Cable Street – Labour Lost: Over recent days I’ve seen a number of posts and articles celebrating the ‘Battle of Cable Street’, when people from the East End of London prevented a march through their streets by Oswald Mosley and the British Union of Fascists on October 4th 1936.
Battle of Cable Street 80 March – Altab Ali Park & Cable St
Back on Sunday 9th October 2016 along with many others I went to Cable Street to celebrate the 80th anniversary of that event, and here are a few of the pictures that I made.
I also wrote a little about what actually happened back in 1936, though of course I wasn’t around then, so what I know about it relies on what others have written and said, including the testimonies I’ve heard over the years from some of those who were there and have spoken at this and various earlier celebrations.
Cable Street has acquired a mythical status that it doesn’t entirely deserve, or at least one which distorts the actual nature of the event. It certainly was not a great victory for the organised left – with the Labour Party actively urging people to stay away. They urged people instead to attend a rally in Hyde Park, miles away in West London. If anything it was a victory for the ordinary common decency and solidarity of the working class population of the area who came out and fought the police (and generally not the fascists) who were trying to clear the streets to allow Mosley and his blackshirts to march. A victory for the kind of community self-organisation which is at the centre of anarchism.
So in 2016 for me the anarchist groups taking part were the real centre of attention rather than the more official aspects of the celebration – this was really their day, though none were invited to speak at the official rallies at the start or finish of the event. And here I’ll repeat a little of what I wrote about the event 4 years ago.
“Probably many of those present already knew that the battle wasn’t fought by the political parties – Labour told people to stay away and urged them to protest in Hyde Park, while the official communist party opposed any opposition on the streets until almost the last minute, when it was pretty clear it was going to happen anyway.
“It was the community that came out onto the streets. People from the mainly Jewish areas of the East End, trade unionists, communist rank and file and Irish dock workers. Men and women in a grass roots movement opposed to Mosley, people who knew that they would be the victims if he came to power. And of course the battle was not against Mosley, but against the police.
“Of course there were communists and socialists among those who came out on the streets, and some who played a leading role. But it was essentially a victory for the working class left, for the anarchists and for many without political affiliations who came together spontaneously to defend their place and their people.
“It wasn’t a great defeat for Mosley and his National Socialists; they actually became more active in the East End after it, and areas such as Bethnal Green remained strongly supporting the Nazis. There was an even larger ‘battle’ the following year in Bermondsey. But Cable Street was undoubtedly an important event for the left, and one that has come to be associated with a much greater battle of the era, the Spanish Civil War. Cable Street radicialised many on the left.”
Whitechapel & Illegal Dates; On Saturday 27th September 2014 I went to Whitechapel early to photograph campaigners who were to protest against Sainsbury’s who were selling dates and other goods from illegal Israeli settlements, in defiance of international law. Around two years earlier I had made a panoramic image of part of the new Royal London Hospital which interested me but I felt was not quite what I wanted.
Going back to re-take photographs is often disappointing, with key features having changed, but I think this time I did at least come up with an improvement. This was a more complex panorama than most of those I now make, and needed me to stitch together three separate exposures. It would perhaps be a little better with some slight cropping on the botton edge.
The Royal London Hospital has much great problems, all arising from the poor PFI deal that was used to finance its construction. All PFI schemes have turned out to be a mistake, but this was worse than most and I think has left the hospital group in financial trouble while providing excessive profits to the investors, with payments continuing for many, many years. The contract means they can charge silly prices for necessary services,
After several attempts at producing the picture I wanted I went for a short stroll around the area making a few more panoramic images before it was time to join th protest.
Sainsbury’s told Stop Selling Illegal Goods – Whitechapel High St
Campaigners from the Tower Hamlets & Jenin Friendship Association held a protest on the high Street close to Sainsbury’s, calling on the store to end selling dates and other goods from illegal Israeli settlements, in defiance of international law.
The protes was part of the international BDS campaign calling for a Boycott of Israeli goods, divestment from Israeli firms and sanctions against Israel until it ends the persecution of Palestinians and comes into line with international law and UN resolutions.
Similar protests earlier outside Co-op stores had led to the company in 2013 stating they would ‘no longer engage with any supplier of produce known to be sourcing from the Israeli settlements’.
The BDS campaign was given added impetus early in 2014 by the disproportionate use of force against the people of Gaza. During the recent Israeli attacks on Gaza over 2,100 Palestinians were killed, roughly 1500 of them civilians, among them over 500 children. 66 Israeli soldiers died, along with 5 Israeli civilians (including one child.) Over 500,000 people – roughly 30% of the population of the Gaza strip were displaced from their homes, and over 17,000 homes made uninhabitable, with over twice that number suffering less severe damage.
The raids also destoryed much of Gaza’s industry, including factories making biscuits, ice cream factory, plastics, sponges, cardboard boxes and plastic bags as well as the main electricity plant. Two sewage pumping stations were damaged, as were the main offices of the largest diary product importer and distributor.
The protesters had several tables on the pavement outside the library on Whitechapel High St ,one selling Palestinian olive oil, almonds and a range of decorated purses etc. Some handed out leaflets and a postcard ‘Sainsbury’s: Taste the Indifference’, while others held banners or collecting signatures for petitions. At intervals people made short speeches about the Palestinian situation and the campaign to get Sainsbury’s to stop selling illegal Israeli goods.
After an hour or so on the busy street, some of the protesters decided it was time to visit Sainsbury’s, just a couple of hundred yards away down a side-street. They folded up their banners and walked down to the store, where Sainsbury’s were ready and waiting for them with extra security on duty, and they were stopped in the very spacious lobby area in front to the store.
Here they opened up their banners and protested for a little over 10 minutes. There were a few moments of some tension, when store employees or security tried to grab one of the banners, but the whole protest and Sainsbury’s response was pretty civilised.
After 12 minutes, a man in casual dress arrived, and after asking the store manager to request the protesters to leave came across and talked with the the protesters, showing them his poolice warrant card and apologising that the police station didn’t have anyone in uniform available to send at the moment.
Having made their point by their protest, they decided to go quietly and a little exultantly back to the High Street, where others had been continuing the protest. Shortly after I decided it was time for me to leave.
Sainsbury’s appears still to refuse to follow its own ethical guidelines and still apparently sells some products from the occupied West Bank and to deal with suppliers who source goods from there, although probably rather less than in 2014. They have claimed not to source goods from the occupied territories but do still deal with wholesalers who deliberately mislable such produce.
Harmondsworth, Colnbrook & Heathrow: Back in 2014 I could take a bus a short walk from my home which took me to within a few yards of what had recently been renamed the Heathrow Immigration Removal Centre on Bath Road to the north of Heathrow Airport. And since the bus only ran every half hour I arrived a while before the protest there began and had time for a short walk – and almost half an hour to wait on my way home.
Surprising both buses had fairly clean windows and I also took a few pictures through them on my journey, and you can see a few more at Colnbrook and Heathrow. Before the protest I’d walked beside the Duke of Northumberland’s River which runs through the extensive grounds of the British Airways offices, and on the other bank is a tall fence for the Immigration Centre and BT premises.
The river is a man-made distributary of the River Colne, dug to take water to the Isleworth flour mill and Syon House. Along with another channel, the Longford River, built to take water to Bushy Park and Hampton Court, it has been rerouted around Heathrow airport and some of the pictures from the bus show the two in their new largely concrete channels beside the perimeter road.
There are two immigration prisons on each side of a private road leading to the BT site behind. On the left of the picture is the Harmondsworth prison block, and on its right the high-security Colnbrook centre. At the start of the month both had been taken over by Mitie, as ‘Heathrow Immigration Removal Centre’, making ‘Care and Custody’, the Mitie subsidiary running the centre the “largest single private sector provider of immigration detention services to the Home Office.”
Mitie’s track record in running such centres should have disqualified them from running and government services. At Campsfield there had been three mass hunger strikes, a suicide and a disastrous major fire – perhaps why they had become one of the government’s favourite contractors.
The name ‘Immigration Removal Centre’ reflects the government’s racist policies towards asylum centres. It wants to remove immigrants, whether or not they have a sound case for asylum. Such centres lock up people making it harder for them to pursue their case to remain in the UK and easier for them to be deported. The great majority of those imprisoned will eventually be given the right to remain in the UK, but may be held in centres like this for many months or even more than two years before being released so they can continue their lives – and make the positive contribution they will to UK society and our economy.
At previous protests here the protesters had been allowed to march down the private road between the two prisons and continue alongside the 20 foot fence around the Harmondsworth site back to the front. But now – perhaps due to the new management – police refused to allow them access, restricting the protest to a pen in front of the centre’s administrative block.
The protest was one of a number here organised by the Movement for Justice, and supported by many other organisation and the protesters argued for some time to be allowed to march down the roadway and around the Harmondsworth centre as usual but without success. Eventually the around a hundred protesters who had travelled out to the western edge of London moved into the pen provided.
The majority of those attending the protest were immigrants, many of whom had been held in this centre or others around the country. Harmondsworth imprisons male detainees, and many of the women at the protest had spent time in Yarl’s Wood near Bedford. Later MfJ would concentrate their protests at that centre.
The protest was a very noisy one, with loud shouting and drumming and a great deal of dancing between the speeches. Phone calls from inside told the protesters that they could be heard inside the cell blocks.
Most of those who spoke were former asylum speakers and told of the suffering they had endured in our immigration detention. As some said, it was worse than prison, as the detention was indefinite. They had no release date to look forward too, and could have been deported at any time back to the countries which they had fled in fear of their lives.
Speakers also called for an end to the ‘Detained Fast Track’ system, deliberately set up when Labour where in power to make it impossible for many asylum claimants to defend themselves against deportation and remove them from the country before they are able to do so. It’s a shameful system that no country that believes in the proper rule of law, fair play and human decency could support.
Various legal challenges to ‘Detained Fast Track’ led to the High Court declaring in January 2017 that DFT had denied justice to asylum seekers for the previous ten years, with thousands being deported without a lawful hearing of their cases.
A friend of the family of Rubel Ahmed who described how he died in Morton Hall immigration detention centre in Lincolnshire on September 5th 2014 after having been refused refused medical treatment for his chest pains. Fellow prisoners heard him screaming for help, and had rioted after his death, taking control of the detention centre until brutally suppressed. One who contacted the press was brutally beaten by prison guards.
DSEi Arms Fair Protest Festival: Saturday 9th September 2017 was a busy day for protests at the two road entrances to the ExCeL centre where preparations were being made for the worlds’s largest arms fair, DSEI, the Defence & Security Equipment International, backed by the UK government where arms companies and arms dealers sell weapons to countries around the world including many repressive regimes.
DSEI Festival Morning at the East Gate
Several hundred people had turned up in the morning for a festival day at the East gate for a programme of speakers, workshops, spoken word, choirs and groups.
People crowded onto the road when lorries arrived to enter with equipment for the show, but police moved them to the side to allow the lorries to continue into the Excel Centre.
By lunchtime things at the West gate seemed to be fairly quiet and a ‘critical mass’ group of cyclists were on their way to the East gate and I decided to take the DLR and meet them there.
Festival of Resistance – DSEI West Gate
I arrived at the West gate just as police were leading away Chaplin look-alike mime protester Charlie X who had locked himself to a lorry. He told me had made the mistake of having the keys with him in a pocket which made their job a little easier.
A supporter handed him a flower and police gave him back his walking stick before leading him away under arrest to a police van.
Although I kept well out of the way of the police while taking these pictures, some of them don’t appreciate being photographed and I got pushed out of the way – but not before I had taken a series of pictures.
The critical mass cyclists were standing on the roundabout at the entrance to the site and police noticed that one of them had his bike lock around his neck. They talked with him and he told them he needed to lock his bike if he left it anywhere to prevent it being stolen. Probably all the cyclists had locks with them for the same reason, but police decided to arrest him for carrying a lock. Almost certainly this was the stupidest arrest of the day.
Other people held posters against the arms fair, danced to music and a choir sang. I decided to return to the East gate.
DSEI East Gate blocked
Back at the East Gate I found the road blocked by a lock-in, with two people joined through a pipe which the police were struggling to remove. The couple were surrounded by a large group of police blocking my view but I managed to take a few pictures between their legs.
Other protesters sat on the blocked road as police hammered into the concrete around the linked arms of the locked pair, slowly and patiently removing it to avoid injuries.
A group of Quakers led a religious service on the blocked road. Mounted police arrived to help with clearing the road and people were told they would be arrested if they didn’t move. There were several arrests with people led away to waiting police vans a short distance away, as well as the two who had locked themselves together who police eventually separated.
The lorry waiting behind the lock-on still could not move as a man was lying underneath its wheels. Police tried to handcuff him but took some time to manage to get his hands together.
Eventually he was carried away. The performances on the roadside continued with a crowd listening to poetry from Janine Booth, but others moved onto the road to block lorries. People danced on the other carriageway and the Strawberry Thieves choir sang though without their normal conductor who had already been arrested.
Police cleared most of the road, but there was still a ring of people with a placard ‘STOP SELLING ARMS TO SAUDI ARABIA’ and a guitar. They linked arms to make it difficult for police to remove them and were still there half an hour later when I had to leave. At the DLR station I could hear the sound of a musical protest on the walkway by East London Against Arms Fairs and went briefly to take a few pictures before my train arrived.
EDL Stopped, Musicians at Arms Fair, Silvertown: On Saturday 7th September 2013 after photographing the EDL attempting to march into Tower Hamlets and the people coming out to stop them I went on to the Excel Centre in Newham where East London Against Arms Fairs were holding a Musical Protest against next weeks DSEi arms fair. And on my way home I took more pictures.
EDL Try To March Into Tower Hamlets
Whitechapel says ‘Take Your HATE Elsewhere’
I started the day in Bermondsey were around a thousand EDL supporters were gathering for a march across Tower Bridge to Aldgate High St.
Police had laid down very strict conditions for the march, specifying the exact route and timings and more, which where specified on A4 sheets they handed out to protesters and were also broadcast every few minutes from a loudspeaker van where the marchers were gathering.
There was a very strong police presence on the streets with police on all sides around the marchers and some mingling with them. The EDL were also on their best behaviour, with many posing for photographs. A couple who arrived in pig’s head masks were forced by police to remove them and hand them over.
There was still a great deal of racism and hate in the comments that were being made and when the march got under way the majority took up the usual Islamophobic chants including “Allah, Allah, who the f**k is Allah“.
There were a small number of anti-fascist protesters in the area, and police tried to keep them well away from the march, although EDL stewards who led away one man with a bleeding face from the crowd alleged he had been hit by a bottle thrown from across the road.
As the march set off, police moved photographers well away, and police handlers with dogs walked in advance of the marchers. Later I was able to get a little closer.
After crossing Tower Bridge I saw red smoke in the distance coming from the ground in front of a row of police vans in Mansell St and rushed there to find a group of around 50 anti-fascist protesters, mainly dressed in black, with red and black flags and a few with Unite Against Fascism placards.
The EDL march stopped for a couple of minutes opposite them and the two sides shouted insults at each other with the police keeping them well apart before the march moved on to Aldgate High Street without further incident. I later heard that the anti-fascists here had been kettled for some hours before many of them were arrested.
I photographed Tommy Robinson addressing the rally, then made my way to where a counter-protest was being held by the community of Tower Hamlets, united in opposing the EDL. I had to go through several lines of police, showing my Press Card. A few officers refused to let me through, but I was able to walk along the line and make my way through.
As I commented, “It was a remarkable change in atmosphere from the feeling of hate and Islamophobia that filled the air with gestures and chanting from the EDL to the incredible unity and warmth of the several thousands largely from the local community who had come out to oppose them and make a statement based around love and shared experience of living in Tower Hamlets with people of different backgrounds and religion.”
There was clearly a determination in Whitechapel, as there was in the 1930s at the Battle of Cable Street which had taken place not far away of a community that had decided that ‘They shall not pass’. And although most had come to protest peacefully, had the police not kept the two sides well apart, the EDL would have been heavily outnumbered by local youths angry at their presence.
I’d left the EDL rally before Tommy Robinson was arrested for incitement, apparently for suggesting that people break some of the restrictions that police had imposed on the EDL march and rally. The police presence had prevented any large outbreaks of public disorder and although the EDL were up in arms over the arrest of their leader had protected them from a severe beating.
Musical Protest against Arms Fair – Excel Centre, Custom House
I didn’t stay long in Whitechapel but took the tube and bus to Custom House where on the walkway leading the the ExCel Centre East London Against Arms Fairs (ELAAF) were holding a Musical Protest against next weeks DSEi arms fair with a big band and singers and others handing out leaflets opposing the event.
THe DSEi arms fair, held every other year at the ExCel Centre in London Docklands attracts buyers from all over the world, including those from many countries with oppressive regimes. It’s a showcase for the weapons they need to continue to oppress their populations and to wage war on their neighbouring states and others.
There were more and larger protests in the following week against the arms fair.
Although the DLR wasn’t running on the branch leading to Custom House, there were trains running on the branch through Silvertown and I walked to there across Victoria Dock on the high-level bridge, taking a few photographs.
The gates to the London Pleasure Gardens which had closed recently only a few weeks after its opening were locked but I was able to take pictures through the gates. I walked on to the elevated Pontoon Dock DLR station and made some panoramas from there before catching a train.
For once the DLR train had a very clean window and I took advantage of this to take some more pictures on the way to Canning Town where I changed to the Jubilee line.
Waltham Forest Defeats the EDL: On Saturday 1st September 2012 several thousand people from all Walthamstow’s communities came together as ‘We are Waltham Forest’ to oppose an English Defence League march in Walthamstow.
Wikipedia has an extensive entry on the EDL, describing it as “a far-right, Islamophobic and generally xenophobic organisation“. Founded in 2009 in Luton after a small group of Muslim extremists had protested at a regimental parade of troops returning from Afghanistan, the EDL attracted support from former members of other right wing groups including the BNP and various groups of football hooligans, with ‘Tommy Robinson’ soon emerging as its leader. The EDL was at its height in 2012, but defeats such as that in Walthamstow precipitated its decline, with new extreme right groups emerging.
One Fabric – Our Space is Love
The EDL had picked Walthamstow as a target for their rally because of the large Muslim population in the area which is in one of London’s most diverse multicultural boroughs. Only just over a third of the borough’s residents describe themselves as ‘White British’ and the borough “has the fifth largest Muslim population in England and the third largest in London… after ..neighbouring Newham and Tower Hamlets.”
That mix of communities was reflected in the rally opposing the EDL march, both in the speakers and in the audience, and the ‘We Are Waltham Forest’ campaign was supported by many of Walthamstow’s community and faith organisations, incluing 14 mosques in the borough, bringing together around 4,000 people onto the streets.
After the rally people marched to the main road where the EDL had planned to march to their rally, going past shops and buildings where people came out, many waving and cheering in support. There was some angry chanting and shouting against the EDL, but this was a very friendly rally and march with people from all backgrounds and all ages mixing.
When the reached the road on which the EDL had planned to march, hundreds sat down on the street, blocking it and refusing to move, while others stood back and watched. I left at the point to find the EDL who were marching from a station on the edge of the town centre.
I came upon what looked like a police march, with the EDL surrounded by more officers than there were marchers.
I reported “As I took pictures a number of the EDL shouted abuse; others put their hands over their faces, and one rushed towards me, putting his hand over my lens before police pushed him back. It was hard to get good pictures because there were so many police around the march, though as I continued to receive threats and insults I was pleased that the police were there.”
The were a few residents out on the street, and some had banners against the march. They were greeted with racist abuse, as were others on the pavements who were abused simply because they were Muslim or Black. As I followed the marchers there was only one elderly man who came out of his home to support them.
Clearly it was going to be impossible for the march to continue along its planned route. Police attempted to take them to their rally point through some back streets, where police managed to drag away protesters (and photographers) for the march to continue before it was finally stopped on a road close to the rally point.
I walked on to where a small group of EDL including leaders Tommy Robinson and Kevin Carroll were setting up for the rally on the pavement behind barriers. Police were keeping the road clear with a large group of counter-protesters on the opposite pavement. An EDL steward stopped me from taking pictures, calling “over a police officer who insisted despite my showing my press card to him that I left the area. I unhitched a barrier and went to the other side.”
Kevin Carroll
The organisers of ‘We Are Waltham Forest’ had asked that the protest remain a peaceful one, but some of the counter-protesters clearly had other ideas and were starting to throw sticks and stones across the road towards those setting up the EDL rally. A small brick landed a few yards from Robinson, and was picked up by him and handed to a police officer as evidence. I moved to one side to avoid being hit if more objects were thrown.
Tommy Robinson
Most of the ‘We Are Waltham Forest’ marchers had now left the area, but there was still a fairly large and angry crowd opposing the EDL. It seemed clear to me that the rally could not go ahead, and after I left police reached the same opinion. The police kept the EDL marchers kettled on the side street for some hours after their leaders had packed up and left. When the Met found that the RMT were unwilling to let the EDL marchers onto trains they arrested most of them and took them in vans to various police stations where they were released in the early hours of Sunday morning.
The EDL had clearly suffered a major defeat and there were posts from many of them on social media of having been made a laughing stock after the event.
Chelmsford & Marikana – On 18th August 2012 I travelled out of London to Chelmsford where an extreme right march was protesting against the building of a mosque, with a rather larger protest opposing them. I travelled back into London where a protest had been arranged at short notice against the shooting of striking miners by police in South Africa.
EDL Outnumbered in Chelmsford – Essex
I think this was my first visit to Chelmsford, the county town of Essex although it is only around 30 miles northeast of London and the journey from Liverpool Street station takes just over half an hour. But I didn’t much enjoy my time there and though I’m sure its an interesting place I’ve not been back since.
My day started fine as I walked from the station to the Unite Against Fascism rally in the middle of the city and mingled with the crowd there taking pictures. Everyone was friendly and I had no problems taking photographs.
But then I went to the pub where the English Defence League (EDL) wer gathering for the start of their march, where I was met with abuse and threats and one man complained to the police about my taking pictures. Some others more happily posed for me, making V signs but I was pleased the pub railings were between them and me, and when the police, who had told the complainant that I was within my rights to take photographs, politely asked me if I would move away to to avoid further upsetting the EDL I was pleased to do so.
I crossed back to the opposite side of the road where over photographers and TV crews were standing, and photographed the EDL Essex Division spokesman Paul Pitt who was being interviewed, polite and smiling for the camera, denying that the EDL were racist and promising “there will be no violence from us.“
As the march formed up behind several banners I stayed in front of them with the other photographers, not getting as close as I usually like to do to avoid any further trouble. Despite Pitt’s claims the marchers were singing some of their usual Islamophobic EDL songs, and as the march moved off a rather large and fat marcher came towards me as I was taking pictures and said: “I hope all your family die of cancer.“
I left the EDL march as it turned into the street leading to where they were to hold their rally and returned to the UAF rally, passing a huge police presence with various fences and cordons across roads to ensure the two groups were kept apart.
The UAF were in the middle of the busy shopping area and as soon as the police had sealed off the street where the EDL were holding their rally the UAF were allowed to march, going around the outside of that area.
The atmosphere on the UAF march was very different. It was several times as large with many more placards and banners and much louder, with almost continuous chanting calling for an end to the racist provocations of the EDL, though usually rather less politely. And the people were certainly much more friendly.
Two EDL supporters appeared at one point and began to loudly shout ‘EDL!, EDL!’ but police quickly moved them away and held them until the march had passed, warning them not to interfere with it again.
I went back to the station and caught the train back to London and then got on the tube to Hyde Park Corner where, close to the station, a small group of protesters had gathered outside building where Lonmin, the owners of the Marikana mine, then had offices.
The killing of the 34 miners at Marikana in South Africa two days earlier had appalled many around the world and this emergency protest had been called as the news broke. But it was too short notice to draw a large crowd.
Lonmin, previously even more infamous as Lonrho, only occupied a small suite on the top floor of this recently refurbished office building. The building seemed empty and was firmly locked when the protesters arrived and there was nothing on the outside or visible through the glass doors of the lobby to indicate that this was the base of one of the world’s larger platinum mining companies, listed on the London Stock Exchange, with a revenue in 2014 of US$ 965 million.
After protesting outside the offices for around an hour the group decided to walk to South Africa House in Trafalgar Square and hold a rally there.
A speaker on the pavement in front of South African House told us how the massacre at Marikana fitted in to the pattern of exploitation and oppression that has characterised the mining industry in Africa. Conditions in many of the mines are terrible, with little or no attention to health and safety issues, and miners are on low wages.
One of Lonmin’s board members at the time of the massacre was Cyril Ramaphosa, who a few months later became Deputy President of South Africa and in 2018 President. Many blamed his emails putting pressure on the police to intervene for the shooting.
The older South African National Union of Mineworkers, a member of the Congress of South African Trade Unions COSATU which has strong links to the governing African National Congress (ANC) is seen by many workers to have done little or nothing to improve pay and conditions in the mines. Many miners including those at Marikana had joined the breakaway Association of Mineworkers and Construction Union (AMCU) which represented over 70% of the Lonmin workers and had led the strike.
Kashmir Indian Independence Day Protests: A large protest outside the Indian High commission by Kashimiris blocked Aldwych on Thursday 15th August 2019, Indian Independence Day, against arrests and human rights abuses in Kashmir. Later people protested in Trafalgar Square.
Various groups came to condemn Indian Prime Minister Modi’s revocation of Article 370 of the Indian Constitution and call for freedom for Kashmir which has been occupied for many years by over 700,000 Indian troops. They want the rights of the Kashmiri people respected and UN resolutions implemented.
India celebrates Independence Day annually on 15th August, the anniversary of the day when that country gained independence from the United Kingdom on 15 August 1947, though it was only in January 1950 that it removed the British King as head of state (which is celebrated on Indian Republic Day on 26th January.)
15th August 1947 was also when India was partitioned into India and Pakistan, an event with violent riots and many deaths, with around 15 million people being displaced from their homes due to religious violence.
In 1947 Kashmir was a ‘princely state’ ruled by a maharajah and a part of Britain’s Indian Empire. Over three-quarters of its population were Muslims and it was expected to become part of the new Pakistan, but after Pakistan began to use guerrilla soldiers to try to force the decision the ruler turned to the British Governor-General for military assistance. Mountbatten only gave this on condition that Kashmir would become a part of the new state of India.
Indian soldiers came and cleared out the Pakistani irregular soldiers from most of the state. But despite UN intervention there has been no real resolution, with two further wars over Kashmir and a continuing huge and repressive military occupation with huge levels of arrests and human rights abuses.
India now controls around half of the former princely state and Pakistan around a third with the rest being under Chinese control since the 1950s. China had never accepted agreements made in the late 19th century about the eastern region of Kashmir.
Under Article 370 of the Indian Constitution Kashmir was given special status with limited autonomy and UN resolutions called for a referendum to decide the future of the state.
The protesters included groups from both the Indian and Pakistan administered areas of Kashmir. As I arrived there were some scuffles and fake blood was thrown at the side of the embassy, but the crowd was too dense for me to get to the scene, with police also refusing to let me get there.
After several hours of protest on Aldwych the crowds began to thin, with many moving away to a further protest in Trafalgar Square which I also covered.
This ‘Stand with Kashmir’ protest had been organised by supporters of independence for Kashmir and heated arguments began when one speaker called for all Pakistan flags to be removed. Several police officers came in to separate the two groups of protesters and allow both protests to continue.
Those who supported Kashmir as a Pakistani state, or a state with a close relation to Pakistan moved towards the top of the steps and continued in a largely separate rally, waving Pakistan flags and with some speeches, including from Sahibzada A Jahangir, spokesman to the Prime Minister of Pakistan.
The main rally continued further down the steps, with a larger crowd mainly in the main body of the square.
Carnaval, Protest For Protest & A Tea Party: On Sunday 7th August, 2005 my working day began with a Latin carnival and ended with a not quite Boston tea party. Sandwiched between the two was a very varied protest against new laws passed by the New Labour government to restrict the right to protest under the Serious Organised Crime and Police Act 2005.
Carnaval del Pueblo – Southwark
The Carnaval Del Pueblo procession by London’s Latin American communities was this year starting from Potters Fields, an empty cleared site between the GLA headquarters then in More London and Tower Bridge. I photographed a number of those taking part in their varied costumes but found it hard to get more interesting pictures as the groups were more spread out.
The pictures, thanks to the various different traditions across South and Central America are very colourful but it was impossible for me to identify the different countries and groups they represented. Most of these countries became colonies of Spain and Portugal and influences from there blended with more traditional indigenous costumes and practices.
Spain was of course traditionally a major enemy of Britain, and this country supported many of the movements to gain independence from Spain in the 19th century as a number of memorials across London testify. Though much of that support was more aimed at getting some of the riches of the continent than freeing the people and was for middle-class movements by people of largely European orgin rather than for the indigenous people – and remains so in UK foreign policy today.
Eventually the procession moved off, on its way to a Latin American Festival in Burgess Park, but I had to leave them as they passed London Bridge station to catch the Jubilee line to Westminster.
It’s hard to choose just a few pictures from so many – so please click on the link to the August page of My London Diary and scroll down to see more.
The Right to Protest – Parliament Square, Westminster
Under New Labour a number of restrictions were introduced which curtailed free speech and the rights of citizens, including a number of measures that they had opposed before they came to power. Some were just been a part of the general trend to central control begun under Thatcher, but others were brought on by the threat of terrorism and even more by the growth of opposition to some government policies, in particular the huge opposition to the invasion of Iran.
This protest followed the passage of the Serious Organised Crime and Police Act 2005 which prohibited “unauthorised demonstrations within a one kilometre radius of Parliament Square” and was one of several in early August 2005 in which protesters were arrested.
Most people believe that this law had been brought in largely to end the ongoing protest by Brian Haw who had the been protesting in Parliament Square since 2nd June 2001, and whose presence embarrassed Tony Blair and other government ministers. Careless drafting meant the law did not apply to him, though on appeal the court decided it had been meant to and that was good enough, but by then Haw had got permission for a smaller area of protest on the pavement. Despite continuing and often illegal harassment by police and others the protest continued even after Haw died in 2011, continued by Barbara Tucker until May 2013.
At the protezt Brian held up a large poster with a quotation from a speech by US Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice in January 2005, when she said “If a person cannot walk into the middle of the town square and express his or her views without fear of arrest, imprisonment, or physical harm, then that person is living in a fear society, not a free society. We cannot rest until every person living in a ”fear society” has finally won their freedom.“
The protests in Parliament Square while I was there took various forms. People held up posters, placards and banners; Pax Christi held a service; clowns clowned – all were warned by police they were committing an offence – and five or six were arrested, rather at random from the hundreds present, probably because they argued with police. I got warned for just being there, despite showing the officer my UK Press Card.
Eventually there was some discussion among those taking part and people agreed they would lie down for a short protest together on the grass in Parliament Square.
The Westminster Tea Party – Time for Tobin Tax, Westminster Bridge
At the end of the Parliament Square protest everyone had been invited to join another short protest about to take place on Westminster Bridge. People gathered there and held tea bags, used here as a political statement against corporate power and in favour of elected governments calling for the introduction of a ‘Tobin Tax’.
Nobel Prize economist James Tobin had in 1972 proposed a small tax on currency transactions to cushion exchange rate volatility by ending speculation, increasingly now carried out by ‘high frequency’ computer algorithms and now relying in AI. It was a development of earlier ideas proposed in the 1930s by John Maynard Keynes.
The idea of a Tobin Tax was taken up by global justice organisations at the start of this century as a way to finance projects to aid the global South such as the Millennium Development goals. In part this came from the Fair Trade movement which gives growers and other producers a fair return for their work. One of its most successful areas has been in promoting fairly traded tea. Once only available from specialist agencies such as the sadly now defunct Traidcraft this is now stocked on many supermarket shelves – as too are Fair Trade certified coffee and chocolate.
Hiroshima, Arms Trade, Olympics & Green Jobs: August 6th is Hiroshima Day, and every year when I’m in London I try to get to the London memorial ceremony organised by London CND in Tavistock Square, and 2009 was no exception. But other events were also taking place that day, with a picket outside the offices of the company that organises the world’s largest arms fair and a rally to keep green jobs a wind turbine manufacturer. And between the last two I made a short visit to see what was happening to Stratford ahead of the Olympics.
London Remembers Hiroshima – Tavistock Square
The annual ceremony next next to the cherry tree planted there by the Mayor of Camden in 1967 to remember the victims of Hiroshima follows a similar pattern each year, though the speakers and singers change.
In 2009 events were introduced Islington MP Jeremy Corbyn and speakers included the then Mayor of Camden and who was followed by an number of others including Frank Dobson MP, Bruce Kent the Vice President of CND, sadly no longer with us and other peace campaigners.
Between some of the speeches there was music from socialist choirs. Raised Voices are a regular contributor and others have joined them in some years, in 2009 it was the Workers Music Association. Often a folk singer and poets contribute and at the end of the event people lay flowers at the base of the cherry tree before everyone sings together one or more of the protest songs including “Don’t you hear the H Bomb’s Thunder.”
Last year here on >Re:PHOTO I wrote the post Hiroshima Day – 6th August which looked at a number of these events from 2004 until 2017, with links to those in 2018, 2019 and 2o21.
Stop East London Arms Fair – Clarion Events, Hatton Garden
I left Tavistock Square in a hurry at the end of the ceremony to rush to Hatton Garden, where campaigners from ‘DISARM DSEi’ were picking the offices of Clarion Events in Hatton Garden, calling for an end to the Defence Systems & Equipment international (DSEi), the world’s largest arms fair, which Clarion are organising at ExCeL in East London next month.
The DSEi arms fair is a vast event, with over a thousand companies from 40 companies exhibiting and selling there lethal weapons. Among the buyers are those from repressive regimes around the world who will use them to keep control in their own countries. The arms trade results in millions of men, women and children being killed in conflicts around the world. According to UNICEF, in the ten years between 1986 and 96, two million children were killed in armed conflict and a further six million injured, many permanently disabled.
British companies are among those making high profits from equipment designed to kill people, and our High Street banks invest huge amounts in arms companies.
This was an entirely peaceful protest with a small group of people handing out leaflets to people passing by explaining to them what goes in an an office which appears to be for the diamond trade. Many stopped to talk with the protesters, surprised to find that our government backed and encouraged such activities. Government statistics show the UK’s global security exports as ranking third in the world, only behind the USA and China.
Although the only weapon carried by the campaigners was a small plastic boomeragn wielded by a young child, armed police watched them from across the road, together with other officers who took copious notes, although they seemed to show more interest in the four press photographers present, who were mainly just standing around talking to each other as there wasn’t a great deal to photograph. When the protesters left after an hour of picketing a police car drove slowly behind them as they walked to the pub.
Welcome to Hell’ says the graffiti at Hackney Wick – and it certainly looks like hell for photographers
I had a few hours to fill before the next event and had decided to go to Stratford to see how the area was being prepared for the Olympics in three years time. The actual site had been fenced off by an 11 mile long blue fence, but there were still some places where parts of the site could be viewed.
I went to Stratford and them walked along a part of the Northern Outfall Sewer which goes through one edge of the site. Part of this was completely closed to the public (and remained so for some years after the Olympics because of Crossrail work) but a public footpath remained as a narrow strip between temporary fencing north of the main line railway to Hackney Wick.
Security along this section was high, with security men roughly every 50 yards standing or sitting with very little to do, and the fencing made it impossible to get an unobstructed view. Later these temporary fences were replaced by impenetrable metal fencing and it became easier to take pictures. But on this occasion I could only really photograph the opposite side to the main part of the site where a lot of activity was taking place.
Even at Hackney Wick much of the Greenway was still fenced off, and I was pleased to come down into the Wick itself. Here I could photograph the stadium under construction from a distance, but rather more interesting was the graffiti on many buildings and walls facing the Lea Navigation.
Sadly much of this was cleaned up for the Olympics.
Rally For Vestas Jobs – Dept of Energy & Climate Change, Whitehall
I was back in Westminster outside for a rally outside the Department of Energy and Climate Change in Whitehall calling for the government to support wind turbine blade manufacturer Vestas based in Newport on the Isle of White.
It had started to rain before the rally started and was pouring by the time it finished, though those present listened intently to speeches from a Vestas worker, trade union speakers from the RMT, PCW and Billy Hayes of the Communications Workers Unions, as well as former Labour Secretary of State for the Environment Michael Meacher MP (top picture) and Green Party GLA member Jenny Jones, who arrived at the event by bicycle.
Vestas problems were very much Government-made and as I wrote a result of “its failure to put it’s money where its mouth is on green energy policies, relying on hot air rather than support for wind power and other alternative energies.“
Things are even worse now, with a government driven by lobbying from the oil industry granting licences for getting more oil from the North Sea. The Rosebank field west of Shetland will totally sink any hope of the UK meeting its promises on carbon emissions.
