| Topic: | Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Just what are the Tories and Junior Tories doing to our borough? | |
| Posted by: | Phil Andrews | |
| Date/Time: | 03/06/09 11:38:00 |
| Robin An interesting exercise though this dialogue has been, it occurs to me that in your analysis of my supposed objectives your policy has been to start with your conclusion and to mould your case around that. As such the case may change, but your conclusion never will. I can only say that my opposition to all the organisations you cite - the Anti-Nazi League, the Southall Monitoring Group, Searchlight, Labour - has been reactive to attacks on myself and on the ICG by these groups. In none of these cases has the animosity originated with me or with us. I have been open to dialogue with all of these groups and remain so in spite of all the attacks. It is they who choose the ICG for an enemy, not the other way around. Unlikely though it is to make any difference to your thinking, I will give you a little bit of further information about our relationships with two of these groups. Firstly, the SMG. Unknown to me at the time my ICG colleague, the former councillor Fred Muston, contacted the co-ordinator of this group, Suresh Grover, on a matter of constituency work about five or six years back. After discussing the substantive business and finding Mr. Grover surprisingly friendly and co-operative Councillor Muston asked him whether he had any difficulty providing help and advice to a member of the ICG. Mr. Grover responded by saying that any quarrel he had had with the ICG was historical and that "I don't have any issues with Phil these days". So it seems at least one of your old acquaintances is prepared to move on. Regarding Searchlight, I have attempted to contact them a few times over the years. Bear in mind that this is supposed to be an organisation which has as its sole objective the eradication of fascism and the far-right. Here am I, a former senior member of the National Front, somebody who knew BNP leader Nick Griffin very well and worked with him at close quarters, and now wanting to speak to them. You'd have thought that at the very least they'd have been interested in holding an exploratory meeting or even a chat over the telephone. Nothing. Just last August I found myself engaged in constructive dialogue, via e-mail, with a group which has very close links with Searchlight. They had posted something about me on an anti-fascist blog which was highly libellous and I'd insisted that they remove it under threat of legal action, which to their credit they did. Following that there was a pleasant exchange of correspondence in which they asked whether I'd be prepared to meet Searchlight and to write something for their blog. I agreed (I had some reservations about the strategic value of what they were asking me to write, but that's another matter). They told me Searchlight would be in touch. Then - nothing. I e-mailed them to remind them that I was keen to meet Searchlight. They said they'd remind Searchlight and get back to me. Nothing. So Robin, what is the motivation of an organisation whose declared business is combatting fascism which declines to speak to somebody whose experiences would provide them with intelligence and which insists on misrepresenting a person with a demonstrably active, high-profile and growing record of anti-fascist activity as being still a fascist? When I have suggested it is my work as a community activist - which has brought me into conflict with traditional party politics and with Labour in particular - I have been ridiculed. But they can give me no other answer with which to challenge my theory. I am now in the absurd situation where I post helpful information on the aforesaid anti-fascist blog, which is widely read and supported, under the cloak of anonymity because it wouldn't get published if I posted it under my real name. How crazy is that? I don't wish to be personally insulting to you Robin when I tell you that your own activities in opposition to me are in my view peripheral bordering on irrelevant, but that is my honest assessment of the "threat" you offer me. What does anger me, and I have said this before, is the message that you, the Labour Party and people like Searchlight are sending to other people within far-right groups who might be reconsidering their position. That message is that they may as well stay where they are, doing what they do, because there will never be any other way open to them. I believe that by sending that message you are letting down victims and potential victims of racism and selling short the very cause that you claim to champion. On several occasions recently I have found myself giving serious consideration to setting up my own anti-racist blog, the purpose of which would be to encourage members of far-right groups who might be having second thoughts to get in touch - anonymously, until the feel comfortable about coming out into the open - and to chat about their concerns. The long term objective, of course, would be to persuade them that racism is wrong and that if they desire to make the world a better place there are other and better ways of doing it. For some, these other ways might include working outside the political mainstream, as a consequence of which I've no doubt the blog will be attacked by the likes of yourself, the Labour Party and Searchlight as being fascist. I can live with that, if it helps potential victims of racist attacks to live in peace and without fear. But I still believe the actions of those of you who pursue this selfish and destructive strategy to be a betrayal of anti-fascism. |