The quote attributed to Mark Twain ‘History does not repeat itself but it often rhymes’ allows us to see the parallels between the 60’s and 70s and today but accept and analyse the differences. We can rewrite history. We have to.
On the day that Glasgow Film Theatre showed the 2019 Rock against Racism documentary ‘White Riot’, as part of Govanhill’s anti-racism Festival, Farage was being humiliated by a man in a bin suit and assorted candidates in fancy dress. His hollow victory reminds us that racism is alive, thriving in communities, from the billionaire classes to those who barely get by.
It’s tempting to look back to that era and imagine a simplicity that does not exist in today’s struggle against racism; just the people against the fascist National Front and the racist police. The heavy lifting inherent in the constant struggle for the Windrush generation, where a walk down the street could result in stop and search, with potentially serious consequences under SUS law, came with a pincer movement of political and media triggers.
The music and fashions were arguably better for people of a certain age and beyond, but in front of the TV, families indulged in sitcoms using openly racist language. The Black and White Minstrels were an accepted Saturday night fixture. Respected artistes like Eric Clapton and David Bowie had sullied their reputation by making overtly racist statements and those on the punk scene who wore swastikas, allegedly a mark of rebellion against the post war era of their parents, helped the fascists on their trajectory towards their racist vendetta, despite a wave of apologism for their actions.
The tenacious fightback which came about via Rock against Racism and strong pushback by youth culture, trade unions, progressive screen writers and others created measurable attitude changes within the population, but individuals and communities would bear witness to the fact that racism has never been truly defeated.
The troubling issue is that we are now fifty plus years on from that era, and the struggle is real. This is shocking. It should be. It’s not slow progress, but a definite back-slide, possibly more reminiscent of 1930s Germany than the 70s
58 years on, Enoch Powell’s 1968 “Rivers of Blood” speech has it’s echoes in Starmer’s ‘Island of Strangers’ comment. Despite his expression of deep regret at a later date, Starmer and other voices such as Yvette Cooper and Shabana Mahmood, with their unapologetic anti-immigration rhetoric emanate, not from far-right parties like Reform UK and Restore Britain, but from the ruling Labour government.
To date Burnham shows little sign of introducing a serious backlash against the push to the right. Expressions of racism are commonplace everywhere now, whether poorly disguised as ‘Legitimate concern’ for women and children, or openly targeting people of colour in random attacks.
Regardless of the many misgivings about his effectiveness, Burnham must win the next general (unless the Greens E/W can make massive leaps). While current legislation allows the police to arrest peaceful Palestinian supporters, they also act as an imperfect but essential buffer against attack by the violent far-right elements with their vigilante forays onto our streets. Under a far-right government, the police would be entirely incorporated into a fascist state.
This would certainly compromise, if not destroy anti-racist fightback, but engineered wedge politics have already overseen the fragmentation of political activism, with culture wars fought on several fronts. You may be as avidly anti-racist as you are gender critical. The predicted fallout from man-made climate disaster has resulted in a range of attacks on minorities and in anything reminiscent of green politics, from bikes to weather-reporting. Flat-earthism is making a comeback and it’s no longer a joke.
Furthermore, our energies are divided between fast paced reaction to fascist gatherings and the genocidal actions and hideous devastation of lives on the international scene. Trump, Netanyahu and Putin have created a perfect storm of chaos, possibly as cause and effect of the bigger picture involving land and resources on a rapidly changing planet.
In the UK, more than a decade of political focus has centred around the constitutional question, which remains unanswered while successive political leaders refuse to acknowledge and concede to the solution – a second independence referendum.
As I write, the news of the untimely death of Professor Jason Arday is hitting headlines. There is a great deal of engagement here that should be pivotal in change of news reporting and the entitlement of those allowed to rant freely in online comment sections. So many are complicit in this and every attack on ‘the other’, while the billionaire perpetrators continue to roam the earth unscathed.
There are reasons to be hopeful, albeit in a background of destruction, globally. With the mid-terms approaching, Trump’s popularity is waning. The insularity of MAGA supporters is at odds with foreign conflict that threatens their economy or stability. Farage, like Trump, has core support, but recent by-elections show that they can be beaten and more voters are questioning the contradiction between Reform’s anti-establishment claims and the receipt of massive financial donations.
We can only wait and hope that the ‘Burnham Bounce’ can translate into material benefits to improve lives. But so often something will come from left-field to challenge the status-quo and on this occasion Count Binface, the true anti-establishment candidate, adds to the humiliation of Farage’s re-election stunt.
White Riot ends with the declaration that the National Front completely lost all their momentum at the 1979 general election. We know what happened next, and Thatcher’s official anti-immigration stance was partially responsible for stealing some of their thunder. However, the grassroots movement against racism was powerful, and must remain that way, as demonstrated by high ratios of anti-racist v racists at protests.
The quote attributed to Mark Twain ‘History does not repeat itself but it often rhymes’ allows us to see the parallels between the 60’s and 70s and today but accept and analyse the differences. We can rewrite history. We have to.
