Islamophobia: We need to oppose the real hate marches
JVL Introduction
The resilience of the multi-faith community in Southport, in the face of the horrific murders of three children, followed by an onslaught by the fascist right, is remarkable. One of the bereaved mothers, in the depth of her grief, confronted the rioters to tell them that they were not acting in the name of her daughter. Resident after resident on the TV news declaimed that they are one cohesive community appalled by the violent attempt to divide them. That same community were quick to clean up and to help repair the damage to the Mosque. Similar scenes took place in Sunderland (night of 1st-2nd August) and there was strong community presence outside other Mosques under threat, especially in Liverpool.
On July 31st, BBC’s Today programme at least noted the link between this Islamophobic riot that sought to raze the local mosque, with Reform and the up to 30,000 gathered at the far right rally in Trafalgar Square the previous Saturday, addressed by Tommy Robinson, with up to 500,000 people watching online.
The EDL may well have been behind the riot as the police suspect but after the riot, in response to the police statement that they were not conducting a terrorism investigation into the murders, the Reform leader, Farage loudly wondered what information they were withholding. His words, given too much prominence in the mainstream media is right out of the Trump playbook, attempting to legitimate the Islamophobic riot. Much of the commentary has been about the fact that there is no evidence the perpetrator was Muslim as if were he to be that would be justification for these attacks! This should be a wake-up call to the mainstream media and the mainstream political parties as well as alerting the whole labour movement to the true nature of Reform.
The door to this politics was opened by the Islamophobia of governments, notably the last Tory government, with its racist immigration policies but also the adoption of these same policies by Starmer’s Labour Party, to say nothing of the way events and situations have been covered if not actively supported by the majority of our mainstream media.
The thugs in Southport are Reform’s shock-troops. If this far-right movement is not stopped now, whilst it is still developing, we could by the next general election be in a situation resembling Germany in the 1930s, especially following the widespread demoralisation which this Labour Government will generate if fails to address the deep poverty in society and the crisis in our public services.
On the left we need to re-think our strategy. While counter demonstrations provide crucial solidarity with local communities, we also need to change the national narrative in the way that the Anti-Nazi League ( the ANL) and Rock Against Racism in the 1970s helped defeat the National Front, which also attempted to present itself as a respectable party – but never had any MPs. We need to mobilise the labour movement, call out Reform for what they are. And we must separate the fascist core from the majority of those attracted to its false racist solutions to the social crisis and work with them and the wider communities listening to people’s real concerns and working with them to develop positive, socialist approaches to addressing them.
GS
This article was originally published by Counterfire on Wed 31 Jul 2024. Read the original here.
The violence in Southport is the fruit of Islamophobia
The left must unite against the atmosphere of Islamophobia created by the media and mainstream politics, which created the space for far-right violence
Loading article text…
“His words, given too much prominence in the mainstream media is right out of the Trump playbook, attempting to legitimate the Islamophobic riot”
Lets not forget that this anti-Muslim sentiment comes directly from the Bush and Blair era, and was all part of how they tried to justify their imperialism. The idiots who attacked a Southport mosque are products of that bourgeois ideology.
Its surging like it is now because the ruling class are very much against the massive support for Palestine. We have to be careful not to get behind all the usual mainstream “anti racism” organizations who will use this moment to rally support for the Labour Party.
Perfect summation of what is happening and Labour failure to politically confront the issues …. Starmer avoided race and related issues throughout the election, consciously passive on condemning or calling out the rise of Reform and wrapping himself uncritically in the flag. Starmer’s Labour have empowered and emboldened the Far Right.
“Not getting behind mainstream ‘anti-racism’ organisations” sounds all very well. Yes, HNH is a New Labour anti-fascist organisation. Keep your eyes open. But if fascists are marching, I am with whoever is marching against them on the day.
The Labour Party has a long history of imperialism, which is linked to racist ideology, so I wonder if John Morgan can explain how HNH being a Labour front fits in with being anti-fascist ?
The lesson from the 1930s was that the Nazis thrived on the fact that the Communists and the Socialists (KPD and SPD) couldn’t or wouldn’t cooperate. Communist felt even more bitter than we do about eg New Labour etc, because their leaders had been executed by the Socialists! So they ended up calling the Socialists ‘social fascists’. It made sense of sorts at that very moment and anyway the KPD was very strong and the direction coming from Moscow is that they were strong enough to defeat fascism on their own. They weren’t. As we know, what happened was that the Conservative party(and parties) were big enough to take a risk with HItler (strong man theory) who would take on the unions, the socialists and the Communists. And he did. With the Enabling Act and the Reichstag Decree, he introduced totalitarian government, and the right to arrest and incarcerate any threat to the government. The result was that the whole leadership of the socialist, communist and labour movements (both at the top and at rank and file level (shop stewards etc)), were arrested and put into the new concentration camps. From then on, whatever the Nazis did – including rearmament, persecution, war in the East, neutralising France etc etc and then the Holocaust – was a relatively easy ride for them.
I think that there is another element here that is worth thinking about.
I used to work in the youth service, and I watched as “austerity” shrank the service – aided and abetted by the tedious whingeing of those who couldn’t understand why difficult teenagers were being “rewarded” with free trips out.
As the service shrank, so everyone in it agreed that there would ultimately be a price to pay. At the time I think we thought mostly in terms of vandalism and graffiti. The fuller price is now becoming apparent.
The sad thing is that re-establishing these services, together with the trust that they engender, takes a very long time; five or ten years. These are timescales that politicians seldom have the patience for. The Blair government instituted an excellent service called Connexions, which provided support for young people right the way from primary school through to college. When, a mere year into the programme, the statistics did not show massive changes, they became bored with it, and started to whittle the service back. Despite this, there were significant results; it just wasn’t easy to quantify these.
And then the Tories came back in, and it all largely disappeared.
Given a government now which thinks that the solution for thuggery is punishment and reciprocal state thuggery, I do not feel much hope for our futures.
The one thing that did give me hope was reading about the approaches made by mosque leaders in Liverpool. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c84jjv7kp1wo.
It led me to realise that we, not government, hold the answers. Every little challenge and act of kindness that we can offer towards people who might not normally attract our sympathies or compassion can make a difference. I really do not see that we can have any real hope otherwise.