With luck, this is going to get published in one of the student magazines, which is why it's a tad more professional than usual. It's here for now, though, so you know what went on. Frustratingly, I can't watch the iplayer at uni - so can't actually see what went down on the show.
You've read enough pro- and anti- arguments in the past months to do without my justification for attending. I'm not without sympathy for the "freedom of speech" position, but allowing a racist organisation to abuse that freedom is the equivalent of a Hollywood Hero letting his Arch-Nemesis go. Noble, but stupid.
I arrived fashionably late at 6:30. Cordoned pickets had been abandoned in favour of clumping in the middle of the road in front of Wood Lane tube station - about 200 people, armed with banners, loudspeakers and copies of the Socialist Worker. A thin neon line stood in front of the wide gates to the BBC building; police dotted the area and attempted to look reasurring. We stood away from the crowd, and watched as they set off red flares then marched down the road from Wood Lane tube towards White City.
I'd been to protests before, notably against Proposition 8 - but that had been 20 terribly polite ex-pats standing outside a building which was closed for the weekend. With the increased scale, it was hard not to be moved by the sense of togetherness - all ages, all backgrounds - even when Stop the War leaflets and SWP banners revealed it was really 500 different shades of opinion which happened to overlap. The Fire Brigade Union and the Southall Black Sisters, SOAS and Goldsmiths, girls who looked like they'd lost their way to Glastonbury and a man in a Hitler costume. One woman carried a sign reading: "proud to have mixed race parents, proud of my mixed race child" - another, whose parents had died at Auschwitz, had an information board.
I made friends with some members of the crowd. One told me about when Diane Abbot went on Question Time - no one remembered what she said, only the symbolic value of a black woman being invited there for the first time. And by extention, that same boost will now be given to the BNP. Another, an Italian woman, compared the situation to the way fascism has crept back into the politics of her own country, and described how a heavily controlled media now prevented normal folk from engaging with serious problems.
Standing in that crowd was like being hardwired into Twitter. I missed the moment 25 protesters - including, I hear, some from my university - broke through into the building, but I'd got all the details within minutes of arriving. By the time it reached me, they hadn't just been removed by private security, but beaten up by Fascist Thugs and Establishment Tools. No one knew when the program was being filmed - I even heard a rumour it had been cancelled - nor when figures would be entering or leaving the building. Were I Nick Griffin, I'd have brought a sleeping bag and brought sandwiches (or the blood of babes, or whatever it is he eats) rather than face the crowds.
After marching down the street, I saw the crowd start to run, accompanied by a flurry of police activity. I stood back to see it vaulting over walls and onto buildings above White City tube station with their banners. Like breaking into the building, I personally thought this was unecessary behavior which did not help anyone's cause - but it highlighted how non-united any demonstration of this scale had to be. For the rest of the evening, a second thin neon line and two police vans barred that weak point also. The crowd calmed for a bit, then wheeled on the front gate again and charged straight at the waiting cops.
I got a constant sense of the infrastructure accompanying a protest, even one which I felt was still quite small. A helicopter buzzed overhead, while there was media everywhere - in vans, on rooftops. I talked to some students with cameras, a friend was interviewed for Canadian telly, and a man standing next to us was reporting into a mobile phone in his best journalistic accent. I couldn't help but feel sorry for the police. It can't be nice being paid to stand, and wait in expectation of being attacked. And despite blocking off the traffic, daily business continued - a queue of audience members waiting to see Piers Morgan ignored and were ignored by the crowd, while BBC employees watched the chaos from the roof of their building. Outside the Tube station, an entrpreneur was selling teas and coffees for 50p.
At around 6, a proper rally began with speakers from union representatives, members of Unite Against Fascism and other MPs. You can imagine exactly what they had to say - the predictable rhetoric - but I still couldn't help but think of my beautiful, multicultural London, and the England I love. The concept of what "English" means is at the heart of this whole nasty business, and it's so much bigger and more wonderful than the Anglo Saxon stereotype peddled by the BNP. To give them any credence, to allow them to profane what England stands for - well, it just wouldn't be cricket. I don't want to live in their "England".
During the speeches, a ripple went through the crowd that the police were about to start kettling the crowd. It was getting dark, and I could see several large clumps of them gearing up for a riot. I retreated to watch the protest from my living room - there's defending your democracy, and then there's getting clobbered. Final score? Eight hundred protesters, twenty-something breakins, six arrests, four ambulences. Increase in racist violence and BNP membership? Let's wait and see.
You've read enough pro- and anti- arguments in the past months to do without my justification for attending. I'm not without sympathy for the "freedom of speech" position, but allowing a racist organisation to abuse that freedom is the equivalent of a Hollywood Hero letting his Arch-Nemesis go. Noble, but stupid.
I arrived fashionably late at 6:30. Cordoned pickets had been abandoned in favour of clumping in the middle of the road in front of Wood Lane tube station - about 200 people, armed with banners, loudspeakers and copies of the Socialist Worker. A thin neon line stood in front of the wide gates to the BBC building; police dotted the area and attempted to look reasurring. We stood away from the crowd, and watched as they set off red flares then marched down the road from Wood Lane tube towards White City.
I'd been to protests before, notably against Proposition 8 - but that had been 20 terribly polite ex-pats standing outside a building which was closed for the weekend. With the increased scale, it was hard not to be moved by the sense of togetherness - all ages, all backgrounds - even when Stop the War leaflets and SWP banners revealed it was really 500 different shades of opinion which happened to overlap. The Fire Brigade Union and the Southall Black Sisters, SOAS and Goldsmiths, girls who looked like they'd lost their way to Glastonbury and a man in a Hitler costume. One woman carried a sign reading: "proud to have mixed race parents, proud of my mixed race child" - another, whose parents had died at Auschwitz, had an information board.
I made friends with some members of the crowd. One told me about when Diane Abbot went on Question Time - no one remembered what she said, only the symbolic value of a black woman being invited there for the first time. And by extention, that same boost will now be given to the BNP. Another, an Italian woman, compared the situation to the way fascism has crept back into the politics of her own country, and described how a heavily controlled media now prevented normal folk from engaging with serious problems.
Standing in that crowd was like being hardwired into Twitter. I missed the moment 25 protesters - including, I hear, some from my university - broke through into the building, but I'd got all the details within minutes of arriving. By the time it reached me, they hadn't just been removed by private security, but beaten up by Fascist Thugs and Establishment Tools. No one knew when the program was being filmed - I even heard a rumour it had been cancelled - nor when figures would be entering or leaving the building. Were I Nick Griffin, I'd have brought a sleeping bag and brought sandwiches (or the blood of babes, or whatever it is he eats) rather than face the crowds.
After marching down the street, I saw the crowd start to run, accompanied by a flurry of police activity. I stood back to see it vaulting over walls and onto buildings above White City tube station with their banners. Like breaking into the building, I personally thought this was unecessary behavior which did not help anyone's cause - but it highlighted how non-united any demonstration of this scale had to be. For the rest of the evening, a second thin neon line and two police vans barred that weak point also. The crowd calmed for a bit, then wheeled on the front gate again and charged straight at the waiting cops.
I got a constant sense of the infrastructure accompanying a protest, even one which I felt was still quite small. A helicopter buzzed overhead, while there was media everywhere - in vans, on rooftops. I talked to some students with cameras, a friend was interviewed for Canadian telly, and a man standing next to us was reporting into a mobile phone in his best journalistic accent. I couldn't help but feel sorry for the police. It can't be nice being paid to stand, and wait in expectation of being attacked. And despite blocking off the traffic, daily business continued - a queue of audience members waiting to see Piers Morgan ignored and were ignored by the crowd, while BBC employees watched the chaos from the roof of their building. Outside the Tube station, an entrpreneur was selling teas and coffees for 50p.
At around 6, a proper rally began with speakers from union representatives, members of Unite Against Fascism and other MPs. You can imagine exactly what they had to say - the predictable rhetoric - but I still couldn't help but think of my beautiful, multicultural London, and the England I love. The concept of what "English" means is at the heart of this whole nasty business, and it's so much bigger and more wonderful than the Anglo Saxon stereotype peddled by the BNP. To give them any credence, to allow them to profane what England stands for - well, it just wouldn't be cricket. I don't want to live in their "England".
During the speeches, a ripple went through the crowd that the police were about to start kettling the crowd. It was getting dark, and I could see several large clumps of them gearing up for a riot. I retreated to watch the protest from my living room - there's defending your democracy, and then there's getting clobbered. Final score? Eight hundred protesters, twenty-something breakins, six arrests, four ambulences. Increase in racist violence and BNP membership? Let's wait and see.
Comments (2)
I actually watched half the show until I got bored.The Beeb was a bit naughty in that having taken the plunge and invited the BNP to slink onboard, what transpired was more like a public stoning than an episode of Question Time. And he didn't even say "Jehovah". Most of the comments I saw on the Beeb's blog were sympathetic to his mauling. Better to have had the usual calm(ish) debate on dull subjects like the postal strike. Then we'd have seen if Herr Griffin is more than a one-trick pony. As it was he came across as a bunterish schoolboy, caught out for scoffing all the buns and brought before the school to atone. Better to have allowed some free debate to allow him to put both feet in mouth. There are some real problems to debate. How can you address concerns about mass immigration without being racist or opressing immigrants themselves? We have been robbed of real debate on this issue for 30 years. How can the disaffected traditional white working class be brought back into the mainstream, again? Unless the centre-ish political parties enter mature debate on these issues, people will be drawn to the extrenists. One comforting thought is that an effective fascist party needs a charismatic leader, whereas the BNP have Griffin. 'nuff said.
And I'm nabbing that phrase about the stoning for my student article :)
I felt that too - but as racism is completely irrational, it's hard to argue without getting childish: "Minorities are evil", "you are wrong", "no I'm not", "yes you are". How do you have rational debate with someone whose position is not grounded in the rational? And so it had to descend into namecalling. You're right about focusing on dull policies. Hell, at the end of the day, the BBC cares about its ratings - and it made for very good telvision.
Interestingly, since the showing everyone I know who was pro it being shown thinks the Good Guys came off well, and Griff looked like an idiot. And everyone I know who was anti thinks the opposite.