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Where next for anti-fascism after Stirling?
The enemy in Glasgow last year
As one of the few SSY members who made it to today’s anti-fascist demo in Stirling I’d like to write a bit about what went wrong and where we can go from now. As you may or may not know today was a bit of a setback for the movement against fascism in Scotland. To begin with a small group of us travelled through on the train from Glasgow, being followed and asked various stupid questions by the police (such as “are you going to Stirling?”). Once there some more joined us but the overall turnout was disappointingly small (under 50 people in total) and as a result the police were easily able to put us into a kettle outside Stirling train station as a dozen or so fascists later got off the train. We were held for around half an hour as the fascists walked off towards the town centre, apparently ending up in a park where the police had allowed them to rally. After the police let us go we headed up towards the town centre discussing what to do next. Before getting anywhere close to the park we received news (from spotters I think) that the fash had been joined by a fairly large group of football casuals, some of which were said to be armed with weapons and clearly looking for a fight. With this it was decided, perhaps sensibly given the numbers, that there was little we could do in Stirling and that the safest option was for us to head back to Glasgow. We could have stayed of course and hoped that the police would have protected us from them but do we really want to be in the situation in Scotland where we must rely on the state to prevent anti-fascists from being beaten up or worse?
I absolutely don’t mean to blame any individuals for the low turnout. I understand the announcement was very last minute, many of us only heard that the SDL would be demonstrating in Stirling and not Glasgow (as was originally planned) less than 24 hours before the event. And I’m sure those who didn’t attend will have also sorts of perfectly valid reasons for this. I think our success in Glasgow and Edinburgh had perhaps helped to create a false sense of complacency that contributed to the low turnout today. But the SDL can’t and mustn’t be written off as a threat. Today will I fear have emboldened them, it will have handed them a feeling of victory which, if we had had more of us and had been better organised, would have been denied to them. Personally I don’t think the SDL have that much reason to feel joyful after today. That they felt unable to show their faces in Glasgow and ended up in a park in Stirling instead is itself a sign they are still weak. But the danger is that they will now feel far more comfortable about travelling to smaller towns all over Scotland (preferably after keeping the location a secret as long as possible), relatively secure in the knowledge that not enough of us are going to turn up to show them meaningful resistance. With a lot more of us there today we could obviously have broken through the police kettle and cut the fash off before their football thug friends were able to join them.
So what’s the solution now? As someone who hasn’t really been involved in any organisation work up to now I can’t really answer that sufficiently. But we need to obviously keep on working on intelligence and perhaps on building up a secure mailing list who we can contact if there’s any details we don’t want made available on facebook. We should also, I feel, try not to leave anti-fascist work until only when the SDL have an event planned. To keep up the momentum I think it would perhaps now be good for us to have anti-fascist meetings and discussions more often in order to stay up to date with what’s going on. Ideally we could have a fairly large network of committed anti-fascists who can be contacted quickly through various means, not just facebook. If we’re only going to find out at the last minute then we can’t rely on local anti-fascist groups to emerge and coordinate any form of action in time. As things stand most will likely have to come from Glasgow and Edinburgh where SAFA has a reasonable presence.
I’m sure other people will also have some good ideas and suggestions about where to go now. We can all agree though that fascists on the streets, in a town of any size, is not something we want to see here in Scotland. You only have to look to England and the massive threat posed by the EDL to see what happens when fascists consistently feel comfortable spreading their poison in public. It’s not too late here in Scotland and we can still defeat the scum with a bit of effort. Let Stirling be the last time they’re allowed to show their faces on our streets.
EDIT: Some of the information in this article would now appear to be inaccurate so I stand corrected. There were around equal numbers of fascists and anti-fascists present in Stirling with some of the more sensationalistic information we received being manufactured to create confusion.
“If we’re only going to find out at the last minute then we can’t rely on local anti-fascist groups to emerge and coordinate any form of action in time. ”
This is a big part of the problem. I was around today – I’d known/suspected that the fascists would be in stirling today for a week after receiving some intelligence from other SSY people. I was encouraged by local anti-fascists to keep this as quiet as possible. I complied.
The problem is that no one in Stirling knows who they are. I was considering writing something for the local press about the event, putting the anti-SDL angle across, but fellow Stirling anti-fascists reckon that any publicity is good publicity as far as the SDL are concerned (and I don’t disagree!). At the same time, Stirlingers will not turn up to counter-demonstrate a demonstration they don’t know about, by a group they’ve not heard of. Which gives the SDL free rein. Clearly we do need a bigger anti-fascist presence in Stirling and other small towns targeted by the SDL.
Thanks a million to the people who came through to Stirling today from elsewhere for trying to keep our streets safe. Also thanks to the guys organising us and keeping us informed about knife-wielding maniacs, etc., and for not letting us get into a position where we might be hurt.
Cheers Stuart for the good and honest write up. I think it is important to recognise today as a defeat, not try and dress it up as anything else and learn lessons for future.
Timing was obviously an issue for many folks and I think the feeling of needing to operate under a cloud of secrecy perhaps went on longer than necessary. Also as you noted there was perhaps an issue of complacency with people thinking the SDL were virtually finished given their previous defeats. Noted a number tried to indirectly offer the fact the SDL did not feel confident enough to go to Glasgow as a victory unto itself and a reason for not coming to Stirling. Yes it is fantastic the SDL feel parts of Scotland are now off-limits to them but it is vital we make sure they are not welcome in ALL parts of Scotland. There was additionally argument from some there was no point showing up if all the SDL were going to do was jump on buses going elsewhere but we had confirmation of them being in Stirling and if we had a decent number they would not even have been able to leave the train station.
I know it is possible to try and say it was not that significant overall given the SDL’s previous defeats and the fact their turnout wasn’t really that great but that fails to take into account the symbolic victory this was for them. They are going to be able to use this as a “turning of the tide” type story and help boost their confidence and numbers for future.
There are questions of how to organise arising out of today and ways of ensuring large turnouts no matter where the SDL show. Given the short time frame people in Stirling had to organise, and the Stirling Anti-Fascist Alliance being less than two weeks old, there definitely needs to be a well organised and active national group for Scotland. I feel as well that good old fashioned leafleting would have been handy. If those in Stirling and a few from out with had gone down the city centre and the uni a few days before we could of let more people we don’t have direct contact with know what was happening.
Also of a curious side-note: Someone spotted the police had identity photos on them and a policeman said offhand to me while he was shifting through the crowd while we were kettled that they were looking for someone.
I think we are selling ourselves a bit short the fact that we have pretty much single handedly made it impossible for them to conduct any sort of action what so ever in Scotland’s two major city’s in the space of 1 year is a great achievement, however this is the second time the SAFA has had less than desirable results in smaller city’s and yes we should consider ways in which can improve our ability to operate outside of Edinburgh and Glasgow. but I feel this raises another question how far are you willing to go when it comes to a physical confrontation with these groups ? I am not advocating squadism and turning this into a political version of football hooliganism has never done much in the past except to make us look just as bad in the public eye, but clearly for now confronting the SDL outside of glasgow and edinburgh comes with a little more risk and I don’t think we can abandon these smaller towns at the first sign of trouble. (please don’t take that as me saying that’s what happened to day I wasn’t there so I don’t know)
Good post Stuart.
As another SSYer who went through to stirling this morning; I’ll admit this was a failure on our part to ensure we could mobilise effectively given any circumstances. If English comrades can teach us anything, it is that we cannot afford to be in a position where the individual anti-fascist feels too intimidated by precedents of poor Antifa turnouts and overwhelming numbers of fascists to come out in force. This has not happened so far in Scotland, and although we have clearly lost this battle for a small city in Central Scotland, we have definately not lost the war for Scotland as a whole.
On our retreat from Stirling the feeling was not that our spirits had ben crushed, but instead galvanised with the determination to be better prepared and out in a stronger force next time, whenever that may be. I agree with Stuart in that it was to a large degree complacency that lost the day at Stirling, where due to the events in England today, adverse travel conditions and their recent humiliation in Glasgow the SDL wouldnt pose a threat to us on the day.
As you rightly point out we have had great success this year and need to keep things in perspective as well but I don’t think it is selling ourselves short to admit today as a defeat. If they have had minor victories in small cities they will use that as rallying calls for others. We need to question how we organise and how to get people along to counter them when they show up out with Glasgow and Edinburgh.
I think the question you raise can probably be applied no matter where we are if we do not have sufficient numbers, albeit this is admittedly a greater probability in smaller cities. I remain unsure of the exact details of the end events to today. Word from the spotters was there were a large number of heavies with some brandishing weapons. Perhaps we should get a greater description from them over exactly what they saw?
I would not hold not engaging in physical confrontation against anyone and will openly admit I ain’t a massive fan of it myself and would be unlikely to do it. Where we do have the numbers though where we can push our way out of kettles and block their planned march routes I think we should. Perhaps we should arrange some meetings in different places to discuss such questions and issues of tactics?
Today was a snowy train journey, a wander about in the snow and not much else….for both the anti-fascists and the SDL.
No doubt they will try and claim some victory and since we were there and had NO IDEA where they were or what they were doing its worth pointing out that they can have had little impact today. There will always be 50 Nazis in a country of 5 million people but the fact that they were forced to organise in secret and go on a detour to some park in Stirling instead of organising in Glasgow City Centre shows their weakness.
They were forced to organise in secret but it appears we chose to. There are important organisation points worth addressing. Apparently there was an organising meeting on Tuesday. It wasnt on the website, didnt get a text…word of mouth works at getting the people who are at everything all the time. It’ll get the wee group of us who are always there. But it cant be used to create what we want. A mass movement to oppose fascism. Also it was clear that we had a vague idea of plans by Tuesday/Wednesday but the decision was taken to sit on that until the last minute. From the second we knew what they planned we should have called a mass mobilisation. All of the other aspects of tactics – what we do on the day, how we organise best in places we dont know etc and wrapped up in the issue of turnout.I wont talk about tactics on the day because hindsight is 20:20 and with the numbers we had we did what we could.
But the tactical answer here seems remarkably similar to the answers to the more general questions about how to organise ourselves. We need to work much better with those who share our aims and promote mass organisation with militant intent. We saw in Edinburgh that hundreds of people are up for taking direct action to blockade and bollock the SDL. We need to be open and public about what we do. We need regular meetings to discuss ideas with the array of people who aren’t “socialists” or “trotskyists” or whatever in order to draw in some punters. We cant create a mass movement based on chats in pubs after demos and fly phone calls. But there are a plenty of ‘our team’ out there who can be mobilised to do some leafleting, promotion and old-school talking to folk. We’ll beat the SDL when we realise and demonstrate what we always say…there are many, many more of us than you.
P.S. Incase anyone missed it…the EDL demonstrated their intelligence in Preston today with a sign that read “Sport Are Troops Fuck AlQaeda.” I shit you not.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/jonoortrev/5211557359/in/set-72157625479319076/#/photos/jonoortrev/5211557359/in/set-72157625479319076/lightbox/
Lovebug got it spot on: They were forced to organise in secret but it appears we chose to.
Some people said above that it was complacency that prevented us from making a good intervention today. I don’t think that’s the case at all.
I wasn’t there today, but it wasn’t due to complacency – it was due to having no fucking idea what was going on.
The fact that certain members of SAFA found themselves in possession of information about what was happening today but chose to keep it secret is very frightening – not only in terms of democracy and having a healthy movement, but in that it has clearly cost us very dearly today.
If it had been made clear that the SDL were going to Stirling as soon as that information fell into our hands, we could have had a much bigger, better mobilisation that in all likelihood could have prevented the SDL from getting beyond Stirling train station. Instead, they’re going to be puffing up their chests and feeling like big men after being allowed freedom of another town.
There are a few people in SAFA who have clearly decided to appoint themselves as leaders, and the events of today were caused by the attitudes and decisions taken by this self-appointed leadership.
I think it’s important not to let this hurt us as an organisation and our relations towards each other – but I think that the people responsible for the secrecy surrounding today’s events need to take on board the results of their decisions and we all need to make sure that nothing like this happens in our organisation again – for the sake of ourselves and for the sake of preventing fascists operating in Scotland.
I know that the motivations behind keeping it quiet that we knew about Stirling was to protect sources of information – but what is the point in having information if we aren’t going to make any use of it?
The WorstWitch
Dude, we only found out they were going to be in Stirling at the weekend. People were worried this might be misinformation and we waited for another source to confirm. The SDl withheld their information to the last minute therefore we had to go public last minute.
Private groups on facebook. Info easily and privately shared with known ‘real world’ people. Even the EDL/SDL/casuals have this worked out by now.
“Also of a curious side-note: Someone spotted the police had identity photos on them and a policeman said offhand to me while he was shifting through the crowd while we were kettled that they were looking for someone.”
hmm. i’m pretty glad i didn’t go given this ^
the organisation for the day was a total mess. we knew about a week ago that the SDL would be in stirling, yet we didn’t make it public until two days before. I know people can get a bit paranoid about all this stuff but we didn’t get 1000 on the streets in glasgow or edinburgh through clandestine meetings and phone calls. As soon as we found out an assembly point should have been called in Stirling and properly built for – most left activists, nevermind normal people, aren’t gonna show up if they dont know what the hell is going on.
where the SDL go from here though is by no means certain. after kilmarnock we reckoned they’d start targetting smaller places more regularly… it took them five months and two failed demo attempts in glasgow before they tried it again though (at least “publicly”, given that EK was totally secret).
So, Liam you’re saying a month’s work that was done for Glasgow could have been done in 6 days for Stirling on information that was only from one source.
My two pence (apart from the organising) http://scottishantifascist.org.uk/?p=158
not trying to criticise anyone – i’m as much to blame as anyone else.
and yeah you’re right, there was a great deal of confusion among people about what the SDL’s real target was going to be which complicated it even more.
made even more difficult by a lot of people being busy with other stuff, the student demos etc, AND the fact there was the STUC march.
on reflection, I don’t know how much better we could have done for stirling
Just to clarify I wasn’t attacking anyone and again believe that everyone who was there today made the best of a bad situation. There were a myriad of factors from burnout/poor information/law enforcement issues *cough*/snow etc. It just needn’t have been such a bad situation and we need to organise more effectively and more crucially openly next time. The left is so used to be crushed and defeated we act like we don’t know how to win. We have no need to hide or organise in secret because we are strong enough united to beat the SDL.
And Yeh I thought of you when I heard that Liam!
“Private groups on facebook. Info easily and privately shared with known ‘real world’ people. Even the EDL/SDL/casuals have this worked out by now.”
Doh! A private group on facebook will have you and your mates on it. It’s good to take to your pals. Point is…where was every who wouldnt be on your private facebook group? Or even a “private” SAFA facebook page? If it was totally private it would just have the people who would be there anyway and if it wasnt it would have all the SDL and therefore be the same as the rest of the internet.
We can hype up the notion that we’re some kind of clandestine super heros or we can build mass physical resistance to the SDL.
Get fake profiles in the SDL pages like there are in the EDL’s and filter out what you need from there. Takes a bit of work but gets good intelligence. If the SDL get any bigger they won’t be able to keep things quiet anyway.
Today wasn’t a failure at all. The fact that there was no counter protest meant there was no publicity and noone out of the loop really noticed that anything happened at all.
Thats good, but then you wouldn’t have known about Stirling if you only had a fake facebook profile. You need a spare phone too. At best a meet up. Have sources have done all three.
“The fact that there was no counter protest meant there was no publicity and noone out of the loop really noticed that anything happened at all.”
Yes, I noticed that. It was the only good outcome of the protest today. No one in stirling knows who the SDL is, which is BAD for building an anti-fascist presence but GOOD for them not getting the publicity their after.
“Apparently there was an organising meeting on Tuesday.” i’d be lying if i didn’t say I find this a little worrying. and the police in Stirling sound like a right bunch of cunts, say what you want about the coppers in Edinburgh or Glasgow most of the time they seem to have little sympathy for the DL.
Thanks for your replies everyone.
I absolutely don’t mean to underestimate our achievements in Glasgow and Edinburgh. We still have a great capacity to mobilise people in the two main cities and the recent attack on the BNP stall on Buchanan Street (a big thanks to anyone who took part in that) will only have strengthened the fascists’ fear of doing anything here. As Meghan points out things are a lot more difficult in smaller places where local people have had little warning and are not sure what they’re looking out for. That we were going to be less successful yesterday was therefore inevitable but I think it will definitely be good if we have some plans in place in future which can boost numbers should we be in the same situation again. As Muzza says rather than being demoralised by this we should be more determined than ever to learn from our difficulties and mistakes and to give the fascists what they deserve next time.
I think Abe, lovebug and TWW are right to question the strategy of keeping things secret to the vast majority of activists for so long. I also didn’t hear about any organising meeting on Tuesday so there needs to be better ways of getting in contact with people and a greater attempt to reach out to all the different radical groups in Glasgow and elsewhere. There was always the danger generally that the SDL would have made a sudden change of plans if we were too open about things so I understand the fear but it did definitely have a negative impact on the numbers. We can’t obviously know yet what the SDL’s next plans are going to be or what the effect on their morale will have been. Perhaps after today they will feel strong enough to put out a public call next time, especially if they’re able to establish further links with the football thugs. While the situation here in Scotland is complicated by sectarianism we can’t underestimate the danger of them building up a reliable base among various casuals groups like they have in England.
The question of tactics as several bring up is an important one and any sort of physical confrontation with people who are potentially armed and looking for violence is always going to fraught with difficulty to put things mildly. But we should do everything in our power to prevent them being able to march and hold their planned rallies. We did that successfully in Glasgow and Edinburgh and we can do that in other places too with sufficient numbers. As for the conflict between the notion of a mass mobilisation versus an organised group of activists I think there’s a place for both. If we have a good idea of what the fash have planned in sufficient time then absolutely we should try to mobilise as many as possible in the local area (hopefully SAFA will of course already have established roots there to begin with) and put the call out through whatever means we have. But even if the people in Stirling had been better organised and had had more time they would still have needed assistance from outside. Which is why I believe we need to keep SAFA active nationally and in the major cities, having regular meetings and establishing decent contacts with a network of activists who are willing to travel at relatively short notice.
Just to let you’s know that we had no Football Hooligans, No Weapons and Were Rightly supported by the local police who were great in assisting us. Do you guys forget that the western world is under attack by Islam ? Have you ever heard of a protestant or catholic suicide bomber ?. There is No Nazi’s or Football Hooligans In The SDL. We Only Wish To Show Support To put The Great Back In Britain. No Arrests ? Possibly Because It’s your lot that are in fact the racists and trouble makers. Why Support A Group Of Individuals that preach hate against your own country ? Have you college boys and girls lost the plot. Even your divine leader of past Tommy Sherdian is being shown for the beastly peado and non conformist that he is. I look forward to our next confrontation with pride and the knowledge that we will not be defeated by a bunch of half baked students.
P.s Dressing nice doesn’t mean your a Football Hooligan. You never know after youv’e cut the apron strings of mummy and college and actually earn your own money that you’s might be able to have the luxury of owning some nice things. Thanks for my opinion if you communists allow this post on your page. The Scottish Defence League.
Leaving this to show what they’re like.
First of all, sorry that I couldn’t be there yesterday, wasn’t feeling well, and my total admiration to everyone who braved the snow to go along.
I absolutely agree with the conclusions Lovebug’s drawn from yesterday’s events. SAFA and its forerunners have been very successful in the past by being truly mass organisations, with mass meetings planning mass mobilisations democratically and in a participatory way. The context that that took place in was the threat of SDL marches in Scotland’s two major cities. That threat has been comprehensively defeated, something we can be proud of.
The SDL have adapted their tactics as a result, and now call small secret demos in medium sized towns outside of the major cities. This has resulted in them being given relative freedom by the police in both Kilmarnock and Stirling. This threat is not of the same magnitude, but it still needs to be understood and combated, otherwise they will use these events as opportunities to slowly build up numbers.
We can’t expect local groups to just spring into existence in co-operation with us if we ourselves have no profile as an organisation. The fact that some folk in Stirling were able to pull something together with such short notice is a testament to local activists and I think that’s great. I also hope the folk involved now become a part of the regular discussions and work of SAFA. But the problem is that at the moment SAFA doesn’t really exist as an organisation. It’s more a collection of people from various different groups who get together what we’re going to do when we here about the SDL doing something.
Being a purely reactive organisation allows the SDL to determine our timetable of events for one thing. But it also means we can’t properly prepare ourselves and organise when we’re not at action stations so that we have strong groups of people in place ready to take action. That means regular meetings, programmes of activity and a focus on how we can build SAFA as a mass organisation that is open and participatory and attracts the maximum level of engagement. It means thinking about how accessible we are as a group to new members. And it also means having a clear idea of how we describe ourselves and our politics to people we want to attract.
The other key point about broadening and securing SAFA’s existence as a real organisation is that, as I have said on here and in meetings about 8 million times, is that the SDL are not the only far right threat, and focusing solely on them ignores the bigger problems. There’s obviously the BNP – the spontaneous prevention of their stall a couple of months ago was great (and now has seen Strathclyde Police shamefully bringing down repression in alliance with fascists as a result), but I’d like to be in a position where strong groups throughout the country were able to mount similar opposition to their public activity, not just in Glasgow. There’s also the announcement on their blog that they’ll be holding a conference on March 19th “somewhere in Central Scotland” – will we be able to mount a major counter mobilisation?
But more importantly, the politics of groups like the SDL derive as much from the right wing media and their lies about Muslims and yes the mainstream parties – Tory and Labour. See Phil Woolas, or the Tory activists posing as Muslims on the internet in order to generate racist headlines. A strong, genuine left wing anti-fascist group in Scotland would be able to challenge the media and mainstream politicians as well, and combat the development of post-fascist politics in the UK (http://www.bostonreview.net/BR25.3/tamas.html)
There’s also two other crucial battles that SAFA needs to be fighting. The first thing is that we can’t allow the policing of these demos to continue as it has unchallenged. From reports I heard yesterday, the kettling police harassed people, searched them and were looking for activists to lift. Meanwhile they did nothing about a report of someone being threatened with a knife. The police have no actively facilitated the SDL’s actions in Stirling and Kilmarnock, and have also unleashed repression against anti fascist activists (Liam T) on the basis of no evidence but the say so of BNP members. There was also the meeting that in Glasgow uni that the police eliberately disrupted and tried to tell people going in wasn’t on. I’m not naive about the police as preventers of fascism, but the fact they focus on us must be challenged, and that can only be done by a strong organisation with a public profile, a profile that normal people understand politically.
Following on from that, we must take up a fight in the wider left and trade union movement, to demand that no platform for fascists and occupying the space are recognised once again as legitimate positions and tactics. It’s horrific that the political consciousness of the Scottish trade union movement has slipped so much that they condemn the kind of actions SAFA takes and instead backs the kind Scotland United useless self congratulation that does very little to prevent the SDL from organising. Again, I’m not naive that we’ll win over the whole movement, but a public profile and being open and proud about who and what we are will attract trade unionists to our cause, and will mean that useless marches will at least be challenged from within. This again means letting the world know who we are and that we exist, regular activity, a presence at things like the STUC etc.
To achieve all this SAFA URGENTLY needs a founding conference to discuss the way forward politically as an organisation, and how we can become a strong group with a public profile building local groups around Scotland with some real life to them. That’s what I reckon anyway, if you agree then please please come to the meetings and argue for it!
Some good points Jack. By the way here’s some videos from yesterday of the pathetic scum we’re up against:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WkbXsqadTmo
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OSgDhFC0ZrQ
Would be really funny if it wasn’t so tragic.
Can I just say Jack, sarah and Liam all knew there was an organinising meetiong on tuesday.
Thanks for giving them a confidence boost with your shallow analysus Stuart.
Cheers
“S.S.Y. reporting on their page that yesterday was a total disaster for antifa! Well you shouldnt wait at train stations then you freaks! Not when our lot are underway with demo lol. All round success guys,”
What complete idiocy missing completely the fact that they cannot advertise publicly.
The SDL have been driven underground.
I call success.
Yes but the info was confused and I was one of the people who apart from having a load of stuff to get done didn’t really know what was going on. There’s no point in finding out what the SDL are up to if we’re going to keep it secret from our own activists!
Did Squeak urn up at th meetig that was called seeing as Squak had this information?
Actually I didn’t Omar, I’d been away for the previous week and hadn’t been able yet to plough through the millions of emails that were in my inbox about it. I didn’t find out about the meeting til Thurs, when people were being criticised for not going!
So please don’t make assumptions. A better organised group would be able to get the word out better. If I’d known it was on I would have gone.
Also, are we going to be afraid to be self critical ever unless it cheers up the opposition? Lessons need to be learned from why yesterday didn’t go so well, and just pretending everything is hunk dory won’t help with that.
I think Stuart’s piece is thoughtful, well written and argued. Having a go isn’t helpful.
That wasn’t the intention at all Omar and I did clearly state that the fact they could not announce publicly, or march in Glasgow as they had wanted, shows they are still weak. Admitting it was somewhat of a defeat for us (ie. to our aim of getting enough people to keep them off the streets) is not by any means to call the SDL’s actions a success. If they think what happened in Stirling was a great success for them then it shows how thick they are and how flawed their analysis is of the situation.
However a lot of us who were at Stirling were disappointed, especially at the turnout. Personally I don’t see how we can learn from our difficulties and go on to come up with a better strategy for the future if we’re unwilling to ever discuss and analyse anything that might risk making us look weak. The SDL know what happened yesterday and can think what they like about it. But I want all socialists, activists and committed anti-fascists to be able to discuss openly how they feel about the day and what, if anything, they believe could be done differently.
So you didn’t turn up to a meeting because you didn’t bother to check your e-mail for three days. Fucking WOW!
And the rest of the guys?
Can I just say this is a pathetic blog that has once again let the side down onm Anti-fascist work?
First there was the facebookesque/badly masked posed picture with the banner that was fished out of a bin.
Now an article calling organisagtion that has driven the SDL underground to organise in secret, a failure.
Well done SSY, take a bow.
We Can Demo In Public Anywhere !!!.We had respects to pay in Stirling and therefore made it our town of choice in conjunction with the EDL Demo’s. It is still a free country unless sharia has taken over, so we will continue to hold Demos in accordance with the Law along with our English, Welsh and Irish brothers and sisters up and down the country. Your downfall is your under estimation of our stupid you tube videos. Another Demo Another Day. The Scottish Defence League.
Noone is saying SAFA is a failure Omar. We’ve done a far better job up to now than any of the groups in England have. We just need to discuss possible ways to improve our strategy in the future and make sure they’re not even allowed the pathetic rally in some park which they got yesterday. They know if they do anything in Glasgow or Edinburgh it will be a miserable and humiliating failure. Hopefully they can in future learn that this is what will happen to them anywhere in Scotland. That’s something for us all to discuss together and as I said before there’s no particular individuals who we should be trying to blame for anything.
Your attitude is appalling Omar. I’ve been meaning to say something for a while but the way you speak to people is just out of line. Guilt trips don’t work, and this kind of pish doesn’t help either. God forbid we should be self-critical in order to further SAFA.
Secrecy among our own activists when we know what the SDL are up to is not on, and yes there were a million different emails, I got them all to and most of them were people basically saying “What the hell is happening?” and getting vague replies about ooh maybe we can do this and maybe that. Again I’ll say there’s no point in having intelligence if you don’t bloody use it right.
I find it frankly quite cheeky that you’re having a go about bin raking a banner when you’re not the one who spent the night in the cells because of BNP pish; one of our members is, so don’t chat to us about being a let down. We’ve put a power of work in on all the anti SDL stuff, and you’ve just got a stinking attitude to people. The first message I heard about when I tried to join the SAFA email list was you having a go about how it was funny that I was saying I spotted the SDL at the Cambridge when you were the one who ‘got a phonecall’, as if I’m just pulling lies out of my arse. You need to have a word with yourself.
Soprry Squal but if you behave in an immature manner expect imature responses
Did you come to the meeting Squeak?
You would have known about it. Thats where decision were made. I was pushing to go public at the meeting but it was consensus that ruled we don’t go public as the info was from one source.
LOL @ the SDL organising in public…my hairy arse
I don’t believe in people spouting off their individual reasons why they couldn’t make things cause that’s not the point of being critical and appraising things that have gone on and how they could have been better. Rest assured I have my individual reasons why I couldn’t be involved this week, but so does everycunt so it doesn’t matter. The point is that SAFA is failing at collective organisation, for a variety of reasons, and that’s something that ALL OF US need to fix, including you Omar.
Omar you have been incredibly nasty to me in the past and accused me of never doing any work for SAFA. I found this an especially hurtful lie particularly given the hours and days of work I put in to advertising Kilmarnock, during which time I saw you once and that once you went to the pub. I would never blame you personally for not being there handing out leaflets and talking to folk in Kilmarnock or being at meetings with the local union folk all of the days that I was, but the fact remains that was a time that SSY held that mobilisation together. We’ve already had the discussion about the problems that arose from Kilmarnock, so we won’t have that again, but it was an important discussion that involved self reflection. This time, the SSY members who have been most involved in the founding & continuation of SAFA haven’t been able to be as involved for a variety of valid reasons, mixed with a lack of understanding of what was happening, and so clearly you feel that it was you and others keeping the Stirling mobilisation from not happening at all this time, but it’s important that you don’t take out your disappointment at it not working out on SSY whose individual members well – some of them were there and some of them weren’t able to be, it happens. If you don’t like SSY and think we’re unimportant, why are you on our blog trying to start an argument over us?
My personal reasons prevented me from being there on Saturday and from being at this meeting on Tuesday which I found out about on Monday night. But what prevented me from helping to organise for Stirling from the moment someone in SAFA found out was that no one knew what the fuck was going on and there were calls to suppress the information we had and it was so confusing I couldn’t make sense of it. That’s an organisational problem that could be fixed by having more structure to SAFA, as decided on at a founding conference, not anyone’s particular fault. Everyone needs to take this is the moment when we decide to fix SAFA and make it a real organisation, not a time for someone who has caused issues by being offensive, misleading and unpleasant before to come on here and start attempting to offend us. You don’t own SAFA. You are not SAFA. You are not its chairperson. If anyone has relevant information they should pass it on to the mailing list and facebook groups and colletively we can decide what to do with it – but this will only happen if we can solidify our structure and include more people in the debate than happen to have found out about the mailing list or even happen to have heard about the meeting as happened in this case.
Stop being a dick and start engaging constructively with the valid criticisms Stuart (as someone who WAS THERE) makes. And don’t discount people when they say they felt alienated and confused by the lack of information/conflicting information/the abusive way you treat people online – it’s a constructive criticism that we need to face. SAFA needs to sort itself out and no one is going to want to be involved if you self appoint yourself the leader and then treat activists like shit.
We’ve gone from a position of massive strength to suffering a self-inflicted defeat.
Dishonest denialism will do the movement no good whatsoever.
This is real-life evidence that communicating mainly through word of mouth among a small circle of anarchists and antifa hooligan wannabes is not an effective means to bulding a mass movement. Just like the Glasgow demo, I was assured beforehand that there was a secret mobilisation from Edinburgh that was going to “put the boot into” the SDL” – utter delusion. I’m not on the email list and have no desire to be, considering it often degenerates into uncomradely mudslinging, much like what Omar is exhibiting now. Btw, Newsflash: it’s 2010, email lists are an outmoded method for speedy group communication.
The absence of openly agreed structures and accountability in SAFA is completely undemocratic and leading to cripplingly inefficient organisation.
I demand a founding conference, the establishment of SAFA as a properly national organisation, transparent and explicitly agreed organisational structures, people to be elected into positions of power (as opposed to the current self-selection), regular political/organisational meetings, and a simple mechanism for joining the group.
Otherwise we will wither while the SDL slowly build.
Not defeatist or despondent, but examining the facts and appraising what needs to be done to make things better.
James
And in response to Fianna in the spam queue, since I know you’ll be reading this, no – republicans have not been banned from commenting on SSY’s blog. We are republicans. Not even people who are members of your beloved 32CSM have been banned. It’s just you. Not because you are a republican, but because you can’t comment without resorting to abuse, and our blog is here for young socialists, not for old men who need to let off steam about how “middle class students” are more successful political organisers than them. When you write comments on this blog that aren’t offensive and that contribute to the comments or the debate, we let them through. You are not banned, you are moderated. No one else in your organisation is banned apart from you, but they will be if they’re abusive too.
I honestly feel these people were defeated on saturday. They had to organise in secret and announce publicly that they were demonstrating in Glasgow.
This was a lie. If they have gto get this covert then we can’t write off oru action as a defeat. In the grand scheme of things it was a success in that they have to organise in secret.
SDL have been withering since birth. There is no growth, in fact their numbers since Kilmarnock have shrunk if not withered away to a skeleton.
How can this be considered a defeat whn there was a massive anti-racist demonstration in Glasgow at the same time as this acrtion?
Only if you’re a self centred=pessimist who only looks on things on a case by case basis rather than seeing what is happenning organisationally to these people.
They are dead in the water.
Oh and James the mobilisation from Edinburgh had to be called off due to a funeral.
There ARE positives about yesterday.
The SDL did not get to demonstrate in the City Centre – from the pictures they were moved in a moving kettle to the King’s Park, which was empty. They did not get to preach their sadly misguided ideologies unapposed in a public space to anyone except each other. On their facebook site they wrote something like ‘thanks to the place we went for drinks afterwards for treating us like normal people’ – they were treated like normal people cos no-one knows who they are or what they stand for. So their victory was a very small one. Their protest was over very quickly, they didn’t get the access to the public or to public spaces that would have given them any benefits or publicity.
No it’s not ideal and it is a big let-down after the success of anti-fascist mobilisations in edinburgh and glasgow, but if we have ‘failed’ today then this failure is realtive. I don’t actually think that most groups consider making a speech to each other in an empty park and then going for a drink such a massive success. the fact that the SDL do is a true testament to how limited their options are and how small their aims have become, as a result of previous anti-fascist action.
Oh, and by the way SDL, some of us DO earn our own money. SOme of us get paid more than you earn to go to university.
Doesn’t it make you feel lovely that your tax money pays for us to go and learn and analyse why people like you should be opposed, and what is wrong with your horrendous view of the world? Not only that but I get paid to go to conferences and speak in public spaces you could only dream of unrestricted access to. You pay my wages, you pay the transport tickets I use to oppose you.
Hope that makes you sleep well at night.
“This is real-life evidence that communicating mainly through word of mouth among a small circle of anarchists and antifa hooligan wannabes is not an effective means to bulding a mass movement.” haha yes, ill say again this secret meeting on Tuesday last is worrying and is the way its been for far to long now.
“But the problem is that at the moment SAFA doesn’t really exist as an organisation. It’s more a collection of people from various different groups who get together what we’re going to do when we here about the SDL doing something.
Being a purely reactive organisation allows the SDL to determine our timetable of events for one thing. But it also means we can’t properly prepare ourselves and organise when we’re not at action stations so that we have strong groups of people in place ready to take action. That means regular meetings, programmes of activity and a focus on how we can build SAFA as a mass organisation that is open and participatory and attracts the maximum level of engagement”
“I demand a founding conference, the establishment of SAFA as a properly national organisation, transparent and explicitly agreed organisational structures, people to be elected into positions of power (as opposed to the current self-selection), regular political/organisational meetings, and a simple mechanism for joining the group.” I fully support this and would try and take part in its establishment to the best of my ability, this is what I have supported the SAFA being from the beginning.
That’s encouraging to hear Meghan. Obviously yesterday it was hard for us all to know what exactly had happened but watching their videos it does seem that they were fairly small in number – possibly not any more than there were in Glasgow or Edinburgh. I understand Omar if you think ‘defeat’ is too strong a word to use. Maybe I should have used the term ‘setback’ instead. But the turnout should perhaps be a wake-up call to work on improving our strategy and making SAFA more of an inclusive organisation (I too would like to see a founding conference and the development of better and more open structures within SAFA). The SDL may, as you suggest, be finished as an organisation but equally it might not be. We don’t want to be in the situation where they slowly grow at the same time as SAFA’s activists become demoralised.
I don’t feel demoralised I think that the response we got for Stirling considering there were 6 days to organise for it during a week where there were student cuts demos and on the same day as a nationwide mobilisation is great.
I think the most demoralising thing from this day is this article.
Conferences founding statements etc..
I don’t see the point. All we need is a bit (well a lot) of common courtesy (yes from me) and a little foresight before we post whines on SSY blogs and also a bit more open communication on meetings. This also means we are less secure but I think we can organise for unsecure public meetings.
This article is an attempt to open up debate on why today wasn’t a success. Just cause it wasn’t a staggering success for the SDL doesn’t mean it was good for us. It wasn’t – get over it and get planning. This is EXACTLY why we need to establish what SAFA is and what it isn’t. You can’t just move the goalposts to make yourself feel better every time. If we had a conference, established a committee who could inform people through a proper structure when issues like the SDL’s change of location come up and decide what to do instead of dithering. It would do 2 positive things in regards to you Omar – 1) it would prevent you from acting like king of the castle in situations like this when you have absolutely no right, mandate or temper control to do so, and 2) it would prevent you from feeling personally put out when folk constructively criticise the organisation of SAFA as you wouldn’t have to feel it was your responsibility to take criticisms not intended for you solely personally when you HAVE been doing work for SAFA and yet still situations like Stirling have arisen, there’d be structures to deal with that. It works both ways. We want to be successful don’t we?
No goalposts are moved. They had to operate in a cladestine manner and announce the town they held their demo in 6 days before the demo via text alert.
They operate underground. We mobilised people at the last minute through democratic means and agreement on consensus.
I’m not going to call a demo without a meeting and I’m not going to skip a meeting if theres something significant going on regarding information.
If I see that in an e-mail i’m going to read it. Plenty of ordinary people that aren’t in the SSY read those e-mails and turned up at the meetings and consensus was reached.
If the entire SSY choose to avoid meetings then so be it. the information was all in your e-mail inboxes and was there to be shared with anyone. Nione of you acted on that info or shared it.
These are the consequences of ignorance.
I haven’t chosen to avoid any meetings Omar, there’s some I’ve been unable to be at. Not everyone has as much free time to dedicate to meetings that they have very little notice of as others.
This is not about SSY, and it’s not about you, it’s about the future of SAFA.
You are shifting the goalposts though – you argued that the information from the SDL about Stirling should have been suppressed, and then seemed annoyed when this resulted in not very many people knowing the deal with Stirling. Some people have criticised that. Deal with those criticisms if you want to defend your position rather than going ‘but I go to more meetings than you, wah wah’
“Plenty of ordinary people that aren’t in the SSY read those e-mails and turned up at the meetings and consensus was reached.”
Yeah, well, plenty of ordinary people who are neither Omar, SSY members, or the few activists remaining in SAFA that feel that they are satisfied that they are in the loop would have been interested in knowing where the SDL were going to be and stopping them. Disorganisation and the suppression/confusion of information prevented them from doing so. That’s the real worry here. I don’t really care what you think of SSY cause I know you’re wrong, but I do care about you behaving in this way as it’s offputting to the members that SAFA SHOULD be attracting and holding on to.
(Btw sorry I was editing my post above to add more in and when I updated you had added another comment)
I never argued for any details on Stirling to be supressed. If you attended the meeting you aould know I argued for us to go public on Stirling on Tuesday.
SAFA has grown and more members have come in and more have been added to the mailing list since thbe September demonstration, so we aren’t talking about “few activists still remaing in SAFA” we are discussing a growing group that the SSY is beginning to void meetings for, generally.
This IS a perception from recent meetings where SSY have not attended or responded to e-mails or alerts.
No disinformation or suppression was made by me I shared with the group every time it was recieved but decisions on what to do with that info were made by consensus at group meetings.
I don’t think that’s an accurate description of what happened yesterday, from what I got told by the Police at Stirling station afterwards anyway. The SDL never met at Kings Park or the Royal Gardens (if they did meet in a park with large numbers it wasn’t either of these places, unless they left very promptly), and it was after the news that they had supposedly met with 50 thugs from some firm who were tooled up that most people went home. The turnout of anti-fascists was pretty shameful
and walking into a kettle was fucking stupid; I hated myself for the next hour that I was dying of cold. But 6 of us did head up to Kings Park around 1pm (after having a cup of tea with some of the SAFA folk and some SSY people who decided to leave no doubt), half an hour after the SDL were supposedly rallying there. and were met by no-one. So we walked round to the Royal Gardens.. and there was no-one there (other than three riot police riot-vans that were driving round by the Golf course towards Kings Park). We headed back into the centre, and got tailed for a bit by some Police, who we ended up speaking to. They told us most of the SDL had been bussed out of Stirling on a minibus, shortly after being dispersed by the Police from the Thistle centre as most of ‘you guys’ were being let out of our holding pen. I’m not saying yesterday wasn’t an epic failure, but there was never 50 ‘new’ armed fascists join them when it was rumored; that was fed by someone with bad motives, and the Police outside the train station described this as ‘smoke and mirrors’. The victors yesterday were the Police. Nobody was hurt (and they were expecting real trouble before), very few people turned up for either side (supposedly under 80 SDL and anti-fascists in all), they stuck the antifascists in a holding pen, escorted the SDL elsewhere and never gave either side an opportunity to effectively do anything. All I learned yesterday was that even the smallest organisations are infiltrated to an unbelievable degree, have rolling propaganda, and fascists like scary dogs.
You Lot Are A Joke….Shouldn’t you’s be studying to pay back your massive loans or should that be paying us (The Public) back through taxes that put you lot through your education???? Oh Thats Right The Government Has Done You’s Over Yet Again. Also do you sit around on the web all day trolling and smoking ahmeds shit marijuana.
P.s Our numbers are just fine and 1 telephone call and you’ll have 3- 5000 EDL/SDL on the streets here as quick as it took you to read this post. Do Your Homework Get A Job. hasta pronto putas
lol 3-5000? Biggest EDL Demo is 2000 in Newcastle! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_Defence_League
and SDL= LOL
I think the article is misleading. There were serial failures in organisation, but it wasn’t any defeat!
The truth is that SDL are a joke. Thankfully, because if they weren’t just a handful of retarded, racist bigots, then we would we have had a failure on our hands.
There are lessons to be learned… but not in public.
we need a conferennce, proper structures with people in posistions of responsibility who can be held accountable.
i wasn’t in Stirling and haven’t been to many SAFA/ GAFA meetings, but looking in from the outside i think the lessons of what happened are that we need a bit more thought and planning as to what SAFA is and what the purpose of the alliance is and what the “rules of engagement” tactics and stratigies we use against the SDL/ NF/ BNP are.
we don’t have to be overly bureaucratic or top heavy. it would possible (and desireable) to frame any constitution and put in place structures to ensure SAFA is a genuinley, bottom up, grassroots, pluralistic organisation.
none of what i have said is intended as a criticsm of any individual or group.
i’m a member of the SSP and am happy to work with others accross the left to build SAFA
@ Bilko
I don’t see a problem with discussing what happened here among everyone interested in combating the SDL. I think that way we can reach out to and hear the views of more people, not just those part of the small group on the SAFA mailing list (which I don’t think I even knew existed). Openness should be a good thing as long as we’re not discussing anything that seriously compromises what we do or risks incriminating anyone. By the way I don’t think yesterday was a terrible defeat for SAFA or anything like that, just that we unfortunately failed to achieve our objective which was keeping them off the streets – an objective which some people feel can and should be within reach (certainly for next time).
@Stuart
I never realised the SSY blog was the portal to the social consciousness.
How much did that software cost you guys?
Omar, why are you doing this? Seriously, having a go at Stuart for what he just said above, there’s no excuse. He didn’t say what you’re trying to put in his mouth. Stop it.
NOTE TO SELF: MUST STOP VENTING THEY ARE STILL LEARNING
FURTHER NOTE TO SELF: BEGINNING TO LOOK LIKE A PROPER NOB-END VALID POINTS MADE GO WATCH QI XL ON I-PLAYER
Omar it’s not helpfull to keep responding like this.
sorry must have replied at the same time.
“You Lot Are A Joke….Shouldn’t you’s be studying to pay back your massive loans or should that be paying us (The Public) back through taxes that put you lot through your education???? Oh Thats Right The Government Has Done You’s Over Yet Again. Also do you sit around on the web all day trolling and smoking ahmeds shit marijuana.
P.s Our numbers are just fine and 1 telephone call and you’ll have 3- 5000 EDL/SDL on the streets here as quick as it took you to read this post. Do Your Homework Get A Job. hasta pronto putas”
Hilarious stuff.
-continues to sit back on internet smoking marijuana bought with EDL tax money-
I’d rather have an education than a full-time job or I might end up out on the streets attacking Scottish Muslims like your brainless lot.
If yous want to take your own advice and do your own homework, I’m happy to provide a reading list that will conclusively prove how much commie red Marxist anti-racist “scum” have outfoxed Nazi fascist scapegoaters like yourselves time after time after time.
the British Empire is no more. White privilege and Western privilege are being challenged constantly. This is Scotland now: multicultural, multiethnic, where mosques and churches co-exist. Get used to it.
or don’t get used to it, continue to get pissed off about nothing and give us all a good laugh in the process.
The behaviour of some commenters on this thread is an absolute embarrassment.
You’re right, Omar… this thread does make SAFA look bad – because of your insane, abusive, divisive comments.
All of your further comments will be moderated and must be approved before they appear on the blog.
Personally abusive and completely unproductive comments are not welcome here.
I don’t think it is a particularly accurate appraisal of yesterdays events. And I should know I am one the people pissed off with how it went.
Strategically there is nothing to be gained from washing these shitty underpants in public… and I do have some practical strategic contributions to make, but not out in the open.
I think it’s Stuart’s right as someone who was there in Stirling to write up how he feels the day went, what he thinks needs to be done now, set a discussion rolling. The defensive replies have been really unhelpful when clearly this blog was written for the best of intentions and to spark a debate. We have nothing to gain from conducting our discussions in private, we’re not the SDL – we don’t have to. It’d be nice if people could contribute to the discussions on where SAFA should go now in a constructive way – I agree with Jack’s suggestion that has been made and ignored a few times before of having a founding conference – if people want to argue for or against that in a friendly and constructive way then that IS a useful discussion.
I defend Stuart’s right to post this, and for us to have a comradely discussion/disagreement over whether the word ‘defeat’ is the right word to use etc. Personally I think it was a defeat for SAFA in terms of our own organisation, but not a defeat in the sense of it being some kind of trade off between us and the SDL – it’s not a football match – if it was we’d have both scored nil. It’s really really important to me to have this discussion about SAFA’s failure to pull something off here – of course there’s time to discuss how the SDL are floundering too, but what should be important to US is how to make ourselves stronger.
But I think the unnecessary comments here and on the email list basically saying “SSY had no right to publish this post” are undemocratic, needlessly secretive, and unhelpful at a time like this. I can’t understand the motivation of anyone who wants to shut down open discussion. This is a totally inoffensive post so that some people have chosen to react so abusively and negatively to it is a real worry for me. I don’t give a crap how the SDL react to this article – I do care if potential SAFA members or current SAFA members are using it in an uncomradely manner.
i agree with Sarah’s post.
what do folk think of the idea of having a conference?
also i think it was Jack F who suggested the idea of inviting anti-facists from places where the far right are more organised to Scotland to share their experiences.
IMHO these are important discussions we need to have
what do other folk think?
@ Sarah
I agree with everything your saying, but I think the original article omits some facts that are important. If the SDL had been allowed by the Police to attempt to leave the station through the main door (and not have a substantial Police escort out the back) they wouldn’t have managed to get out if we decided to attempt a barricade (I only saw around 15 SDL members, and we had at least 30 people there). Virtually all the anti-fascists there (including myself) rather naively walked into a Police kettle on some false information that had been fed to us. And I question whether this is entirely true; “the fascists walked off towards the town centre, apparently ending up in a park where the police had allowed them to rally… joined by a fairly large group of football casuals, some of which were said to be armed with weapons and clearly looking for a fight”, as having walked up to park where the SDL were supposedly rallying with a small group and found the place empty with no sign of recent mass activity and spoken to the Police in Stirling later on who said that the SDL had ‘us (as in the Police) all over them the whole time they were here’ and that the claims any were armed were in their opinion unfounded, so it shouldn’t be portrayed as fact. I think SAFA was being fed dodgy information throughout the day, I don’t know who by.. which helped sabotage any efforts we could have made to stop the nazis. It was a very sad turnout from an antifascist perspective, and perhaps a defeat depending on your stance. It was not a victory for the extreme right in Scotland though; they could have arrived in a taxi.
@ cullens91
It isn’t remotely true, and I can say that with confidence since it the real version of what was said was said on MY phone in front of me.
If you want a frank debate then how about THIS as an op ed? SSY pissed their pants and ran away leaving a small scouting groups up shit creek while they headed back to Glasgow- the first our group knew of it was a text filtering back via other people in Glasgow (asking for back up to meet them.)
I have seen more nerve and competence out a demented pensioner losing it on acid.
I really am glad it was a bullshit rumour, because being out in a group of five we’d've been slaughtered if this fabled 50-strong armed casual crew appeared.
There are concrete strategic lessons to be learned… but NOTHING good will come of discussing it here. Unless of course you want the rest of the people you left behind to call you fannies too???
And that’s the last I’m saying in public. If you want to reverse engineer an excuse for leaving others in the lurch and uninformed, fine…
It’d be nice if SAFA people accusing SSY of having pissed ourselves and setting it up that of course anything we say will just be an “excuse” would actually cop to who they are.
In a way it’s a fair point though – we need to look after each other at these things, especially when we suspect morons might have knifes. If the scouts weren’t informed that the Glasgow folk were going back, then that is something that shouldn’t be repeated. I don’t want any anti-fascists exposed to those thugs in small groups – I don’t think anyone does.
I heard that about 30 people – the vast majority of anti-fascists in stirling – decided to come back to Glasgow. I can say with some certainty that the vast majority of these were not members of SSY. There was a couple of SSY members from Stirling there, and a few SSY and SSP members who’d travelled from Glasgow…
I wasn’t there, but I understand the place was under police lockdown. What the hell were 40 anti-fascists meant to be doing? Some of the people who from went Glasgow have told me that they went to support what they were lead to believe was a local mobilisation. It turned out that there’d be little to no mobilising in Stirling and that it was basically just them…
I identified myself on the list.
Right, enough abuse of SSY. SSY as an organisation did not send a delegation along yesterday – we didn’t have the time to organise to do so, if we had we’d have encouraged every member to go if they could. A small number of SSY members who are also involved in SAFA made it along – a substantial number of SSY members didn’t make it along for a variety of personal reasons, or because they didn’t know what was going on. The same is true of every other group that has in the past been involved in SAFA mobilisations – it seems that SSY are the ones getting pelters for this because we’re the only ones willing to own up that we had a low presence in Stirling and want to have a discussion about how to ensure this doesn’t happen in future. The small number of SSY members who did make it, well they can explain their version of the day’s events if they like – I think Stuart and lovebug already have, and I respect them both as activists enough to know that they are not the type to “piss their pants”, but if the consensus of a tiny group of folk stuck in a kettle was that the safest or best thing to do was to leave then that’s their decision to make. You can’t expect something so disorganised to end in an organised fashion. It’s not the SSY members who managed to make it there’s fault that there were a) folk spreading dodgy rumours and b) that the folk that are now saying these were dodgy rumours weren’t making it very clear that this was the case. It’d be up for folk who were able to be there to discuss what went on in regards to this but I would caution against saying it’s anybody’s fault other than whoever it was who made up that rumour in the first place. Coming here under a pseudonym and attacking SSY based on lies, misinformation or personal/political grievances is stupid and abusive, and if you continue to do it I’m going to place your posts in the moderation queue. This is SSY’s blog, not a branch of SAFA, and if one SSY member wants to post their experiences of an event they are entitled to do so. We should have a SAFA forum for arguing over these things, instead of a few aggressive macho men trying to paint things as though SSY have done something wrong, or “aren’t really anti-fascist enough” via our own website.
Thats the way it went down Liam. It wasn’t all SSY who legged it at all but the blog makes it look like that. There needs to be serious reconsideration on what gets posted on here.
Also could SSY not go onto other folks facebook pages ranting 100s of words at a time?
You know who you are.
“I wasn’t there, but I understand the place was under police lockdown. What the hell were 40 anti-fascists meant to be doing? Some of the people who from went Glasgow have told me that they went to support what they were lead to believe was a local mobilisation. It turned out that there’d be little to no mobilising in Stirling and that it was basically just them…”
You’re right Liam. The local mobilisation was not big at all. There was about 6 of us from Stirling there. We’d been asked to keep the whole thing as secret as possible, and the meeting point etc. was very last minute. I think people expected the university union to have mobilised people but because of the fact that most people in stirling have no idea who the SDL were it was nowhere near a priority (also graduation was the day/night before so the union was totally preoccupied in any case).
The place WAS under police lockdown. There was about 2 police officers for every 3 anti-fascists. We couldn’t have done anything more than we did, which admittedly was very little apart from turn up, get kettled, and now I’m learning that us stirlingers weren’t the only ones to hang about and try to find out what the SDL actually did that day. The more we find out, the less they seem to have done.
Whoever above said that the people who won were the police is right. The police managed to make the SDL look completely insignificant, and thwart our attempts to oppose them. I actually feel much better about it now than we did on the day – we were led to believe that the SDL were much more successful than they were (and even that wasn’t much). Game was a bogey.
SSY have done a fucking deal of good shit for SAFA. “Stirling” was fucking atrociously organised, no one knew what the fuck was going on, and everyone set themselves up to be outnumbered or mercilessly kettled. Also, is SAFA fuck growing. The biggest amount of people we’ve had on the streets was in Edinburgh last year. It’s almost the one year anniversary of that event and how many people do we have now? About twelve regulars? A LOT OF THEM SSY.
We need to organise this shit better. It’s become under rule of a few loud-mouths on the mailing list who have a superiority complex and act like SAFA is only there to fuel their ego.
Next SAFA meeting, this shit must be discussed and we need to talk about making SAFA a real unit against fascism, rather than a rag-tag gang of voices who couldn’t plan a bun fight in a bakery. It’s not even a proper unit just now. How can we hope to ever recruit if we don’t have any kind of structure?
“Hello, come join us. You can see us bicker and slag each other off on the mailing list, blaming each other for mistakes which are essentially to do with this whole charade we’re showing you now.”
Fuck off.
And here, SSY isn’t only all about antifascism. We have to organise for loads of shit all at once and run our individual lives at peak exam time – and I think we’re doing this pretty well considering. So get off our backs.
Omar, could you not go on SSY’s blog ranting about what I choose to discuss with people who are my facebook friends? If someone’s going to post a status slagging off the organisation I work for and I think it’s unfair, I’m going to defend it. Don’t tell me how to behave. Just because you’ve calmed down now and aren’t posting direct insults anymore, doesn’t excuse the way you behave online frequently. Don’t give me the ‘you know who you are’ attempt at intimidation crap. If someone is a facebook friend of SSY members and they unfairly comment on SSY, then they can either expect to be questioned about what they’re saying and engage in an argument, or they can delete them as friends.
Don’t tell us how to run our blog. If you want to disagree with the content of something that’s fine, but we’ll post whatever we decide to post.
I haven’t posted a SINGLE insult on here but simple FACTS.
And “You Know Who You Are” was a n attempt at confidentiality not intimidation
“I haven’t posted a SINGLE insult on here but simple FACTS.”
Eh no.
Omar – if you want to talk to people about what their post on their facebook pages, then the appropriate place to do that is on facebook, not here.
Yeah and your latest isn’t getting through because it’s yet more patronising crap and oh look, it’s another woman annoying you with her “rambling” or “ranting” or whatever.
Squeak – please stop feeding the troll.
Omar? These are just the ones from this blog, I’m not going to go in to the email abuse you gave folk, which was much worse:
“Thanks for giving them a confidence boost with your shallow analysus Stuart.”
“Can I just say this is a pathetic blog that has once again let the side down onm Anti-fascist work?”
“Only if you’re a self centred=pessimist who only looks on things on a case by case basis rather than seeing what is happenning organisationally to these people.”
“before we post whines on SSY blogs”
“These are the consequences of ignorance.”
“NOTE TO SELF: MUST STOP VENTING THEY ARE STILL LEARNING”
“you know who you are”
- all insults. all unfair.
“And “You Know Who You Are” was a n attempt at confidentiality not intimidation”
No it wasn’t, you were attempting to intimidating me into not calling out people who I respect enough to want to be facebook friends with when I think they’re being disrespectful. Any more posts relating to something that has nothing to do with you will be kept in the spam queue where they belong from now on.
Yeah I was a bit OTT earlier.
Warning!! all anti facsists an organisation with 182 branches and with large public support in Glasgow moved through Glasgow on the 3rd of July no resistance was put against this organisation, On the same day a large march went through Greenock with the support of 78 organisations once again the following saturday on the 10th of July a group from lanarkshire and Stirling organised by 123 groups
This order has an estimated 50000 members and was originally created by the government of Britain.
Heres one for you great defenders of freedom who am I talking about?
The 182 branches related to 8000 people in greenock the number was 2000
Oh and for some that have commented on my privelege it is my privelege it seems to have this organisations hatred and bile applauded every year.
I would also like to stat this what youare doing is illegal so when the police treat you ike criminals its cause you are. This is not an attack on what you are doing I’m just fed up of this blog complaining everytime one of your members gets arrested.
One night in a cold dark and lonely cell isn’t that bad you make him sound like fucking bobby Sands pure old Liam he could have died of a cold or anything that night.
Continue to resist but don’t moan when the police do their job which is to stop all public unrest they are apolitical there not supposed to care if you’re a anti-fascist or a fascist.
Lol, yeah the police are apolitical. Honestly, what planet are you on?
Pablo just showed his hand. Hi Paul v.Pablo. Get back in your spam box, troll
I think all the attacks on SSY here are disgraceful. I did not post this article on behalf of SSY or to attack anyone else – the views expressed are exclusively my own and it should be clear that it was just an attempt to contribute constructively to the debate as to how we can do things better next time. I am though naturally concerned by some of what has emerged here about an undemocratic culture within SAFA and the attempts to shut down a debate by certain people here would seem to confirm that.
I’m totally with LydiaTeapot:
“We need to organise this shit better. It’s become under rule of a few loud-mouths on the mailing list who have a superiority complex and act like SAFA is only there to fuel their ego.
Next SAFA meeting, this shit must be discussed and we need to talk about making SAFA a real unit against fascism, rather than a rag-tag gang of voices who couldn’t plan a bun fight in a bakery. It’s not even a proper unit just now. How can we hope to ever recruit if we don’t have any kind of structure?
“Hello, come join us. You can see us bicker and slag each other off on the mailing list, blaming each other for mistakes which are essentially to do with this whole charade we’re showing you now.””
I think the image used in this article is ever so slightly misleading. Perhaps this would be better.
SDL in Stirling: http://www.emeraldinteriordesign.ie/blog/wp-content/uploads/2010/11/tumbleweed.jpg
If the SSY extracted the politics from their eager yet naive attempts at mobilising anti sdl demos, then all would have gone well. The Old timers spotted the disinfo and acted accordingly whilst everyone else flapped and got kettled.
The work S(ocialist)AFA do is incredibly valuble to the antifa movement as a whole, It is NOT the same as calling any other action.
If a splinter group i.e. “Socialists against Fascism” was founded, then there would be no creedence to my semi-constructive critique here…….. but when help becomes hinderence we all need to sit back and have a rethink, both Pre-Safa antifash and SAFA and come to an agreement on how opposing the fash actually works. And succeeds. Stirling was a failure imho, because intel was shared with the fash, and people got sidetracked by obvious disinfo.
To be fair, dropping egos and being concerned for other activists personal and public safety, and online security is all I would like to see within this.
I myself will no longer be commenting on any blog regarding this issue because unlike others, I prefer to keep intel intel, not the fucking front page news on the sdl’s rss feeds.
Adios Comrades
So what now, the utter fiction that somehow it’s all our fault is just accepted?
We’re not a masonic lodge, we have no need or positive interest in operating secretly. If we want to be a mass movement we need to stop acting like we have the right to hold secret discussions and like no one has the right to hear criticisms bar a few folk on a mailing list. Stirling was a failure cause of lack of mobilisation/lack of understanding of what was going on. I’ve no idea what you mean by ‘sharing intel with the fash’, could you elaborate? Cause if someone was passing them information about where folk would be or what train they’d be on that’s terrible – but I’ve heard no reports of that. If by ‘intel’ you mean this blog, it’s not intel it’s a public discussion. The SDL have at least a few members who aren’t stupid, they know it wasn’t a great day for us (and neither was it a great day for them, they’re reduced to this) – our members and potential members are especially not stupid, so we shouldn’t be treating them so by being secretive about the truth and about how we can improve things.
Btw LydiaTeapot is totally right, SAFA needs a kick up the arse to really get it going, these are the symptoms of a dying organisation, and if folk cared about it they’d put down the daggers marked inexplicably for SSY and start thinking about how we can make this a real organisation
@Bilko
Are you the dude that was wearing camo trousers and army boots and has a nose piercing? I’m the dude with blonde hair that was wearing the grey hoody sitting with the ginger lad with his hair all over the place and the lad in a black hoody wearing a cap. I’m not saying you guys needlessly shat yourselves and left, but the intel you had wasn’t correct; if it was then the location you believed the SDL chose was incorrect. We called SCALP from both Kings Park and Royal Gardens before 2pm and they’re ‘newest’ information was that the SDL arrived there 30 minutes before; I could be seriously injured or dead right now if that was true. I shat myself when I learned there was supposedly over 50 fash who were tooled up, who wouldn’t? (especially when the turnout of folk opposing them was so low) but quite a few of us suspected we’d been fed lies, and decided (perhaps stupidly) to act on that. And lets please never try and be secretive when it comes to organising anti-fascist resistance again; we seriously shot ourselves in the foot (we were planning on heading to Glasgow until late on Friday night, when it would appear some people knew far earlier that SDL had changed their plans). If we learn the lessons we need to from Saturday; which was a very sad day as far as I’m concerned, we can improve our capability of opposing nazis in Scotland.
I think the criticisms shown above that have been directed at the SSY are unnecessary. This in-fighting in public is entirely counter-productive an only serves to create a negative mentality. However the fact remains that many people on the internet are trying to create some form of political movement where there is no need for one. I’m unaware of any legitimate political organisation known as the SDL. I’m well aware of the EDL and it’s intentions. I think the people who think there needs to be a genuine political anti-fascist organisation in Scotland are confusing a Drinking club of racists and bigots, with something which is an actual threat to freedom and multi-culturalism in Scotland. I think the move to try to create a Scottish Anti-Fascist Alliance is totally pointless and all of this talk only serves to publicise an almost non-existent organisation.
I stayed in Stirling, to see what was to be seen, and all that was left was 8 bald men with racist tattoos drinking and watching the arsenal game. I don’t blame anyone for leaving: Do what you wilst, who am I to judge. I understand Inchaways point that sharing “intel with the fash” is counter productive, I was disgusted when I discovered scottishantifascistalliance.org had announced to the world exactly which train people would be travelling to stirling on, this shameful breach of security could have put good people at risk of a serious kicking, or worse, thankfully the police were on the ball and made sure that everyone who travelled to stirling was safe.
I shall not be attending any meeting of any such organisation. If you (one) wants to spread your (one’s) ideology that’s great, but then it would more appropriate to start an anti-fascist discussion group. If you want to fight fascism Take It To The Streets.
I do not have the right to speak on behalf of anyone, but I think there is a failure of the anti-fascist old guard to welcome the younger people interested in combating fascism. I’d like to be the first to make it clear that we need everyone who is interested in fighting fascism (the tiny section of the far right left in Scotland) to be on the same team. The old guard need to be realistic and remember its not this fight, it’s the fight after next. I also want to make sure that everyone knows there is no real threat in Scotland. Trying to organise a mass movement is the real-life equivalent of feeding the trolls.
If you want to see what a real fascist threat is I’d urge you first of all to watch “Who Shot The Sherrif” (The documentary about the rock against racism movement) http://vimeo.com/11494489
If you’re interested in continuing to combat fascism, I’d like to refer you to http://zinelibrary.info/english/anti-fascist
I’m not a part of the left, I’m not a member of any organisation, but I’m sorry that my generation is alienating the youth, who only want to help keep Scotland a safe place for everyone, free from hate.
Let’s stop fighting the baldy bawsacks, say nothing they’ll get bored, and disappear.
Let’s stop fighting each other it’s just a waste of energy.
Lets Unite & Fight the Right!
Otherwise there will be no free education, no free healthcare and no freedom to think and say as we please.
TsK
TsK makes a fair point. Even though the anti-fascists were kettled, the SDL didn’t get to do anything, because they barely exist and have no presence. Here’s an example of how little presence they have – when I did my weekend phone call to my maw she asked how my activism was going, and when I mentioned the SDL thing she said ‘who are they?’. This is the attitude of a majority of Scots.
It is important that the SDL are not allowed to form a bigger presence (i.e. any presence). At the moment their goals are so small – limited to being allowed to make speeches to each other on the odd occassion, and the rest of their time seems to be spent between trolling this blog, posting pictures of Liam on the BNP Scotland site, and trying to keep their movements a secret from the SSY and other groups. It is absolutely hilarious that a group that claim to have ’3-5000′ members are so intimidated by a group of students: both a testament to our efforts, and to the shoddiness and insignificance of their so-called organisation.
The fact is that the general public don’t know who the SDL are, don’t care who they are, and have their ears shut to any message they might wish to make public. I’ll still continue to shuffle down the road to tell them they’re racist pigs and no-one wants them here, if they continue to attempt to hold demos in my town. Mainly because it frustrates them so much and forces them ‘underground’. And also because it breaks up the journey between my flat and tesco’s nicely. But yeah, the question ‘How much effort should we be expending on a group who are barely even a group’ seems to be worth asking.
Its certainly not all your fault guys, I was knee jerk commenting on the publication of this blog. That went a bit skewiff when I tried to get folk on the e-mail list who were at Stirling to clarify what happenned when Squeal jumped in and started asking why Squeal couldn’t criticise the build up to Stirling.
Fact of thje matter is we have a dead organisation called the SDL in Scotland. It had a meet up in a pub back room/church hall involving 30-35 members.
We knew where they are and we keep tabs on them.
They are not worth bothering about but if further work is to be done
I agree with people that argue that setting up a whole organisation to combat the SDL would be silly because they are a joke.
My own personal opinion has been consistently argued for a long time now though – although the SDL as a group are a joke, the politics they represent are not. Anti Muslim populist racism is the prime form of racism in Europe right now. It’s a politics that is nationally important to government in countries like the Netherlands and Sweden – and in fact now the US; see the linking up of the EDL and the Tea Party. The idea of a conference where we invite people fighting this from across Europe would allow us to put our work in some kind of an internationalist context.
Now of course we need to be aware that there’s a specifically Scottish context, and the EDL hasn’t been able to establish a sub group up here successfully. However, this international context does affect Scotland. The ideas of these groups are heavily promoted in the popular press – especially the Mail and the Express. They are also promoted by both the Labour and Tory parties (see Phil Woolas, and the article I wrote on here a couple of weeks ago about the Tory officials posing as Muslims online to generate racist headlines.)
The impact of all this is that the ideas the SDL promote have considerably more purchase in popular consciousness than their membership suggests. What I’ve argued for all along is for us to take SAFA as a nucleus of a radical group that can do more to combat the rise of these ideas than just what UAF does. That means that we don’t just mobilise against the SDL, but also seek to combat the lies put across in the papers, make public statements and try and develop a kind of public profile that the world at large knows we exist. I think an important part of what we should do as well is combat the complacency of the likes of the STUC and their weak Scotland United style responses.
I have actually read up on the history of Rock Against Racism, and found it pretty inspirational for the type of thing we should be trying to do. The key thing for me is that they didn’t take a narrowly defined view of what they were opposing. I also am getting bored with recommending the same article over and over again, but I’d be REALLY INTERESTED to see what people think of this:
http://www.bostonreview.net/BR25.3/tamas.html
An understanding of post fascist politics would in my view lead us to realise that if we want to oppose these ideas it’s not just the explicitly far right we need to combat.
That’s my view of what SAFA should be. It’s a personal opinion, and I know there’s plenty of folk who don’t agree with me, but I also know there’s plenty who do, and we’ve avoided political discussion of what we want it to be, in favour of a lot of apolitical nonsense. I think I’ve made all these arguments before IN THIS THREAD, but people don’t engage with them, instead preferring to spout apolitical bollocks like “SSY shat it and ran away.”
“Anti Muslim populist racism is the prime form of racism in Europe right now. [...] The impact of all this is that the ideas the SDL promote have considerably more purchase in popular consciousness than their membership suggests. What I’ve argued for all along is for us to take SAFA as a nucleus of a radical group that can do more to combat the rise of these ideas than just what UAF does. That means that we don’t just mobilise against the SDL, but also seek to combat the lies put across in the papers, make public statements and try and develop a kind of public profile that the world at large knows we exist. I think an important part of what we should do as well is combat the complacency of the likes of the STUC and their weak Scotland United style responses.”
Yup, agreed. The SDL aren’t worth our effort, but combatting general misunderstandings regarding Islam, and counteracting some of the spin in the rags, definitely is. I’d be up for that.
G. M. Tamás is very interesting if you want to consider political philosophy (I’d recommend you hunt out his defence of marxism – it’d be right up your street). Unfortunately in posting that Jack you are proving the point of the majority of old guard. You are intellectualising something that is supposed to be simple & pragmatic, Boots on the ground, security, travel logistics, street tactics & intel. That’s what Anti-Fa have always been about, it’s not supposed to be about the left or the right (or in fact the entire paradigm) it’s about everyone who’s not a fascist coming together to smash the Fash.
I think the reason that people are being so hostile towards the socialists involved in the SAFA is that the politicising of the SAFA to become a left-wing organisation is excluding everyone else. What about the investment banker who votes Tory, but his granddad died in the war and he doesn’t want Nazis on Scotland’s streets. What about the Anarchist who hates the far right, and everything they stand for, what about the Scottish Muslims who just want to defend their right to practice their religion in peace. Please stop referring to those boneheads who spouted their narrow minded hate in a freezing cold park in Stirling by an acronym, it only means that the people who do not share the same politics as your organisation are more likely to be sympathetic to them.
Remember every time you mention “Es Dee El” an arsehole gets a hard-on
Keep Fashists Flacid!
I’d like to apologise for being rude to folk and especially for insults yesterday. Especially to Stuart who wrote this up.
I have to agree a lot with TsK and I like the ideas Jack poses on paper but personally question what it would do on the streets.
Regarding these groups we have to remember there are football fans in Scotland who have been attending games with Nazi insignia all over their flags. Situations like that can be combatted with a few letters and a bit of local action. It involves engaging with football suppoerters’ societies, supporters’ trusts etc.
We are now back to the grass roots level of building an anti-fascist culture from bottom up. Its not something we should go about whacking out pamphlets for. Its a movement that has seen some great street art in Europe. Some pretty decent music too. And it comes from the passion of the politics.
I know a quick apology isn’t going to get me out of a berrating at the next meeting. Its coming i know…see yous there
The difference between SAFA and UAF though is that SAFA has always been about directly doing what’s in our power to prevent fascists assembling, being able to march, being let loose to do the things that they do in England. That’s why UAF attracts Tories and Labourites and people of all colours for their ‘assemble elsewhere and march for peace’ style stuff (which ARE important but which imo should be happening regularly anyway and not elsewhere at the same time as a fascist mobilsation as that diverts numbers from stopping fascists assembling), while SAFA does not. SAFA is about direct action and preventing them from having a free reign of the area they’re attempting something at – that’s why it was set up.
Thanks for backing me up sarah.. at least we can move past name calling. The opinions in the previous post are not my own but what i’ve been hearing from the Anti-fa old guard (many of whom have been doing this since the rise of the national front in the 70′s) if that’s what this new organisation is about that’s great to see the new generation striving to continue the work of the Anti-Fa. Anyone who want’s to be involved in (I personally don’t. I spend enough time sitting in meetings at work as it is) that sort of thing should tread carefully with regards to security, I’d urge them to read http://www.zinelibrary.info/security-culture-handbook-activists I also heard recently that some people tried to run workshops for young activists in the run-up to the anti-cut demos.. the word on the street was that no young activists bothered to turn up leaving the old guard to discuss best practice amonst themselves, this is dissapointing. I don’t want to patronise any of you.. after all I’m not your Maw, but people have already made the mistakes and learned from them, maybe it can save some of you keen to change the world outside your window, a criminal record. Any I’d better bogoff as I’m starting to sound like an old fart, and I’ve got loads of work to do if I want to be home from work before 9 tonight.
“Combatting general misunderstandings regarding Islam, and counteracting some of the spin in the rags, definitely is. I’d be up for that.”
There is a problem I have with this statement in that there is a lot wrong, in terms of the fight for civil rights, with Islamist governments. I think the point that people avoid is human rights abuses are a threat to people who live abroad under, for example, the Saudi government.
Human rights issues often get skipped over when we talk about the misunderstandings regarding Islam. There has to be open criticism of real human rights abuses aswell as condemnation of fash like the zombies we saw at the weekend.
Next time…can we try to acknowledge that we all basically agree with each other about 108 posts earlier?
We all know a) that the SDL are a joke b) that the SDL are incapable of doing anything serious and c) that it would have been better if more folk were there for the general safety and mental well being of the few poor souls who did turn up. Nobody needs castigated or put down nor have they been. Some people clearly saw it is an attack and responded in kind. That’s unfortunate but inevitable when burdens fall unfairly on some individuals and for that precise reason we need to broaden our horizons in terms of what SAFA can be and who it can attract.
We could have written a “hundreds of anti-fascists braved the snow” bullshit piece with quotes from Stu D. Ent from the Coalition of Globalised Asylum Seekers Against the War talking about how inspiring it all was but whats the point? Nothing happened and it was cold. And we said nothing happened. And we said we would have preferred it if something did. I think we’re all agreed on that. Let’s get on with it.
I accept your apology Omar and maybe I too should have waited till more details had emerged before posting the article – it seems the day perhaps wasn’t as bad as some of us had initially thought due to false information. Anyway that’s all in the past now and few people (apart from us and the SDL) are even remotely aware as to what went on in Stirling on Saturday. I’m sure we’re all interested now in helping build up SAFA together and working towards whatever our next engagement is likely to be. As people say the SDL is far from the only threat we face and it’s important we remain strong in the fight against racism and fascism in whatever form it takes.
Personally I think this anti-fascist stuff is misguided and distracts us from the real fascists in government right now. A bunch of alkies giving a few Hitler salutes are no threat to anybody, they just like to wind people up, at least those who can be bothered. Energies need to be concentrated on the macro picture and not the micro. There is nothing Westminster likes better than the Left running about after BNP sympathisers when really we should be looking more closely at the policy makers dismantling real jobs and community services through cuts.
“Human rights issues often get skipped over when we talk about the misunderstandings regarding Islam. There has to be open criticism of real human rights abuses aswell as condemnation of fash like the zombies we saw at the weekend.”
I agree with this also! There is a lot of human rights abuses by Islamist governments in the news at the moment especially – Iran springs to mind. I don’t think anyone wants to gloss over human rights issues, especially when these human rights abuses lead to lots of asylum seekers and immigrants coming to the UK only to be fundamentally misunderstood and scapegoated by people.
Maybe something good HAS come out of this long comment thread – we’re all reaching towards a consensus on where we want to concentrate anti-fascist efforts. Can’t hurt.
And on a side-note, I don’t think that pursuing any anti-fascist goals will necessarily detract from combatting the cuts. We can pursue multiple goals, simultaneously.
‘Personally I think this anti-fascist stuff is misguided and distracts us from the real fascists in government right now.’
Despite personally feeling that we shouldn’t let thugs march unopposed anywhere as I feel this makes them appear more ‘powerfull’ and hence gives them the opportunity to recruit more zombies, I totally agree with this. The real fascists in government and behind the governments and World bank are the real enemies. They destroy local economies, give ‘aid’ to multinational corporations to industrialise poorer country’s but then turn around to the governments of those poorer country’s and make them pay through the teeth by selling their resources off cheap and privatising their public services, which leaves the country in ruins for years and with a level of debt to some folk in a wealthy nation that can never be paid off; due to the unfair application of interest. I totally agree with you that it’s more important to look at the bigger picture, but its harder combating the real fascists in positions of power than some mugs who went for a pint in Stirling; personally I think combating the fascists with power would require a global movement. The real fascists are far scarier, but opposing small groups of racists on the march is important too. On a side-note.. does anyone know if the Police are going to keep or destroy the photo books of mugshots of anti-fa they put together in Stirling?
Fit teams love to take photos. Its their job. If, like me, they took your details your lovely pics will no doubt be filed under your name somewhere. If they didn’t they’ll probably be lumped into a file labelled with the date and relative action.
Given the much-appreciated change of the title, feel free to remove my angry comments now!
“Given the much-appreciated change of the title, feel free to remove my angry comments now!”
If that’s all your problem was then don’t you think you should apologise for clearly over reacting and being abusive?
I think the posting of the article in the first place was a REALLY, REALLY, REALLY bad thing to do. But fair dos, we all make mistakes and this one has been acknowledged and addressed.
Who was I abusive to? I was not particularly constructive in my language, but I think my ‘alternative narrative’ was no worse than what was originally posted.
I think we already established where the chronic overreaction was. I think I was pretty restrained given how things panned out and I would have saved my feelings till a face-to-face if this article hadn’t been posted.
So, no, no apologies. And I’m not asking for any back either. I’m just hoping this can now move forward to a constructive debate on Friday.
And obviously the title was not “all my problem”.
@Squeak , i’m not here to play hall monitor, but if i were in your position i would let this drop so we can all move forward. I understand both of you’re points of view; it’s only only natural for u to take umberage at the fact someone has posted on your blog, which you have no doubt invested a conciderable amount of time and effort into your movement, and this forum is the internet representation of that movement. I can also however understand bilko’s stance. I cannot be sure of his position but i can express my feelings in an attempt for us all to reach a point of mutual understanding so everyone can move forwards (bygones & all that). As someone who has been active on the streets for years contributing to the cause i have invested a considerable amount of energy into combating the fash, i was not happy about the original title of this blog post. As someone who was there and stayed the whole day. I was confused as to how anyone could call that day a defeat. I chose not to post in response (as i am of the oppinion that having an argument on the web is basically the same as pissing in the wind: it achieves nothing and everyone ends up reeking of pish)
I think you have both commented as reaction to the same emotional position: an outsider has done something that has had an adverse effect on something you are invested in. It’s only natural that peeps get pissed off.
Bilko has effectively issued a retraction, and in politics that means more than an apology.
Lets look to the future and not let our individual emotions get in the way of the work.
TsK
Or to put it another way, I won’t apologise for being very angry, given what had actually happened, but I am willing to shake hands and move on and acknowledge I pissed you off.
As far as I am aware I have no gripes with you personally, Squeaky and think it’d be pretty shit if we got bogged down on this. It wasn’t my intention to have a go at anyone as an individual (expecting Stuart for posting this!), so I hope you don’t think I was directing my anger at you specifically, but rather at the issues.
But yeah a general apology for being one of many people who lost their cool on here, but kept it on Saturday.
Forward to a constructive response to the problems we have flogged to death here.
“You are intellectualising something that is supposed to be simple & pragmatic, Boots on the ground, security, travel logistics, street tactics & intel. That’s what Anti-Fa have always been about, it’s not supposed to be about the left or the right (or in fact the entire paradigm) it’s about everyone who’s not a fascist coming together to smash the Fash.
I think the reason that people are being so hostile towards the socialists involved in the SAFA is that the politicising of the SAFA to become a left-wing organisation is excluding everyone else. What about the investment banker who votes Tory, but his granddad died in the war and he doesn’t want Nazis on Scotland’s streets. What about the Anarchist who hates the far right, and everything they stand for, what about the Scottish Muslims who just want to defend their right to practice their religion in peace.”
OK, that’s an engagement with what I wrote, and I appreciate it.
What I’d say is that I think that you can’t pretend that anti-fascism isn’t political, and that there aren’t political questions to be discussed. Personally I’m arguing for SAFA to be a group that takes No Platform for fascists and occupying the space seriously. I also want it to become a real organisation that the world at large knows exists, and has some understanding of what it is and what it’s for. The reason I posted the Tamas article is because I think it highlights the need for a politics that represents the fascistic tendencies in mainstream European politics, and particularly in the right wing corporate press and aims to combat them as well.
I don’t particularly see how this makes it some kind of socialist plot to turn SAFA into a leftwing organisation. It’s a plan to try and turn SAFA into a real organisation that’s able to sustain some life outside of just acting reactively to the (virtually irrelevant) SDL, and attract people towards it.
I really don’t see how any of it excludes people from participating. Let’s be perfectly honest – the membership of SAFA currently is composed of SSY/SSP members, anarchists and non aligned left wingers. That’s who turns up to the mobilisations and meetings – it’s a fantasy to think there are hordes of Tories or whatever out there waiting to get involved. If Tories want to express their opposition to fascism, they have a group already, and it’s called UAF. They are NEVER going to support a group that supports direct action, because it runs counter to their view of how such problems (if indeed they see fascists as a problem) should be solved – by the police. As to the other examples you provided, well, anarchists are heavily involved in SAFA as things stand, and should be part of the debate about how we move it forward. And I’d very much likes to see more non-white participation in SAFA; I think the best way we can try and help make that happen is by being seen to be active in opposition to racist Islamophobic ideas whether they’re being put about by the SDL or by the Labour party or by the Daily Express. As I say, I don’t think that’s an exclusively left wing idea, I think it’s an anti-racist, anti-fascist idea that would imo have found a place in the likes of Rock Against Racism back in the day.
I really think people need to give some consideration to why we have a separate organisation to UAF. Seriously, if you don’t think SAFA should have at least some politics to it, then why can’t we just unite with Unite Against Fascism? If we’re about bringing together everyone who opposes the far right, never mind if they happen to say pretty much the same things as the far right about Muslims, immigration etc., then why can’t we join Ian Paisley and David Cameron as supporters of UAF?
On the way people have conducted themselves on here, I certainly will be one of the people who will have something to say about the abusive, paranoid way people have conducted themselves in relation to us, who are, after all, a group of your anti fascist comrades, people who have participated in mobilisations and meetings and have built SAFA alongside the rest of you. We have earned (and given others) more respect than we’ve received. I can’t accept that the original posting was a huge mistake. It may have contained some information that was later revealed to be inaccurate – which has been rectified. Saying “This part is inaccurate, please correct it.” Instead what we received was a torrent of apolitical abuse. I’d absolutely defend Stuart’s right to post an article that at the end of the day was political, contained legitimate political criticisms and points of view, and the response he got I think says more about the political level of the people commenting than it did about his article.
I would like to apologise for the remark; “and some SSY people who decided to leave no doubt”, that I made on here previously. There was no need for me to direct criticism at members of an organisation who have done a lot of good work for various causes, and retrospectively I know that it was an unfair comment as I understand that everyone there acted in good faith based on the information at hand. As someone who isn’t involved in SSY and doesn’t know who the SSY people who were there are, directing what could be percieved as abuse (that was unfounded) was counterproductive to the discussion you could have been having. Sorry, and adios!
I’m glad people have calmed down a bit now – debate is good, and if you disagree with anything on here please comment and say so, but keep it comradely!
Thanks for your response Jack I think we agree on the majority of points however the following is mission critical & the crux of the problem:
“I really don’t see how any of it excludes people from participating. Let’s be perfectly honest – the membership of SAFA currently is composed of SSY/SSP members, anarchists and non aligned left wingers. That’s who turns up to the mobilisations and meetings – it’s a fantasy to think there are hordes of Tories or whatever out there waiting to get involved. If Tories want to express their opposition to fascism, they have a group already, and it’s called UAF. They are NEVER going to support a group that supports direct action, because it runs counter to their view of how such problems (if indeed they see fascists as a problem) should be solved – by the police.”
I think this position is naive and defeatist. There are plenty of right-wing and right leaning activists, to give a couple of examples the fuel tax protesters who blockaded the distribution centres in an attempt to prevent fuel tax rises in 2000. You can also take the pro-hunting protesters who blockaded roads to make their conservative point in 2002. Politically active people from these sections of society are vital to combating the far right as it stands. The Far right is making moves away from the city, where Anti-fa activists can easily mobilise to the countryside where the majority of the public are more right-leaning. The Act of politicising SAFA limits the scope of the organisation almost to point of castration. The fight against the far right will not be won by the left alone. It’s only when the peers of the currently active far-right (their neighbours, their friends & colleagues) speak out and act in opposition to their viewpoint will the counter movement achieve its goals of stamping out Fascism in Scotland. If the small business owners & family men who took action against the fuel cuts can be made aware of the fact that Islamophobia is bad for business, and that the majority of Muslims only want to go to work, raise their families and practice their beliefs in peace they will act to oppose it. If the members of the countryside alliance can be brought onside (by understanding that the islamophobic ideas are fascist in nature) to act against the far-right when they take their fight to rural areas where people don’t know any Muslim people, and only have the skewed view of Islam that is presented in the media to form their opinions the next conflict can be won before the far right can gain traction.
If you want to see examples of even more relevant right wing activism watch the excellent more4 documentary the Battle for Barking:
http://www.channel4.com/programmes/the-battle-for-barking/4od
It is the type people who are being inveigled by the BNP who have become disenfranchised with the left-right paradigm who will be the most valuable foot-soldiers in the battle against the far-right. If those people can be made aware that the far-right’s ideas are Fascist then it is can be possible to put a stop to it all together.
Lets not let the old battle lines stand in the way of a common enemy. I don’t care how the person standing shoulder to shoulder with me votes or the paper they read, All that matters to me is that they want to SMASH The FASH.
TsK
TsK, I think we share fundamentally different ideas about how to challenge the far-right.
Whether you like it or not, fascism always has been an ideology of the rich and big business. I’m not saying that yr average member of the EDL or BNP is rich or a business owner – far from it, but look at some of the people pulling the strings in each organisation and it becomes clearer. Would you be in favour of allying yourself with UKIP in the fight against the far-right? Could prove difficult, considering that in many respects they’re further to the right than the BNP. The same could be said for the Tories. Oh and Labour.
The fuel tax protests were far from a few lorry drivers getting together, or ‘family men’ (whatever that means!) as you say, they were orchestrated by huge haulage companies. Similarly, the Countryside Alliance protests were orchestrated by rich landowners, who bussed in thousands of their own estate workers etc. I’m not quite sure how this is at all relevant to combating racism in working class communities.
As for this ‘militant anti-fascism on the streets’, smashing the fash and ‘Antifa’ stuff, if you like at the history of groups like AFA and Red Action in the UK you’ll find them quite firmly rooted on the political left.
I enjoyed myself,got to wonder round another town being being smug and full of my own importance,why should i get a job?,my parents are rich,i lounge about at uni all day smoking weed and complaining that the world is full of fascists..Roll on the next demo,,
I think it’s a false dichotomy, ‘the left go it alone’ or ‘we get tories involved’ – there’s other people we should be looking to attract – unaligned people, ordinary folk who may be disillusioned with politics but who know that racism and fascism is wrong and want to stop the spread of it. I wouldn’t turn a member of the Tory party away if they turned up at a SAFA meeting but I’d naturally be suspicious of their motives, I most certainly would not go out looking to recruit them. I don’t think people who identify with right wing ideas have a place in an anti-fascist direct action organisation (and agree that that direct action could be targetted against right wing newspapers that post racist pish which is clearly incitement of hatred, or Labour MPs like Phil Woolas the next time one of those comes around. It doesn’t need to be only the far left or everyone including racist tory fucks. It should be people who are genuinely anti-fascist and anti-racist, which the Tories are not. Neither are most establishment politicians tbh but this whole conversation is kind of superflous as no Tory will ever want to join SAFA, I can pretty much guarantee that.
Plus, yes the right wing have a history of protest, but I don’t consider protesting for the right to set your hounds on a fox and rip it to shreds in the most painful way it could die for a bit of a jolly old laugh an adequate experience of what struggle means. Especially when coming from the viewpoint of knowing that your protest is backed by some very rich people, whether that in the end happens to go against the government’s policy or not. And there’s the protest of the EDL – they know how to protest, they know how to get noticed and kick up a fuss, but that’s still not really adequate background for the struggle of anti-fascism is it?
“I think we share fundamentally different ideas about how to challenge the far-right.
Whether you like it or not, fascism always has been an ideology of the rich and big business.(V) I’m not saying that yr average member of the EDL or BNP is rich or a business owner – far from it, but look at some of the people pulling the strings in each organisation and it becomes clearer. Would you be in favour of allying yourself with UKIP in the fight against the far-right? Could prove difficult, considering that in many respects they’re further to the right than the BNP. The same could be said for the Tories. Oh and Labour.(IV)
The fuel tax protests were far from a few lorry drivers getting together, or ‘family men’ (whatever that means!) as you say, they were orchestrated by huge haulage companies. Similarly, the Countryside Alliance protests were orchestrated by rich landowners, who bussed in thousands of their own estate workers etc. I’m not quite sure how this is at all relevant to combating racism in working class communities.(III)
As for this ‘militant anti-fascism on the streets’, smashing the fash(II) and ‘Antifa’ stuff, if you like at the history of groups like AFA and Red Action in the UK you’ll find them quite firmly rooted on the political left.(I)”
Thanks for your input Liam, the position you have adopted is in my opinion at the root of the problem I’ll work backwards through your statement in an attempt to clarify any misunderstandings.
(I) I’m not talking about the past, I’m talking about what I think is the best & most pragmatic course of action in the here and now.
(II) “Smashing the Fash”, is not the same as ‘Bashing the Fash’ the former is the populist expression meaning the coming together of Anti-Fa (Anti-Fascists – in case there was any doubt as to what that means) ‘Bashing the Fash’ is the militant practice of giving boneheads kickings up back alleys – and i not something I have any interest in, it only lets the side down and turns the public against the counter-movement.
(III) I’m not going to lecture you on the cultural differences between urban & rural areas, but land-owners are generally pillars of society in rural areas, who everyone knows and respects. You also use ‘rich’ as a pejorative term, If you (one) hate(s) rich people for being rich that’s your(one’s) choice but if the organisation you participate in also adopts that position it only serves to alienate valuable supporters on the front line. The same applies to the business men & women who enabled the fuel tax protest.
{A Family-man is commonly defined as someone who does not actively participate in politics but who’s core motivation is to protect the interests of his family}
(IV) I think it could possible that you have missed the point of my previous writings in discussion with Jack. No I would be confortable allying myself to UKIP or any other political organisation, be it the Scottish Socialist Party, Conservative party or otherwise. I’ll repeat my previous statement in this context
TsK says:
November 29, 2010 at 3:51 pm
“You are intellectualising something that is supposed to be simple & pragmatic, Boots on the ground, security, travel logistics, street tactics & intel. That’s what Anti-Fa have always been about, it’s not supposed to be about the left or the right (or in fact the entire paradigm) it’s about everyone who’s not a fascist coming together to smash the Fash.”
(V) Sorry to negate this state entirely but that’s simply not the case: Fascism was a reaction(& antithesis) to the decadence of supercapitalism
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fascism#International_surge_of_fascism_and_World_War_II_.281929.E2.80.931945.29
I don’t mean to confrontational but I only want what’s best for any antifascist counter-movement in my backyard. I think someone earlier in the thread suggested a socialist anti-fascist alliance, and if that’s what you want to be part of start one, but if it’s the Scottish Anti-fascist Alliance you want then you’d have work together with individuals who don’t share your beliefs in order to achieve the common goal of Smashing The Fash.
TsK
TSK, I think whoever was suggesting that was either suggesting it unseriously or as a dig at socialists in SAFA. It wasn’t SSY who suggested that, the point of SAFA is to bring together disparate groups of potential antifascist activists into one organisation that can build against fascism in Scotland. Unfortunately for our potential membership numbers, those activists simply aren’t going to come from a right wing background, so I find this whole conversation a little superfluous
Tsk, both Liam T and I grew up in rural areas and have some understanding of the role large landowners play in their communities. In my experience they are not particularly respected by ordinary folk because they can see them clearly for what they are – people who make their living by accident of birth and off the backs of others.
I think the idea that we’re arguing for a Socialist SAFA is a total red herring. We’re not, we’re arguing for a real organisation that is willing to confront racist, fascist and post-fascist ideas no matter who puts them forward.
This is a silly discussion because Tories, the Countryside Alliance and the like will never get involved in something like SAFA. It’s just not going to happen.
Can you tell me specifically out of what I have proposed you disagree with?
You’re claiming that fascism arose in the inter-war due to “supercapitalism”, which appears to be some crazy concept that Mussolini came up with. Fascism did not arise in opposition to capitalism, in Italy or elsewhere, it came about directly as a reaction to the huge strength of the Italian workers’ movement in the post-war period, particularly in industrial northern Italy. Fascist gangs were used to smash strikes and organised labour, not challenge the establishment.
What do you actually define as the far-right or ‘racism’ then? Cause UKIP have some pretty clear racist policies, even if they aren’t held down by the baggage of a Nazi past.
If you want to work with the Tories and UKIP to confront fascism I honestly don’t think SAFA is the organisation for you. It’s not that we want to exclude everyone who isn’t a socialist or an anarchist, but I’m not prepared to work in some mental popular front where we have to be careful not to upset the council/police/tories/government. There’s already an organisation for that, it’s called UAF.
First of all, thank you to the non-SSY Safa comrades for the various apologies. Tempers were flared and lessons have been learned. Now we all need to recognise that this is a key time to push forward with doing what needs to be done to improve our practice.
But aye, this discussion has taken a bizarre turn. Not gonna get entanlged in a massive back-n-forth as this is already 130-odd posts long, but here’s my two cents.
When we get a queue of Tories joining SAFA we should have this debate in full (i.e. never).
The founding principles of SAFA were direct action to prevent fascists being able to spread racism and fear in our towns & cities, AND a rejection of conjuring large movements only to have them beholden to mainstream politicians who (1) cause the economic/social conditions that allow the growth of the far-right and (2) actually implement fascistic policies and drive a far-right narrative on e.g. immigration, asylum.
TsK, I do not agree with the strategy of ‘getting everyone involved’. Right-wing forces are not reliable anti-fascist coalition partners, and the limits to practice and policy necessary to keep them onboard can seriously disempower the movement. Fortunately for you, there already is an anti-fascist umbrella group which roughly shares your policy. It’s called Unite Against Fascism. We’re not trying to create a replica of it. I don’t think it’s been nearly as effective as it could have been.
What is missing from your analysis, as Sarah has pointed out, is an appreciation of the fact that the majority of people out there are unaligned (not members of firm supporters of any political party). In the case of most young people, they are understandably hostile to mainstream Politics. An explicit invitation to already crystallised forces across the spectrum would be alienating to the majority of people.
SAFA cannot be allowed to let any one wee group/party’s program be foisted upon it, and so far it has avoided that. SSY has no ambition to turn SAFA into a ‘front group’ or to get everyone to agree with our concept of socialist change through class struggle. There is enough space for ambiguity there. You don’t have to be an anything-ist to get involved. But there are delimitations, we exist for a reason.
And, ludicrous sidetrack though it is, the Countryside Alliance is one of the most reactionary forces in the country. We will never have anythying to do with the likes of them. A radical answer to the conundrum of landowners being pillars of the community is for the common people to overthrow such brutes and use the land for the good of the people, rather than for the good of “family man’s” family. Image versus reality – just cos they had protests which looked similar to ours, does not make them potential allies. That’s just daft.
PS I started writing mine before I’d seen Jack and Liam’s responses. Didn’t mean to form a chorus against a dissenter, don’t really like when several people line up to say the same thing to shout someone down.
Thankyou for your contribution Sarah, but I think that in adopting that stance you have missed the point of my previous statements I’m not going repeat it again as I think that would be unnecessary at this stage. I’ll paraphrase in an attempt facilitate mutual understanding.
“those activists simply aren’t going to come from a right wing background” I don’t know how many right-leaning people you know, have dealings with or engage with intellectually on a day to day basis, but of the proportion I have met, the majority of them also dislike fascism & racism. I also know that there were 3 Neo-Cons at the action in Stirling, and many Neo-cons hate Fascism and want to actively oppose it.
The point I’m trying to make is that People aren’t born Tory, Or Labour or BNP, in exactly the same way the majority of the SSY were not born socialist and I was not born Logical Positivist. It’s a process of enviromental circumstances that shape peoples beliefs. Beliefs can be changed over time and the Fight against Racism & Fascism is not for the minds that have already been entrenched, it’s for the minds of the moderates (more likely to be from the right than the left). Politicising a counter-movement is sabotaging it from the outset.
In a nutshell lets not put off the people who most need to be influenced with our firmly held political beliefs.
If you (one) despise(s) the right so much that you can’t work with them (although anyone who was involved in stirling already has worked with them) Then a socialist Anti-fascist Alliance is the only option which will. (the previous person’s post may have been a dig, but never a truer word was spoken than in jest)
If you want to fight Fascism, Racism, & Bigotry. The only people you should be fighting are Fascists, Racists & Bigots.
PS, I started writing that last post after I saw Sarah’s post and smelly old work got in way of truly focusing on it. Jack I agree with you entirely with the exception that safa should see anyone (I didn’t mean everyone as in huge numbers, I just meant diversity) who want get involved as individuals and not members of any other political organisation (that’s wholly irrelevant). James thanks for your post it seems that Jack, you and I are occupying the same position with different perspectives. Liam, it’s home time for me so I’ll have have to respectfully delay my response to you until tommorow (assuming I can find time).
It’s great to see so many people engaging in debate.
TsK
But I can’t help but not be shy in saying that “Fascists, Racists & Bigots” are what the Tory party is comprised of, particularly the last 2. Of course everyone has the potential to not be a bigoted prick, but if you’ve chosen to or been indoctrinated in to a right wing party like the Conservative party, the realisation of that potential is going to come hand in hand with a pretty swift change of ideology/political affiliation. I don’t believe that you can be economically conservative without holding prejudices against those who you see as lower than yourself, less deserving of wealth and power, and accepting of the unfair racist, patriarchal, classist, heteronormative status quo – sure you might find a conservative who would argue against bits and bobs of the system here and there, but they’re propping up the system that institutionalises these discriminations. Of course there can be antifascist activists who don’t hold the same analysis of capitalism as Marx, but not being a Tory is a pretty straightforward qualification of being someone who actively wants to fight fascism and racism in all it’s forms (signing meaningless pledges or speaking at UAF rallies notwithstanding, as they’re a totally different kettle of fish to actual direct action and combatting of fascist ideas). Of course you can get nice Tories. Actually meet a young Tory and they’re probably one of the politest if weirdest folk you’ll come into contact with. The niceness is shallow, it’s limited only to societal convention like ‘scrubbing up well’ and ‘being a gentleman’, ‘don’t draw attention to yourself’ – it’s got nothing to do with actual care for human beings and what hand life might have dealt them. Like indeed a boy who is in the Tory party and a conservative church and is married at a very young age in my Fascism tutorial at uni, he wants to study fascism and doesn’t consider himself a fascist (libertarian over authoritarian) and is a perfectly nice guy to be around – that doesn’t mean that he’d ever advocate direct action against the BNP or the EDL or the Daily Mail, and it doesn’t stop him from holding views that I find incredibly offensive – such as that women shouldn’t have reproductive rights, and that gay people shouldn’t be accepted within society as normal. Sure I’d like to win him round and if it feels worthwhile I’ll continue to argue my case for why those beliefs are unfair and bigotted with him, but that’d take a huge shift in his values to accept that and he’s certainly not the kind of person we should be wasting our time attempting to recruit. There are too many real potential activists out there to be worrying about the fictional ones that will never exist and on what theoretical basis we could possibly appeal to them to help us charge a police line so we can kettle some skinheads.
As a socialist I don’t think we can ever eradicate fascism and racism until we get rid of capitalism and therefore I’d like to see an organisation which links the two together as part of a common struggle against all power structures and forms of oppression. I wouldn’t necessarily advocate all of the tactics which Antifa has adopted in Sweden but I like the fact that they have very clearly been an organisation of the radical left and see fascism as not just a symptom an unequal, capitalist society but also a way for the ruling class to strengthen its hold over society. I found and translated the following statement of one Swedish AFA group I found on the internet. Personally I like the way it broadens out the struggle to include other things like sexism and homophobia too.
Thing is the SDL are run by at least one police informer, its well known by a lot of people but the morons from the SDL don’t seem to catch on that their inner council is a home for a police grass
They can’t pull more than 40 at most, and the real football hooligans want nothing to do with them anymore, and they rely on brain dead idiots who don’t have a clue
Taxi for the SDL,, ha ha
Your failure is your under estimation of the SDL. You would be best to do your homework on us rather than trying to slag off people you really no nothing about.
To be honest from the comments you’s are making on this page are about breaking the law. Makes interesting reading for our dirty cops. It seems that you lot just complain about everything and anything that suits You also seem to have a lot of violent members willing to do anything to disrupt society and generally cause disorder on the streets.What about the soldiers fighting in the worlds danger zones? Keeping this country safe from militant attacks !!! Surely you’r uni skills would come handy working in middle eastern countries re-building homes and doing good like a large contingent of our lads have done.
http://www.islamophobia-watch.com/storage/SDL%20Edinburgh2.jpg?__SQUARESPACE_CACHEVERSION=1266787955040
Yeah, I mean from the footage of youse, it really looks like yer fit enough to build houses for all orphans in Afghanistan that you care so deeply about.
My Wife and I are both Ex-Forces travelled the world been shot at and shot back. seen many friends die. so you sit there keyboard warrior and leave the real stuff to us, we’ll give you money to keep you going on shit weed.
I’m actually pretty skint and fancy a smoke, what’s the chances of you and your wife giving us 20 quid?
You do know scissors beat paper, SDL?
http://i51.tinypic.com/5y82mx.jpg
My grandmother lost half her brothers in WW2… fighting the Nazi scum that the SDL worship and ape.
You aren’t the only ones with family in the services.
I know Paras who wouldn’t piss on you lot if you were burning.
“Your failure is your under estimation of the SDL. You would be best to do your homework on us rather than trying to slag off people you really no nothing about.”
That’s cute. They;re all upset cos we’re not paying them enough attention. Awww.
“I enjoyed myself,got to wonder round another town being being smug and full of my own importance,why should i get a job?,my parents are rich,i lounge about at uni all day smoking weed and complaining that the world is full of fascists..Roll on the next demo,,”
That’s also cute. I love the implication that people with rich parents don’t get to have an opinion. Let’s stop following the laws then – they’re agreed in parliament by a bunch of people with rich parents who went to uni, afterall.
“To be honest from the comments you’s are making on this page are about breaking the law. Makes interesting reading for our dirty cops. It seems that you lot just complain about everything and anything that suits You also seem to have a lot of violent members willing to do anything to disrupt society and generally cause disorder on the streets.What about the soldiers fighting in the worlds danger zones? Keeping this country safe from militant attacks !!! Surely you’r uni skills would come handy working in middle eastern countries re-building homes and doing good like a large contingent of our lads have done.”
Yeah, we’re talking about breaking the law, we must be so immoral. Because obviously laws are always, always right. That’s not why they’re constantly being changed and amended all over the shop.
I like the assumption that none of us have been to the middle east. some of us have. Off the high horse.
What about the soldiers fighting in the danger zones? They’re not doing a good job of keeping this country safe from ‘militant attacks’ – there’s been bigger terrorist threats since we invaded Iraq and Afghanistan than ever before, and indigenous support for terrorist insurgents has increased since we sent troops out there, not decreased.
If you only did your homework guys, you wouldn’t make such an arse out of yourselves.
I’m off to smoke some weed my rich parents bought me.
Sarah, please gonnae start using paragraphs again! I don’t what it is, but my brain cannot cope with big massive chunks of text like that
TsK, I don’t think you read what I said. I am saying a very different thing to you. I basically called you an idiot tbh.
”No I would be confortable allying myself to UKIP or any other political organisation, be it the Scottish Socialist Party, Conservative party or otherwise.”
It should have read ‘Nor would I’
However i would respond with the question, what was the galvanising factor that lead to the italian workers movement becoming so active?
I’ll conclude with a small explanation of my previous points, any pair of boots on the ground is a good pair of boots on the ground. Don’t let any preconceptions you may have drive good people away. To limit the far right you must get to their possible recruits before they do, if you start trying to ram your off-topic ideology on them your warnings will fall on deaf ears.
(i didn’t literally mean the countryside alliance, i simply responded with example of right-wing direct action)
I’m not trying to claim that fascism isn’t the strong arm of the capitalist system, i’m just encouraging you all to pick your battles.
I notice some of you are getting hostile now so i shall leave u be.
If you want to know about how the anti-fa has always worked google fighting talk (the open spaces documentary)
Keep it Secret, Keep it Safe.
TsK
I omar you mama showed me..at least i’ve traveled the world you lot are a bunch of freaks, i’ll just sit back watch my plants grow and smoke away laughing at you clowns like a said u under estimate us
I REALLY hate when people text speak “aye” into “i” – I don’t really care about text speak generally, but aye is such a beautiful Scots word, why would you want to turn it into something shite? Yet another reason why the SDL are CUNTS.
galvanising factor for the italian workers’ movement being so ‘active’? erm, any number of factors: the Russian Revolutions of 1917, World War I, the massive industrial growth that N. Italy went through in WWI leading to a consolidation of the urban working class… I’m not quite sure what you’re getting at.
I find it pretty ironic that you finish your contribution by telling us to watch ‘fighting talk’. I’ve watched it before, and it’s about AFA and Red Action, which afaik definitely didn’t recruit tories, posh landowners or UKIP members into their ranks, given that they were formed to protect left-wing activity from neo-nazis, and came from a very clear left-wing perspective of what fascism is. tbh though, I don’t think their strategy is necessarily relevant to the current struggle against the far-right.
As for ‘getting to their possible recruits before they do’, simply saying OMG NAZIS R BAD isn’t going to recruit anyone. You need to present people with solutions to their everyday problems. class politics and that.
After reading your rants and arguments between yourelves i have come to the conclusion that i have thought all along that you are nothin but a bunch of poofs and dykes and Lydia teapot is the only real man among you.You slag the sdl of being nothing but football casuals and thugs but what are you??You are no different if you ask me,also,no one that i know of have anything really against muslims or mosques,what we have the problem with are extremists who threaren our way of lives,if they do not want to accept our way of life or the laws of our country then why do they not go home to their great countries and thier way of life that they seem to love and why dont some of you join them and finish your studys in their countries if your not affraid to do so….Peggy
Great, one minute we’re “poofs and dykes” (which you can fuck right off our site for by the way) and the next we’re “football casuals and thugs”. Canny win wi you. Cause you’re a fucking idiot.
Sounds like SDL have more in common with the homophobic Taliban than they think.
Im a girl, you oblivious arsehole.
fukin idiot with a masters in chemistry, you stick to buying your chinky weed and we’ll harvest this 2.5 pounds of lemon skunk…lmao fools. p.s Your rioting stunts make us look good, so keep up the solid job you’s are doing, the country hates you even more than before…NS to you commies