After last week’s massive march to London’s Israeli embassy in opposition to the Israeli state’s attack on the people of Gaza, a much smaller set of regional actions was called for Saturday 17th by the leaders of the Palestine Solidarity Campaign and Stop the War Coalition. In London, a rally in Trafalgar Square was followed by a “women and children only” protest at Downing Street.
However, as an eyewitness who spoke to The Commune reports, not everyone was happy with such conservative ideas of how to protest:
The rally in Trafalgar Square attracted a few thousand people. There were the usual speeches: Tony Benn called for the RAF to drop humanitarian aid over Gaza… When the women and children’s march headed for Downing Street at about 4 o’ clock we tried to go with, but a steward kept repeating “You are neither a woman nor a child!” and held me back. Around one to two thousand people were left in the square.
At the same time, a few dozen people started heading down Cockspur Street, planning to go to the Israeli Embassy in Kensington but the police ‘kettled’ them [ surrounded them] right there and told them they couldn’t leave the square. People from the rally swarmed round them, breaking the police ‘kettle’ and freeing them. There was then a contingent of about 400 people, itself surrounded by police on horseback and with dogs… but this police line was also only one deep, and another group of 200 protesters broke through.
All of us then turned back, and although the police had surrounded Trafalgar Square, they had left the south side by St-Martin’s-in-the-Fields open, and we went round them, turning up Charing Cross Road left into Piccadilly. Almost a thousand of us were running and walking through the middle of the street towards the embassy, even though it was about three miles away – the police were totally taken by surprise. There was chaos as cars trying to drive in the opposite direction were attacked, but we called on people to keep going towards the embassy. Young people smashed up several shops, including two Starbucks, and put orange roadworks barriers on Shaftesbury Avenue across the street.
On Piccadilly a police car came up but the back window was smashed in at once. The policeman got out the car wielding a baton but, seeing the crowd, got back in again and tried to drive away. Another cop by himself on a motorbike was also pursued.
We got quite far towards the embassy, but the crowd got split up as we went along. People in the group behind ours only knew the way by following the trail of destruction! Around 100 of us were finally surrounded by police at Notting Hill, just about to turn down Kensington Church Street, and penned in for two hours. Most of the people there were Muslim kids, including big groups of women. A couple of hundred made it to the embassy but were dispersed by half seven or eight as the police said they’d arrest everyone.
Everyone thought that if the organisers were not going to hold a march, then we’d have one. The police were totally incompetent, but so too did organisers’ attempts to wind things down fail, as there was a great degree of spontaneity and people wanted to march on the embassy.
Rough representation of route from Trafalgar Square to the Israeli Embassy
the commune 
Sounds fairly shit, all things considered. It shows how poorly organised these things are; it’s getting to be a very familiar story… the people want to march, the organisers play into police hands by doing anything they can to aid in the clamping down of any spontaneous protest. Good report, though- the Commune site always has good demo reports, keep it up.
So now we have separate marches for women and children, that men can’t attend?1? Whose idea was this?
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I object to the comments left by “vicky” above, regarding the march for women and children.Some of us have children that we want to educate about issues such as the barbaric occupation of Palestine. Thanks to the mindless idiots that dont have sufficient brain cells to realise that pointless vandalism and aggression will not gain this cause respect ..it is not safe to usually bring our children out to marches such as this for this very reason.
Organising a march for women and children only is attempt to create a safe environment that enables them to join in and be a part of it.
I was on a bus travelling to the rally site and there were many young boys predominently muslim who were more interested in looking for trouble than anything else.How sad.
It is a shame you have nothing to say about this.Most of the media coverage of this march has now been about the few that spoiled it for the many.
How help[ful.As if our nation was not ignorant enough.
What do you have to say about that then?
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So do any of the organisers know what it means to Jews in this country when they hear of shops being smashed up? Have any of you heard of Kristallnacht?
Is that kind of thinking common in your movement?
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Zoe – Please read our report of the previous week’s demonstration: https://thecommune.wordpress.com/2009/01/11/mobilisation-and-militancy-in-the-anti-war-movement-photos-and-report-of-10th-january-palestine-demo/. We would argue that social change does not happen principally by ‘respectable’ means. ‘Respectable’ means evidently don’t work. Of course, smashing shops isn’t the thing we need to be doing, or anything like that. But confrontational mobilisations are a positive development.
I think it would be a good thing for you to have a safe space to take your children, I think they have a right to that. But I think it is insulting that women are conflated with children. Why not ‘children and parents’, for example? Secondly, I think it is a shame that the safe space is created at the expense of people who want to protest in other ways, and that the PSC is using that space – “the women’s and children’s” march, as part of their overall strategy to demobilise the movement.
KB – I don’t know where that quote came from (you don’t say), and I have no idea why you’d think that we’d support that sort of sentiment. We don’t. And we do take anti-semitism seriously – see our recent article here: https://thecommune.wordpress.com/2009/01/15/anti-semitism-and-the-assault-on-gaza/
While I think there are real reason for concern regarding anti-semitism, the comparison with Kristallnacht is absurd – there’s plainly no comparison. It’s equivalent logic to comparing the Gaza assault with the extermination policies of the Thid Reich.
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# Communard: KB is quoting an anti-semitic comment which I had a few minutes previously deleted from the site (because racist comments are not allowed).
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As David Broder says, I got the quote from this thread, which I copied and pasted before it was deleted. Are those sorts of comments common? And those particular attitudes? If so, they are extremely alarming. I would expect them and much worse on an islamist site, not a revolutionary left site.
http://www.thecst.org.uk/index.cfm?content=18&menu=1
As for the Kristallnacht thing, I have seen it stated that those doing the attacking are well aware of the symbolism and also the memories that smashing shops would evoke.
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A different point of view:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123171179743471961.html#articleTabs%3Darticle
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#KB Player: all sorts of people post comments. Mainly leftists but also an assortment of fruitcakes, spammers etc. Two anti-semitic ones ever. You can hardly criticise us for the fact someone posted an inflammatory/racist comment, given that it was deleted as soon as it was seen.
# Dave Spell; that article is basically a call to stop aid to Gaza and cut off vaccination and food because the number of kids in Palestine means too many future fighters, which is outrageous.
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Glad you called that WSJ artcicle. It’s not far off advocating ethnic cleansing, except the author and the publication he works don’t have the courage to use anything but a slosh of euthemisms.
I take the point about militant mobilisations being welcomed by some here. I’m uncertain how productive these actions have been in practice when there is such an overwhelmingly negative portrayal of them in general terms. More work needs to be done get across the concept that the media has been far neutral in its representation of the attack on Gaza, to say nothing of the near complete silence regarding the broader Palestinian situation.
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Glad you called that pants WSJ artcicle. It’s not far off advocating ethnic cleansing, except the author and the publication he works don’t have the courage to use anything but a slosh of euthemisms.
I take the point about militant mobilisations being welcomed by some here. I’m uncertain how productive these actions have been in practice when there is such an overwhelmingly negative portrayal of them in general terms. More work needs to be done get across the concept that the state media
in particular has been far from neutral in its representation of the attack on Gaza, to say nothing of the near complete silence regarding the broader Palestinian situation. When there’s more ground for a broader understanding of the Palestinian resistance, what it means and what it is trying to achieve, then the more militant actions should become more meaningful.
The other point I would add is the young muslims involved in these actions are quite probably motivated in anger at the years of exclusion and inequality held up by the state. This country has a disgusting record for racial inequality and the prejudices only deepen with the return of ugly immigrant scapegoating dicourse to the point where its become naturalised.
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sorry, bit of a double/ unfinishing thing going on there.
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“# Dave Spell; that article is basically a call to stop aid to Gaza and cut off vaccination and food because the number of kids in Palestine means too many future fighters, which is outrageous.”
I think it’s a call to build a real economy in Gaza and end what is an unhealthy dependency on UN aid. The point about the “youth bulge” is that the pattern of this occurrence coinciding with war and/ or civil war is repeated many times all over the globe. No one is saying aid should be ended suddenly or people left to starve. However, if Gazans had to feed their children themselves, by their own hands, they would have less of them as do we in the West. A corresponding downturn in violence would be expected to follow.
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David: “When there’s more ground for a broader understanding of the Palestinian resistance, what it means and what it is trying to achieve, then the more militant actions should become more meaningful.”
My understanding of why a branch of Starbucks was smashed up is that it reportedly has a Jewish CEO. Are you advocating smashing up businesses with a Jewish connection? If so you are an anti-semite.
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I don’t blame you at all, and I know you can’t help nutters commenting. But I am curious if you have come across many people talking in that particular strain during your present activities.
If people see young muslims taking their frustrations out on specifically Jewish targets that will certainly deepen prejudices and increase fears of sectarianism. Which the BNP will latch on to as part of the anti-immigrant discourse.
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‘The other point I would add is the young muslims involved in these actions are quite probably motivated in anger at the years of exclusion and inequality held up by the state.’
How? what inequality? where? So why do they come here if its so bad?
You want to know where they are really wexcluded, read Ed Hussain’s book on how other MUSLIMS from other countries are treated in Saudi ARabi. You fucking dick head bourgeoise snot bag
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Oi. This site is a space for debate, not for behaving like fifteen year olds. So none of this ‘dick head’ business, ok? Obviously we don’t want to delete stuff because we believe in free debate, but once insults get to that point, they don’t do anything apart from lower the level.
On the substantive:
1) I know of no evidence that Starbucks was targetted because it ‘has a Jewish CEO’. I do know that it is thought to have links to the Israeli state which are independent of the ethnicity of its CEO. (I don’t particularly care what these are: as a communist my main interest is the relation between states and capitalism, not states and particular corporations – but a quick google will tell you that the ‘links’ extend beyond this.) So there is insufficient immediate ground for the accusation of anti-semitism. In anti-capitalist riots in the past decade it’s a well established fact that – e.g – McDonalds outlets would always get trashed. Because it was held to represent capitalism. I would argue that we need to shift the focus from this or that symbol to the entire system, but that doesn’t mean I think that every McDonalds trashed was simple ‘anti-Americanism’. The people involved had ideas which could not be caricatured in that way.
2) Obviously it is true that Saudi – and other Muslim dictatorships – treat all working class people, incluing muslims, terribly. But it is nonetheless true that “young muslims involved in these actions are quite probably motivated in anger at the years of exclusion and inequality”. This is because the people from muslim backgrounds are also highly likely to be from low income backgrounds (look up the economic position of Bengalis and Somalis in Britain), and are very likely to identify with issues such as the invasion of Iraq an solidarity with Palestinians, to which the British state is entirely unwilling to accomodate (evidently). They are more likely to be subject to stop and search or police harassment, on racial grounds. Thus, they are excluded and discriminated against in terms of their class background, their political interests, and their ethnicity. I don’t believe it is “because they are muslims”, but it is nonetheless true that people who are muslims are often, for a whole range of reasons – in real terms – excluded and disctiminated against. Recognising this experience is crucial, just as it is crucial to realise that many of these people will represent the discrimination they experience in terms of their faith.
3) KB Player – have we come across people with these opinions? Yeah, but they are few and far between, and meet general opposition from the rest of the movement (i.e. will be shouted down if racist chants are made). Do read the article on anti-semitism on this site that I referred to earlier – according to some comrades more involved in the movement than me, this article gives an overly strong impression of its prevalence (and this is among people who take it seriously). In my experience, even those holding Hezbollah flags are not likely to be genuinely anti-semitic. They are mostly young, and have unformed opinions about Israel, and internationalist politics. I have heard one anti-semitic shout ever (ignoring the ambiguous ‘from the river to the sea’, which could have several interpretations). I know one Jewish person who has been hurt – the same person as in the JC this week apparently – and I have read the reports about graffiti in Tower Hamlets. From my own experience, that is it. However, I think the risk you raise in your second paragraph is true – clearly there is a risk that antagonisic action about Israel/Palestine in Britain will take on a domestic ethnic dimension. We need to be wary of this, and oppose any tendencies in that direction by arguing for internationalist class politics. The response, however, cannot simply be a crude opposition to all militant activism as regards Israel. We also need to grant that sort of activity its legitimate space, and not just leap on it in the manner of the Israeli state’s crudest defenders.
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Communard – I have read the article you mention.
You may find it difficult to switch people from tribal and sectarian solidarity to class solidarity. Your identity as a member of a cultural group, a nation, a religion – those can strike very deep roots.
But thanks for replying to me at length.
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I think it will be very difficult, and of course it is the case that we might not succeed. Thank you for engaging.
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In no sense did I take the smashing of Starbucks as a form of simplistic token ethno/religious revenge. The link to the disenfranchised muslim youth (and by extension other stigmatised ethnic / class groups) I refer to, points to the Imperialist policy of divide and rule that has been accomplished as well abroad as it has been re-imported to the metropole. Witness the rise of the security state and erosion of the habeus corpus. The once rhetorically retracted “jobs for British people” prime-minesterial aside is clear indication how this ideology is going to be reinforced as the economy slides ever further into depths of inhumane inequality. According to a recent survey 70% of the UK muslim population is living below the official poverty line. There is further evidence evidence of sytematic descrimation being carried out against this group in every field of society. I would view the militant actions carried on the 10th etc. predominantly by, but not only, disenfranchised muslim youngsters in revolt against this to some extent. To see it this way would be to connect the international outrage at the Israeli assuast on a defenceless civilian Paletinian population with the systematic global exploitation of labour and and increased measures of repression formented ideologically as gross expressions of racial hatred. As much as these Imperial divisions simply cannot be wished away, this should be a point at which solidarity among the dispossessed should be strengthened towards smashing the system that enables and profits from promoting a culture of fear and resignation.
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Anti-zionist: moderate your tone and language, your comments are not a useful contribution to discussion and are not welcome here.
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I have deleted ‘Anti-zionist’s posts on grounds of offensiveness and total absence of contribution to debate.
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David,
this obviously angry Muslim youth is in fact poverty stricken and discriminated against. But you use these facts as an excuse for their false consciousness. Why does this fraction of the working class not take the streets fighting for better pay or take up a stance against honour killings and sharia law within their own communities. Because they are poor, or because its simply not their interest. To be dispossesed is no free ticket to ride on waves of reactionary upheaval. For example I do not see any sign that these rioters take a side with those in Israel or Palestine whose life is threatened by the very “palestine resistance” because they are identified as “imperialist Jews” , homosexuals, communists, capitalists, drug users or whatever.
To oppose all ruling classes is the first duty for revolutionaries in order to build communism from below. But the obsession with this particular anti-imperialist struggle overrules all class contradictions you can find in Britain, Israel or in Palestine. Patronising this movement in Bolshevist manner won´t change a thing. What counts here is a straightforward class based perspective which forwards the critique of ideology. Take it to the streets. Take up working class solidarity and fight the British class-system.
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Hiroshima, of course I am opposed to Islamists, community leaders etc. as well as what the Israeli state is doing. Not that I think you can separate an understanding of imperialism from class dynamics.
I think it is mistaken to demand that people are active in their workplaces or good on other issues as a precondition before you support them on an issue like Gaza or police brutality. Solidarising with them on an anti-war demo might be a good way to win them over to other politics. And there’s lots of workers (and students), not just Muslim people, who it would be easier to get along to an anti-war demo than to a union meeting. Of course, the “big politics” need raising, but I don’t think you can seriously claim we haven’t challenged anti-semitism, chauvinism etc. (and even nationalism itself – see leaflet distributed by anti-caps linked to from 24th Jan report).
Furthermore, you don’t know what they think about the mosque/community leaders etc. Certainly I have seen a number of young Muslims standing up to self-appointed leaders/elders telling them to calm down/not to resist the police.
What does it have to do with “patronising in Bolshevist manner”? Your abstractions “critique of ideology”, “false consciousness” etc. are much more unreal and patronising. What does it mean to “take up working class solidarity” if you refuse to fight the police just because the Muslim kids on the same site of the barriers as you have different politics?
(By the way, to clarify, while I broadly agree with the thrust of what David is saying as against Hiroshima, the ‘David’ posting above is not the same person as me)
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Anti-Cap text
The two sources of the war on Gaza are
capitalism and nationalism. Capitalism
provides the funding and the weapons –
…. Nationalism provides the
ideology – in this case it is Zionism, but all
nationalism has similar results (such as
Russia’s war in Chechnya).
yeah, I think they have “different” politics indeed.
I can find no word condeming Islamism or Palestinian nationalism,
no word on class, and by the way, nationalist ideologies are not all the very same, they differ remarkably in quality, its one-sided. and yes, its good to see comrades speak out against antisemitism and the like. I do not see how imperialism and class dynamics go together? What do you mean by this….
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Zionism most be stopped – no more ‘settlement’ (read enforced occupation).
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