Editorial – Stopping the boots
It should not surprise us that a wave of far-right rioting has swept the country.
This is, surely, physics.
In some respects, there has been a rightward shift in mainstream UK politics since the rise of Thatcher and neo-liberalism. The media has been key in driving this, not just the billionaire rags but national broadcasters and papers of record. Farage’s 34 Question Time appearances since 2000, along with every other far right-winger that could be squeezed into a suit, are testament to a deliberate complicity.
On the other hand, over the last decade elements on the left in this country have arguably been deliberately smeared by these same agencies in a moral panic about anti-semitism. To be anti-colonial was anti-semitic, and increasingly to be anti-capitalist was to be anti-semitic, with capitalism as a semitic trope. By the time the press had finished, surveys suggested the general public thought that fully thirty percent of left-wingers, consisting of the country’s most notable and self-styled anti-racist campaigners, was anti-semitic. And at the same time, of course, immigration was touted as being the main cause of our problems and the signifier of whether any politician was to be taken seriously or not.
Faced with such an overwhelming barrage of Farage, and scattershot of Oakeshott, neo-nazis are granted licence and anti-racists need bar their doors. It was, surely, pretty inevitable.
Or, this is what we should think. In fact, public decency prevailed. Tens of thousands protested against the far-right riots. Because there is more than physics at play.
We are all capable and responsible social beings, despite the conformist pressure of the mass media, and for every four fascist thugs there are four thousand people from all walks of life standing against them. Yes, with four thousand different reasons for doing so, but this variety of thought can sometimes be a strength when a single dogma is not, because it originates with the individual as an independent thinker rather than being spoon-fed from a single source.
We are not playthings of external forces, even Question Time, unless we choose to surrender. We are not governed by the stars or by television, or even by our stomachs; merely alienated from our decision-making, political ability. We have a choice and standing against racism is the right one.
Life-skills learned in struggles under capitalist are essential for making the socialist revolution. Such actions are not to be dismissed. They are not the revolution, but they are something. If socialism is the liberation of the individual, then the work of making socialists entails people coming to their own conclusions. That will still be happening, in fact most of it will be happening, in the course of revolution itself when the floodgates will be opened to a rapid change of perspective.
Take heart from the solidarity expressed across Britain in the last weeks. It was not the revolution – but the solidarity it engendered can over time feed into more positive developments, rather than being simply a reaction to the negative.