Attacks on free speech - censorship!

Unfortunately the democratic rights of some Communists who try to alert the public to British imperialism and racism have come under attack in recent years on the English left. Sadly, as can be read and heard in some repugnant spittle sodden rants we seem to be witness yet again to sinister attempts by these forces of regression at silencing Communists and their newspapers.

Some would even do so not out of racist motivation but because they see working-class English people and particularly working-class asylum seekers as harmless objects of pity that are too stupid to understand an economic class based analysis. What ever camp they choose to squat in, they do so with a skulduggery and belligerence that should make any true progressive simply want to weep - sometimes by tip-toe (the use of archaic by-laws), sometimes with bellicose censorship (the use of archaic by-laws/the judiciary/the police); they only do so in order to protect their own privilege and power.

Of course there will always be those who also strangle debate by baffling and befuddling their counterparts in a exercise of intellectual gymnastics through entangling their opposition in a deceitful web of word play by use of covert semantic pedantry - they come in my many political shades. To them it is important that working-class people are not seen – or heard - to be in the vanguard; working class people and those from other oppressed sections of society might start saying the ‘wrong sort of things’ which might mean that the ‘wrong sort of people’ might start listening to them – the oppressed. And of course, if we are to have change then it is better that it be monochrome mediocrity rather than radical; better to leave it to social democrats rather than communists; reformists rather than revolutionaries. The same dangerous social democrats and reformists that betrayed and effectively murdered Rosa Luxemburg.

It therefore follows that if the oppressed do want change – they must ASK, and ask NICELY for the door to be opened and for them to be let in from the cold. Concessions might be made, but only as long as those asking for those concessions do so on the understanding that those opening the door can slam it shut in their face at any time. If like Malcolm X you not only DEMAND that the door be flung open but want to rip down the wall that supports it – you will be silenced. Indeed, it is interesting to note that as Martin Luther King began to recognise and actually say that white Middle-Class Liberals with their insistence on non-violence in order for black people to protect themselves individually and in their communities (but who where happy to accept state violence in the shape of armed white police officers to ‘protect’ black people) where more of a threat to the black civil rights movement than the white racists were – he was silenced.

Coincidences? I think not.

What ever the form of censorship, where ever the attack on free speech comes from – it must be opposed. Independent activists such as those who work extremely hard administering on an accountable level within groups like the the Tyneside Community Action for Refugees (TCAR) are not charities and need the financial as well as political support of the public. At TCAR meetings, leaflets advertising events such as film showings and fund raising gigs are often on display along with news papers; particularly Fight Racism! Fight Imperialism! which has a complete back page dedicated to informing and updating on the daily struggles of asylum seekers as well as those asylum seekers being held in prisons and detention centres throughout Britain with every one of its bi-monthly publications – this kind of democracy (particularly in a Capitalist society) and the publicising and information sharing it encourages needs funding in order to print and distribute. Most literature is often not free to publish, therefore cannot often be given away free; money raised can also help to pay for public transport costs, the hiring of meeting venues and the purchasing of materials for banners and information stalls.

These kind of activists need the solidarity of truly progressive people in order to build a working class movement that is bottom up, not top down; one that is grounded in concrete reality, not some fuzzy idea that has been dreamt up in vacuous head. This of course is at odds with many “Anarchists” that seem to think that they are living in a "movie" of their own wonderfulness; serious political activism isn't about chanting empty slogans or chasing cop vans about town, riding to the rescue like a bandana wearing cavalry.

Whether upper working class or lower middle class social democrat or Anarchist posturer's, their skulduggery and belligerent attempts at conniving bellicose censorship would make any true progressive simply want to weep, they only do so in order to protect their own privilege, power and influence; these are the real threats to grass roots movements, not the swaggering, simian semi-imbecile’s of the BNP or the NF but opportunist "vote Labour" class collaborator scabs and psuedo middle-class life style anarchists, (who's swagger is not too dissimilar to the NF).