The "good old days" that the Brextards long for.

=======================
Clinton Smith, now 71, says that he was shielded from the worst of the Black community’s experience in Preston when he was a child - but now knows that it sometimes involved physical confrontations with locals.

It is a subject that he will reflect upon during a talk on Monday (2nd October), to mark the start of Black History month, in which he will take his audience on a journey through seven decades of the Windrush generation in the city - focusing both on their contribution to the place they made their home and the ever-shifting attitudes towards them.

Clinton, who chairs the Preston Black History Group, told the Lancashire Post: “There’s a fighting spirit within the Black community that means we won't be held down by anybody. I think it’s the fight we had for independence and self-rule that created it.

“But the generations [that first came to the UK] also had to fight for physical survival against people with bike chains, knuckle dusters and the like - right here in Preston. It wasn’t at all unique to Preston, but the city certainly didn’t miss out on that.

“It’s only later in life when things are said and you realise, ‘Oh, that’s what was going on there’ - and a light comes on. [There were times] as a child when I was ushered indoors and whatever went on went on.

“I grew up with this happening, but I was too young to realise - and my parents and the community put a protective arm around me.

“That generation in the ‘60s and ‘70s fought a fight that has allowed me and generations younger than me to walk the streets in relative safety,” adds Clinton, whose family settled in the city in the late 1950s.

While life is immeasurably better for the Black community in Preston today, he says that he would be “lying if I said there wasn’t still a barrier - but I’d also be lying if I said it was a significant barrier”.

He muses on the fact that, whilst highly-qualified individuals within the first Windrush waves of immigration “ended up working in mills and factories” in Preston, their descendants have now “moved up the scale” and are either entrepreneurs or working in sectors from banking to building - a sign of the progress that has been made. Preston City Council also now regularly flies the Windrush flag over the town hall and celebrates what that generation brought to the city.

Clinton’s talk will canter through the complete history of life in Preston for those who came from the Caribbean - and that necessarily means focussing on the pain caused by the Windrush scandal and the questioning of the immigration status of people who had lived in the UK most, or all, of their lives. However, he promises to end the event on a positive note.

Tickets for the Preston Historical Society-arranged talk - at Central Methodist Church, on Lune Street, at 7pm on Monday - can be booked by searching “Preston’s Caribbean Community” on eventbrite.co.uk or bought on the door for £5.

An award-winning book, “England is my Home” - a collaboration between the Preston Black History Group and the Institute for Black Atlantic Research at the University of Central Lancashire - will also be on sale.

https://www.lep.co.uk/news/people/bike-chains-and-knuckle-dusters-used-against-windrush-arrivals-in-preston-one-child-of-the-60s-now-realises-4354811

On 30/09/2023 05:22 pm, Simon Mason wrote:
> The "good old days" that the Brextards long for.
>
> ========================
>
> Clinton Smith, now 71, says that he was shielded from the worst of the Black community’s experience in Preston when he was a child - but now knows that it sometimes involved physical confrontations with locals.
>
> It is a subject that he will reflect upon during a talk on Monday (2nd October), to mark the start of Black History month, in which he will take his audience on a journey through seven decades of the Windrush generation in the city - focusing both on their contribution to the place they made their home and the ever-shifting attitudes towards them.
>
> Clinton, who chairs the Preston Black History Group, told the Lancashire Post: “There’s a fighting spirit within the Black community that means we won't be held down by anybody. I think it’s the fight we had for independence and self-rule that created it.
>
> “But the generations [that first came to the UK] also had to fight for physical survival against people with bike chains, knuckle dusters and the like - right here in Preston. It wasn’t at all unique to Preston, but the city certainly didn’t miss out on that.
>
> “It’s only later in life when things are said and you realise, ‘Oh, that’s what was going on there’ - and a light comes on. [There were times] as a child when I was ushered indoors and whatever went on went on.
>
> “I grew up with this happening, but I was too young to realise - and my parents and the community put a protective arm around me.
>
> “That generation in the ‘60s and ‘70s fought a fight that has allowed me and generations younger than me to walk the streets in relative safety,” adds Clinton, whose family settled in the city in the late 1950s.
>
> While life is immeasurably better for the Black community in Preston today, he says that he would be “lying if I said there wasn’t still a barrier - but I’d also be lying if I said it was a significant barrier”.
>
> He muses on the fact that, whilst highly-qualified individuals within the first Windrush waves of immigration “ended up working in mills and factories” in Preston, their descendants have now “moved up the scale” and are either entrepreneurs or working in sectors from banking to building - a sign of the progress that has been made. Preston City Council also now regularly flies the Windrush flag over the town hall and celebrates what that generation brought to the city.
>
> Clinton’s talk will canter through the complete history of life in Preston for those who came from the Caribbean - and that necessarily means focussing on the pain caused by the Windrush scandal and the questioning of the immigration status of people who had lived in the UK most, or all, of their lives. However, he promises to end the event on a positive note.
>
> Tickets for the Preston Historical Society-arranged talk - at Central Methodist Church, on Lune Street, at 7pm on Monday - can be booked by searching “Preston’s Caribbean Community” on eventbrite.co.uk or bought on the door for £5.
>
> An award-winning book, “England is my Home” - a collaboration between the Preston Black History Group and the Institute for Black Atlantic Research at the University of Central Lancashire - will also be on sale.
>
> https://www.lep.co.uk/news/people/bike-chains-and-knuckle-dusters-used-against-windrush-arrivals-in-preston-one-child-of-the-60s-now-realises-4354811

So it was the "locals" with the bike chains and the knuckle dusters. And
they must be the chavs on bikes, this NG being uk.rec.cycling.

Thank you for making that clear.

QUOTE: > “But the generations [that first came to the UK] also had to fight for physical survival against people with bike chains, knuckle dusters and the like - right here in Preston. It wasn’t at all unique to Preston, but the city certainly didn’t miss out on that. ENDS

Mods and rockers calling a truce to do some "Paki bashing" back in the "good old days".

On 05/10/2023 06:01 pm, Simon Mason wrote:

> QUOTE: > “But the generations [that first came to the UK] also had to fight for physical survival against people with bike chains, knuckle dusters and the like - right here in Preston. It wasn’t at all unique to Preston, but the city certainly didn’t miss out on that. ENDS
>
> Mods and rockers calling a truce to do some "Paki bashing" back in the "good old days"...

....on their chav-bikes.

There's no other way that your post can be on-topic for uk.r.c, after all!

On Thursday, October 5, 2023 at 6:01:36 PM UTC+1, Simon Mason wrote:
> QUOTE: > “But the generations [that first came to the UK] also had to fight for physical survival against people with bike chains, knuckle dusters and the like - right here in Preston. It wasn’t at all unique to Preston, but the city certainly didn’t miss out on that. ENDS
>
> Mods and rockers calling a truce to do some "Paki bashing" back in the "good old days".

They were also called "greebos" for the oil on their hands from swinging their bikes chains over their heads on Brighton sea front.

On 05/10/2023 06:08 pm, Simon Mason wrote:

> On Thursday, October 5, 2023 at 6:01:36 PM UTC+1, Simon Mason wrote:

>> QUOTE: > “But the generations [that first came to the UK] also had to fight for physical survival against people with bike chains, knuckle dusters and the like - right here in Preston. It wasn’t at all unique to Preston, but the city certainly didn’t miss out on that. ENDS
>>
>> Mods and rockers calling a truce to do some "Paki bashing" back in the "good old days".
>
> They were also called "greebos" for the oil on their hands from swinging their bikes chains over their heads on Brighton sea front.

You were one of the opposing force, were you?

On Thursday, October 5, 2023 at 6:08:17 PM UTC+1, Simon Mason wrote:
> On Thursday, October 5, 2023 at 6:01:36 PM UTC+1, Simon Mason wrote:
> > QUOTE: > “But the generations [that first came to the UK] also had to fight for physical survival against people with bike chains, knuckle dusters and the like - right here in Preston. It wasn’t at all unique to Preston, but the city certainly didn’t miss out on that. ENDS
> >
> > Mods and rockers calling a truce to do some "Paki bashing" back in the "good old days".
> They were also called "greebos" for the oil on their hands from swinging their bikes chains over their heads on Brighton sea front.

The mods were too delicate to use heavy chains and so preferred cut throat razors.

Simon Mason <swldxer1958@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Thursday, October 5, 2023 at 6:08:17 PM UTC+1, Simon Mason wrote:
>> On Thursday, October 5, 2023 at 6:01:36 PM UTC+1, Simon Mason wrote:

>>> QUOTE: > “But the generations [that first came to the UK] also had to
>>> fight for physical survival against people with bike chains, knuckle
>>> dusters and the like - right here in Preston. It wasn’t at all unique
>>> to Preston, but the city certainly didn’t miss out on that. ENDS

>>> Mods and rockers calling a truce to do some "Paki bashing" back in the "good old days".

>> They were also called "greebos" for the oil on their hands from swinging
>> their bikes chains over their heads on Brighton sea front.

> The mods were too delicate to use heavy chains and so preferred cut throat razors.

Back in the early 1950s gangs of Teddy Boys used to set about each other, a
weapon of choice being the bicycle chain.

This choice had several benefits, a major one being that the individual
girl-friends of Teddy Boys were able to carry their boyfriend’s bike chain,
because in those days the police wouldn’t stoop to searching a lady’s
handbag.

And there was a very good TV documentary some time ago that explored the
Rockers/Mods seaside excursions, and found from witness statements and
police reports that the issue was essentially minor in scale but vastly
overblown by the newspapers, doubtless to sell more…newspapers.

The coffee bar that I and my fellow Rockers used to frequent was also a
hangout for Mods. Apart from laughing at their mirror-festooned scooters,
there was never any trouble between the two groups.

Beware of people exaggerating things in order to further an agenda or sell
a book, for example.

--
Spike

NOW THEY HAVE THEIR OWN TV STATIONS.

The use of the term "Paki" was first recorded in 1964, during a period of increased South Asian immigration to the United Kingdom. At this time, the term "Paki" was very much in mixed usage; it was often used as a slur. In addition to Pakistanis, it has also been directed at people of other South Asian backgrounds as well as people from other demographics who physically resemble South Asians.

Starting in the late-1960s, and peaking in the 1970s and 1980s, violent gangs opposed to immigration took part in attacks known as "Paki-bashing", which targeted and assaulted South Asians and businesses owned by them,[9] and occasionally other ethnic minorities.

"Paki-bashing" became more common after Enoch Powell's Rivers of Blood speech in 1968; polls at the time showed that Powell's anti-immigrant rhetoric held support amongst the majority of the white populace at the time. "Paki-bashing" peaked during the 1970s–1980s, with the attackers often being supporters of far-right fascist, racist and anti-immigrant movements, including the white power skinheads, the National Front, and the British National Party.

These attacks were usually referred to as either "Paki-bashing" or "skinhead terror", with the attackers usually called "Paki-bashers" or "skinheads". "Paki-bashing" was partly fuelled by the media's anti-immigrant and anti-Pakistani rhetoric at the time, and by systemic failures of state authorities, which included under-reporting racist attacks, the criminal justice system not taking racist violence seriously, constant racial harassment by police, and police involvement in racist violence.[8] Asians were frequently stereotyped as "weak" and "passive" in the 1960s and 1970s, with Pakistanis viewed as "passive objects" and "unwilling to fight back", making them seen as easy targets by "Paki-bashers". The Joint Campaign Against Racism committee reported that there had been more than 20,000 racist attacks on British people of colour, including Britons of South Asian origin, during 1985

On 06/10/2023 07:08 am, Simon Mason wrote:

> NOW THEY HAVE THEIR OWN TV STATIONS.
>
> The use of the term "Paki" was first recorded in 1964, during a period of increased South Asian immigration to the United Kingdom. At this time, the term "Paki" was very much in mixed usage; it was often used as a slur. In addition to Pakistanis, it has also been directed at people of other South Asian backgrounds as well as people from other demographics who physically resemble South Asians.
>
> Starting in the late-1960s, and peaking in the 1970s and 1980s, violent gangs opposed to immigration took part in attacks known as "Paki-bashing", which targeted and assaulted South Asians and businesses owned by them,[9] and occasionally other ethnic minorities.
>
> "Paki-bashing" became more common after Enoch Powell's Rivers of Blood speech in 1968; polls at the time showed that Powell's anti-immigrant rhetoric held support amongst the majority of the white populace at the time. "Paki-bashing" peaked during the 1970s–1980s, with the attackers often being supporters of far-right fascist, racist and anti-immigrant movements, including the white power skinheads, the National Front, and the British National Party.
>
> These attacks were usually referred to as either "Paki-bashing" or "skinhead terror", with the attackers usually called "Paki-bashers" or "skinheads". "Paki-bashing" was partly fuelled by the media's anti-immigrant and anti-Pakistani rhetoric at the time, and by systemic failures of state authorities, which included under-reporting racist attacks, the criminal justice system not taking racist violence seriously, constant racial harassment by police, and police involvement in racist violence.[8] Asians were frequently stereotyped as "weak" and "passive" in the 1960s and 1970s, with Pakistanis viewed as "passive objects" and "unwilling to fight back", making them seen as easy targets by "Paki-bashers". The Joint Campaign Against Racism committee reported that there had been more than 20,000 racist attacks on British people of colour, including Britons of South Asian origin, during 1985

How many - of either antagonist group - were on the chav-bikes?

Those racist goons of the 70's are the same as the present day Tories

See: https://pbs.twimg.com/media/F7xZq7MXcAA1rMJ?format=jpg&name=medium

Simon Mason <swldxer1958@gmail.com> wrote

> NOW THEY HAVE THEIR OWN TV STATIONS.

There are Asian radio stations too.

> The use of the term "Paki" was first recorded in 1964, during a period of
> increased South Asian immigration to the United Kingdom.

--
Spike

Spike <aero.spike@btinternet.invalid> wrote:

> And there was a very good TV documentary some time ago that explored the
> Rockers/Mods seaside excursions, and found from witness statements and
> police reports that the issue was essentially minor in scale but vastly
> overblown by the newspapers, doubtless to sell more…newspapers.

> The coffee bar that I and my fellow Rockers used to frequent was also a
> hangout for Mods. Apart from laughing at their mirror-festooned scooters,
> there was never any trouble between the two groups.

The motorcycle I rode in those days is still on the vehicle register. It’s
taxed and doesn’t need an MoT.

It’s worth £shedloads, these days.

--
Spike

As slurs go, the word “Paki” has a long, dark history in the UK. A video has emerged of the YouTuber, KSI, using the term frivolously – followed by a burst of raucous laughter by his peers.

SI has subsequently apologised. However, this has brought back disturbing and hurtful memories for many people. As BBC broadcaster and DJ Bobby Friction, AKA Paramdeep Sehdev, put it on Twitter:

I had this racial slur thrown at me & got physical beats by racists for my entire childhood. Genuinely upset that @KSI (a guy my children love) did this & thought it was funny.

This has also highlighted the mistaken and enduring assumption that the term is a simple abbreviation of “Pakistan” and “Pakistani”. This is historically untrue.

The slur “Paki” and the racist activity denoted as “Paki-bashing”, emerged in the East End of London and spread across the country. The derogatory term was widely extended to other south Asian groups including Gujaratis, Punjabis, Kashmiris and others, regardless of religious background. Even non-south Asians were sometimes targeted with it.

That the word was used to refer to south Asians at large, as a blanket label, is in itself racist, because it ignores the multiplicity – ethnic and religious – of the many communities thus targeted. And the attendant stereotypical projections of the south Asian as “meek” and “subservient” have a long colonial history.

In his book Brick Lane 1978: The Events and Their Significance (published in 1980), the Anglican priest and Christian socialist Kenneth Leech writes:

The first reference in the press to “Paki-bashing” seems to have been on April 3 1970, when several daily papers mentioned attacks by skinheads on two Asian workers at the London Chest Hospital in Bethnal Green.

But long before these attacks, Leech notes that in 1965, the secretary of East Pakistan House, Alamgir Kabir, had claimed that there was a “growing mass hysteria against Pakistanis”.
By the 1960s, London’s East End was home to around 8,000 Asians. Of these, 4,300 were Bengalis from East Pakistan, predominantly from the north-east region of Sylhet. Most were men who had come for economic reasons, ahead of bringing their families to the UK. Until the 1971 Bangladesh War of Independence, which saw East Pakistan become an independent state, Bengalis in the UK were referred to as Pakistanis.

Enoch Powell’s inflammatory 1968 speech, Rivers of Blood, resulted in ever-increasing attacks perpetrated mostly by young people against south Asians. These included the murder, in April 1970, by a group of skinheads of Tosir Ali, a kitchen porter, at the foot of his block of flats in Bow, east London.

Powell vehemently opposed the changing demographic landscape of Britain. Bengalis from Spitalfields who were interviewed for the 1981 documentary A Safe Place to Be?, by the British director Simon Heaven, connected Powell’s speech with the racism they were experiencing. Some said they only left their homes in groups. Others told of rocks being thrown through their windows. As one man put it:

Some people thought they have a genuine right to come to this country and thought they would be welcome. But from experience, they have learned that they are the most unwelcome people, because simply the colour of their skin is not the right one.

In the late 1970s, several south Asian people were murdered in the East End and beyond. In 1978, two white men and a mixed-race man killed Altab Ali on Adler Street in Tower Hamlets, near to the park which now bears his name.

While most of these racist attacks were carried out by white skinheads, some involved young West Indian men too. Geographer Shabna Begum’s research into the East End Bengali squatter movement of the 1970s notes how the East End Collinwood Gang consisted primarily of white English, but also West Indian young men “talking gleefully about their ‘Paki-bashing sprees’”.

This racism was met with resistance. Altab Ali’s murder galvanised Bengalis in East London to stand up against the National Front. The community rose up again in 1993 when eight young white men attacked a 17-year-old boy called Quddus Ali on Commercial Road in Stepney. This attempted murder left Ali left in a coma for four months. “He is permanently brain damaged,” the journalist Gary Younge reported at the time. “In the Deep South they used to call this lynching.”

Across the UK, Asian youth movements rose up to protest against skinheads, National Front members and other bigoted groups. The Southhall Youth Movement and wider Sikh community was prompted into action following the racist murder of an 18-year-old engineering student, Gurdip Singh Chaggar, in 1976. And a group known as the Bradford 12 formed in 1981 following racist attacks on and police harrassment of young Asian and Afro-Caribbean men. They led a five-year campaign against police racism and racist immigration laws.

Despite these resistance movements, use of the slur – and the racism that drives it – has persisted. This has been evident most recently in the legal case of professional cricketer Azeem Rafiq, who experienced racist abuse and discriminatory language at the hands of Yorkshire County Cricket Club.

Reorientating racist terms as a gimmick or for banter, as KSI and his colleagues did, not only dishonours those who have died fighting against racism. It also dilutes the violence that such racial slurs carry. When it is done on YouTube, a platform with incredible reach among young people, the effect is even worse.

As the crushing realities of racism and how it affects racially minoritised communities are made ever clearer, it is crucial to understand the history of these words. We must ensure their use is not passed down to the next generation.

Spike <aero.spike@btinternet.invalid> wrote:
> Spike <aero.spike@btinternet.invalid> wrote:
>
>> And there was a very good TV documentary some time ago that explored the
>> Rockers/Mods seaside excursions, and found from witness statements and
>> police reports that the issue was essentially minor in scale but vastly
>> overblown by the newspapers, doubtless to sell more…newspapers.
>
>> The coffee bar that I and my fellow Rockers used to frequent was also a
>> hangout for Mods. Apart from laughing at their mirror-festooned scooters,
>> there was never any trouble between the two groups.
>
> The motorcycle I rode in those days is still on the vehicle register. It’s
> taxed and doesn’t need an MoT.
>
> It’s worth £shedloads, these days.

Interesting YouTube video on the events.

Note the comment “…greatly exaggerated by the press…”, a theme also
mentioned later in the vid.

(Some slight violence, some great music, some great motorcycles)

<https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=2GbPUB1VePA>

--
Spike

Just east from Whitechapel High Street in the London borough of Tower Hamlets, there is a garden with an ornate entrance. A tubular-framed arch merges with a Bengali-style, orange-coated metal structure. Altab Ali Park is London’s only park named after a Bengali. Previously called St Mary’s Gardens, it was one of several green spaces in Tower Hamlets named after saints.

Altab Ali was neither saint nor sinner, but an immigrant clothing worker who arrived as a teenager in London with his uncle in 1969. He worked in Hanbury Street, off Brick Lane, where the Bengali community was expanding as the older Jewish immigrant population receded. Members of my own family lived in Hanbury Street before World War Two.

Ali returned to Bangladesh for five months in 1975 and got married. When he came back to England, his bride stayed with his parents. The plan was that she would join him later. She never did.

On 4 May 1978, as Ali, 24, walked home from work along Adler Street, alongside St Mary’s Gardens, he was attacked and stabbed by three teenagers, whose minds had been poisoned by racists. Later at their trial they would say they attacked Ali because he was a “Paki”.

Ali was dead on arrival at London Hospital (since renamed the Royal London hospital).

The day Altab Ali died was local election day. The far-right National Front, formed in 1967, ran in every Tower Hamlets ward that year, and gained nearly 10 per cent of the vote. Some older National Front members had been in Oswald Mosley’s British Union of Fascists, which terrorised East End Jews in the 1930s.

At 10pm, as the polling booths closed, Shamsuddin Shams, who worked a few doors down from Ali, heard the shocking news. Hours earlier Ali and Shamsuddin had chatted in the street, as they often did after work. On Saturdays, clothing workers usually skipped their lunchbreak so they could finish work at 4pm. Ali and Shams would then meet in Jim’s Café, which was between their workshops, and watch wrestling on Jim’s television.

On 4 May, Shams, then just 18, had gone straight to the polling station on Brick Lane after work. “As I came out I wanted to tell someone. I saw Altab Ali coming out of the Indo-Pak grocery store at No. 45. He had two bags. One had a tiffin box with his evening meal and one had vegetables. He said to me: ‘It must be your first vote. How was it?’ I said ‘It was fine’. I asked him if he had voted yet, and he said he would do it later.”

Shams was devastated by Ali’s death. And initially puzzled. He hadn’t known that Ali had recently moved to Wapping and had taken a different route home that evening.
lead Crowd of young Bengali men fill East London street. Police officers in background.

Anti-National Front Demo, Brick Lane 1978. Image by Alan Denney, CC BY-NC-SA 2.0

Ten days later, local restaurants and workshops across Tower Hamlets were closed up as 7,000 Bengalis marched to Downing Street and Hyde Park. They marched silently in the rain, behind a vehicle carrying Altab Ali’s coffin.

Their placards read: “Self-defence is no offence” and “Here to stay, here to fight”. The militant response to Altab Ali’s murder, led by Bengali youth movements, was a turning point for local Bengalis. As they rallied in Hyde Park they chanted,

“Who killed Altab Ali?”

“Racism, racism!”
Fascists and skinheads on the rampage

On the 40th anniversary of this tragedy, it is salutary to recall the chain of events that led to Altab Ali’s murder. The 1971 census records 161,000 people living in Tower Hamlets. Ten years later that dipped to 139,000, even though 15,000 Bengalis, working mainly in clothing workshops and catering, settled in the East End in that decade. Old factories had closed. A declining dock industry shrank further. Those exiting the borough were mainly white.

Far-right organisations highlighted the rapid cultural and demographic changes. A section of East End dockers joined with Smithfield Market meat porters in 1968 and marched to parliament to support Enoch Powell’s racist “Rivers of Blood” speech. Danny Harmston, who led the Smithfield porters, had formerly been Oswald Mosley’s bodyguard.

Young skinheads began to intimidate new Asian immigrants. In a study of racial tensions in 1970s East London, Reverend Ken Leech said the term “Paki bashing” was invented on Bethnal Green’s Collingwood Estate.

In April 1970, two Asian hospital workers were attacked near the estate after work. The Observer newspaper wrote: “Any Asian careless enough to be walking the streets alone at night is a fool.”

Days later, Tosir Ali, a Wimpy Bar worker, was attacked by two skinheads on his way home. They slit his throat and left him to die. Later that month 50 skinheads rampaged down Brick Lane causing mayhem.

“Any Asian careless enough to be walking the streets alone at night is a fool.” Observer editorial

Initially, the skinheads were not politically organised, but attacked those they considered vulnerable. This included new immigrants. By the mid-1970s, the National Front were actively recruiting skinheads especially in the East London neighbourhoods of Shoreditch and Bethnal Green, where they recorded relatively high votes in the 1974 general election.

A thuggish local orator, Derrick Day, attracted youth to street meetings. In September 1975, hundreds joined an “anti-mugging” march, blaming Blacks and Asians for street robberies.

A year later National Front locals established a regular Sunday morning sales pitch at the corner of Brick Lane and Bethnal Green Road, which attracted supporters from Essex and Kent.

On its books stall, just outside a Jewish-owned shop, you could purchase “Did 6 Million Really Die?” by National Front activist Richard Verrall.

Vile racist stickers from far-right rivals, the British Movement, appeared on lamp-posts. The Hitler-worshippers of Column 88 sent threatening personal messages to local anti-fascist activists, written in blood.

But it was the blood of minority communities that flowed in East London in 1978. Two weeks before Altab Ali’s murder, 10 year old Kenneth Singh was stabbed to death by racists in Canning Town.

Less than two months later Ishaque Ali died of heart failure after a vicious attack by racists.

In September 1978 the National Front moved its headquarters from the suburbs to Shoreditch in East London.

Threatening messages were sent to local anti-fascist activists, written in blood

Two prominent politicians had further inflamed the atmosphere. Tory opposition leader Margaret Thatcher told a TV interviewer in January 1978, that people were “afraid that this country might be rather swamped by people with a different culture”.

Fear of being “swamped” would make people “hostile to those coming in.” She explicitly confirmed her desire to bring National Front voters “very much back” to the Tories.

Enoch Powell, by now an ageing Ulster Unionist, was still invited to address Tory branches on immigration. On 10 June 1978 he told supporters in Billericay, Essex: “Violence does not break upon such a scene because it is willed, or contrived… it lies in the inevitable course of events.”

He predicted that within 20 years one third of Britain’s inner cities would be controlled by an alien population, “which by reason of the the strongest impulses and… human nature, neither can, nor will be identified with the rest… those who… feared they would be swamped… will be driven by equally strong impulses and interests to resist and prevent it.”

The very next day 150 National Front-supporting white youths, mainly skinheads, translated these words into action. They rampaged down Brick Lane chanting race hate slogans, throwing bottles, bricks and rubble through shop windows. Bengali youths resisted, kettled 20 of the perpetrators and held them until the police arrived. Only three were arrested.

At the same time two heartening events occurred: young people resisted and Bengali shopkeepers received support from neighbouring Jewish shopkeepers.

Spike <aero.spike@btinternet.invalid> wrote:
> Spike <aero.spike@btinternet.invalid> wrote:
>> Spike <aero.spike@btinternet.invalid> wrote:
>>
>>> And there was a very good TV documentary some time ago that explored the
>>> Rockers/Mods seaside excursions, and found from witness statements and
>>> police reports that the issue was essentially minor in scale but vastly
>>> overblown by the newspapers, doubtless to sell more…newspapers.
>>
>>> The coffee bar that I and my fellow Rockers used to frequent was also a
>>> hangout for Mods. Apart from laughing at their mirror-festooned scooters,
>>> there was never any trouble between the two groups.
>>
>> The motorcycle I rode in those days is still on the vehicle register. It’s
>> taxed and doesn’t need an MoT.
>>
>> It’s worth £shedloads, these days.
>
> Interesting YouTube video on the events.
>
> Note the comment “…greatly exaggerated by the press…”, a theme also
> mentioned later in the vid.
>
> (Some slight violence, some great music, some great motorcycles)
>
> <https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=2GbPUB1VePA>

“…[the media] would publish deceptive headlines, such as using a subheading
"Violence", even when the article reported that there was no violence at
all”

Still rife today in the media

QUOTE

The sociologist Stanley Cohen was led by his retrospective study of the
mods and rockers conflict to develop the term "moral panic". In his 1972
study Folk Devils and Moral Panics,[7] he examined media coverage of the
mod and rocker riots in the 1960s.[9] He concedes that mods and rockers had
some fights in the mid-1960s, but argues that they were no different from
the evening brawls that occurred between youths throughout the 1950s and
early 1960s at seaside resorts and after football games. He argues that the
UK media turned the mod subculture into a symbol of delinquent and deviant
status.[10]

Cohen argues that as media hysteria about knife-wielding mods increased,
the image of a fur-collared anorak and scooter would "stimulate hostile and
punitive reactions".[11] He says the media used possibly faked interviews
with supposed rockers such as "Mick the Wild One".[12] The media also tried
to exploit accidents that were unrelated to mod-rocker violence, such as an
accidental drowning of a youth, which resulted in the headline "Mod Dead in
Sea".[13]

Eventually, when the media ran out of real fights to report, they would
publish deceptive headlines, such as using a subheading "Violence", even
when the article reported that there was no violence at all.[10] Newspaper
writers also began to associate mods and rockers with various social
issues, such as teen pregnancy, contraceptives, amphetamines, and
violence.[7]

ENDQUOTE

from

<https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mods_and_rockers>

--
Spike

On Saturday, September 30, 2023 at 5:22:59 PM UTC+1, Simon Mason wrote:
> The "good old days" that the Brextards long for.
>
I cannot recall ever being “waterboarded”. But nor can I recall many days when, as a schoolboy, I did not return home without a bruised lip or a bloodied nose. Sometimes, I got a hiding at home too. “You should know better than to get into a fight.”

Not getting into a fight was not, however, a choice in 70s Britain. Not if you were Asian in an age in which “Paki-bashing” was almost a national sport. You either stood up for yourself, and got into fights, or you got picked on even more.

So when I saw the viral video of a 15-year old Syrian refugee, Jamal, being assaulted by a fellow schoolboy in a Huddersfield school, I felt more than shock and outrage. I’ve been where Jamal is and understand what he must be going through.

The incident raises questions about attitudes to refugees. It raises questions, too, about the role of social media. It is just the latest in a series of racist confrontations caught on camera and exposed online. From a bigoted rant on a Croydon tram to racial abuse on a Ryanair flight, social media has helped bring attention to unacceptable behaviour. It can also distort perceptions. It is easy to regard such incidents as expressive of everyday life in Britain. One of the reasons they are so shocking, though, is that Britain has changed so much from the nation of my childhood.

There was no such thing then as social media through which to expose racist bullying. But even if there had been, such incidents were so embedded in the social fabric that it’s doubtful they would have caused outrage or even been seen as newsworthy.

Racism remains a problem and hostility to refugees is an issue that needs tackling. Jamal’s sister was apparently also abused at the same school, her hijab forcibly removed. It’s not just in Huddersfield that asylum seekers have faced brutal attacks. Nevertheless, such incidents are not characteristic of British society today in the way they would have been a generation ago.

Social media exposure can also lead to people piling on to individuals, including children. The alleged racist has received death threats and his family forced to leave their house. It’s easy to say: “He’s a racist, he deserves what he gets.” But however nasty the assault, do we really want to encourage the corrosive effects upon public space and civic life of social-media-driven mobs? Whether online or offline, it’s not just racists who are targets of such fury.

We are witnessing, too, the emergence of a culture in which it is acceptable passively to record deplorable acts to share online rather than actively to intervene to aid the victims. One reason for this is the ubiquity of phone cameras. But social changes are important, too. A more atomised society and a safety-first culture have both helped blunt our sense of moral obligation to others. When a senior policeman thinks it acceptable to lock himself in a car rather than intervene in a terrorist attack on parliament, is it surprising to see the rise of what the defence minister, Tobias Ellwood, called the “walk-on-by society” in a Newsnight interview following the Huddersfield attack?

In the Westminster terror attack, Ellwood showed great courage in trying to save the life of PC Keith Palmer, fatally stabbed by Khalid Masood. He has the moral authority to castigate the tendency of people to stand on the sidelines, but not to pronounce on attacks on refugees.

‘Where does this bully get his ideas from?” Ellwood asked on Newsnight of the alleged schoolboy attacker. One can only gasp at his lack of self-awareness.

Ellwood serves in a government led by a prime minister who, as home secretary, celebrated the creation of a “hostile environment” for migrants considered illegal. Her policy nurtured a climate of suspicion in which people were deemed guilty unless they could prove themselves innocent.. It dragooned teachers and doctors and landlords to act as auxiliary immigration officers. It created an environment that incubated the Windrush scandal. And one that nurtures the hostility to refugees that sometimes spills over into violence.

What is surprising is not that such attacks take place but that, given the political rhetoric about migration and the character of government policy, they are relatively infrequent. “It’s not the welcoming, friendly Britain we are supposed to be,” Ellwood wrote in a now-deleted tweet after the Huddersfield attack. If he wants to understand why, he should look closer to home.

Spike <aero.spike@btinternet.invalid> wrote:
> Spike <aero.spike@btinternet.invalid> wrote:
>> Spike <aero.spike@btinternet.invalid> wrote:
>>> Spike <aero.spike@btinternet.invalid> wrote:
>>>
>>>> And there was a very good TV documentary some time ago that explored the
>>>> Rockers/Mods seaside excursions, and found from witness statements and
>>>> police reports that the issue was essentially minor in scale but vastly
>>>> overblown by the newspapers, doubtless to sell more…newspapers.
>>>
>>>> The coffee bar that I and my fellow Rockers used to frequent was also a
>>>> hangout for Mods. Apart from laughing at their mirror-festooned scooters,
>>>> there was never any trouble between the two groups.
>>>
>>> The motorcycle I rode in those days is still on the vehicle register. It’s
>>> taxed and doesn’t need an MoT.
>>>
>>> It’s worth £shedloads, these days.
>>
>> Interesting YouTube video on the events.
>>
>> Note the comment “…greatly exaggerated by the press…”, a theme also
>> mentioned later in the vid.
>>
>> (Some slight violence, some great music, some great motorcycles)
>>
>> <https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=2GbPUB1VePA>
>
> “…[the media] would publish deceptive headlines, such as using a subheading
> "Violence", even when the article reported that there was no violence at
> all”
>
> Still rife today in the media
>
> QUOTE
>
> The sociologist Stanley Cohen was led by his retrospective study of the
> mods and rockers conflict to develop the term "moral panic". In his 1972
> study Folk Devils and Moral Panics,[7] he examined media coverage of the
> mod and rocker riots in the 1960s.[9] He concedes that mods and rockers had
> some fights in the mid-1960s, but argues that they were no different from
> the evening brawls that occurred between youths throughout the 1950s and
> early 1960s at seaside resorts and after football games. He argues that the
> UK media turned the mod subculture into a symbol of delinquent and deviant
> status.[10]
>
> Cohen argues that as media hysteria about knife-wielding mods increased,
> the image of a fur-collared anorak and scooter would "stimulate hostile and
> punitive reactions".[11] He says the media used possibly faked interviews
> with supposed rockers such as "Mick the Wild One".[12] The media also tried
> to exploit accidents that were unrelated to mod-rocker violence, such as an
> accidental drowning of a youth, which resulted in the headline "Mod Dead in
> Sea".[13]
>
> Eventually, when the media ran out of real fights to report, they would
> publish deceptive headlines, such as using a subheading "Violence", even
> when the article reported that there was no violence at all.[10] Newspaper
> writers also began to associate mods and rockers with various social
> issues, such as teen pregnancy, contraceptives, amphetamines, and
> violence.[7]
>
> ENDQUOTE
>
> from
>
> <https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mods_and_rockers>

QUOTE

Fifty years ago this month, on the Whitsun weekend of the 16-18 May 1964,
the youth of Britain went mad. If you believed the newspapers, that is, who
went with screaming headlines like ‘Battle of Brighton’, and ‘Wild Ones
'Beat Up' Margate’ . Editorials fulminated with predictions of national
collapse, referring to the youths as 'those vermin' and 'mutated locusts
wreaking untold havoc on the land'.

Whitsun 1964 has become famous as the peak of the Mods and Rockers riots,
as large groups of teenagers committed mayhem on the rain-swept streets of
southern resorts like Margate, Brighton, Clacton and Bournemouth.
Extensively photographed and publicised at the time, these disturbances
have entered pop folklore: proudly emblazoned on sites about Mod culture
and expensively recreated in the 1979 film Quadrophenia.

Yet, as ever when you're dealing with tabloid newspapers, things are not
quite what they seemed. What was trumpeted as a vicious exercise in
national degeneration was to some extent, pre-hyped by the press. It was
also not as all-encompassing as the headlines suggested: although an
estimated 1,000 youths were involved in the Brighton disturbances, there
were only 76 arrests. In Margate, there were an estimated 400 youths
involved, with 64 arrests. While unpleasant and oppressive, this was hardly
a teen take-over.

ENDQUOTE

<https://www.bbc.com/culture/article/20140515-when-two-tribes-went-to-war>

--
Spike

Nigel Farage released a poster showing immigrants entering Europe with a headline in red: 'Breaking Point'.
----------------------------
I grew up in inner city Manchester during the 1980s. The winter of discontent had turned into the decade of disgruntlement. Thatcher had declared that there was no such thing as society and no one understood that more than those who were on the margins. Paki-bashing was almost a national pastime. The National Front was on the march and immigrant communities were bearing the brunt of a broken country.

It is within this climate that my earliest memory was formed – one that left a permanent mental scar. It’s a hot summer's day, my siblings, mother, cousin and aunts are running down a lush green hill following a day out at a local summer fete. That’s where this idyllic summer scene ends and turns into one of horror. All of a sudden, we were running down the hill - because we were being chased by Doc Marten-clad skinheads shouting, “Paki!” and throwing empty beer cans at us.

According to my mum, I was around three years old when this happened and yet I remember it so vividly. It was probably the first time I had felt such abject fear.

The attacks, taunts, comments continued throughout my life. It toned down a bit during the 90’s when there was nothing to blame anyone for. We were all financially better off. The country was booming. Britain's minorities, the traditional scapegoats, had a relatively easy time. Just when we got used to feeling safe in our own country, 9/11 happened and our lives had changed again. We used to be “Pakis”; and now we were “Muslims”, and Muslims were the new enemy.

Now the fear among many of us is that racists have been emboldened. Under the veneer of nationalism and independence, racism has once again become openly acceptable and mainstream. Those that have never suffered racism will not understand the dread we feel or the fear that is running through our communities as we see racists adorned in suits and given legitimacy by some sections of the media. Austerity happened, and there are a lot of finger-pointing people desperate for someone to blame; a convenient narrative just appeared that it’s all the fault of the immigrants again.

This is the first time in my living memory that people have come out in their millions and openly declared their xenophobia. Long gone are the times when racism was a taboo yet prevalent phenomenon. The aftermath of this referendum will go down in history as a massive shift in terms of race relations in this country. We have crossed an invisible line.

It would be disingenuous to suggest that everyone that voted to leave the EU is a racist, of course. But there is no denying that many people were swayed to vote to leave the EU due to the toxic anti-immigrant rhetoric that permeated the Leave campaign.

Disturbingly, this kind of thinking has been adopted by many of the communities that suffered from racism themselves. I’ve watched with incredulity as second and third generation immigrants have uttered the same arguments against Eastern European immigrants as were used against them only years before.

Minorities have never vented such hatred against each other. Historically we understood that the way to survive was to stick together. That solidarity is fragmenting. The minority-on-minority racism is very real and the irony is not lost on many of us. African and South Asian immigrants, especially, should know better. They have an intimate relationship with racism.

Politicians are silent, too busy focusing on the political fall-out in Westminster. They are ignoring the mood on the streets. Not a single politician has come out to condemn the post-Brexit attacks on minorities. That scares me. It scares many of us.

Even though we are unsure of what the future holds, we, the white, black, Asian and East European people of Britain, need to stand together to face this recent threat. We've done it before and won.

We fought Oswald Mosley in Cable Street, we fought the rhetoric spewed by the likes of Enoch Powell. We fought against the National Front and the BNP. I have stood side by side with hundreds of people who once fought the EDL.

Successive groups of immigrants have given their blood, sweat and tears to this country. We made this country what it is today. We have made too many sacrifices and have too much to lose if we remain silent. We must act now.

Like the late Jo Cox, said, “We have far more in common than that which divides us.” Now is the time to celebrate and highlight that unity. We can't stand back and watch this country hurtle down the road to fascism.

https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/my-earliest-memory-is-of-being-racially-abused-in-manchester-i-thought-we-d-moved-on-but-now-it-s-happening-again-a7105636.html

Spike <aero.spike@btinternet.invalid> wrote:
> Spike <aero.spike@btinternet.invalid> wrote:
>> Spike <aero.spike@btinternet.invalid> wrote:
>>> Spike <aero.spike@btinternet.invalid> wrote:
>>>> Spike <aero.spike@btinternet.invalid> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> And there was a very good TV documentary some time ago that explored the
>>>>> Rockers/Mods seaside excursions, and found from witness statements and
>>>>> police reports that the issue was essentially minor in scale but vastly
>>>>> overblown by the newspapers, doubtless to sell more…newspapers.
>>>>
>>>>> The coffee bar that I and my fellow Rockers used to frequent was also a
>>>>> hangout for Mods. Apart from laughing at their mirror-festooned scooters,
>>>>> there was never any trouble between the two groups.
>>>>
>>>> The motorcycle I rode in those days is still on the vehicle register. It’s
>>>> taxed and doesn’t need an MoT.
>>>>
>>>> It’s worth £shedloads, these days.
>>>
>>> Interesting YouTube video on the events.
>>>
>>> Note the comment “…greatly exaggerated by the press…”, a theme also
>>> mentioned later in the vid.
>>>
>>> (Some slight violence, some great music, some great motorcycles)
>>>
>>> <https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=2GbPUB1VePA>
>>
>> “…[the media] would publish deceptive headlines, such as using a subheading
>> "Violence", even when the article reported that there was no violence at
>> all”
>>
>> Still rife today in the media
>>
>> QUOTE
>>
>> The sociologist Stanley Cohen was led by his retrospective study of the
>> mods and rockers conflict to develop the term "moral panic". In his 1972
>> study Folk Devils and Moral Panics,[7] he examined media coverage of the
>> mod and rocker riots in the 1960s.[9] He concedes that mods and rockers had
>> some fights in the mid-1960s, but argues that they were no different from
>> the evening brawls that occurred between youths throughout the 1950s and
>> early 1960s at seaside resorts and after football games. He argues that the
>> UK media turned the mod subculture into a symbol of delinquent and deviant
>> status.[10]
>>
>> Cohen argues that as media hysteria about knife-wielding mods increased,
>> the image of a fur-collared anorak and scooter would "stimulate hostile and
>> punitive reactions".[11] He says the media used possibly faked interviews
>> with supposed rockers such as "Mick the Wild One".[12] The media also tried
>> to exploit accidents that were unrelated to mod-rocker violence, such as an
>> accidental drowning of a youth, which resulted in the headline "Mod Dead in
>> Sea".[13]
>>
>> Eventually, when the media ran out of real fights to report, they would
>> publish deceptive headlines, such as using a subheading "Violence", even
>> when the article reported that there was no violence at all.[10] Newspaper
>> writers also began to associate mods and rockers with various social
>> issues, such as teen pregnancy, contraceptives, amphetamines, and
>> violence.[7]
>>
>> ENDQUOTE
>>
>> from
>>
>> <https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mods_and_rockers>
>
> QUOTE
>
> Fifty years ago this month, on the Whitsun weekend of the 16-18 May 1964,
> the youth of Britain went mad. If you believed the newspapers, that is, who
> went with screaming headlines like ‘Battle of Brighton’, and ‘Wild Ones
> 'Beat Up' Margate’ . Editorials fulminated with predictions of national
> collapse, referring to the youths as 'those vermin' and 'mutated locusts
> wreaking untold havoc on the land'.

> Whitsun 1964 has become famous as the peak of the Mods and Rockers riots,
> as large groups of teenagers committed mayhem on the rain-swept streets of
> southern resorts like Margate, Brighton, Clacton and Bournemouth.
> Extensively photographed and publicised at the time, these disturbances
> have entered pop folklore: proudly emblazoned on sites about Mod culture
> and expensively recreated in the 1979 film Quadrophenia.

> Yet, as ever when you're dealing with tabloid newspapers, things are not
> quite what they seemed. What was trumpeted as a vicious exercise in
> national degeneration was to some extent, pre-hyped by the press. It was
> also not as all-encompassing as the headlines suggested: although an
> estimated 1,000 youths were involved in the Brighton disturbances, there
> were only 76 arrests. In Margate, there were an estimated 400 youths
> involved, with 64 arrests. While unpleasant and oppressive, this was hardly
> a teen take-over.

> ENDQUOTE

> <https://www.bbc.com/culture/article/20140515-when-two-tribes-went-to-war>

QUOTE

MODS AND ROCKERS ROOTS

Any discussion of Mods and Rockers must also include discussion of the
Teddy Boys and Teddy Girls. This segment of the British youth subculture
developed after World War II — it predates the Mods and Rockers. Curiously,
the Teddy Boys (and Girls) are seen as the spiritual ancestors of both Mods
and Rockers.

The curious and somewhat confusing mix of various gang-like youth
subcultures in the late 1950s in Britain plays a role in the
youth-exploitation film Beat Girl. In this 1960 movie — which starred
Christopher Lee, Oliver Reed, Gillian Hills, Adam Faith, and Noëlle Adam —
one can see elements of the developing Mod culture (the jazz-loving,
coffee-bar teen group represented by Faith’s, Hills’s, and Reed’s
characters) and a touch of the developing Rocker culture (in the form of a
large, American-style car that is used in one sequence from the film, and
hair styles worn by some of the minor young male characters). Near the end
of the film, a group of Teddy Boys destroy Faith’s sports car. It is
interesting to note that the nascent Mods and Rockers of the film seem not
to be in conflict with each other, or at least not nearly as much as the
“Teds” (as Faith’s character, Dave, calls them) are in conflict with these
newer groups.

ENDQUOTE

<http://subcultureslist.com/mods-and-rockers/>

--
Spike

Mark my words, between now and next April (forty years since the infamous ‘Rivers of Blood’ speech) we are going to witness a rehabilitation of Enoch Powell. It has already begun. Television companies are busy preparing those in-depth, talking-head documentaries, radio programmes are taking him up on spots where listeners can suggest the subjects, columnists are at the ready.

In the last two months, Simon Heffer and Michael Portillo have provided the redemption songs. Simon Heffer is one of Powell’s biographers and quite clearly besotted with the man he terms ‘the most influential politician of the post-war period’. He is furious about the removal of ‘racist’ Nigel Hastilow as Tory candidate for Halesowen (because he said Powell was right on immigration), if only for the slur on Powell. For Powell was, according to Heffer, no racist. He ‘was as much a racist as Mother Teresa of Calcutta’, he writes (in the Telegraph on 7 November in an article titled ‘When will Tories admit that Enoch was right?’). Read the ‘Rivers of Blood’ speech, he urges people, you won’t find the word ‘race’ used once. Heffer seems to rise in defence of Powell at every turn. On a recent Radio Four programme he cavilled about whether Powell advocated repatriation. Compulsory repatriation, he asserted, was the programme of the National Front, not of Powell. And Powell’s reputation as a racist populist was probably created by the popularity of the Alf Garnet character (in ‘Till Death us do Part’).

Portillo’s line (in the Sunday Times of 2 September) is that nothing has transformed post-war Britain as much as immigration. And yet politicians are, because of Powell’s bombshell, not allowed to discuss it. ‘His choice of language was explosive’, ‘his foreboding’ was ‘apocalyptic’ but Powell’s choice of subject – immigration – was quite right then and he is still proved right today by contemporary immigration issues. In other words the message was right, but the medium was wrong.
The medium was the message

On the contrary, the medium was the message. It was the way that he talked, the metaphors he chose, the cadences and rhythms, the apocryphal stories from constituents, the references to personal responsibility, the quotations, the blood and gore, appeal to buried feelings of folklorishness, that made his speeches on ‘race’ (there were in fact three in 1968 and many beyond) so momentous and resonant. The medium was the message, and the message became, to mix a metaphor, a self-fulfilling prophecy.

The point that is missed by almost every commentator to date is that Powell, though he might have echoed sentiments of his West Midlands voters, actually went on to create the Rivers of Blood he warned against. The blood shed was not that of the White English – clearly what Powell feared in the wake of US ‘race riots’ in the late 1960s – but of the Black newcomers, which is why it went largely unreported. For following every speech by Powell on immigration, came alarmist newspaper headlines, followed by a spate of attacks on immigrants – mostly Asians – in the poorer areas of inner cities. Much of what became known as Paki-bashing can be traced to the impact of his speeches. For example after the April 1968 speech, a gang of white youths armed with bars attacked Asian youths outside a Southall school and attacks were reported in London’s East End. Some eight years later, Powell still had a similar impact.. After ‘leaking’ in June 1976 in a Commons speech, a supposedly ‘suppressed’ Foreign Office report on ‘bogus’ dependants and wives from the Asian subcontinent, which was then headlined in the Daily Express and the Mirror, a series of serious attacks took place. A West Indian mother in Poplar was attacked, two students – one Indian, one Jordanian – were stabbed to death in Woodford, a pregnant West Indian woman was kicked on the street by police in Brixton and an Asian youth was stabbed to death by a White gang in Southall.

Much space has been given over to working out Powell’s motives and no doubt there will be more of it in the lead-up to April 2008. Was he an opportunist? Why did he wait so long to speak out on the subject? Was he a lover of Empire or of Little England or of both? Was he a hypocrite, since he had ‘imported’ foreign nurses when a health minister? Did the people he quoted in his speeches actually ever exist? Was he just influenced by events in the USA, was it the imminent race relations act or perhaps the spectre of thousands of East African Asian immigrants? Was it because his Sikh constituents refused to remove their turbans when working in the transport industry? Was it because he had squandered his hopes of ‘legitimate’ political advancement? Was it to get even with Tory colleagues he despised? Was he sincere in what he said? …. and so on. Really it matters not a jot. In the final analysis it was his impact, not his motives, that mattered.
Racism is what racism does

‘Racism is as racism does,’ wrote A. Sivanandan. ‘Enoch Powell changed the parameters of the race debate in Britain both in Parliament and in the country at large, and gave a fillip to popular racism that made the lives of black people hell. He brought scholarship and reason to white working-class fears and prejudices and, by stirring up the basest emotions with messianic oratory, drove London dockers and meat porters to march on Parliament to demand the immediate repatriation of ‘the coloureds’, who were taking their jobs, their homes, their daughters … He took the shame out of middle-class racism … and to the genteel racism of the haute bourgeoisie, he brought the comforting message that … there were still the lesser breeds.’

At the parliamentary political level Powell institutionalised what became known as the ‘numbers game’. His emphasis on numbers – how many immigrants were coming in, how many dependants were coming, how fast they were breeding and how fast dependants would breed – was to lead to the Dutch auction between the two main parties as to which could be tougher on keeping numbers down. As Sivanandan went on to say, ‘What Powell says today, the Tories say tomorrow and Labour legislates on the day after.’

But let us do what Heffer urges and examine that April 1968 Birmingham speech because it is most instructive. Of course he is right in that you won’t find the word racism there at all. (The extreme Right always argues on the basis that to prove racism one must show a biological inferiority argument akin to a fascist belief.) And of course you find the basis of the numbers game, which was to dominate politics for the next decades. But, interestingly, what one also finds are the racist arguments that the far Right, especially the Thatcherites, were to enunciate years later.
Powell fixed all the new racist arguments

Firstly: integration is impossible. ‘To imagine that [the idea of integration] enters the heads of a great and growing number of immigrants … is a ludicrous misconception and a dangerous one’. Why? Because they insist on keeping their customs. Powell actually means assimilation when he says integration and goes on to quote approvingly John Stonehouse who bemoans the Sikhs’ ‘campaign to maintain customs inappropriate in Britain … [for] to claim communal rights … leads to a dangerous fragmentation within society.’ Not only are the immigrants opposed to ‘integration’ but also ‘their numbers and physical concentration’ mean ‘the pressures towards integration which normally bear upon any small minority do not operate.’

Second: lack of integration will naturally lead to race hatred. ‘That tragic and intractable phenomenon which we watch with horror on the other side of the Atlantic … is coming upon us here by our own volition and our own neglect.’

Third: Whites are the real, effective victims three-times over – by being robbed physically, culturally and morally. They were suffering shortages in their own areas. ‘They found their wives unable to obtain hospital beds in childbirth, their children unable to obtain school places.’ And ‘They found themselves made strangers in their own country’. ‘Whole areas, towns and parts of towns in England will be occupied by sections of the immigrant and immigrant-descended population.’ White ‘homes and neighbourhoods [were] changed beyond recognition’. Whites felt that their land had been taken away from them. ‘The discrimination and the deprivation, the sense of alarm and of resentment, lies not with the immigrant population but with those among whom they have come.’ But they were also to be victimised by race laws that trammelled personal freedom. By proposing legislation against racial discrimination, ‘the citizen’ said Powell, was ‘denied his right to discriminate’ and ‘the immigrant’ would ‘be elevated into a privileged or special class’ for it gave ‘the stranger, the disgruntled and the agent-provocateur the power to pillory them for their private actions.’ In fact ‘the black man [would] have the whip hand over the white man’.

Fourth: immigration was a grand conspiracy. It had taken place behind the backs and without the consent of the British people. ‘For reasons which they could not comprehend and in pursuance of a decision by default, upon which they were never consulted.’

Fifth: the answer had to be reducing numbers. And this would be achieved by ‘promoting the maximum outflow’ by ‘the encouragement of re-emigration’. Powell’s assertion in the speech that he was merely advocating current Tory policy was untrue. He was actually the first front bench politician to talk about sending people back – even if he did not use the word repatriation (until his Eastbourne speech in November 1968).

Spike <aero.spike@btinternet.invalid> wrote:
> Spike <aero.spike@btinternet.invalid> wrote:
>> Spike <aero.spike@btinternet.invalid> wrote:
>>> Spike <aero.spike@btinternet.invalid> wrote:
>>>> Spike <aero.spike@btinternet.invalid> wrote:
>>>>> Spike <aero.spike@btinternet.invalid> wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>> And there was a very good TV documentary some time ago that explored the
>>>>>> Rockers/Mods seaside excursions, and found from witness statements and
>>>>>> police reports that the issue was essentially minor in scale but vastly
>>>>>> overblown by the newspapers, doubtless to sell more…newspapers.
>>>>>
>>>>>> The coffee bar that I and my fellow Rockers used to frequent was also a
>>>>>> hangout for Mods. Apart from laughing at their mirror-festooned scooters,
>>>>>> there was never any trouble between the two groups.
>>>>>
>>>>> The motorcycle I rode in those days is still on the vehicle register. It’s
>>>>> taxed and doesn’t need an MoT.
>>>>>
>>>>> It’s worth £shedloads, these days.
>>>>
>>>> Interesting YouTube video on the events.
>>>>
>>>> Note the comment “…greatly exaggerated by the press…”, a theme also
>>>> mentioned later in the vid.
>>>>
>>>> (Some slight violence, some great music, some great motorcycles)
>>>>
>>>> <https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=2GbPUB1VePA>
>>>
>>> “…[the media] would publish deceptive headlines, such as using a subheading
>>> "Violence", even when the article reported that there was no violence at
>>> all”
>>>
>>> Still rife today in the media
>>>
>>> QUOTE
>>>
>>> The sociologist Stanley Cohen was led by his retrospective study of the
>>> mods and rockers conflict to develop the term "moral panic". In his 1972
>>> study Folk Devils and Moral Panics,[7] he examined media coverage of the
>>> mod and rocker riots in the 1960s.[9] He concedes that mods and rockers had
>>> some fights in the mid-1960s, but argues that they were no different from
>>> the evening brawls that occurred between youths throughout the 1950s and
>>> early 1960s at seaside resorts and after football games. He argues that the
>>> UK media turned the mod subculture into a symbol of delinquent and deviant
>>> status.[10]
>>>
>>> Cohen argues that as media hysteria about knife-wielding mods increased,
>>> the image of a fur-collared anorak and scooter would "stimulate hostile and
>>> punitive reactions".[11] He says the media used possibly faked interviews
>>> with supposed rockers such as "Mick the Wild One".[12] The media also tried
>>> to exploit accidents that were unrelated to mod-rocker violence, such as an
>>> accidental drowning of a youth, which resulted in the headline "Mod Dead in
>>> Sea".[13]
>>>
>>> Eventually, when the media ran out of real fights to report, they would
>>> publish deceptive headlines, such as using a subheading "Violence", even
>>> when the article reported that there was no violence at all.[10] Newspaper
>>> writers also began to associate mods and rockers with various social
>>> issues, such as teen pregnancy, contraceptives, amphetamines, and
>>> violence.[7]
>>>
>>> ENDQUOTE
>>>
>>> from
>>>
>>> <https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mods_and_rockers>
>>
>> QUOTE
>>
>> Fifty years ago this month, on the Whitsun weekend of the 16-18 May 1964,
>> the youth of Britain went mad. If you believed the newspapers, that is, who
>> went with screaming headlines like ‘Battle of Brighton’, and ‘Wild Ones
>> 'Beat Up' Margate’ . Editorials fulminated with predictions of national
>> collapse, referring to the youths as 'those vermin' and 'mutated locusts
>> wreaking untold havoc on the land'.
>
>> Whitsun 1964 has become famous as the peak of the Mods and Rockers riots,
>> as large groups of teenagers committed mayhem on the rain-swept streets of
>> southern resorts like Margate, Brighton, Clacton and Bournemouth.
>> Extensively photographed and publicised at the time, these disturbances
>> have entered pop folklore: proudly emblazoned on sites about Mod culture
>> and expensively recreated in the 1979 film Quadrophenia.
>
>> Yet, as ever when you're dealing with tabloid newspapers, things are not
>> quite what they seemed. What was trumpeted as a vicious exercise in
>> national degeneration was to some extent, pre-hyped by the press. It was
>> also not as all-encompassing as the headlines suggested: although an
>> estimated 1,000 youths were involved in the Brighton disturbances, there
>> were only 76 arrests. In Margate, there were an estimated 400 youths
>> involved, with 64 arrests. While unpleasant and oppressive, this was hardly
>> a teen take-over.
>
>> ENDQUOTE
>
>> <https://www.bbc.com/culture/article/20140515-when-two-tribes-went-to-war>
>
> QUOTE
>
> MODS AND ROCKERS ROOTS
>
> Any discussion of Mods and Rockers must also include discussion of the
> Teddy Boys and Teddy Girls. This segment of the British youth subculture
> developed after World War II — it predates the Mods and Rockers. Curiously,
> the Teddy Boys (and Girls) are seen as the spiritual ancestors of both Mods
> and Rockers.
>
> The curious and somewhat confusing mix of various gang-like youth
> subcultures in the late 1950s in Britain plays a role in the
> youth-exploitation film Beat Girl. In this 1960 movie — which starred
> Christopher Lee, Oliver Reed, Gillian Hills, Adam Faith, and Noëlle Adam —
> one can see elements of the developing Mod culture (the jazz-loving,
> coffee-bar teen group represented by Faith’s, Hills’s, and Reed’s
> characters) and a touch of the developing Rocker culture (in the form of a
> large, American-style car that is used in one sequence from the film, and
> hair styles worn by some of the minor young male characters). Near the end
> of the film, a group of Teddy Boys destroy Faith’s sports car. It is
> interesting to note that the nascent Mods and Rockers of the film seem not
> to be in conflict with each other, or at least not nearly as much as the
> “Teds” (as Faith’s character, Dave, calls them) are in conflict with these
> newer groups.
>
> ENDQUOTE
>
> <http://subcultureslist.com/mods-and-rockers/>

QUOTE

MODS AND ROCKERS AS WORKING CLASS YOUTH SUBCULTURE

While not detailed the Mods and Rockers per se — they are being used
primarily as a metaphor for the changing aesthetics in British youth
culture from the 1950s to the early 1960s — it is important to note that
sociologists have determined that despite their outward differences (hair,
dress, mode of transportation, and so on) the groups share several crucial
links. For one thing, members of the youth gangs of the 1950s and early
1960s tended to be working class. And, although some members of the gangs
described themselves as middle class, very rarely were Britain’s upper
social and economic classes represented in the Mods or Rockers. Likewise,
we shall see that skiffle and rock musicians that sprang up within British
youth culture in the 1950s and early 1960s also tended to come from the
working class.

ENDQUOTE

<http://subcultureslist.com/mods-and-rockers/>

--
Spike

But those changes alone don't make 2014 Ukip racist, do they? "The de facto leader of Ukip since 1999 has been a racist political failure," Sked counters. He means, of course, Nigel Farage. But even if Farage's recent statements about not wanting to live next door to Romanians suggest he is xenophobic, is there any proof he was racist when he and Sked worked together in the mid-1990s? Sked laughs at the question and recalls an incident from 1997 when the two men were arguing over the kind of candidates that Ukip should have standing at the looming general election. "He wanted ex-National Front candidates to run and I said, 'I'm not sure about that,' and he said, 'There's no need to worry about the nigger vote. The nig-nogs will never vote for us.'"

How did Sked feel to hear such language? Who uses such racist words unless they think they're addressing a fellow racist or suspects they can co-opt the hearer into sharing their racist agenda? Sked shakes his head. "I was shocked," he says. "I had never heard people use those words. At the time, others thought he was being funny. I didn't. They showed what kind of man he is."

Sked argues that far-rightwingers who have worked for the National Front in the past now work for Ukip. "If he [Farage] runs in South Thanet, his agent will be a man called Heale who was a National Front organiser in west London." Sked means Martyn Heale, Ukip's branch chairman in Thanet and former National Front branch organiser in Hammersmith. It was after Sked left that he was allowed to join Ukip, rising to become Farage's election agent in the 2005 general election.

"The party I founded has become a Frankenstein's monster," sighs Sked. "When I was leader, we wouldn't send MEPs to Europe because we didn't want to legitimise it. My policy was that if we were forced to take the salaries, we would give them to the National Health Service – they wouldn't be taken by the party or individuals. Now Ukip say they're against welfare cheats coming from eastern Europe, but in fact they're the welfare cheats."

Sked's suggestion is that Ukip MEPs do little to no work in Strasbourg and Brussels but take as much public money as possible in the form of salaries and, especially, expenses.

"They do nothing in the European parliament and take the money. They're no better than these people on [Channel 4 documentary series] Benefits Street. Farage has become a millionaire from expenses." Farage, of course, told foreign journalists in 2009 that he'd taken £2 million of taxpayers' money in expenses and allowances as an MEP on top of his £64,000-a-year salary. "There's no reason to vote for Ukip," says Sked, "because if they believed in what they said they wouldn't be there."

Spike <aero.spike@btinternet.invalid> wrote:
> Spike <aero.spike@btinternet.invalid> wrote:
>> Spike <aero.spike@btinternet.invalid> wrote:
>>> Spike <aero.spike@btinternet.invalid> wrote:
>>>> Spike <aero.spike@btinternet.invalid> wrote:
>>>>> Spike <aero.spike@btinternet.invalid> wrote:
>>>>>> Spike <aero.spike@btinternet.invalid> wrote:
>>>>>>
>>>>>>> And there was a very good TV documentary some time ago that explored the
>>>>>>> Rockers/Mods seaside excursions, and found from witness statements and
>>>>>>> police reports that the issue was essentially minor in scale but vastly
>>>>>>> overblown by the newspapers, doubtless to sell more…newspapers.
>>>>>>
>>>>>>> The coffee bar that I and my fellow Rockers used to frequent was also a
>>>>>>> hangout for Mods. Apart from laughing at their mirror-festooned scooters,
>>>>>>> there was never any trouble between the two groups.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> The motorcycle I rode in those days is still on the vehicle register. It’s
>>>>>> taxed and doesn’t need an MoT.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> It’s worth £shedloads, these days.
>>>>>
>>>>> Interesting YouTube video on the events.
>>>>>
>>>>> Note the comment “…greatly exaggerated by the press…”, a theme also
>>>>> mentioned later in the vid.
>>>>>
>>>>> (Some slight violence, some great music, some great motorcycles)
>>>>>
>>>>> <https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=2GbPUB1VePA>
>>>>
>>>> “…[the media] would publish deceptive headlines, such as using a subheading
>>>> "Violence", even when the article reported that there was no violence at
>>>> all”
>>>>
>>>> Still rife today in the media
>>>>
>>>> QUOTE
>>>>
>>>> The sociologist Stanley Cohen was led by his retrospective study of the
>>>> mods and rockers conflict to develop the term "moral panic". In his 1972
>>>> study Folk Devils and Moral Panics,[7] he examined media coverage of the
>>>> mod and rocker riots in the 1960s.[9] He concedes that mods and rockers had
>>>> some fights in the mid-1960s, but argues that they were no different from
>>>> the evening brawls that occurred between youths throughout the 1950s and
>>>> early 1960s at seaside resorts and after football games. He argues that the
>>>> UK media turned the mod subculture into a symbol of delinquent and deviant
>>>> status.[10]
>>>>
>>>> Cohen argues that as media hysteria about knife-wielding mods increased,
>>>> the image of a fur-collared anorak and scooter would "stimulate hostile and
>>>> punitive reactions".[11] He says the media used possibly faked interviews
>>>> with supposed rockers such as "Mick the Wild One".[12] The media also tried
>>>> to exploit accidents that were unrelated to mod-rocker violence, such as an
>>>> accidental drowning of a youth, which resulted in the headline "Mod Dead in
>>>> Sea".[13]
>>>>
>>>> Eventually, when the media ran out of real fights to report, they would
>>>> publish deceptive headlines, such as using a subheading "Violence", even
>>>> when the article reported that there was no violence at all.[10] Newspaper
>>>> writers also began to associate mods and rockers with various social
>>>> issues, such as teen pregnancy, contraceptives, amphetamines, and
>>>> violence.[7]
>>>>
>>>> ENDQUOTE
>>>>
>>>> from
>>>>
>>>> <https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mods_and_rockers>
>>>
>>> QUOTE
>>>
>>> Fifty years ago this month, on the Whitsun weekend of the 16-18 May 1964,
>>> the youth of Britain went mad. If you believed the newspapers, that is, who
>>> went with screaming headlines like ‘Battle of Brighton’, and ‘Wild Ones
>>> 'Beat Up' Margate’ . Editorials fulminated with predictions of national
>>> collapse, referring to the youths as 'those vermin' and 'mutated locusts
>>> wreaking untold havoc on the land'.
>>
>>> Whitsun 1964 has become famous as the peak of the Mods and Rockers riots,
>>> as large groups of teenagers committed mayhem on the rain-swept streets of
>>> southern resorts like Margate, Brighton, Clacton and Bournemouth.
>>> Extensively photographed and publicised at the time, these disturbances
>>> have entered pop folklore: proudly emblazoned on sites about Mod culture
>>> and expensively recreated in the 1979 film Quadrophenia.
>>
>>> Yet, as ever when you're dealing with tabloid newspapers, things are not
>>> quite what they seemed. What was trumpeted as a vicious exercise in
>>> national degeneration was to some extent, pre-hyped by the press. It was
>>> also not as all-encompassing as the headlines suggested: although an
>>> estimated 1,000 youths were involved in the Brighton disturbances, there
>>> were only 76 arrests. In Margate, there were an estimated 400 youths
>>> involved, with 64 arrests. While unpleasant and oppressive, this was hardly
>>> a teen take-over.
>>
>>> ENDQUOTE
>>
>>> <https://www.bbc.com/culture/article/20140515-when-two-tribes-went-to-war>
>>
>> QUOTE
>>
>> MODS AND ROCKERS ROOTS
>>
>> Any discussion of Mods and Rockers must also include discussion of the
>> Teddy Boys and Teddy Girls. This segment of the British youth subculture
>> developed after World War II — it predates the Mods and Rockers. Curiously,
>> the Teddy Boys (and Girls) are seen as the spiritual ancestors of both Mods
>> and Rockers.
>>
>> The curious and somewhat confusing mix of various gang-like youth
>> subcultures in the late 1950s in Britain plays a role in the
>> youth-exploitation film Beat Girl. In this 1960 movie — which starred
>> Christopher Lee, Oliver Reed, Gillian Hills, Adam Faith, and Noëlle Adam —
>> one can see elements of the developing Mod culture (the jazz-loving,
>> coffee-bar teen group represented by Faith’s, Hills’s, and Reed’s
>> characters) and a touch of the developing Rocker culture (in the form of a
>> large, American-style car that is used in one sequence from the film, and
>> hair styles worn by some of the minor young male characters). Near the end
>> of the film, a group of Teddy Boys destroy Faith’s sports car. It is
>> interesting to note that the nascent Mods and Rockers of the film seem not
>> to be in conflict with each other, or at least not nearly as much as the
>> “Teds” (as Faith’s character, Dave, calls them) are in conflict with these
>> newer groups.
>>
>> ENDQUOTE
>>
>> <http://subcultureslist.com/mods-and-rockers/>
>
> QUOTE
>
> MODS AND ROCKERS AS WORKING CLASS YOUTH SUBCULTURE
>
> While not detailed the Mods and Rockers per se — they are being used
> primarily as a metaphor for the changing aesthetics in British youth
> culture from the 1950s to the early 1960s — it is important to note that
> sociologists have determined that despite their outward differences (hair,
> dress, mode of transportation, and so on) the groups share several crucial
> links. For one thing, members of the youth gangs of the 1950s and early
> 1960s tended to be working class. And, although some members of the gangs
> described themselves as middle class, very rarely were Britain’s upper
> social and economic classes represented in the Mods or Rockers. Likewise,
> we shall see that skiffle and rock musicians that sprang up within British
> youth culture in the 1950s and early 1960s also tended to come from the
> working class.
>
> ENDQUOTE
>
> <http://subcultureslist.com/mods-and-rockers/>

QUOTE

TEDDY GIRLS

Teddy Girls also known as Judies, a little-known aspect of the more
well-known Teddy Boys subculture, were working class Londoners, some of
them Irish immigrants, who dressed in neo-Edwardian fashions. The Teddy
Girls were the first British female youth subculture. Teddy Girls as a
group remain historically almost invisible, not many photos were taken,
only one article was published in the 1950s about Teddy Girls, as they were
considered less interesting than the Teddy Boys.