On Monday, Derby Stand Up To Racism campaign had its launch meeting at The Spot in Derby.
It was a great, lively start to this new group. Stand Up To Racism is a national campaign, which is seeing new groups starting up across the country.
In Derby the initial stimulus has been a series of aggressive attempts by far-right Nazi group Britain First to control the streets on their visits to Derby, first by intimidating passers-by on St Peter's St but also by their attempts to disrupt the peaceful and inclusive actions of groups like Stop the War and the International Women's Day festival. Although small in numbers they are hardcore Nazis who want to disrupt and threaten our communities in Derby wherever they can. Almost everyone we have spoken to when campaigning against them has been outraged by their daring to come to our city - but until we mount effective, large opposition to them they will feel that they can come back. We have seen the start of this with the increasingly large vigils against them, but Stand Up To Racism can become a broad group that includes people from every community in Derby who want to make sure the Nazis know that they are not welcome here.
In the SWP we have a proud tradition of defeating Nazis like Britain First by working with others to help build large, broad and peaceful movements that counter fascists on whatever streets they appear. Fascists always want to control the streets - they want people to be afraid to be out in public with views that they don't like - and if you don't hate people because of their religion, gender or sexuality, or you want to see a better fairer world, that includes YOU!
What our experience shows us is that just because we live in a society that feeds us racist lies from the top, and just because there are always some who feed off those lies, it doesn't mean that fascists will inevitably grow. They can be countered and have been. We do it by working together, by being united, and by defending communities that come under attack. And we do it by defending our ideas - many of us are proud to be part of a multicultural society, know that people should be judged, to paraphrase Dr King, not by the colour of their skin, the country where they were born or their place of worship, but by the content of their character.
Comrades in the SWP are proud to have taken a role in organising the first Stand Up To Racism meeting. It was a good sized meeting - around 50 people turned out on a dark, wet Monday in January, and the SWP are proud to have been in the minority that night. We hope to continue to be in the minority in the steering group and in future events which Stand Up To Racism organises!
There were people from some of our Christian and Muslim communities, experienced anti-racist campaigners, people from a range of political parties including Labour and the Greens, and people from no party or faith at all.
The panel included Vanessa, who is an experienced organiser and activist and the driving force behind Derby International Women's Day Festival which was attacked by Britain First last year; Joginder, representing the Indian Workers' Association, who shared her perspectives on the nature of racism, both direct and indirect in Britain; and Mohsin, imam of Western Road mosque, who spoke passionately about the absolutely anti-racist teachings of Islam. Many people signed up to the campaign and to take part in organising it in future, and lots of future events and activities were discussed.
Stand Up To Racism offers real possibilities to build a campaign which not only tackles fascists like Britain First but stands up proudly for ideas which are under attack from powerful forces at the top of society - that multiculturalism is something to be proud of, not a dirty word; that refugees and migrants are people who deserve the same rights to live and work that the rest of us in the UK would expect; and that for people of all communities, faiths, races, gender and sexuality there is far more that unites us than divides us.
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