Archive for the ‘Colonialism’ Category
Suffolk Communists in bid for comeback.
Communists to Build on Suffolk’s CPGB Heritage.
Leiston had an active Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB) branch, founded in 1934, which existed for decades, until the end of the CPGB. Communist Paxton Chadwick was the Chair of the Council after the Second World War. There is a pamphlet by John Saville.
At his funeral in 1961, “held at Golders Green crematorium” J Gollan, the General Secretary of the Communist Party gave the oration. “Paxton Chadwick was one of the great British natural history illustrators of the twentieth century.”(Page 27) There was an exhibition of his works in Ipswich Christchurch Mansion in the 1990s.
A good article is on the site of the Country Standard: Leiston- “Suffolk’s Little Moscow”
“As a classic single-industry town the employer/worker relationship consisted of a blend of paternalism and repression. At first there was a fear of activism but as unemployment grew so dependence on the company decreased.
Paxton Chadwick was returned as a Communist Councillor for Leiston in 1938 as the first Communist Councillor in Suffolk (Rural Norfolk also had Communist councillors).
During the war Chadwick was called up into the anti-aircraft arm of the Royal Artillery where he continued to carry out council work and produce a wall newspaper for his unit. Chadwick ended the war as a Captain. As chairman of Leiston council , he introduced a regular “open nights ”where electors could quiz councillors”, secured affordable housing, clean water, fought to abuses in the private rented sector, fought for improved war pensions and led the campaign to save the local Grammar school.
There were links to the famous Summerhill School Paxton had taught in the Art Department and acted as part time sectretary to A.S. Neill. Paxton’s second wife, Lee Chadwick had worked. She became a writer, and the author of one of the best books on the natural history of the Suffolk Sandlings In Search of Heathland (1982) continued the work after Paxton passed away, and was active in the period of the above Leiston Leader copies. At the time my parents were lay officials in the local Labour Party (Chair and Branch Secretary and worked with her and he Communists on issues such as CND led Peace campaigning and Sizewell Nuclear Power station. They made the news in the 1980s when the local Tories forgot to put in their nominations for the Town Council elections and two (the Country Standard says 1, but I had heard that 2 Communists won).
Lee Chadwick was greatly liked by many people, and respected, both for her writing and her open-minded approach to left politics. She was on the Euro side in the disputes which tore apart the CPGB in the 1980s. These points are also of interest.
Leiston had a Communist councillor in the 1980’s and the Leiston Leader continued into the 1990’s.
Paxton Chadwick Close, Leiston is one of the few roads in Britain named after a communist
I understand that Bill Howard a signalman at Saxmunden was the last Communist Councillor in Leiston in the 1980’s (he lived at Waterloo Avenue, Leiston
The Communist Party was involved in both English Folk revival’s and key to this was the Eel’s Foot Public House, Eastbridge, where A.L. “Bert” Lloyd Communist and Workers Music Association founder, recorded a famous BBC radio Folk session on 13th March 193
The present Communist candidates, from the Communist Party of Britain are from the opposing side, often called ‘Tankies’.They are no doubt respected and liked by their own supporters.. Internationalists point to their backing for the hard right Brexit and support for the Chinese Regime which few would consider socialist.
Lindsey German Joins Defence of David Miller.
The David Miller affair rumbles on. Arguments about academic freedom, the rights of students, and wider free speech issues have come up. It is not helpful for those who defend the liberty of expression, to find that Miller’s ardent defenders include those who agree with his conspiracist theories about ‘Zionism’. Or indeed the claim by a former President of the NUS Malia Bouattia that the, “Zionist movement’s involvement in promoting Islamophobia, a well-known fact among scholars who study the Palestinian question.” (A war is being waged against academic freedom in Britain)
The line up at this meeting looks likely to include opinions from all these sides of the controversy.
Lindsey German, Convenor of Stop the War Coalition, and prominent member of the revolutionary socialist group Counterfire.
With racist lecturers, students etc., the campaign has of necessity to be much longer and has to be as wide as possible. The Harrington campaign was successful both because it was based on very militant tactics and because it involved far wider numbers of students than simply the existing left, including the philosophy students on Harrington’s course.
Similar campaigns against a racist lecturer at Bristol university, and a fascist student at Plymouth need to get similar levels of support if they are to succeed. And they need to mobilise round specific aims – it is no good including a shopping list of demands, including the total abolition of racism in society, in a campaign to get rid of a racist lecturer. The wider issues should be taken up in Socialist Worker Student Society meetings, in Socialist Worker and Socialist Worker Review.
No Platform: Free speech for all?
(April 1986)
Here are some of the other speakers:
Tariq Mahood on Charlie ‘Hebdo, 2015.
the ‘free speech’ argument of the last week has not really been about the right to free speech, but about how to exercise the responsibility that goes with free speech. I see no reason to celebrate those who abjure this responsibility or exercise it carelessly, heedless of the consequences of their actions. The defence of Charlie Hebdo – that they did not target Islam but everybody and anybody – is not impressive if the assumption is that targeting minorities and weak groups and being willing to use and strengthen stereotypes and racist imagery is ok, as long as the satirists in question also satirise the powerful.
None of this of course justifies any form of violence let alone the murders of last week, but it at least identifies some of the relevant issues, especially those which are about the uses of freedom and of being mindful of how images can reinforce social divisions.
Harriet Bradley, December 2019.
Harriet Bradley was suspended from the party on Tuesday after she shared a post on her Facebook page, with the message “the right kind of Jews – ie left voters”
Here is a well-wisher.
Here is another well-wisher, extending the field of combat.
Here is a fellow ‘theorist’ on ‘Zionism’:
Here is somebody who is not well-wisher:
Here is somebody who well wishes Miller even less.
Dublin: Anti-Fascist Action (AFA) Ireland Clash with Anti-Lockdown Far-Right.
Anti-Fascists, Republicans and Socialists confront National Party in Dublin.
Hundreds clash in violent exchanges at Dublin protest
Protest by anti-mask, anti-lockdown groups, including right-wing National Party took place outside Leinster House
A protest by anti-mask and anti-lockdown groups, including the right-wing National Party, was organised to take place outside Leinster House at 1pm on Saturday. However, scuffles quickly broke out when the demonstration was met with a group of counter-protestors.
Gardaí confirmed an investigation focused on the organisers of both protests is now under way, while two men, one in his 30s and second in his 40s, were arrested for public order offences.
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The group of at least 100 counter-protestors, which appeared highly coordinated but made up of disparate groups, met opposite the Shelbourne Hotel on St Stephens’s Green at 12.45pm.
The group, all of whom were masked and mostly dressed in black, marched down Dawson St and turned right onto Molesworth St before moving towards Leinster House chanting “Nazi scum, off our streets”.
The group was flanked by uniformed gardaí on bicycles, while several Garda vans from the force’s public order unit remained on standby in the vicinity. Plain clothes members of the Garda also mingled among the crowds.
On Saturday 10th October 2020, Anti-Fascist Action (AFA) Ireland and its allies confronted a rally organised by the fascist National Party (NP) outside Leinster House, Dublin. Over 150 militant anti-fascists challenged a meagre group of NP supporters who were protected by a wall of steel barricades, lines of Gardaí and the Public Order Unit who had their batons drawn. The NP event was a failed attempt to use current Covid-19 restrictions as a rallying point to attract unsuspecting members of the public who may hold genuine grievances with the lockdown.
The Albert Meltzer quote “there’s no such thing as a fascist march – only a police march” was proven again today as the massive Garda operation was required to ensure the larger anti-fascist mobilisation was kept away from the underwhelming fascist presence.
Despite several weeks of publicising the demonstration on social media, the demo received zero traction beyond the NP’s core members and supporters. Disingenuously the group didn’t even have the courage to put their own name on the event poster which was widely shared by all main NP organisers.
Amongst the speakers today was mini-führer Justin Barrett and former British army soldier ‘Tan Torino’ (Rowan Croft) who served with the Royal Engineers in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Hardly what could be described as Irish patriots! A nervous Torino was spotted leaving the vicinity immediately after his rant and did not even stay around for Justin Barret’s rambling long speech.
The fascists may have been emboldened by their recent attacks on individuals but cowered behind a sea of cops until they were led away for their own safety. The sight of them being escorted away was a pathetic sight. They have recently boasted about ‘controlling’ the streets of Dublin but seemed genuinely shocked and scared by the sight of hundreds of working-class anti-fascists in Dublin today. Our numbers proudly marched afterwards through the city from Leinster House to the GPO carrying Irish tricolours, starry ploughs, sunbursts and rainbow/lgbt+ flags. Passersby stopped and clapped on hearing the chant “Fascist scum, off our streets!” This was the second Saturday in a row in which the so-called hardmen of the far-right were shown up as mouthy cowards.
The National Party have strongly opposed the use of masks to prevent the spread of Covid-19 during this global pandemic. Their supporters are undeterred by restrictions. Today we saw the full support that these pricks can muster whereas we know that huge numbers of our supporters did not take to the streets today out of concern for the most vulnerable in society. Those of us out today did so out of a sense of necessity and true patriotism to protect our country from their dangerous and toxic ideologies.
The National Party, founded in 2016, is an ethno-nationalist far-right group. Its leader, veteran fundamentalist Catholic Justin Barrett, called for doctors who perform abortions to be executed. He has had long-standing ties with European fascists and spoke at several neo-Nazi rallies in Germany and Italy in the late 1990s and early 2000s when he was a leading member of the extreme anti-abortion group Youth Defence. He has remained unapologetic about sharing platforms with former SS officers.
AFA Ireland is a militant anti-fascist organisation formed in 1991. We believe in physically and ideologically confronting fascism whenever and wherever it rears its ugly head. As always, we encourage all anti-fascist minded people across the island to reach out to us and work together in a militant, disciplined movement against fascism. Profound thanks again to all our members and supporters in the republican, socialist, grassroots, LGBTQ+ and trade union movements.
There is a background to this:
Socialist Democracy:
Fascism: Ireland’s illusion of immunity begins to pall
18 September 2020
In reality Ireland is a society riddled with misogyny, class hatred, sectarianism and anti traveller discrimination that easily adapts to racism. In the North an entire political system is built around competing sectarian rights and housing apartheid.
The old governmental system in Dublin, revolving around two largely identical right wing parties, is in decay. An opening has occurred and fascists have begun to mobilise.
They are still weak and disguise themselves in yellow vest and anti mask protests, but they are strengthened by their willingness to use violence and by winks and nods from the police.
Two guiding principles should lead us. Firstly we must not privatise opposition, with each left and republican group organising independently, shouting “trash the fash” without having built the means to follow through on our promise. There has to be an all Ireland anti-fascist movement. Secondly, socialists in such a movement must argue for a radical alternative. Fascism grows whenever the workers movement fails. At the moment the trade union leaders have buried themselves in partnership with the government and many socialists are advancing the fatuous plan of a “left” government led by Sinn Fein.
When working people are desperate and the left are silent we are leaving the door open for the far right. Time to unite for a revolutionary alternative!
People are beginning to ask why there have been no counter-protests against the ‘anti-mask’ confusionist and far right demos in Britain.
