From Jewish Socialist 55 • Spring 2008

How the east was won

A demonstration in 1978 changed the political contours of London's East End, and for David Rosenberg the carnival's still not over

The most frightening demonstration I remember was in October 1977. The National Front (NF) was at its peak, claiming 20,000 members. Like Mosley's movement before it, its heartland in London were the decaying, deprived areas to the east of the city. The NF were starting to hold more frequent marches in towns and cities up and down the country. But today it was our turn. A coalition of local groups had called a demonstration to support local residents who were refusing to march in (goose) step with the fascists, and to tell them that they were not alone.
The London branch of the Jewish Socialists' Group was in its infancy, but a few of us grouped behind our banner and joined the march. We walked, a few abreast, on one side of the road, through estates completely decked out in Union flags. We tried to reassure each other that these were leftovers from the recent Queen's Jubilee celebrations. That comforting thought was shattered as people appeared on the balconies to rain down insults and abuse on the marchers. As we passed a pub, wave after wave of fascists emerged on to the pavement sieg-heiling, spitting and shouting. As our banner passed they screamed that we were 'going to the gas ovens'. A very thin and rather spread out line of police stood between them and us. The scene was repeated at the next pub too.
At the end of the march we dispersed quite quickly. It felt as if we had made a minor and temporary incursion into enemy territory. There was no doubt that the streets belonged to them, though we had been an irritant that day. Given the abuse we got along the whole route, this wasn't a case of fascists imposing themselves on the community - they clearly were the community and we were on the margins.
On 30th April 1978 we reclaimed the streets. Tens of thousands of anti-fascists filled Trafalgar Square and the streets around, holding lollypop-style placards with 'Anti-Nazi League' and an arrow printed in black and red on a yellow background, or punk pink Rock Against Racism stars. This was not going to be the standard march to Hyde Park, shouting our slogans among the West End tourists. Instead, we were heading five miles east to Victoria Park, where a stage had been set up by Rock Against Racism. Many of the new wave artists who had shaken the music scene - the Clash, X-Ray Specs, Tom Robinson - were going to be there to show their followers that their allegiance was to the cause of anti-racism and anti-fascism.
Mobilisations against the NF had been steadily growing and, the organisers were hopeful that there would be a show of strength by 20,000 anti-fascists. They were taken by surprise. By the time we reached Victoria Park, the crowd had grown to 80,000. On the way, we walked through the very same streets in which we had been so abused and terrified a few months earlier, only this time the streets were ours. And in the narrower streets the march was so dense that we filled the whole road and both pavements.
It was an exhilarating day and, for me, personally, a significant step on a political journey. Most of the anti-fascist demonstrations I had been on up to that point, where we had shouted 'Black and White - Unite and Fight' had been predominantly white, but this one was different. Especially in the park it was clear that this was a black and white demonstration. We were physically expressing our demand for equal rights for all. That was reflected on the stage, too, where Steel Pulse's reggae riffs and the Clash's punk/new wave sounds combined beautifully, and the whole crowd rocked to Tom Robinson's 'Glad to be Gay'.
And the Jews were there tooÉ but not without a fight. Our 'leaders', the Board of Deputies, pulled out all the stops to prevent Jews from supporting the biggest anti-fascist mobilisation in Britain since the 1930s. They claimed that the ANL's leading figures were anti-Zionists and therefore the Jewish community should have nothing to do with them. Effectively, they were saying that it was more important to keep out of range of what someone might say about a conflict 2,000 miles away in the Middle East than to unite here and now with communities that were bearing the brunt of racist attacks from the same forces that were attacking Jews. It seemed a callous and narrow attitude, as well as a self-defeating one.
For several months the letters pages of the Jewish Chronicle were filled with argument and counter argument about this issue. When the ANL held a public meeting in the Jewish heartland of Golders Green, with Jewish speakers on the platform, it was forced to hold it in a Unitarian church. Aubrey Lewis - the Manchester-based founder of the JSG - argued that the Board were not really worried about young Jews becoming enticed by anti-Zionism, they just wanted to keep young Jews away from the Left.
The arguments rumbled on and thankfully many people ignored the Board. When we arrived in Trafalgar square on 30th April, some of the first people we encountered were from left-Zionist groups - Mapam and Habonim. At the time the JSG defined itself as 'non-Zionist' and was closer to these groups than it is now.
I was a young student and not much beyond my own flirtation with Zionist youth movements. Although I was strongly at odds with the Israeli government at the time, and completely opposed to the Occupation, I was not opposed to Jews choosing to 'make aliyah' - going to live in Israel. The ANL experience helped change that and enabled me to make my break with Zionism. It wasn't, as the Board of Deputies seemed to fear, that mixing with anti-Zionists would expose Jews to 'Palestinian propaganda' - my deeper encounter with the Palestinian narrative came later, when I read Edward Said. But what met me immediately through the ANL and through the multi-racial Rock Against Racism movement was the slogan 'Here to stay - here to fight', the polar opposite of the Zionist perspective. On 30th April 1978 I caught a glimpse of how things could be in Britain for black and white, gay and straight, Jews and non-Jews, if we could break down the walls of prejudice. That's where I wanted to stay and that's what I wanted to fight for.