra.
More pictures and a longer text about the event on my web site.
Sunday's celebration was a joyous occasion. As well as a parade making a strong anti-racist statement and celebrating the event with street theatre, there were also exhibitions of old and contemporary photographs and a fine programme of socialist entertainment following the opening by Cable Street veteran Harold Rosen and his son, the author Michael Rosen. The highlight of this for me was a guest appearance by Karl Marx, aided by socialist magician Ian Saville. Bangladeshi Progressive Cultural Group 'Udichi Shilpi Gosthi' contributed some fine music, singing and dancing, and Klezmania klezmer band and Duende Flamenco gave lively performances. I was sorry to have to leave while Reggae Revolution were only mideay through their spirited set, and to miss the specially commissioned concert 'No Pasaran!' by the Grand Union Orchestra.
More pictures and a longer text about the event on my web site.
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Cable Street-70th anniversary of what? Opposition to racism?
10.10.2006 20:31
©Muhammad haque/AADHIKARonline 2006
I could not hear an anti-racist song. No radical commentary. All I heard was familiar, liberal chit chat. None of today's word issues was given any prominence by the organisers.
So , who were the organisers?
They haven't told us, yet.
The word in the bush [what a word! Mulberry Bush, not far from the 'new' Town hall - as compared to the 'St Georges' Town hall' in cable Street] is that Ruth Kelly, Denise Jones and Jil Cove are among the 'in' numbers with access to what was supposed to be the agenda.
Those individuals In have mentioned may not have been in one place at the same time on Sunday. But they have been mentioned in connection with the 'anniversary of Cable Street' by several people in the East End.
It is significant that there has been no attempt by any of thesis three or by any other persons/s that they may have been in concert with as part of the 'anniversary' to make any open and educationally anti-racist to make the event a fitting one.
What took place on Sunday was a worrying understatement of the importance that racism has been used by political power holders in Britain.
That significance ought to have been expressed effectively, truthfully and memorably on Sunday 8 October 2006.
It was not.
It could have been but not by those who seized control of the 'events'!
No robust talk against racism.
No truly impendent international anthem of solidarity against racism or imperialism.
The local Council patronized groups were there, as usual in tokenistic fashion.
The threatened demonstration by George Galloway did not materialise.
Galloway had stated the threat - or promise- on his TalkSport 'radio talk show' on the Saturday [which was 7 Oct] that he would be on the demo. In fact he had stated that he would be doing the march [towards Cable Street] from Brick Lane. But he did not appear in any march in any part of Brick Lane that was publicly held on Sunday.
The Cable Street anniversary was a property that had been acquired by today's servers of their own careers.
There was nothing that was on display, including the overly State-aligned mural, which could defend the targets of today's British state-sponsored racism
No amount of Oswald Moseley’s 'soldiers' could match the power or the effectiveness of the racist forces that are mobilized against the targets of racist propaganda and smear in teh Blaired, jack Straw-ed society today.
The exhibitions on Sunday 8 October 2006 were not fitting tribute to the genuine fighters against racism of the past.
The exhibitions agenda conceivers were most certainly not motivated by any interest in opposing racism.
hardly surprising then that the gathering was essentially an almost Cable Street 2006 version of what the northern side of Brick Lane looks like on any weekend !
Not very cohesive. Not very tolerant. Not very generous.
We must restore the spirit of the fight against racism in 1936 by freeing the proprietorial looters of the image and the legacies of the fights now.
We can do worse than to start by asking questions as to who gave the 'Cable Street anniversary proprietors' any right to rob the East End of London of the political, the spiritual and the cultural memories of the fights against racism and to turn into the stale, state-ist decoration that they have made it to be.
©Muhammad haque/AADHIKARonline 2006
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aadhikarlaw@yahoo.co.uk
Opposition to Hitlerite Fascism?
11.10.2006 08:40
The thing that brought the Mass onto the street was Solidarity from the Dockers who had had so much help from the Jewish Workers Circle when they had a very bitter strike. The Committee was apprehensive when some Dockers had come in saying "We have come to repay the debt".
What determined the Police to stop the March was an intercepted telephone call telling about a Jewish girl being thrown through a shop window. Had that fiction not been phoned in, there might have been a real battle, and the men on the roofs along Cable Street who had stockpiles of bricks might have had to be cleared.
It was not a significantly anti-racist thing, it was anti-fascist. And Isidore was well read, he had "Outline of Economics" from the Plebs League as well as Marx's "Capital" in 3 volumes on his shelves.
Ilyan
If Cable Street was not against racism but against fascism, then questions arise
11.10.2006 10:05
And why then do 'anti-fascists' claim that their opposition to fascism amounts to and includes opposition to racism as well
Stopracistsnow
Who is promoting Racism?
11.10.2006 14:35
How does one become anti-racist? What is the danger of then turning oneself into a Racist?
Much recent Anti-Fascism was a smokescreen for Blair using New Labour to build Global Fascism. What is this anti-racism a smoke screen for? Most political Parties claim to be anti racist, and I believe even the BNP denies it is a racist Party.
One big lesson to be learned from The Battle of Cable Street is Working Class Solidarity. And then Organisation.
Ilyan
It was the Jews wot won it
11.10.2006 15:48
Glad to see that the Jew hating scum Galloway was not there.
Jack Spot
Working class solidarity too is a slogan. Look at the Cable Street photos
11.10.2006 16:44
Briefly stated, racism can be defined at a practical level as that action which is intended to deny rights to peopel as based on those peoples' membership of ethnic or racially based
Group or society.
As we see now, Blair has given racists of all descriptions the BNP included, a new
Boost by joining Salman Rushdie in endorsing jack Straw's hateful words.
Blair need not have joined the verbal fray against Muslims
Now, Muslims, like Chorines, are present in hundreds of different ethnic groups. But in context in the West now, Muslims are being targeted as a racially or ethnically designated group.
The application of power to deny rights as based on the categorization of those so denied is also another expression of racism.
The 'East End Life', official in-house propaganda 'newspaper' of Cllr Denise Jones's Tower Hamlets Council, carries on page 2 of its edition dated Monday 10 October 2006, photographs of a Cable Street related event held in Toynbee Hall [Commercial Street]. That photograph says much more than the message in the heading on page 1 of the same edition of 'East End Life'.
That page one headline is about fighting racism. Whereas the photograph of a group linked by the Tower Hamlets Council's propaganda unit with the Cable Street memorial event at Toynbee Hall shows [assuming that the image on that page had not been doctored to give an European or whites-only impression] an exclusive, European-only community with none of the Asian or African people that do make up the population of Tower Hamlets along side white and European people today.
And so on...
Justsurfing
Some facts not fiction
11.10.2006 21:35
Another picture of the Cable Street Parade
Anyone who cares to do so can see a longer account and a considerable number of pictures on my web site. A major block in the parade was made up of supporters of ''unite against fascism' from several London boroughs carrying posters stating "stop the fascist BNP".
I met and photographed people from perhaps a dozen different ethnic groups, and if you look at my pictures you will see it was truly a multi-racial event, although of course the veterans who took part in 1936 were the East-Enders of the day and mainly white, mainly Jewish. Mainly too choosing to ignore the advice of the Jewish, Communist and Socialist leaders who, with very few exceptions told them to stay away.
There is an account of the 1936 event by Richard Price and Martin Sullivan, originally published in Workers News, March-April 1994 at
Peter
Peter Marshall
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Where are those 'multi-ethnic' peoples' photos, Mr Marshall?
12.10.2006 10:52
Please print some pictures of a spontaneous anti-racist demonstration, if one such took place on Sunday 8 October 2006 in or near the Cable Street.
Justsurfing
Look at the pictures on the web site!
12.10.2006 16:23
As well as celebrating the success in 1936, it was an anti-racist demonstration, and there were actually some anti-racist songs. Just that some people didn't want to hear them - just as they didn't want to see Mr Galloway. He was looking well and obviously enjoying himself, and certainly not making any attempt to hide! The largest and most prominent bloc in the parade were 'Unite Against Fascism' and in particular a strong contingent from Barking and Dagenham, where they are active in the fight against fascism and racism. Probably the second largest group were Respect.
The exhibitions, to return to an earlier point, included images of the events in 1936, images by Phil Maxwell showing protests against racism in East London over the past 20 years, and work by students showing the diverse communities now living in the East End. The approaches were fairly diverse and some I found rather more interesting than others, but it wasn't possible to see any 'agenda' other than celebrating diversity.
As to who the event should 'belong' to, well I think those with most rights are those who took part, and quite a few of those still living were there. All of them seemed pretty pleased with what was happening. I don't know if there were any veterans of the event who stayed away because they felt it wasn't being done right, but if so they seem to be keeping quiet.
There were stalls from a wide range of left organisations. I'm not aware of anyone having been refused permission to take part in the event.
Peter
Peter Marshall
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Rocker's rock foundation. Most?
13.10.2006 00:01
Working Class Solidarity had been built up by the non racist Jewish Workers Circle. Rudolf Rocker, who was very active with them at the time of the Dock Strike, was not a Jew. The food for the Dockers and the shelter for their children built a solid rock, not a mere slogan as Justsurfing implies. Had that breadth of Unity shown in Cable Street in 1936 existed in Spain the next year we might have seen History changed.
I do not know about CP line about the March, but there were certainly a lot of Communists in the action. I do know that the Board of Deputies of British Jews put up posters telling Jews to stay quietly at home while Mosely marched. Those posters were torn down by people form the Jewish Workers Circle and replaced by the call to stop the March. And lots of Jews responded.
My view is that Cable Street reversed the flood tide to Fascism in the UK. Solidarity is what it takes and is what is now lacking as Blair and Brown pervert the Labour Party to build Global Fascism.
Ilyan