Unhappy Anniversary

Gerry Gable, editor of "Searchlight", the anti-Fascist magazine, writes in the current edition:

"Readers of Searchlight must be sick and tired of me warning over the past three years that we are seeing a rise of fascism and national socialism, accompanied by racial and religious hatred".

He has a point. I have been something of a Jonah or Jeremiah on this subject myself. Since the struggles of the Anti-Nazi League and Rock Against Racism in the 1970s, it's been very difficult, for me at least, to convince people that we face a threat from the extreme right. 

Yes, times have changed. Back in the 1970s, when the National Front was the main far-right threat, it was comparatively easy to combat the extreme right. You only had to show that the NF leadership had Nazi pasts, or supported Nazi policies, and it was enough to turn people against them. Times have changed, and our collective memory of WW2 is not as strong as it was. For this reason, I think it appropriate to acknowledge the centenary of the origins of Fascism. This inauspicious date for humanity is 23 March 1919. when Benito Mussolini launched the "fasci di combattimento"., or, as they became known to history, the Blackshirts. The German NSDAP was founded on 24th February, 1920. Since then, humanity has suffered. Statistics for the casualties inflicted in WW2 range from 50 million to 70 million. This does not include the dead of the Spanish Civil War (200, 000) or the Japanese military adventures in China (about 15 million). We can argue here: were the Japanese militarists fascists, or simply allies of fascists? It matters not.

What matters is that the far right are resurgent in a number of countries and circumstances. As the New York Times says:

"Once in the shadows, Europe’s neo-fascists are stepping back out, more than three-quarters of a century after Nazi boots stormed through Central Europe".

The NY Times only features the rise of the far right in Slovakia, but "the Fash", as "Searchlight" illustrates in its latest edition,  are mobilising in many countries. Hungary, for instance, now has the dubious distinction of :
"...being the only country in Europe where the two largest political parties are from the extreme right" (Martin Smith)
In Ukraine, fascists are attacking the country's arts community. with a number of recorded attacks on art exhibitions and artists, especially those organised by left-wing or gay activists.
According to Alfio Bernabei in the same issue, in Italy:
"In 2015 a report by Pew Research found that Italy was the most racist country in Europe in terms of hatred shown towards Roma people, Muslims and Jews".
In Poland, there is increasing concern at the growing visibility of far right groups. As The Independent says:
"Each year on 11 November, Poland celebrates its Independence Day. It has, however, long ceased to be a day of national unity and has effectively became a ground for far-right riots, with the foreign residents of Warsaw being advised to stay at home. The far-right groups are filled with Polish nationalists, many of them come armed with baseball bats, covering their faces with scarves and waving far-right symbols while parading under police protection".

Similar stories abound about fascist activity in France, Spain and the USA. Perhaps it is time to ask ourselves why this is happening. To do this, I think we need to understand one key element in the way "The Fash" operate: hatred born of fear, resentment or both. Fascists need a target for attack and a visceral hatred to feed upon - rather like flies upon excrement. Without it, they are recognised as a bunch of irrelevant thugs and lunatics, confined to the political fringe. Fascists around the world, and especially in Europe, have a wide range of targets. In the USA, their animus is directed(for the present) against Mexican immigrants and Muslims. In Europe, they are exploiting the fear of  mass migration to mobilise against Muslims, although black people and Jews are still on their radar. Sometimes, this leads them into (almost) hilarious dilemmas. During the last major conflict in Gaza, neo-Nazis in Germany could not decide who to side with, as they hate Muslims and Jews in equal measure.

Here in the UK, we have our own inimitable shower of extreme right-wingers who share the same agenda as elsewhere. Back in the 1970s, the main focus of attack was black and Asian people; nowadays, the main targets of racist bile are Muslims, although, as we have seen since the EU referendum, any hate will do. The situation is now so bad that Michael Heseltine (no left-wing firebrand) has expressed concern:

"The Tory peer said that he did not like people discussing the “extremes of yesteryear” but said he did agree there were similarities in the economic situation that means that anti-immigrant and anti-elite politics have “basic, chilling appeal for people”.

One significant player in the UK to whom the situation has a basic, chilling appeal is Tommy Robinson, pictured above. Once leader of the English Defence League, he now has a strong internet following for his Islamophobic rants. Searchlight notes his gradual adoption of the policies of an outfit called "Generation Identity", which wants an all-white Europe. Robinson has been dismissed by many as something of a joke figure, but this would be a mistake. The recent public screening of his Panodrama attack on the BBC drew 4000 people. Besides this, he is promoting the old German Nazi tactic of hounding the press - Hitler referred to the "Lugenpresse" or "lying press" in the 1920s, and Robinson is carrying on the tradition. One journalist targeted by Robinson is the anti-fascist writer, Mike Stuchberry. Robinson filmed himself arriving at Stuchberry's home address very early one morning. Disturbingly, he gave out Stuchberry's address during the Salford rally.

The unique factor for the stirring of the extreme right in Britain, of course, is Brexit. As David Toube says, on CNN:

"Far-right groups are an opportunistic infection, feeding on a weakened body politic. Extremists are adept at exploiting grievances for the purposes of recruitment. Their failure to establish a cohesive and powerful mass movement, led by the far right, indicates that they are yet to reap the political dividend from Brexit. However, the far right remains emboldened."

As warnings about the far right grow all over the world, there is no room for complacency.
Ending on a positive note, I would like to say that I have faith that The Fash can be stopped. They were stopped in WW2 and we stopped the British version in the 1970s. I firmly believe that we can do it again, but we must start building resistance now. To conclude: I wish all fascists everywhere a very unhappy 100th anniversary of your vile creed and remind you of the defiant words of Woody Guthrie: "All you fascists are bound to lose". Venceremos!

Woody Guthrie - on his guitar was written:"This machine kills fascists".

"Joinedupwriting" - Roger McGough Apologises

"Joinedupwriting" is the latest volume of poetry by the one-time Mersey poet, now described by Carol Ann Duffy as "The patron saint of poetry": Roger McGough. I'm unsure how McGough has reacted to that, as he is 81 years old and, as so many of his poems betray, highly conscious of his own, and others', mortality. As he says, in "Big Hugs":
"Before I go, who do I give a hug to?"
This poem (pp74, 75 in the new hardback) is a retrospective glance backwards over his long career and the range of topics he has covered since emerging as one of the three poets featured in "The Mersey Sound", who appeared on the scene like a breath of fresh brown ale in the 1960s. McGough is now a CBE, and an FRSL, but still writes broadly about the same issues he began with back in the 60s. A selection of topics are "Exes", classmates, teachers, friends, family, Hull University and, of course, Liverpool. In the poem, he asks:
"How do I give Liverpool a hug?
High five a Liver Bird?"
With his marvellously quirky selective memory, he is able to juxtapose a poem about the Queen's visit to Liverpool in 1949 and another about "The Bridle Path at Litherland" (pp 16,17). With typical McGough wit, he remembers Lord Gloucester, "fat as a globe", bowing to Her Maj and his hat falling off. As for the Litherland bridle path, he observes:
"We saw fish and birds and gypsy boys,
But never once, a bridle".
As well as affectionate recollections of his Liverpool youth, he also remembers the religious bigotry of the day (and, to some extent, now) between Protestants and Catholics in Liverpool. In "Of Protestants", he calls up the memory of Sister Malone who thought Protestants should burn in Hell.
McGough is of Irish Catholic extraction; in his personal life, he has taken a DNA test to check how English/Scots/Irish he is. He told "The Irish Times":
 “I did that DNA heritage thing and found out I am 70 per cent Irish, not surprisingly, and 16 per cent English.”
 Only McGough could have turned such an experience into a poem: "The Full English" (p.9), where, as he confides:
" The results confirmed/what I had long suspected, a dearth of Englishness...but 12.5% Spanish, Italian and Greek?"
One thing I have always admired about McGough is his tender, yet unsentimental way of writing about his relatives. One of the earliest, back in the 70s, was "Sad Aunt Madge", although I was never sure whether she was a fictional character or not. Then there was "Snipers", about an uncle who returned from wartime service in Burma, and suffered a breakdown. The most moving for me, however, was "Hearts and Flowers", a non-fiction poem about a spinster relative who died alone in a council flat - a poem in which the pain of McGough's sadness is almost palpable.
In his latest collection, Roger acknowledges that he has written much about his late docker father, and so many other relatives, but not his mother. He addresses this in "Where is my Mother? (p.73), saying:
"And the one missing, my mother, where is she?
Memory fading, at the margin still, just out of sight,
The one I aim to please with every poem I write".

By way of farewell, McGough has saved an apology to us for the last pages of the book (pp.76,77) in "So many Poems, an Apology". Roger recaps again over his motives for writing poetry. It is a marvellous piece of poetic self-analysis and deserves to be read in full. His closing lines, however, can to be quoted here:

"From wherever it comes, and for whatever reason,

I apologise for writing so many poems".

No need to apologise, Roger. Your poetry has been a faithful companion and inspiration to so many people for so many years - including me.

Just keep writing.

The Mersey Poets, back in the day. Left to right: Brian Patten, Adrian Henri (d.2000) and Roger McGough.