The EDL are planning a "Static Demonstration" in Tower Hamlets on 3rd of September 2011; now that the Home secretary has banned all marches in 5 east-London boroughs (Home Office Press Release). They've been whipped up into a frenzy of Islamophobia by the popular press and have become a safe haven for a ragbag of racists. 3rd September is days after Eid ul-Fitr, the muslim celebration of the end of Ramadam, and the EDL demonsration would seem designed to provoke muslims. Unite Against Fascism is to hold a counter "Static Demonstration" in Weavers Fields (UAF website ).
I attended a very docile - if not to say tedious - static counter demonstration in Dudley. The trouble with that is that the EDL were bussed to one spot and then "walk" to the static demonsration in what appears like a march. They then broke out of their containment and rampaged through the town, attacking an Indian Restaurant and a Hindu Temple (thereby giving the lie to their claim not to be racists and only opposed to "Islamicisation" of the UK ).
In addition to people coming for the counter demonstration, it would greatly help if volunteer citizen witnesses came and recorded, video and photographed, what happens on the day.
We're not strangers to racist violence, Fascist thuggery and Nazi nut-jobs, in the East End of London. A car bomb exploded in Brick Lane in 1999 "Independent" news report and Altab Ali was stabbed to death by racists in 1978 Altab Ali Park. And the Blitz, and later Nazi V-weapon rocket attacks lead to thousands dying. The Historic Landscape Character of this corner of London has been tempered by constant resistance to xenophobia and the poitics of fear and division.
Famously, this year is the 75th anniversary of the Battle of Cable Street, when Jews, Irish Catholics, Labour, Communists, and local Anarchists barricaded the east end from a march by the Nazi Blackshirts
Cable Street Mural...., a photo by david sankey on Flickr.
It is unclear whether a planned march down Leman Stret (from Aldgate East Tube) to Cable Street will go ahead on 2nd October. A rally will be held in St George's Park and events held in Wilton's Music Hall on Grace's Alley. If you can make it - turn up to this. It will probably be one of the last times you'll meet participants from 1936
View Cable Street 75 in a larger map Click on blue blobs and lines for captions
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