I was reading this piece from Michael Rosen on Facebook this morning about the 90th anniversary of the Battle of Cable Street, a confrontation that took place on October 4th 1936. Oswald Mosely and his British Union of Fascists had planned a march through London's East End and area with a significant Jewish population. In response, Jews and their allies fought open battles with the fascists and drove them back.
Rosen points out that there were different currents and views within the group that fought the fascists that day, including Jewish organizations and included in his comments a warning from the Jewish Chronicle urging the Jewish community not to attend or protest the march. But the general consensus was to confront the fascists and stop them.
I am familiar with the event and have read a little about it but found the video above really interesting as it deals with the wider class issues, the various radical groups that were involved and what was happening in Europe at the time. It's also important as the BUF picked immigrants and in this case, Jews, many of them victims of the pogroms and violence they faced in Easter Europe. In times of economic crisis the state, its security apparatus including fascist and nationalist organizations, direct the anger at the "other" among us.
I was at a similar protest when I was in London in the 1980's and it was the right wing anti-immigrant forces directing their hatred toward Bangladeshi's. The area where the Cable Street battle took place has since been populated by East Indians, Bangladeshi's and other ethnic groups.
With the absence of a working class alternative and a unifying force in society that can direct the anger at the social and economic crises people are facing at the state and its security apparatus, there are people that will be drawn to the racist anti-immigrant position.
Immigrants that have saved Britains precious NHS from the privateers ax are now being blamed for destroying it. Behind the most innocuous statements on the cost of immigration are the fascists elements and the British state. Immigration does need to be addressed but from the perspective of the working class both at home and abroad. The capitalist state cannot solve a crisis of its own making. The flow of people from the Middle East and North Africa in to Europe and the UK is a product of colonialism and the continuing support of US imperialism's wars in the region from the British government.
It's insanity people telling immigrants to "go back where they came from" when they have no homes to go back to.
Michael Rosen
London UK
I see that the Board of Deputies are organising an event for the 90th anniversary of the 'Battle of Cable Street'. Obviously, anyone can organise what they want to commemorate what they want, when they want (within the confines of the law etc etc). In 2026, there are people walking about, living their lives who stand in various traditions. We aren't prisoners of them (if we don't want them to be) but they exist in our minds, our memories and in our political acts. We 'negotiate' them. That's to say, we work out how we stand now in relation to those past traditions.
As I understand it, the group that I'm part of who are organising commemorations of Cable Street owes its origins to the Jewish People's Council which was the prime mover of the resistance to Mosley and the fascists. Within that Council were many strands of opinion, as Dave Rosenberg has shown in his book 'Battle for the East End'.
However, opposed to organising a demonstration on that day was a group of people who said, no, don't demonstrate. This is not hearsay or rumour. There was a note in the Jewish Chronicle telling people not to go and I've posted it here.
Now, I don't know for sure which people now, in 2026, belong to that tradition, but I'd say that whoever is organising commemorative events, part of that history is to acknowledge, who was there, who wasn't there, who was in favour of it, and who was against it - actively against it in some cases.
I would hope (but don't know) that the Board of Deputies event would acknowledge what the official 'line' seems to have been towards people going on the demonstration that day. Perhaps they'll acknowledge who said that kind of thing and why, and whether it put people off going, off taking part.
As people will know, my parents were there and it was an important part of their personal, social and political education - and through them, mine too. They felt that they belonged to that tradition, all their lives, even after they left the Communist Party in 1957.
Here's the notice.
No comments:
Post a Comment