Because - and this is a crucial point - this thread is about the BNP and the people who vote for them. There have been other threads about Islamic fundamentalists and the IRA in which people express anger, disgust and derision. There will probably be more in the future. This is not those threads.
Well yeah, but I think the point is that people have been advocating unusual methods to oppose the BNP, and the question is whether they are such a special case that these methods are warranted (or even productive).
Walker seems to be getting pilloried for expressing the rather mild opinion that anti-BNP violence is counterproductive and indeed rather hypocritical. He’s reaching out to other examples to justify his point, and that seems reasonable to me. I tend to agree with him; while egging Nick Griffin may be great fun, and kicking his car as he drives off somewhat cathartic, neither of them are acts that are likely to convince anyone who currently votes, or is thinking about voting BNP not to.
The BNP thrive off victim politics, and this just gives them a legitimate excuse to crank that dial up another notch. Let them speak; it’s only shit that’ll fall out of their mouths.
I agree that anti-BNP violence is counterproductive - yes, even egg-throwing. I’m just not sure why we have to denounce all hate groups everywhere before we can disapprove of the BNP.
Well, like I say, I didn’t think that was Walker’s basic point; he was more asking why people advocate running the BNP off the streets when they don’t for equally repugnant groups. It’s not about denunciation, it’s about what he perceives as a disproportionate and inconsistent response, in which case it’s perfectly valid to question why people don’t advocate these methods against other stripes of bastard.
In response he’s received a fair bit of patronising crap (not from you, I fully realise) about a “stronger commitment to the political process,” which to be frank would’ve had me spitting nails. He’s being told that he’s naive not to realise that the BNP are a special case; isn’t it reasonable to point out that no, they really aren’t, and should be criticised with level-headed reason, just like every other nutter?
What’s tragic is that many of those who egged Griffin would have a real dilemma if Cable Street were repeated in 2009… a choice between chasing Fascists and protecting those nasty zionists*
*The SWP / UAF are firmly of the jewish=zionist=fascist viewpoint
Thanks for the support Badger, I think you explained it better than I did.
Why?
It can make them martyrs in the eyes of some people who are on the edge of supporting them.
It diverts attention from the actual debate i.e. their policies and lack of governmental skill on a local and government level.
I’ve no problems with the actions the other day as that was what I would describe as non-violent (egg throwing being somewhat of a tradition in the UK and pols from all sides have been targeted by individuals) but actual violent acts are very counterproductive IMO.
Because, as I said, they positively feed off the politics of victimhood. It plays precisely into their schtick.
I’ll try then to explain why I see the BNP as different, and worthy of different responses to the other groups mentioned (predominately the Islamicists and Sinn Fein).
First, the role of the government should be considered. The security services have always been heavily involved in investigation and control of the type of terrorism that is advocated by SF/the particular Islamicists mentioned. They are pretty damn good at dealing with it. Not perfect, but a lot of successes, and certainly one hell of a lot of effort. That effort, and that success, isn’t there when dealing with the kind of terrorism the BNP is involved with. The BNP is not planning the big bomb attacks or the mortar attacks on Number 10. Their terrorism is a lower level one - it’s attacking gays or immigrants in the streets. And the police hasn’t dealt with that well. The security forces haven’t provided the protection against BNP terrorism that they have against the other kinds. And when the state cannot protect groups of its citizens, it becomes appealing for communities to defend themselves. When the far right has gotten involved in the big scale stuff, the government has stepped in (usually when prodded by investigations by journalists or the anti-fascist movement) but for the everyday, low intensity campaign of terror they carry out, there really hasn’t been a state response.
Second, and linked in. Sinn Fein, and the type of Islamicist mentioned are public fronts for the terror groups. The BNP are the terror group. I don’t know if Nick Griffin himself goes out of a Saturday to put the boot in, but the BNP membership does. I’ve lived a couple of doors down from an SF member, and he didn’t attack me on the way to my Protestant Church of a Sunday. It’s a different type of threat to the community.
Hope that at least makes some kind of sense. And I haven’t told Walker he should have a stronger commitment to the political process. While I think the political process is effective at dealing with the BNP on one level, I think it ignores other levels of the problem. My argument with him is his admission on the one hand the that White Power Rangers he came across were barely literate, but that, on the other, they should be dealt with through debate.
Different levels of dealing with them. I’m not supporting violence against elected officials. The BNP as a political party will hang itself pretty successfully through the political process. But the BNP is more than a political party. It is also a group of street thugs. And that is where I think self defense is important.
They want martyrs? Give them martyrs.
Only if you view the electoral aspect of the BNP as being the only one to be addressed.
I do see your point, but I think it’s important to remember that debate/criticism is not necessarily about convincing your opponent; it’s usually about convincing observers. If an onlooker sees a calm, dispassionate person methodically pointing out ways in which the BNP are idiots, then to my mind that’s more persuasive than things like that street protest against Griffin. If I’ve not heard of Griffin before, then I look at that video and just see a whole bunch of people I’d rather not be around.
I guess our difference is that I don’t see the BNP as a street presence; I don’t think they do encourage acts of racist violence on such a level that our police can’t cope. I don’t know how long it’s been since you lived in the UK, but I think you’re seeing their increased electoral success and assuming that the violence you remember has grown commensurately. Not so, in my experience; they’ve achieved the former largely by distancing themselves from the latter. I don’t see anything that can’t be coped with by our police forces.
As with Sinn Fein, they’ve moved towards political legitimacy to buy popular support. But their essential nature is such that they can’t convincingly pull this off under any sort of rational scrutiny. I honestly don’t believe they have a large enough constituency of genuine racists to pose a threat to the UK’s liberal values, which is why I think calm exposition of their hidden beliefs is more than sufficient to counteract their apparent success.
Actually no, Dead Badger, or at least not so far as I’m concerned. I do disagree with Walker’s opinion that throwing eggs is a fascist (and thus hypocritical) tactic, (though I can imagine it going too far), and, for the record, the only other kind of tactic I’ve advocated is the organizing of counter-rallies–which I think everyone will agree is not fascist. I’ve repeatedly said that it’s just fine that Walker himself is not that engaged. And I’m not arguing against the merits of debate (for which I think you make an excellent case).
My last post was in response in part to this particular quotation from Walker
That logic is what I strongly object to and it’s what I tried to argue against. I don’t actually think, Walker, that you have addressed the substance of my previous post but if you don’t wish to that’s fine too.
Oh, and I hope I’m not pillorying anyone at all. Certainly not my intention, BBQ Pit notwithstanding 
You’d have thought that the people who egged Griffin would have had a bit of consideration and separated the whites first.
I agree. The political side of the BNP doesn’t worry me anywhere nearly as much, not least because the skins who make the party up don’t really care about it, and will get bored when kept on a short leash. I think at one level, what you are saying is the right way to deal with them.
I disagree I am magnifying things up based on the vote growth. You say the police can handle the violence, and I disagree. Every time I go home, I am amazed at how violent Britain has become (not in the sensationalist, Daily Mail “ooooh a gun” “ooooh a knife” kind of way, but in the generally level of street violence). The police do have issues dealing with racist violence, which needs to be addressed.
Well played, sir.
That’s kind of odd. I see the opposite when I go back - a major paradigm shift that seems to have occurred sometime between 1996 and 2006.
Stuff like the FA’s “let’s kick racism out of football”* campaign never happened when I was in school, and while it was hardly alright to go around winging bricks at the wogs, suggesting that they all be sent home (through a peaceful political process) wasn’t likely to raise anything more than a chuckle in “polite company”.
Hell, my brother (who was born in India, unlike me) is married to a white woman, and the best man at his wedding is a white guy who married a woman of Indian descent. To hear him tell it, he’s never heard anyone register so much as a twinge of disapproval - and he lives in Twickenham, where my dad was pelted with rubbish in 1993 by a rugby crowd because they noticed my (white) stepmother with him, and was told “go home Paki” by a guy whose mother had just had a hip replacement done by him.
It isn’t as though my brother isn’t sensitive to racism- he was routinely beaten up at one of the better public schools when he was a student there, just for being the Indian kid (I was too, but I had it better- there was a Nepalese guy there who took some of the heat off me).
*Or whatever it was called.
Oh, that is ace. I’m definitely using that one at the earliest opportunity.
Well played.
villa, I honestly don’t see what you see. I’ve lived in various bits of London for getting on eight years now, including some of the areas that have a reputation for being not so nice, and I’ve really never felt anything less than safe. The one time I saw anything resembling racial violence, it was a bunch of black kids trying to rob an Asian guy in McDonald’s, and a couple of older black guys stepped in to help the victim. Racist attacks are now sufficiently unusual that they make the national news (much to the chagrin of racists, who vigorously complain that attacks on white people go unremarked).
Without wanting to question your personal experience, I would honestly say that I think you’ve gained a false impression somehow. I think there are few better places to live as a minority than the UK, and it’s a belief I’ll take some persuading to abandon.
To clarify - I am not talking specifically about racist violence. I am talking about overall street violence. Which is what creates the drain on police resources. Racism has certainly changed over the years, I won’t deny it.
I aim to please.
I live in the North West of Merrie England and we have a fair number of black/brown/yellow people living here among us.
I can honestly say that I have never seen a single display of racism directed at them, indeed there are quite a lot of us white honkies who would take extreme offence should we ever encounter it, myself included.
There are good and bad people, it matters not what colour your skin is or where you were born, this is something that Griffin and his ilk will never grasp.
They are so filled with hate that they fail to see what is apparent to most level headed and tolerant people.