Wikileaks And Its Importance.

There is quite a disagreement over the significance of the Wikileaks’ new material and I confess I am not a Guardian reader so did not manage to absorb their take on matters, yet.

Political Betting is rather dismissive of the whole matter, suggesting that it has displaced other more important items from the political agenda, and whilst that might be true, it seems to me to be taking a rather parochial and limited view of the many connected issues.

I do not think we fully appreciate how the Internet has changed our grasp of world events, power relationships and the control of the news agenda.

As I have argued before, national governments have made a concerted effort to restrict and control the Internet and they do so not because they are concerned particularly with pornography or downloading of films.

No, one of their prime concerns is controlling the flow of information and what people know about issues. That approach applies to dictatorial states across the world, such as China, Burma and parts of the Middle East, but not exclusively so, it also happens in Western countries, just in a far more subtle form.

Governments are, by their nature, in power, very literally. They want to control things, influencing how people perceive the world, how they perceive government policies and more critically, politicians.

The Wikileaks’ material makes it all the more harder for politicians to lie, fudge issues and mislead their constituents and the wider public, which is why it matters.

Nowadays we view world events in a completely different light than we did, say 30 years ago. We can obtain information and opinions from around the world, with a few exceptions. Aided by automatic translation tools we can read foreign media and gain insights into different countries, customs and attitudes.

So in all of that, we are less dependent on governments and media groups to feed us their predetermined agendas or shape how we see the world.

That is why the Wikileaks’ release has great significance.

On top of that we must not forget history, these documents provide a real insight into the shady world of governmental dealings. They confirm what many of us had suspected, and in doing so they are important, providing solid confirmation of how governments and politicians really work, beyond the public gaze. If we truly wish to hold politicians, political leaders and our rulers to account then we should welcome the released material.

Wikileaks’ work is a way of helping us to keep tabs on politicians and understand the underlying motivations behind the public face of governmental actions, behind the bland press releases, behind the fake smiles, which is why we should welcome it.

In Paris.

From the EJP:

“PARIS (EJP-AFP)—The Paris City Hall has mobilized its employees to remove wall posters making publicity for an anti-Semitic book denouncing the “Jewish mafia”.

The move followed a complaint by the National Bureau of Vigilance Against Anti-Semitism (BNVCA), a body monitoring anti-Semitic incidents in France.

According to BNVCA president Samy Ghozlan, these posters are regularly placed on wall of Paris and its suburbs since November 12.

They represent three men standing upright with the mention “The Jewish mafia, the great international predators” and feature a new book by extreme-right and anti-Semitic author, Herve Ruyssen.

The BNVCA was alerted by several of its Parisian correspondents who were shocked to discover on the walls of diverse locations in the French capital the anti-Semitic advertising posters.

On these posters one could also read: ” Racket, weapons trafficking, murder under contract, drug trafficking, money laudering, casinos and discotheques, pornography, diamond trafficking, slave trade, Third world plundering, artworks trafficking, swindle.”

Ben White, Bigot Or Colonialist?

Ben White will be well known to this blog’s readers and whilst normally I try to ignore that individual, I will make an exception in this case.

Ben White has a lot of form.

But what I find worrying, in this instance, is White’s underlying thinking as Seismic Shock ably illustrates:

Last year, White wrote for Comment is Free:

” […] the Palestinian Authority is also staffed with “native” West Bank leaders for whom business interests long since trumped fighting for national liberation. Then there are also the groupings created by individuals who have a loyal power base around them.”

White here criticises huge swathes of Palestinian society in a terribly unfair manner. Also I can’t help thinking that his use of the term “native” sounds horribly colonialist.

Having told us that he understands antisemitism (which might vex Israelis), and then criticised the “natives” in the West Bank (which might vex Palestinians), we have to wonder, is Ben White really the best person to be running political campaigns about the Middle East?

The more you read White’s new site, well, it just gets more and more confusing.

“

[My emphasis.]

I couldn’t have put it better.

I Go Away For A few Days.

I go away for a few days and look what happens, the Irish economy melts, some scroungers called William and Kate are plastered across the British papers, my email inbox is overflowing and the blog gets spammed by a semiliterate neo-Nazi.

That’s what happens when you cover the English Defence League, your blog invariably gets undeserved attention from some knucklescrapers, who occasionally start their comments this way:

“Im not a neo nazi but am decendant from an SS officer who gave me great principles for life and he and many others wer not Nazis fanatics but loved their German culture.”

It is that mindless lack of self-awareness which is so galling, and anyone that starts a sentence with “I am not a neo-Nazi, but…” obviously hasn’t got a clue, and shouldn’t be let near a blunt butter knife let alone a PC (or anything electrical).

It is a shame that such people are too stupid to read my comments policy and understand it.

The Western Sahara.

Eamonn McDonagh, over at Z Word blog, has an interesting piece on the Western Sahara:

“Western Sahara is a former Spanish colony the bulk of which has been illegally occupied by Morocco since 1975. The Saharaui people have sought independence in a long struggle against the Moroccan authorities. In recent days there have been fresh outbreaks of violence by the Moroccan security forces against Saharauis in El Aaiún, the territory’s capital and this has led to protests by Saharaui exiles in Spain. Lluís Bassets is a senior journalist at El País and this is what he has to say about the situation today: “

English Defence League Attack Portsmouth Mosque.

The pretence that the English Defence League is solely concerned with extreme Jihadist is laid to rest as their supporters attack a mosque out of the blue, as the Portmouth News report:

“Scores of demonstrators gathered outside Portsmouth’s Jami Mosque. They were protesting after a small group of Muslims – not from the city – burned poppies in London during the two minutes’ silence on Armistice Day.

The protest, led by former soldier David Tallard, congregated outside the mosque at midday and numbered about 40.

It broke for Pompey’s home game against Doncaster, and gathered again shortly after 5pm this time with about 100 taking part.

Peace protesters who had heard about the protest also gathered outside the mosque.

Shouting between the two groups then ensued with firecrackers, an egg and a golf ball being thrown into the peace campaigners.

There was a strong police presence with one man from the demonstrators being arrested after a confrontation. He has now been bailed.

A 6ft poppy had also been graffitied on the mosque the day before.

Portsmouth police commander, Chief Superintendent Nigel Hindle said: ‘The majority of those taking part in the demo’s did so peacefully however there were a number of objects thrown and we did make one arrest for a public order offence.

‘We will now be reviewing CCTV footage and collecting evidence to find those who did commit offences. People can be assured we will track those responsible down and deal with them appropriately.’

‘As a precaution following yesterday’s protests additional resources were put in place today (Sunday) as a measured response. This was to make sure the Remembrance Day service in the city passed off peacefully – which we are pleased to say it did.

‘Extra officers will continue to be present in the areas around the city’s mosques today to ensure public safety and provide reassurance to the whole community.’

The Muslim community in Portsmouth said they condemned the burning of the poppies and that they would have joined any protest, had it not been directed at the Jami Mosque.

Akf Suyeb, of the mosque, said: ‘When these people are pointing their fingers at us about this, it’s not right. ‘We condemn the people who burnt the poppies, and we do show our respect to the people who died in war.

‘After all, Indian people, Muslim people, also died during the first and second world wars. We should remember that.

‘As Muslims, we are not allowed to wear images of animals, but flowers are fine.

‘And we would have been happy to have a poppy painted on the mosque – but it was graffiti, and they should have asked our permission before painting on our building.

‘We would have absolutely joined in a protest, because the Muslim community condemns this act, but not when it is against our mosque.’

Former soldier Mr Tallard, 25, who was injured while serving in Iraq in 2004, insisted the protest was not racially motivated despite the location outside the mosque on Victoria Road South.

He said: ‘It is a busy road, and someone had already painted a poppy on the outside of the mosque. This protest has nothing to do with religion.

‘We just don’t want to see poppies being burned. It’s just not right.’

A coach-load of members of the English Defence League nationalist group made the trip to Southsea from London to join in the protest.”

So some idiots in LONDON burn some poppies and we meant to believe that EDL picked a peaceful, unconnected mosque in Portsmouth to attack?

That’s 75 miles away, something happens in London, so the EDL attack a mosque in Portsmouth…what racist knucklescrapers. The EDL are out just to attack Muslims, any Muslims, anywhere for any excuse.

They have to stopped.

Update 1: It seems that one EDLer admits causing criminal damage to the mosque. by painting graffiti on it.

Update 2: Any EDL supporters tempted to post should first read the my comment’s policy.

Institutionalised Racism And UCU.

A recent letter of resignation (or 2) from the University and College Union highlights how the proposed boycott of Israelis has weakened the Trade Union movement in Britain.

Despite numerous letters and resignations UCU still doesn’t take seriously the question of its institutionalised racism, from Shalom Lappin’s resignation and those that followed, on and on and on.

As Shalom Lappin wrote:

“In my view, matters have reached the point where the UCU is no longer an effective agent of industrial democracy or a credible representative of its members in the struggle for improved working conditions in the University sector. It has allowed itself to be infected by the raw prejudice of a small group of political extremists, who are using it to pursue an appalling agenda. In these circumstances I see no alternative but to withdraw from the union. I will work against the discrimination that the boycott campaign is attempting to promote in a more efficient way than by allowing myself to be placed in the defendant’s dock by agents of bigotry in an endlessly recurring, stacked “debate” within the UCU. If the UCU ever frees itself from the malevolent grip of the boycott obsession which it has permitted to flourish in its midst and returns to its intended role as a genuine labour union, I will be delighted to return.”

It is a terrible state of affairs when a modern trade union can’t address the issue of institutionalised racism within it and forces members who resigned in protest.

China’s Gun Running.

Not only do China’s dictators have one of the worst human rights record on the planet, within China and Tibet, they are also responsible for gunrunning and murder that has taken place in Darfur.

The Beijing dictators have been using all their skills and mounting immense pressure to stop a UN report which indicts them and in part they suceeded, Reuters has more:

“UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) – After weeks of delays due to Chinese objections, the U.N. Security Council on Friday received a report on violations of the arms embargo in Sudan’s western Darfur region that infuriated Beijing.

Austrian U.N. Ambassador Thomas Mayr-Harting told reporters he was passing the so-called Panel of Experts’ report on compliance with the embargo to council members. A council diplomat later confirmed that the report had been sent out.

The confidential report, which Reuters has seen, said Khartoum committed multiple breaches of the embargo and China has done little to ensure its weaponry is not used in Darfur.

It describes how markings on most of the 18 types of bullet casings found at scenes of attacks against U.N./African Union peacekeepers indicated they were manufactured in China. “

The craven nature of Western powers complying with, or not wishing to offend their most beloved trading partners, China is shameful, but not unexpected.

As with David Cameron’s trip, Western leaders will occasionally raise, very carefully, a few questions about human rights in China.

But it is all for the benefit of the media and “face”.

Western leaders won’t let the inconvenient issue of human rights get in the way of doing lucrative contracts with China. Business comes first in the West, that’s how they see it, and it is the Darfurians and Tibetans that lose out as a result.

Update 1: We shouldn’t forget Eric Reeves’ writings on the matter, particularly his most recent:

“The relationship between Darfur and Southern Sudan has never been well understood by the Obama administration, largely because of the incompetence of the president’s special envoy to Sudan, retired Air Force General Scott Gration. Gration came to the position in early 2009 without any significant diplomatic experience or familiarity with the extraordinary complexities of Sudan—Africa’s largest and most diverse country; he touted as background only his birth in Africa to missionary parents and an apparent facility in Swahili (of no use anywhere in Sudan). But he has enjoyed until recently the full support of President Obama, and this has made informed, tough-minded engagement with the Khartoum regime impossible.

The consequences of this failure are increasingly evident in proliferating news coverage of the critical and unresolved issues between the regime in Khartoum and the southern leadership in Juba. Unsurprisingly, as the scheduled referenda for southern Sudan and Abyei draw nearer, there has been a corresponding proliferation of commentary, nearly all of it from sources as belated as the Obama administration itself in recognizing the dangers looming in Sudan. What these commentaries most conspicuously lack is any sense of the relationship between events in Darfur and Khartoum’s stalling on the southern electoral process.

THE COST of US belatedness in responding to the electoral calendar leading to the two southern referenda has been extraordinarily high (http://www.dissentmagazine.org/atw.php?id=303 ). With less than two months until the January 9, 2011 date on which the votes are to occur, Khartoum has successfully run out the clock and is in a position to extract significant concessions from the US—sweeteners to persuade the regime to allow the referenda to occur as guaranteed by the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA), which in January 2005 ended more than twenty years of unfathomably destructive civil war. Desperate to avoid the diplomatic catastrophe of a CPA collapse, the Obama team has been significantly expanded in recent weeks and months; however, it is far from clear that there is enough time to prevent war from re-igniting, the same war ended by the CPA almost six years ago. Warnings unheeded for well over a year have only now set off all the alarm bells; in turn, the most significant part of the US response has been to offer Khartoum more and more in the way of incentives.”

The Tea Party, Racism And Antisemites.

It is very easy to criticise the Tea Party for putting up or backing some plainly idiotic candidates, Christine O’Donnell and Rich Iott are just two examples. But the Tea Party’s problems extend slightly further than a one time Witch and a Republican candidate that likes to dress up in an SS uniform.

It is the Tea Party movement’s association with the fringes of the American Far Right and active antisemites that illuminates these issues.

There is a marvellous report by the Institute for Research & Education on Human Rights on Tea Party Nationalism.

Here are two extracts from the section dealing with the Tea Parties – Racism, Anti-Semitism and the Militia Impulse:

“Tea Party leaders have promoted and provided a platform to known racists and anti-Semites on multiple occasions. Dale Robertson, the chairman of the 1776 who displayed the infamous “n****r sign,” for example, brought Martin “Red” Beckman on as a guest to the Tea Party Radio hour that he co-hosts with Washington state talk show host Dr. Laurie Roth. Beckman has been known for over twenty-five years for his anti-Semitic writings and his defense of militias. In 1994, Beckman was evicted from his property in Montana by the IRS for refusing to pay taxes. He now resides in southwestern Washington State.
…

In a separate incident, Robertson endorsed Pastor John Weaver on the 1776 Tea Party Meet Up website. According to Robertson, “John Weaver is a very knowledgeable Christian leader who presents scriptural basis for Constitutional Rights. The Church has not exercised these rights and consequently is in decline. The Constitution is founded on the principal of God and a moral people, without either then the Church and the people of this land will fall victim to an oppressive government.”[203] Robertson also used this Meetup site to advertise an August 29, 2009 “family retreat” with Pastor Weaver in Magnolia, Texas.[204] The site also indicates that Robertson attended that retreat.

Weaver, of Fitzgerald, Georgia, has a sprawling set of connections to neo-Confederates and those preaching the so-called Christian Identity doctrine. He is the former Chaplain in Chief of the Sons of Confederate Veterans.[205] He has spoken at “Christian Identity” gatherings in Branson, Missouri in 1998 and 1999.[206] According to this particular theology, Jews are considered a satanic force (or the incarnation of Satan himself), and people of color are considered less than fully human. By contrast, the white people of northern Europe are considered racial descendants of the Biblical tribes of Israel, and the United States of America is considered their “promised land;” a theory descended from a theology known as British-Israelism. Although Weaver describes his particular outlook as a variant of “Dominionism,” his essay, “The Sovereignty of God and Civil Government” was listed in a book catalogue published by the British-Israel World Federation. As such, this would place Weaver just one step to the right of the most radical forms of Christian fundamentalism.[207] “

Read more.

China: Human Rights Getting Worse.

Liu Xia is a former civil servant, imprisoned in her own home under house arrest in China.

Her crime? Being married to Liu Xiaobo.

Whilst David Cameron is sucking up to the dictators in Bejing, human rights in China are getting worse, as the BBC shows.

The Chinese state is attacking Liu Xiaobo’s family and friends, as the Toronto Star reports:

“Now, with the award of the Nobel, the government has fired up a fresh campaign against Liu, while at the same time targeting his supporters.

Newspapers have carried anti-Liu essays and opinion pieces calling him a “criminal” and “a Western tool” for suggesting an end to the Communist Party’s monopoly on power.

Meanwhile the government has suggested the Nobel is just part of an international conspiracy to bring disrespect to China’s legal system.

And Wednesday it took the extraordinary step of quashing any hope Liu might have had to have his own acceptance speech spoken at the ceremony in Oslo.

Liu’s family said Chinese authorities have cancelled their scheduled monthly visit with Liu, apparently afraid that he might pass on a message to be delivered to the world at the December ceremony.

Liu’s wife, Liu Xia, had said after visiting him Oct. 10 that he intended to draft a message.

But Liu’s two brothers and a brother-in-law told the Hong Kong-based Information Center for Human Rights and Democracy that they expect no further family visits until after the ceremony, thereby ensuring no message gets out.

The government’s vitriol has surprised many observers.

“I think we expected some reaction after the award, but nothing quite as brutal as what we have had,” says Kerry Brown, a former British diplomat and senior researcher at London’s Chatham House, the international affairs institute.

“The Chinese response seems primitive and heavy handed. I am amazed that people we thought so powerful can get so offended.”

While many regard the awarding of the peace prize as “dubious at the best of times,” says Brown, “the Chinese elite are reacting like this actually matters — and evidently it does, to them.”

One of the most recent to feel the government’s heavy hand is Liu’s long-time lawyer Mo Shaoping.

Mo was forbidden to leave the country Tuesday — plucked from a line at Beijing’s sleek Capital International Airport just as he was about to board British Airways flight 038 to London.

Mo and well-known Chinese legal scholar He Weifang were headed to the U.K. to address a seminar hosted by the International Bar Association. The topic: the challenges of being an independent lawyer in China.”

Nor should we forget that China’s political policies, decided by unelected men, are the one reason that dictators in Burma are still in power.

Tactless, Stupid Or Just Plain Racist? You Decide.

You really have to wonder what goes on inside the heads of those running the Palestinian Solidarity Campaign.

Do they sit around in a circle arguing about “what is the best way to be offensive towards Jews?”

“Ahh, yes, we’ll stage the play again”

“That’s sure to get up their noses”.

You could almost imagine that exchange taking place, as the PSC, rather inappropriately, has decided to stage at the London Polish centre in Hammersmith, Seven Jewish Children:

“PSC would like to invite you to add a twinkle of merriment to your December days and come and enjoy an evening of theatre, poetry and music with us.

We’ve got a great night lined up, including a performance of Seven Jewish Children by the acclaimed playwright Caryl Churchill. This short play is a moving reflection on Israel’s attack on Gaza, and was first performed at the Royal Court Theatre, London, in February 2009. PSC is delighted that West End and television stars, Anna Carteret, David Calder and Andrew Jarvis will be peforming the play for us at our Winter Concert.
…
Date: Tuesday 7 December
Time: 7pm (ends 9.30pm)
Venue: The Polish Centre, 238-246 King Street, Hammersmith”

But if you were to try and remind the PSC leaders of their racist thinking and why of all places the Polish centre might be avoided, I don’t think they’d get it.

Years of the constant drip drip of “Anti-Zionism” has made them all, but insensitive to any manifestation of anti-Jewish racism, particularly their own.

Readers may want to refresh themselves with my previous post on that nasty racist play by Caryl Churchill:

“Shorter version, if you wouldn’t accept a nasty racist play about Blacks full of odorous stereotypes, then why is it acceptable to do the same where Jews are concerned?

If you wouldn’t do the former but have no problem with the latter then you are probably closer to the BNP’s way of thinking than you’d like to admit. A point to think about.”

(H/T: Richard Millet.)

Update 1: Dave Rich and Mark Gardner from the CST dealt with the racism embedded in this nauseating play in 2009:

“Seven Jewish Children is not a play about Israel. It was written by Churchill as a “response to the situation in Gaza in January 2009”, but it is a play explicitly about Jews. Her response to Gaza is to accuse Jews of having undergone a pathological transformation from victims to oppressors. The play comprises seven brief scenes, of which the first two are generally taken to represent the Holocaust, or perhaps pogroms during an earlier period of antisemitic agitation; in other words, they take place in Europe, before Israel even existed. It is Jewish thought and behaviour that links the play together, not Israel. The words Israel, Israelis, Zionism and Zionist are not mentioned once in the play, while Jews are mentioned in the title and in the text itself. We are often told that when people talk about Israel or Zionists, it is mischievous to accuse them of meaning Jews. Now, we are expected to imagine that a play that talks only of Jews, in fact, means Israelis.

In the first two scenes, it is Jewish “uncles” and “grandmother” who are killed, despite approximately one and a half million Jewish children having perished in the Holocaust. Whereas it is elderly Jews who are killed, the Jews’ victims are overwhelmingly depicted as children: there are two mentions of dead adults, namely “Hamas fighters” and “policemen”, but seven of dead children: “the boy”, “the family of dead girls”, “babies” and “their children covered in blood”. The play lands its blows in the final two scenes, culminating in a monologue of genocidal racist hatred: “they’re animals … I wouldn’t care if we wiped them out … we’re chosen people.” “

Turbulent Times At The BNP.

The British National Party is in turmoil, different factions are fighting it out, death threats, and they even expelled their assembly member for London, Richard Barnbrook.

The organisation is insolvent:

“Any remaining pretence that the BNP is not on the verge of insolvency was blown away when a document headed OFFER OF DEBT COMPROMISE sent by Jim Dowson to the BNP’s lengthy list of unpaid creditors surfaced over the weekend.

Dated October 6th (a Wednesday), the document gives the BNP’s “preferred” creditors just a few days – until Thursday October 14th – to accept a 20p in the pound settlement, and warns: “Thereafter there is no prospect of your invoices being paid at any time in the forseeable future.”

Nakedly attempting to bluff creditors tempted to use the courts to enforce payment, the heavy-handed Dowson claims: “Additionally, the lawyers who have reviewed the underlying contracts to most of the outstanding invoices have advised that most are not enforceable.”

This is almost certainly untrue, but it is an admission that the BNP considers any contract entered into with itself is not worth the paper it is written on.”

The rats have dashed off the sinking ship:

Add to that the court case which the BNP faces and it is not a happy time to be a British neofascist, and yes, that is a big smile on my face. They deserve it, and much more:

“The Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) accuses Griffin, Simon Darby, the BNP deputy, and party officer Tanya Lumby of failing to comply with a county court judgment earlier this year ordering the removal of potentially racist clauses from the BNP’s constitution. The party faces a fine, hefty costs or possibly the sequestration of its assets if the court finds in favour of the EHRC.

Robin Allen QC, appearing for the watchdog, accused the BNP of “playing with” the commission and its officials instead of obeying the judgment.

He added: “Our principle position is: [Griffin] is simply lying [when he says] he did not know the terms of the order.”

Allen described Griffin as a “persistent offender” who had repeatedly failed to comply with various orders to change the constitution.”

A profile of Nick Griffin at Searchlight.

Other BNP personalities, and an unsavoury bunch they are.

Duncan’s What on earth is going on in the BNP? A rough guide is very good.

Simon Nicholson, once a rising star exposing the BNP.

Dictators in Burma.

Burma’s dictators really don’t care what anyone thinks of them. They will imprison, shoot and kill anyone that opposes them.

As we’ve seen in the past companies are only too happy to go along with them, if there’s money in it.

The dictators in Burma feel they have a free hand to kill or brutalise anyone in the country, safe in the knowledge that as long as China supports them they can do what they like, the Irish Times reports:

“THOUSANDS OF refugees from Burma have fled into Thailand after fighting between ethnic rebels and Burmese government forces at the border following Sunday’s election.

The poll has been widely dismissed as a sham to boost the ruling military junta. Rights groups and commentators had widely predicted that the elections would increase conflict and instability in Burma, and on Sunday, rebels from the Karen ethnic group seized a police station and a post office in the border town of Myawaddy. At least 10 people were wounded on each side of the frontier in the fighting.

Thai officials said there were further skirmishes at the Three Pagodas Pass and streams of refugees headed into Thailand.

“There have been at least 10,000 refugees who have fled to Thailand,” Col Wannatip Wongwai, commander of Thailand’s Third Army Region responsible for security in the area, told the Associated Press. “As soon as the situation is under control, we will start sending the refugees back to Myawaddy.”

Burmese government troops appeared to have retaken control of Myawaddy, and the rebels of the Democratic Karen Buddhist army held just a few positions on the outskirts of the town.

Ethnic minorities account for about 40 per cent of Burma’s population and they said in the run up to the elections that they were unhappy at having the military regime impose its rule, warning that civil war could be the outcome. Absurd restrictions on eligibility made it impossible for pro-democracy groups to make themselves heard in the elections, which were the first in 20 years and came after 48 years of direct army rule.”

72 Years Ago.

No comment is required:

What’s Going On At Unite Against Fascism?

Political stupidity is nothing new and the British Left’s almost perpetual sectarianism has impeded many developments, but even I am surprised at this, from Indymedia:

Dear TCAR members and supporters,

The following open letter is being sent this week by the organising group for the Northern March Against Racism, after much consideration. It is a response to an unacceptable act of sectarianism by a leading member of UAF (Unite Against Fascism) to undermine the Northern March Against Racism, which has been called by TCAR. Unfortunately, this is not the first time that leading members of UAF around the Socialist Worker Party have attempted to undermine the work of other anti-racist organisations in the North East. We are writing this open letter in the hope that this issue will be addressed by UAF and that similar situations can be avoided in the future.

To the leadership and members of UAF (Unite Against Fascism):
Cc: Ken Livingstone, UAF Chair; Sabby Dhalu, UAF joint Secretary; Weyman Bennett, UAF joint Secretary; Martin Smith, SWP National Secretary

We are writing from the organising group of the Northern March Against Racism 2010, which is due to take place in Newcastle upon Tyne on 20 November. The march has been called by TCAR (Tyneside Community Action Against Racism), and is supported by over a dozen other organisations and trade union branches. We are writing concerning attempts by a leading UAF member and SWP regional organiser, Yunus Bakhsh, to undermine the Northern March.

On Monday 18 October, TCAR supporters put posters in the following shops in the Arthurs Hill area of Newcastle to publicise the Northern March:
Crossley Wine Centre
Brighton Oriental Food Stores
Fenham Call Centre
Mishti Mukh Sweet Centre
Tanveer Gents Hairdresser
M.A. Travels
Kamran’s Barber Shop
Geordie Hairdressing Salon
Persian Delights
Aanchal Fashions
Sanam Travel
Heera Jewelers

By Wednesday 20 October, most of these had been removed and in their place were UAF posters advertising the march in London on 6 November. We then put up more posters for the Northern March in the same shops on 20 October, of course leaving the UAF posters in place. The Northern March posters remained until the morning of Tuesday 26 October, when someone again removed the posters from shops including:
Crossley Wine Centre
Brighton Oriental Food Stores
Fenham Call Centre
Tanveer Gents Hairdresser
M.A. Travels
Kamran’s Barber Shop
Aanchal Fashions
Sanam Travel
Heera Jewelers

On enquiring with shopkeepers, several were able to confirm that a man had entered the shop, removed the posters for the Northern March, and in some cases replaced them with a poster for the UAF march. These shopkeepers confirmed from a photograph that the individual who removed the posters was Yunus Bakhsh. We have access to a shopkeeper’s CCTV footage, which clearly shows Yunus entering the shop at 14:48:26 on 26 October, removing the poster for the Northern March Against Racism, before going to the counter and handing the shopkeeper a flier for the 6 November UAF march.

We are sure you will agree that this is an appalling and unacceptable act of sectarianism, which damages the integrity of the wider anti-racist movement in the region. How can any serious socialist justify this sort of behaviour? We urge you to take measures to ensure the members involved end such acts of sabotage immediately.

The Northern March Against Racism is a vital part of building positive anti-racist unity in the region. It is being organised on an open and democratic basis. The local branch of UAF were first invited to participate in building the Northern March on 14 July, including full rights to distribute their literature, display banners and have a speaker. This offer has so far been ignored, but remains open. We hope that you will take immediate action to end the removal of our posters by your members, and that UAF will start to make a positive contribution to the Northern March. We await your response, and wish you well in London on the 6 November.

Fraternally,

Organising Group
Northern March Against Racism 2010

Justice for Immigrants! Freedom for Refugees!
Together we are Stronger!
TYNESIDE COMMUNITY ACTION AGAINST RACISM (TCAR)

formerly TYNESIDE COMMUNITY ACTION FOR REFUGEES (TCAR)

James Taylor

“

It doesn’t get more stupid than that. I do wish that the SWP and UAF would get their act together, British neofascism is the real danger not other antiracists.