Peter Hain on the ANL
A People’s History of the Anti-Nazi League by Geoff Brown published by Bookmarks
Sunday, April 30th, 1978, standing on the stage of the Carnival Against the Nazis in East London’s Victoria Park, hardly believing what I was seeing. Thousands were streaming in. And they kept coming until they were as far as I could see. Punk bands I’d hardly heard of were playing in the largest ever fusion of music and politics, organised by Rock Against Racism and the Anti-Nazi League – the moment we fully realised we’d created a mass popular anti-racist movement.
I had been one of the ANL founders in September 1977, becoming its national media officer, and criticised for “narrow” anti-Nazi focus rather than a broad “anti-racist” one. Also, because the Socialist Workers Party had a leading role. I did not agree with the SWP’s politics, but at least they were prepared to act with some verve and determination. Practical and effective action was vital, not sectarianism, posturing or left-wing theology.
The National Front had pushed the Liberals into fourth place in parliamentary by-elections and in the 1977 Greater London Council elections, polling fully ten per cent. There was a fashion for Nazi insignia and regalia amongst “skinheads”, working-class youth who menacingly shaved their heads and wore heavy boots. Wherever the NF was active, racist violence and intimidation followed. Trade union and Labour Party opposition never touched the problem. Existing anti-racist groups were having no real impact.
In the ANL, we had a simple philosophy: unity in action against the NF, not endless theorising or repetitive meetings. An imaginative, radical, new strategy was required, even if that meant appearing to muscle in on territory claimed by more established anti-racist organisations. The ANL – probably the first such protest group to achieve this – fused antiracist politics with the popular youth culture of the day, thereby gaining a wider audience that would not have touched a conventional political campaign with a barge pole. Working-class youngsters swung behind the ANL in a way that had never been achieved before. Rock music, or to be more precise, the punk and reggae music of the late 1970s, was crucial. “ Rock Against Racism” national carnivals and local gigs involved huge numbers of people, organised jointly with the ANL. Supporters were actively encouraged to do their own thing: such as “ Teachers Against the Nazis”, “ Students Against the Nazis”, “ Miners Against the Nazis”, even “ Vegetarians Against the Nazis” and “ Skateboarders Against the Nazis”.
Within a year, the ANL had mobilised hundreds of thousands. Wherever the National Front tried to demonstrate or leaflet, they were opposed by the ANL and also denied platforms to spread their hate. This confrontation strategy was highly controversial – a denial of free speech, critics argued. But lessons had been drawn from when the Blackshirts, led by Oswald Mosley, targeted Jewish communities, and were physically stopped by left-wing activists in Cable Street in London’s East End in October 1936. Within a few years, the National Front was put out of business, and one of its leaders, Martin Webster, publicly admitted the ANL was responsible.
This book brilliantly shows the power of unity in action in overcoming political differences to defeat poisonous racism, antisemitism and islamophobia. Which should be the model for today, with the threat even greater and on the ground organisational resistance weaker?