Skip to content or view mobile version

Home | Mobile | Editorial | Mission | Privacy | About | Contact | Help | Security | Support

A network of individuals, independent and alternative media activists and organisations, offering grassroots, non-corporate, non-commercial coverage of important social and political issues.

SchNEWS: Yo,ho,ho and a Battle of Brum

Jo Makepeace | 19.07.2013 16:43 | Anti-racism | Policing | Birmingham

The English Defence League are to hold their first national rally planned since the death of Lee Rigby in Birmingham this Saturday (20th). Tensions are running high after attempted nail bomb attacks on mosques in Tipton and Walsall.

The EDL are being corralled into a pub in Broad Street for up to three hours before being allowed out for the short walk to Centenary Square at around 2pm. They will then be bussed out again. This looks like the very same operation as the last outing for the League to the city in 2011 that saw over a 1000 cops put the city centre on lock-down.

The EDL rally in Brum in 2011
The EDL rally in Brum in 2011


However this time round the EDL have achieved a degree of success in capitalising on the death of Lee Rigby. Their last national demo, in Newcastle, planned months in advance but occurring just days after the murder saw an estimated 1,500 EDL on the streets. Two days later and anti-fascists found themselves outnumbered again in Downing St. The league are likely to get good numbers out in Birmingham.

However on the plus side the various 'Strong' groups that sprang up in the wake of Rigby's killing seem to have run their course. Either they failed to attract a great deal of support in the first place or they acted in ways to distance themselves from the EDL such as Woolwich Strong donating money to an Islamic cultural centre.

Anti-fascists also mobilised quickly to disrupt various EDL attempts to seize the moment with impromptu wreath laying ceremonies.

Although the mainstream media couldn't get enough of Tommy Robinson, covering his 'charity walks' on national TV and inviting him onto Newsnight, thankfully armed forces charity Help for Heroes refused to have anything to do with him or the EDL, a stance that denied them legitimacy in constituency, they're desperate to colonise.

BRUM RUSH

So why Birmingham? The EDL have a chequered history here in fact their very first demo in August 2009 saw running battles with Asian youth in the city centre. Back then SchNEWS asked “Who benefits from images of radicalised Asian youth fighting with outnumbered white men?” and examined the EDL's efforts at creating a strategy of tension between communities. This strategy has borne fruit in the number of anti-Muslim attacks that have occurred since Rigby was killed. Tommy's recent attempts to walk solo into Tower Hamlets under the guise of a charity walk are part of the same strategy – what he really wanted was for the Muslim youth of the area to be goaded into attacking him or the police so he could claim there was a 'no-go area' for whites in the capital city.

The EDL revisit this rhetoric in the explanation on their website of why they're coming to Birmingham, demanding “Why is there an ‘occupied territory’ or a ‘no-go area’ in the heart of our second largest city?” and stating as a fact “Muslims however, seek to impose their own set of laws and belief systems on the people of England, while showing contempt for British law and democracy.” The fact that there isn't a no-go area and that outside of a few nutters the Muslims of Britain are up to no such thing doesn't deter them from going on to say “More importantly, we are not going to stand idly by [while] Birmingham become literally the Tora Bora valley of England. Our ancestors fought the Romans, the Vikings, the French and destroyed the Nazis.”

(SchNEWS note to the EDL historical division: the Romans and Vikings invaded successfully, the struggle with the French could at best be described as a draw and this proud island nation had quite a lot of help with beating Adolf)

Wild historical comparisons aside, the EDLs mission in Brum is to galvanize race hate and to create scenes of race war. It is imperative that anti-fascists of all backgrounds are on the streets to oppose them.

For more autonomous anti-fascism see ANTI FASCIST NETWORK

Also In This Week's SchNEWS:

Bexhill Revisited | ... And Finally

Jo Makepeace
- Homepage: http://www.schnews.org.uk/stories/Yo,ho,ho-and-a-Battle-of-Brum/

Upcoming Coverage
View and post events
Upcoming Events UK
24th October, London: 2015 London Anarchist Bookfair
2nd - 8th November: Wrexham, Wales, UK & Everywhere: Week of Action Against the North Wales Prison & the Prison Industrial Complex. Cymraeg: Wythnos o Weithredu yn Erbyn Carchar Gogledd Cymru

Ongoing UK
Every Tuesday 6pm-8pm, Yorkshire: Demo/vigil at NSA/NRO Menwith Hill US Spy Base More info: CAAB.

Every Tuesday, UK & worldwide: Counter Terror Tuesdays. Call the US Embassy nearest to you to protest Obama's Terror Tuesdays. More info here

Every day, London: Vigil for Julian Assange outside Ecuadorian Embassy

Parliament Sq Protest: see topic page
Ongoing Global
Rossport, Ireland: see topic page
Israel-Palestine: Israel Indymedia | Palestine Indymedia
Oaxaca: Chiapas Indymedia
Regions
All Regions
Birmingham
Cambridge
Liverpool
London
Oxford
Sheffield
South Coast
Wales
World
Other Local IMCs
Bristol/South West
Nottingham
Scotland
Social Media
You can follow @ukindymedia on indy.im and Twitter. We are working on a Twitter policy. We do not use Facebook, and advise you not to either.
Support Us
We need help paying the bills for hosting this site, please consider supporting us financially.
Other Media Projects
Schnews
Dissident Island Radio
Corporate Watch
Media Lens
VisionOnTV
Earth First! Action Update
Earth First! Action Reports
Topics
All Topics
Afghanistan
Analysis
Animal Liberation
Anti-Nuclear
Anti-militarism
Anti-racism
Bio-technology
Climate Chaos
Culture
Ecology
Education
Energy Crisis
Fracking
Free Spaces
Gender
Globalisation
Health
History
Indymedia
Iraq
Migration
Ocean Defence
Other Press
Palestine
Policing
Public sector cuts
Repression
Social Struggles
Technology
Terror War
Workers' Movements
Zapatista
Major Reports
NATO 2014
G8 2013
Workfare
2011 Census Resistance
Occupy Everywhere
August Riots
Dale Farm
J30 Strike
Flotilla to Gaza
Mayday 2010
Tar Sands
G20 London Summit
University Occupations for Gaza
Guantanamo
Indymedia Server Seizure
COP15 Climate Summit 2009
Carmel Agrexco
G8 Japan 2008
SHAC
Stop Sequani
Stop RWB
Climate Camp 2008
Oaxaca Uprising
Rossport Solidarity
Smash EDO
SOCPA
Past Major Reports
Encrypted Page
You are viewing this page using an encrypted connection. If you bookmark this page or send its address in an email you might want to use the un-encrypted address of this page.
If you recieved a warning about an untrusted root certificate please install the CAcert root certificate, for more information see the security page.

Global IMC Network


www.indymedia.org

Projects
print
radio
satellite tv
video

Africa

Europe
antwerpen
armenia
athens
austria
barcelona
belarus
belgium
belgrade
brussels
bulgaria
calabria
croatia
cyprus
emilia-romagna
estrecho / madiaq
galiza
germany
grenoble
hungary
ireland
istanbul
italy
la plana
liege
liguria
lille
linksunten
lombardia
madrid
malta
marseille
nantes
napoli
netherlands
northern england
nottingham imc
paris/île-de-france
patras
piemonte
poland
portugal
roma
romania
russia
sardegna
scotland
sverige
switzerland
torun
toscana
ukraine
united kingdom
valencia

Latin America
argentina
bolivia
chiapas
chile
chile sur
cmi brasil
cmi sucre
colombia
ecuador
mexico
peru
puerto rico
qollasuyu
rosario
santiago
tijuana
uruguay
valparaiso
venezuela

Oceania
aotearoa
brisbane
burma
darwin
jakarta
manila
melbourne
perth
qc
sydney

South Asia
india


United States
arizona
arkansas
asheville
atlanta
Austin
binghamton
boston
buffalo
chicago
cleveland
colorado
columbus
dc
hawaii
houston
hudson mohawk
kansas city
la
madison
maine
miami
michigan
milwaukee
minneapolis/st. paul
new hampshire
new jersey
new mexico
new orleans
north carolina
north texas
nyc
oklahoma
philadelphia
pittsburgh
portland
richmond
rochester
rogue valley
saint louis
san diego
san francisco
san francisco bay area
santa barbara
santa cruz, ca
sarasota
seattle
tampa bay
united states
urbana-champaign
vermont
western mass
worcester

West Asia
Armenia
Beirut
Israel
Palestine

Topics
biotech

Process
fbi/legal updates
mailing lists
process & imc docs
tech