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Diary entries by ben_norman on Sun 25th Nov 2007

 

 

Fascist. This is a word with sinister connotations. To mention it musters images which represent the darkest side of humanity. It brings to mind the jackboot, the goosestep and the gas chamber. Fascism is an ideology of hate which reached its peak in the 1930’s and, through a war which cost over fifty million lives, faced its destruction in 1945. At its height fascist flags flew over Hitler’s Berlin , over Franco’s Madrid and over Mussolini’s Rome . It is popularly believed that fascism was a European phenomenon, with Britain ’s only involvement being in its destruction. However, on Sunday October 4th 1936 over 300,000 people of London’s East end rose up, stood fast and defeated the British Union of Fascists in what became known as the Battle of Cable street.

On that Sunday afternoon, seventy one years ago, the east end working class locked arms and stood in solidarity with the local Jewish community and with Anti-facist protesters to stop Oswald Mosley's British Union of Facists from marching through the poorest areas London . Together they built barricades, formed a human wall and stood fast against the marching black shirts. The battle that followed marked the beginning of the end for main stream fasism in Britain. Simultaneously thousands of British volunteers had joined the international brigade to fight in the Spanish civil war against General Franco’s fascist forces. In solidarity to the freedom fighters battling in a war raging across Spain the anti-fascists of
Cable Street
 carried placards emblazoned with the slogan ¡No Pasarán!, “they shall not pass”. This was only three years before Britain stood together with other free nations to wage war against Hitler’s Nazi war machine. The British people, and indeed the British left, have a proud history of standing against facism and now the time has come when we must all stand together, not only to remember cable street but to fight fasicm once again.

 

 

Today the British National Party are the face of modern British facism and of modern British Nazism. The BNP attempts to present itself as being a party of the working class, a party of the people but in reality its stands on a manifesto of pure hatred and of racism. Their current leader is Nick Griffin, a man whose facist credentials are beyond doubt, due to his connection to the National front and other far right organisations. On Monday the 26th November 2007 Nick Giffin will speak, alongside Holocaust denier David Irving, at Oxford universities’ freedom of speech debate. Oxford have invtied Griffin and Irving to speak, arguing that freedom of speech should have no...
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