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.

ANL rally welshpool

ANL activist - swansea | 13.08.2001 21:57

artilce on recent BNP activity and repsonse by swansea activists

The BNP ‘festival’ near Welshpool was designed to celebrate, and build upon, their electoral advances made in Burnley, Oldham etc. It failed. According to journalists at the camp, between 100 and 150 people attended on Saturday – possibly a third of last year’s attendance. These included none of the new forces recruited in Burnley, Oldham and Bradford. Why? In all of those centres there have been large-scale anti-nazi mobilizations since the General Election, beginning to cut the ground from beneath the hard-core Nazis. The ANL has been a significant part of this. A 500 – strong public meeting in Burnley made the decision to hold an ANL Carnival in the city. (It doesn’t help that New Labour is banning it. And all anti-fascists need to take time out to deluge the Home Office, Burnley Council etc with demands that the Carnival goes ahead).



The ANL protest in Welshpool was a success. It was built with the co-operation of local anti-racists. And there were many local residents there. The number of Welsh-speakers present bears testimony. And this was after our demo had been banned by the police! Compare that to the proposed NF demo that was banned in Birmingham the previous weekend. The NF were too scared to appear. The ANL held two successful stalls in the city that day!



If Nazi ideas and organisation are to be prevented from growing, the key to success is mobilising the maximum people from the area itself, beyond the ranks of the already committed activists. We must prove in practice that we are the majority, and the Nazis are the unrepresentative minority. This is true when we challenge their ideas asylum-seekers, Holocaust, immigration, multiculturalism etc.) It is even more true when we confront them organisationally, as in Welshpool, Birmingham, Leeds, Burnley etc.



The ANL did this. Many people in Mid-Wales now know about the viper they nurture at their breast. They won’t forget the sinister police road-blocks, with Nick Griffin and three of his goons telling the police who can pass through and who can’t. It’s unlikely that the BNP will be permitted to organise in this way in the future.



For the ANL to have bussed in coach-loads of hard-knocks from English cities would have been a disaster on all fronts. It would have alienated local anti-racists, preventing the growth of anti-racist organisation in mid-Wales. It would have vindicated the Home Office, the police and the spineless media, who all tried to paint the ANL as the mirror image of Nazi thugs.



It would have actively drawn resources away from the cities where Nazis hope to build on disillusion with New Labour.And it would have begun to present a ‘solution’ to fascism based on mobilising a militant paramilitary minority. This ‘ solution’ is an elitist one, and ultimately leads to passivity amongst the majority of anti-racists, who are unable or unwilling to transform themselves into street-fighters.



I am proud to say that at Welshpool, because of the way the ANL organised, no anti-racist was excluded from full participation. There was a blind resident on the protest; old and young people, black, white, even an A.M.! All the leading spokes-people for the antifascists, who conducted negotiations with the police that day were women. It was a fine platform from which to continue building the anti-nazi movement in Wales.

ANL activist - swansea
- Homepage: www.anl.org.uk

Comments

Display the following 3 comments

  1. ANL rally Welspool film — undercurrrents
  2. Griffin shoots himself in the foot — famousdog
  3. Right Wing Bigots — Steelgate
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