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Recent articles by imcvol
China, capitalism and class struggle May 18 13 Pride in Bristol! EDL National Mobilisation Fails as Bristol Says No to Racism
The much hyped EDL mobilisation in Bristol today resulted in one of the lowest turns outs to an EDL demo yet as around 200-300 EDL trickled into the city. By contrast around 2000+ counter protesters were out and about in the city. The police had sought to move all of the counter protesters to Castle Park, but most ignored the call either gathering at Temple Meads or the Fountains. The EDLs march into the city was interrupted by resistance constantly from the first moment as huge numbers of police were deployed to separate the groups. Around 100-200 people met the EDL at the station and blocked coaches from arriving while 1000+ gathered at the fountains to show their opposition to the group. Despite the EDL claiming they are only protesting 'radical Islam' the group has been dogged by members overt racism and violent behaviour. This was shown today as the first arrest by police was an EDL member for racially aggravated public order offence. After much resistance the official EDL march of around 250+ got moving at around 1.30pm. By contrast around 2000 Antifascist protesters marched from the Fountains to Castle Park. In the shadow of this, the Bristol Gay pride event went ahead as planned and was a success with College Green rammed with a multicoloured Mardi Gras vibe. The EDL finally arrived at the pen the police had constructed in Queens Square around 2.30pm and the small numbers meant only around 15% of the allotted space was needed. After a couple of speeches and tussles the small EDL crowd were marched off to board thier buses and leave Bristol around 3pm. The police had to push back a determined crowd of antifascist protesters to clear a route to escort the EDL to Bristol Temple Meads. To achieve this a number of charges including by horses were used and a number of scuffles broke out. The EDL were then slowly escorted back to Temple Meads in a ring of police. The EDL also briefly tussled with police twice trying to breakout but were kept in the cordon. Along the whole route the EDL group was subject to abuse from Bristolians who peppered the route in groups intent on telling the EDL what they thought of them. Around 4.30 this larger group was shepherded into Temple Meads via the pedestrian route, still being subject to abuse from locals. A second smaller group of local EDL and those heading to buses were escorted past the Arnolfini and over the bridge, again while a determined crowd of antifascists hurled abuse. By 5pm the large groups were all gone and the main part of the day was over.
The EDL got a poor reception in Brighton recently and needed a strong showing in Bristol to demonstrate the support is still there. However the poor turn-out in Bristol will have dented their confidence in the movements ability to mobilise large numbers in the future.
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Saturday July 14, 2012 15:42
by imcvol
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Jump To Comment: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17Why do your numbers at the march differ massively from the numbers give out by the police?
http://www.avonandsomerset.police.uk/LocalPages/NewsDet...lid=1
"Police estimate that around 300 EDL supporters and 500 We Are Bristol supporters took part in their respective marches."
Because they always do.
To oppose Islam is not racist.
It is not racist to oppose an oppressive religion.
It was not racist to oppose our own history of being under the yoke of an oppresive Christian religion. It would have been an absurdity to class Christianity and Catholicism as a race. It is absurd to class Islam as a race.
Islam is a religion.
It is not a race.
The left is divided on this matter. There are those in the left who oppress open debate with this oppressive insistence on conflating race and relgion. This oppression of open debate is dangerous, as it fuels groups such as EDL.
The EDL becomes, in a sense, the bastard child of Political Correctness.
It is creating the dangerous precondition of a Weimar Republic which falls apart.
Understand your history, and you may understand that the EDL is your bastard child.
Fail to learn you history, and continue with this false conflation of race and religion, and history will judge you as the cause of the failure of Multiculturalism and Political Correctness to sustain itself. It is sustained with false conflation and oppression of debate.
The left is divided on this matter.
The left is divided on this matter as the preconditions of a Weimar Republic are being sown.
The police gave a number for the we are bristol demo - not for the various counterdemonstration groups which were all over the city centre on Saturday. 500 for the group by the fountains definitely seems low though - although by the time the police had managed to form a cordon and get people up to Bristol Bridge there were probably 500 people left inside the cordon (most of those present didn't want to potentially spend the rest of the day being contained by the police).
As for the left being divided... Put down the crackpipe, Saturday saw a coalition of local socialists, anarchists, greens and even liberals come together to massively outnumber a national gathering of far-right loons who came to our city to give their Nazi salutes, and left with their tails between their legs chanting 'Bristol is a shithole, we want to go home.'
I'm pretty certain that you could make a very similar argument regarding race/religion/culture about Jews. What race are the Jews? As they come from a variety of backgrounds (European, Middle-Eastern, African) clearly your historical predecessors in the German NSDAP weren't racists for wanting to exterminate Jews, it was just a cultural-hate thing which you seem to think is acceptable.
What complete propaganda rubbish. This 'indymedia' site is worse than both government and hate group propaganda put together. If I had to side it would be with anti-fascists but the way they behaved on saturday was disgraceful. Where is the mention of all the black block throwing missiles at the police who were 'protecting' the relatively peaceful march by the EDL. You may not believe in what they stand for but you certainly are worse at showing what you do. I am disgraced at this 'victorious' post which you have slanted towards yourselves managing to hold back the 'trickle' of EDL marchers. Once you start to provide unobjected reports including both sides of the story maybe then you might start to gain some actual relevant and good hearted supporters. I would currently call you violent anarchists who deserve worse than the EDL. I expect this post will be deleted as you continue to spread your propaganda nonsense. Just goes to prove my point.
Nice tirade of typical strawman mud slinging there 'X'. Exactly the kind of oppressive denial of an honest debate on the issue I referred to, with a continued conflation of race with religion.
I was referring to the the sign in the OP, and the bullying suppression of debate which goes with it. All you've done is try and 'shout' me down with exactly the strawman bs I refer to.
Sure, I must think the holocaust is completely acceptable. That's an entirely logical conclusion to draw from my analysis, not. It is in fact a very cheap and low comeback.
Multiculturalism is in danger if it continues down that kind of path, as it shows an inability to debate these issues. Anyone who disagrees with you, on any level, must support the holocaust.
When push comes to shove the left will always oppose groups like the EDL.
But that does give you the right to slander people as racists for opposing religion.
Opposing religion is pretty much written into the DNA of the left, Socialists and Anarchists alike. Opposing the EDL does not come with a requirement to support Islam.
'When push comes to shove the left will always oppose groups like the EDL.'
Absolutely. The left will always oppose racist, bigoted, nationalist groups like the edl. Well Done, you got something right. The edl talked up how they were going to come to Bristol and smash the left - well just as Moseley in the 30's and the NF in the 70's tried, so the edl came and failed.
Pretending that a bunch of Nazi-saluting fascists have nothing to do with the historical traditions associated with fascism and Nazism wont get you far here. What was it in my previous post that you found so difficult to deal with? Claiming that you oppose Islamic on cultural and not racial grounds would be equally true if you replaced the word Islamic with Judeaic. Both are ethnically diverse groups who come from multiple continents. So how does your islamaphobia differ from German anti-semitism (remember before the final solution, the Nazis tried various kind of relocation programs - genocide wasn't their first choice method for cleansing Jews from Europe)?
When your mates come to town and are happy to be photographed Nazi saluting, claiming that comparisons with Nazis are completely unfair are just hysterical for the rest of us.
'Opposing the EDL does not come with a requirement to support Islam'
Opposing the edl means supporting the members of our community who are subject to slander and threats from the edl. Bristol has a large number of peaceful, tolerant and reasonable Muslims who need the support of the wider community if they aren't likely to have people convinced that a large number of people in this country hate them, wish to persecute, physically beat or deport them: things that might end actually creating the type of radical islam the edl claims to oppose, and which does not currently exist in Bristol.
More grubby strawman mudslinging from yourself. At no point have I claimed comparing EDL to Nazis is unfair. This is just more of that vile slandering of anyone who doesn't tow the self appointed politically correct line, and calls anyone who dislikes Islam a racist.
In Egypts first Presdential Elections, given the choice of an Army canditate and a candidate from the Muslim Brotherhood, 50% of people didn't even vote, despite the hard won gains of its incomplete revolution.
Egyptians are uneasy with Islam too.
The English are generally uneasy with Islam.
In fact, most of the world seems pretty ill at ease with Islam as a religion.
Just because grubby groups like the EDL exist, doesn't mean that more general unease isn't legitimate. But hey, given your cheap line of attack, and feeble attempts at character assasination, half the Egyptian population must me 'mates' with the EDL too.
Get a grip, and stop your counterproductive attempts to stamp out debate with bullying mudslinging. As already noted, it is the bullying slandering of just about anyone, which makes grubby outfits like the EDL the opportunity to feign a belief in free speech.
This is how people like you drive people into the arms of the EDL and BNP.
The EDL and BNP as a result become your bastard children, borne out of your suppression of debate, which have to then be confronted on the street, instead of being confronted through open debate, while simultaneously addressing that unease with Islam in a grown up way.
Moderate Muslims I'm sure could manage that, even if people like you can't.
'In Egypts first Presdential Elections, given the choice of an Army canditate and a candidate from the Muslim Brotherhood, 50% of people didn't even vote, despite the hard won gains of its incomplete revolution.
Egyptians are uneasy with Islam too.'
Really? You do realise that was the choice in the Presidential run-off between the two candidates who got the most votes during the first round of voting don't you? It's basically the same system that the French have. And which candidate did the Egyptians vote in? Oh yes, the Muslim Brotherhood one. Clearly winning a democratic election denotes obvious unease with the ideology of the victors. Black is white, war is peace, ignorance is strength, etc etc
'Get a grip, and stop your counterproductive attempts to stamp out debate with bullying mudslinging'
Pot... kettle... Yawn... Learn to take your own advice. The fact that you keep getting things factually wrong, and have no answer to reasoned debate does not mean you're being bullied. It just means you're wrong, and have resorted to mud-slinging, ad-hominem attacks and blatant lies to try and hide that.
The Muslim Brotherhood candidate won around 25% of all possible votes.
50% voted, 50% of those voted for the MB = 25% of all who could vote.
If that's not obvious unease, then there's no unease with the Tory led coalition, with a similarly feeble number of possible voters actually voting for them. There was never any unease with Blairs government, who also only ever mustered about 25% of all possible votes.
The Muslim Brotherhood presidency is in the same bag as Cameron and Blair regarding an underlying failure to gather a genuine and convincing mandate. Or considering that this followed hot on the heels of an incomplete revolution, the unease is clearly greater.
So if the ideology that wins an election is something which makes the population uneasy, what exactly does that have to say about every other candidate/ideology which stood and lost?
Comparing Mursi to Blair is actually unfair to Blair - who won landslide elections and had a very clear mandate to govern as a result. Does that mean everyone in the country supported him? Of course not - but in a representative democracy he was clearly the only candidate with the requisite support to govern.
If that's your definition of unease, then the UK is uneasy with every single political party, religion and government which has ever existed.
What utter nonsense... Please keep digging that hole ;)
All U.K elections since 1997 have been won on the back of historically low voter turnout, so your counter argument of this could applied to every election, etc simply doesn't stand up.
U.K elections since 97, and the Egyptian election have in common low voter turnout.
The Egyptian turnout is even lower, and especially low by any standard, and incredibly low given it has occurred in the wake of a revolution, fought over the right to vote.
Again, given the option of voting for the Muslim Brotherhood, half stayed at home.
Given the turnout and context this does add up to a very serious unease.
'given the option of voting for the Muslim Brotherhood, half stayed at home.'
Or more accurately, given the choice between the Muslim Brotherhood or 10 other candidates, ranging from the far left to ex-regime figures with a smattering of islaimists, secular liberals, and other in betweens half the electorate stayed at home.
What does that say about what the Egyptian people think of everything that isn't Islam? It's less popular than the MB - nevermind the fact that when combined, islamist candidates make up almost 50% of the 1st round votes.
Your UK argument is even more comically incoherent... How is a Labour win in 1997 with 43% of the vote abd a 13% margin of victory in a 71% turnout evidence of unease, unlike the Tory win in 1992 with 42% of a 77% turnout but only a 7% margin of victory? Or 1987 when Thatcher won by 11% with 42% of the vote with a 75% turnout?
All are so close you can throw a small hat over all of those election results with regards to winning vote % and electoral turnout. So unease over one clearly indicates unease over all
But back on track... Why when your ludicrous 'logic' suggests everyone is uneasy with every government as they didn't win 100% of the vote with a 100% turnout do you single out Islam/Muslims as a group that people are uneasy with? What is it that makes you decide to pick on Muslims? Why do you hate them so much? I call it racism. You call it what exactly?
Me and a few mates were there on the streets, most of the posters here obviously read the Pest and comment/whine/complain about it here from the comfort of their armchairs.
A tiny whiney minority of trolls using this space to diss 'the left/anarchists/activists' is driving people who care about the planet and 'the community' away, Bristol Indymedia has become a waste of space.
Never thought I'd see myself write that here!
Dear Indymedia
I'm amazed at some of the vitriol posted here, which is an insult to the brilliant people who turned out to confront the EDL. The EDL's purpose in Bristol was largely to intimidate the "anarchists/SWP scum" to whom they refer on their website. Our purpose was to get as close to them as possible. Unfortunately we failed to gather in sufficient numbers to prevent them marching to and from Queen Square and we need to ask ourselves why. In my opinion not enough people turned out, and too many got sucked into the counter demonstration - which was fine for people with kids, the elderly, etc, but ended up trapping a lot of people who wanted to confront the fascists.
I think there were about 500 EDL in all, and although some of them left by coach before they were let out into Redcliffe Way after their meeting, they greatly outnumbered us at that point.
The boys and girls with the green banner who attempted to re-enact the Battle of Thermopylae in Redcliffe Way were amazing. I saw no concrete being thrown - maybe a few scraps of rolled up paper.
Hi all. There have been no comments on this thread so far which have contravened guidelines. If we were to remove them, it would only be because they disagree with a point of view. Indymedia aims to promote discussion on posts, all we can suggest is, if you feel someone is trolling, don't feed them! :) Some posts are removed for being off-topic, these are usually when people start nagging at eachother.
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