Following an attack by a Polish neo-Nazi group on a local community music event in a nearby park, I've been on a couple of protests so far: A hastily thrown together vigil at the town hall earlier in the week and today a re-claim the park festival. All quite low key but so far so good, and I have nothing to say against anyone involved.
Whether it's the UAF types or the more 'direct' Anti-Fascists (and I have friends in both camps) - all have done their bit and no doubt will continue to do so.
But I also couldn't help noticing however that despite our self-congratulatory speeches about how genuinely diverse and happily multi-cultural Tottenham is (all quite true by the way) - a group of black lads who had been having a kick-about in the park quickly scuttled off as soon as we arrived.
Of course it might have just been a coincidence, but it did make me think after a day when I'd also been to the local gym, visited the local shops, and saw the crowd getting ready to watch the football in our local latin american cafe - we protesters were about the least diverse group of the lot.
It was necessary we turned out to send a message to the fascists - and I am pleased I was there. But there's no grounds for complacency if we want to genuinely say we speak for our community ...
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Just thinking, as a regular scanner of the UAF facebook pages and the tight control exercised over their discussions, the blanket acceptance of multi-culturalism as the ideal - not multi racial or pluralistic ideals which are more in line with collective working class history - and I can well understand why those black youngsters disappeared. They might be well rid of fascists but multi-cultural segregation is far from attractive
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