Policeman and child shot in Tottenham...100 years on.
Si Mitchell | 22.01.2009 11:35
Britain, and in particular the East End of London, provided a safe refuge for thousands of immigrants fleeing the subsequent persecution and pogroms in Eastern Europe and Russia. Entry requirements did not exist. There were no passports or visas or gun laws.
The area around Whitechapel provided home for refugees from Latvia, Russia and the Baltic States and was a fertile breeding ground for imported anarchist ideas. As long as the immigrants did not interfere with British politics the authorities were content to let them be. In 1908 both Lenin and Stalin were in London, the first meeting of the Bolshevik party was held in Islington, anarchist ÈmigrÈs ran clubs and community centres where assassinations abroad were toasted and celebrated. The anarchist theoretician and bomb maker Johann Most lived among them as did Malatesta and Kropotkin.
Pressure was building for a curb on immigration. The public perception, provoked by an increasingly xenophobic press, was that of being overrun by ìhordesî of refugees and the first restriction, the Aliens Act, was introduced in 1905. The communities of foreign radicals in the East End ñ like many Asian communities today - were subject to hostility and resentment for keeping their own languages and culture. The days of the British safe haven were numbered and all it would take would be one spark to ignite Edwardian England and change British law forever. The spark would come on the 23rd of January 1909 when two Latvian anarchists would rob a wages bag and initiate a brutal and audacious chase involving over 100 pursuers that would cover three London boroughs, last two hours, put a child and a policeman in the morgue and leave 30 people nursing bullet wounds and a nation wondering where to go now its peace was shattered.
To commemorate the centenary of the Tottenham Outrage you are invited to retrace the steps of the robbery and the chase. The walk will be led by filmmaker Si Mitchell and along the route we hope to discuss the events, the reasons for their occurence and the legacy they left behind. Meet 11am on the corner of Chesnut Road and Tottenham High Road, Friday Jan 23rd 2009. See you there.
Si Mitchell
e-mail:
si.mitch@ntlworld.com
Comments
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Don't ignore the Fash
22.01.2009 12:00
@nti fascist
Homepage: http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/filmnetwork/U8286436
and
22.01.2009 13:27
a
I am not sure I am getting the point
22.01.2009 14:40
I have quite recently discovered that those poor russian revolutionnaries had rolls-royces, armoured trains full of ammunition and horses as well as state of the art radio equipment. (according to Brian Moynahan - The Russian Century)
So I now tend to believe that those who say the russan revolution was financed by the international banker Jacob Schiff are in the truth.
Especially since I know Jacob Schiff is the man who loaned, as head of Kuhn, Loeb, hundred of millions to the japanese to wage war against Russia in 1904 which he considered led by an anti-semitic ennemy of mankind. (according to Jeffry A. Frieden - Banking on the World)
Interesting to note that the revolution slashed the emancipation process that was taking place in russia at the time. Peasant were given freedom as well as the land upon which they were working.
Revolutionnaries massacred both nobility and peasanry as we know.
You would have thought they'd got rid of the british monarchy as well somewhere in that sweeping "anarchist" terror wave you describe, but no they didn't.
They didn't feel to "liberate" the brits it seems...
Wonder why, maybe you've got a clue dude ?
Billy The Kid
but...
22.01.2009 17:09
Huh?