EDL leaders have Damascus moment

  By New Worker correspondent

What Yaxley-Lennon really thinks?

STEVEN Yaxley Lennon, commonly known as Tommy Robinson, former leader of the Islamophobic English Defence League, and his main side-kick Kevin Carroll, last week stunned their followers by announcing they were leaving the EDL.

On Tuesday evening they gave a press conference in central London to explain their reasons. It was hosted by the Quilliam foundation – a think-tank that aims to counter extremism by non-violent means.

Maajid Nawaz, a co-founder of the Quilliam Foundation chaired the press conference and opened by explaining his own history with extremism. As a British Pakistani youth he had suffered bullying by the neo-Nazi Combat 18 and had joined the fundamentalist Muslim organisation Hizb-ut-Tahrir.

This led to him being jailed when studying in Egypt and, in discussion with other Muslim scholars, he came to understand that “Islamism is not the same thing as religion of Islam”.

Upon being released by Amnesty International he renounced Hizb-ut-Tahrir and helped to found Quilliam.

Tommy Robinson gave a similar account of his own disillusion with violent street activism. Spending a couple of months in jail earlier this year had given him time to reflect and realise that his tactics were counterproductive to what he wanted to achieve.

In addition his movement had somehow attracted a lot of hard-right neo-Nazis who tended to take it over whenever he was not around to keep them under control. And now he “wanted a chance to prove I am not happy with the neo-Nazi image the EDL has got”.

He said that now he still wished to combat Muslim extreme fundamentalism but through peaceful political channels and that the Quilliam foundation would train him to do this.

He portrayed himself as someone well loved and respected by all the ordinary working class of his home town, Luton, and that they were all deeply worried about Muslim extremism and looked to him for leadership.

He said of the EDL membership: “I hope they will stop and think about it and then support me in my new path.”

He and Carroll also warned that it was the only way forward, that people of different faiths should work together to resolve their differences peacefully – as though no one had ever thought of this before – and that the only alternative was to leave “a mess” to future generations.

Repeatedly they claimed never to have been against Muslims but only against “Islamism”.

Journalists present quoted back to him many of his past comments, made in speeches to his followers, where he did indeed threaten all Muslims – and the effects of extreme fear invoked in innocent Muslim citizens.

He fudged. He claimed he had been misquoted, that people had not understood what he meant and that Muslims were mistaken to be afraid of him.

“I want to lead a revolution against Islamism but not against Muslims,” he repeated.

When questioned about who had financed and directed the EDL he denied any finance at all except from supporters’ donations.

He refused to renounce his friendship with the American extreme right-wingers Pam Geller and Robert Spencer, who he said, had helped paying the rent for his wife and three children when they had been forced into hiding because of his violent street activities had attracted death threats.

Maajid Nawaz claimed that Robinson and Carroll were very brave to renounce the EDL and its violent methods and that doing so had put them in danger. He said they deserved support and it was better for them quit their old ways than for them to continue.

Robinson came across as a very egocentric person who, having admitted very serious errors of judgement, now seeks to lecture those peaceful, anti-racist, multicultural and multi-faith organisations that he and his friends have been trying to smash to bits for years.

Roads blocked for justice

     by New Worker correspondent

HUNDREDS of campaigners took to the streets last Saturday to block roads near courts in a nationwide protest at cuts to legal aid.

The action, Roadblocks for justice trial, was organised by UK Uncut, Disabled People Against the Cuts, Plane Stupid and Fuel Poverty Action.

UK Uncut reported “The central London action outside the Royal Courts of Justice brought Fleet Street and the surrounding areas to a standstill. The actions were a necessary and proportional response to the Government's plans to block access to the courts for millions of ordinary people by making justice unaffordable.”

The Government’s reforms have come under increasing criticism, with England’s most senior family judge recently describing them as ‘disconcerting’ and suggesting that “something needs to be done”.

Protestors blocked roads in seven towns and cities across Britain: London, Manchester, Liverpool, Cambridge, Hull, Northampton and Norwich.

In London, protesters met at the Old Bailey and put the Justice Secretary, Chris Grayling, on trial for “perverting the course of justice”. The protesters organised bands, poetry and know your rights workshops.

Anna Davidson, UK Uncut spokesperson said: “The government is making a political choice to cut legal aid to stop charities and individuals challenging their austerity agenda and its impacts in the courts. The Government is lying when it says the legal aid changes are about saving money because their plans will cost more than they save.

“The Government is making ordinary people pay the price of the economic crisis by stopping ordinary people accessing free legal advice and representation. Legal aid helps people keep their homes when social services are trying to evict them because of the bedroom tax, or sue the Government over wrongful arrest or kettling, or disabled people access the services they need.”

UAF blocks BNP in Croydon

by New Worker correspondent

BNP: a tirade of abuse

MORE than 100 anti-fascists and trade unionists assembled last Saturday morning outside Lunar House in the centre of Croydon to prevent a demonstration planned by the British National Party against immigration.

Lunar House is the headquarters of the UK Border Agency that deals with immigration into Britain. All immigrants and asylum seekers have to register there to engage with the Byzantine bureaucracy that is designed to keep out all immigrants and asylum seekers unless they can afford the services of specialist lawyers.

The south London BNP had planned a demonstration against immigration, which was aimed not only to give vent to their doctrine of hate but also to intimidate the immigrants who have to sign in there and the civil servants who work there.

So local anti-racists took up a position outside Lunar House before the fascists were due to arrive and soon a large and lively crowd had gathered.

The counter protest was organised by Unite Against Fascism supported by local trade unions and trades councils.

The PCS civil service union was there in force, along with members of Unite, the National Union of Teachers and the RMT transport union.

After about an hour the BNP turned up, all 26 of them, heavily escorted by police to an area well to the side of the main entrance to Lunar House, where they conducted a rally that was in effect an unending tirade of abuse at the anti-racists.

The majority of supporters resembled an outing for the elderly and confused.

Ironically the British National Party was led by a Uruguayan, Carlos Cortiglia, who claimed there were too many immigrants in Britain. Around a third of the BNP supporters seemed to be from eastern Europe and one of them brandished a red flag with an inscription in Polish and bearing the fasces symbol – the bundle of sticks with an axe head at the top – which was the first symbol of fascism. At the same time Cortiglia tried to claim his followers were not fascists.

FREE RO SU HUI NOW!

By New Worker correspondent

Last year a veteran south Korean peace activist was jailed by the south Korean puppet regime after he returned from a visit to the north. Ro Su Hui was sentenced to four years in prison under south Korea’s draconian anti-communist “National Security Law” and last week pickets were again outside the south Korean embassy in London to demand his release.

NCP leader Andy Brooks joined other friends of the Korean people at the protest organised by the International Campaign for the Release of Ro Su Hui and the UK Korean Friendship Association.

 Dermot Hudson, the secretary of the international campaign, read out demands for Ro Su Hui’s release throughout the picket as well as messages of support from the Swiss Korea Committee and other groups. Dermot said: " we are here today to protest against the jailing of Mr Ro Su Hui and also the recent arrest of Mr Lee Seok Ki an assemblyman from the Unified Progressive Party.

We strongly denounce the south Korean so-called authorities (in reality a gang of fascist puppets who grovel to the American imperialists) for the 4 year jail sentence imposed on vice -chairman Mr Ro Su Hui .

This is an outrageous and despotic act against Mr Ro who had simply campaigned for peace and reunification. All he did was to visit the northern half of his own country, this should not be considered a crime.

Mr Ro was subjected to brutal treatment when he crossed back into south Korea and was held without trial for more than 6 months in south Korea. Mr Ro is is over the age of 65 and he is suffering from cancer. This is a most inhuman act of the south Korean regime”.

            Protesters leafleted passers-by while others read out statements and maintained a barrage of slogans throughout the afternoon demonstration, including a lively rendering of  "south Korea is a fascist regime " to the tune of the Beatles’ "Yellow Submarine"!

Communists in Africa

By Theo Russell

Hakim with Mayor Nana Asante

AN IMPORTANT new book, Pan-Africanism and Communism, was launched last week in North London at an event in Harrow Civic Centre attended by 120 people including several academics. The Mayor of Harrow, Councillor Nana Asante, who helped to proof-read the text, presided over the event.

The author, Hakim Adi, said it was the result of 10 years' research in London, Paris and Moscow, and was “an attempt to portray a period forgotten by many and also the subject of distortion and controversy”.

The title recalls an earlier work, Pan-Africanism or Communism? by George Padmore, a Trinidadian who began his political career as a communist but ended it as a Pan-Africanist and anti-communist.

Hakim’s book provides a wealth of new material on the role of the Comintern in the revolutionary struggles in the African colonies and the African Diaspora during the inter-war period, often under extremely difficult conditions, and the International Trade Union Committee of Negro Workers after 1928 in Africa, the US, Europe and the Caribbean.

It highlights Lenin’s important role as the first leading communist to talk about socialism and revolution outside Europe in the colonies, and the “Negro question” (as it was then known), which became a leading priority when the Comintern was launched in 1919.

In later years the Comintern would be highly critical of some communist parties for their lack of work on the “Negro question,” including the French and British parties. On its part the old Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB) focused on the struggle in India at the expense of Africa and British colonies elsewhere.

Many will be surprised to know that the leading American civil rights activist and Pan-Africanist W E B Du Bois joined the CPUSA in 1959 at the age of 91, and after visiting the Soviet Union in 1936 – the height of the Stalin period – said: “If this is Bolshevism, then I’m a Bolshevik.”

Another leading Black American communist, Claudia Jones, who rose to prominence as a founder of the Notting Hill Carnival, became an active member of the CPGB only after being deported from the USA.

In a lengthy and lively debate, Hakim defended the work of communists, saying that despite the mistakes and the loss of commitment of some, overall they had worked to create a more just and fairer socialist world.

Pan-Africanism and Communism, by Hakim Adi, is published by Africa World Press, Trenton, NJ, and is available in the UK for £28.99.