Croydon racist protest outnumbered

A small far right anti-refugee protest in Croydon was outnumbered by opposition on 4th September. Only around 20 racists got it together to turn up at Lunar House (Home Office UK Visas and Immigration HQ), where they complained about being let down by the no shows and being surrounded by anti-fascists numbering between 150-200.

Far right protest on right of picture, anti-fascists on left

'Croydon resists racism... Look around you. Croydon is not full, in fact the only thng it is full of are empty buildings! Yet still people are living on the streets. Our community has the resources to look after refugees alongside people who already live here' 

London Anti Fascist Assembly banner

 

Dub London - nights of raving

'Dub London: Bassline of a city' closed last week at the Museum of London, a small exhibition documenting the impact of reggae sound system culture in the capital. Exhibits included a speaker stack from Channel One sound system, photographs and a vinyl selection provided by London reggae record shops.

 Naturally, South East London featured prominently, with references to the New Cross Fire, the Battle of Lewisham, Jah Shaka and Lewisham's Saxon Studio International sound system.  There was a film of Mad Professor in his Ariwa studio - currently in White Horse Lane SE25, previously in Gautrey Road SE15 (where the recently departed Lee Scratch Perry visited and recorded in the 1980s).

Photo of Saxon Sound in exhibition - taken at Lewisham Riverdale Centre in 1982 it includes Maxi Priest (also Lezlee Lyrix now Prof. William Lez Henry)

My favourite bit was a wallpaper of flyers, many of them from Saxon parties in the 1980s. Lots of South London venues featured in this including:

The Eve Pool Club, 13 Upper Brockley Road Parade

Lewisham Boys Club, 1-9 Horton Street SE13 ('A Saturday Night Jamboree' in May 1982)

Deptford Crypt [St Pauls Church], February 1982 with Saxon, Young Lion and 'Revolutionary A1 sound from Lewisham'.

Club Harmony [aka Harmony Hall], Childers Street, Deptford - Fe.b 1982 'Night of Raving' with Saxon and Sir Coxsone Outernational 

New Moonshot Club, Fordham Park SE14, July 1982 with Saxon and Nasty Rockers from Brixton

51 Lewisham Way - 'Night of Cool Runnings' in March 1982

Dick Sheppard Youth Centre, Tulse Hill SW2

Temple 62, Railton Road SE24 ('Wanna have ah Nice Time? STEP-it down ah Front Line!' with Saxon and Front Line International in 1983)

Late Night Cruise on a boat from Greenwich Pier (the MV Swanage Queen) in June 1982

22 Clyde House, Sumner Road, Peckham

Would be great to hear memories of these nights and others like them.

Extinction Rebellion back on Blackheath - if not now, when?

As part of this month's Extinction Rebellion 'Impossible Rebellion' in London, some supporters have been camping out on Blackheath, as they did in 2019 and as their Climate Camp predecessors did back in 2009.

'If not you, then who? If not now, the when? Demand Climate Action'

'Let's nurse the earth'

'Welcome to Blackheath Camp', a Greenwich XR leaflet, and a flyer promoting demonstration against Silvertown tunnel on 24 September. 

Noticeboard at site with some interesting local history details - the Palatine refugee camp on Blackheath in 1709 (German refugees from war with France); the Women's Suffrage Pilgrimage on Blackheath in 1913 and George Wilson, the 'Blackheath Pedestrian' whose attempt to walk 1000 miles on the Heath in 1815 was scuppered by magistrates.

The camp on Blackheath and associated protests in London demanding action on climate change are expected to continue until end of week beginning 30 August 2021.

 

Music Monday: The Battle of Lewisham 1977

Long time New Cross balladeers Ceri James and Mark Sampson have collaborated on a new single, 'The Battle of Lewisham 1977', released last week on the anniversary of the historic anti-National Front demonstration in New Cross and Lewisham (see lots of previous posts here for background to this)

Syd Shelton's iconic image from the 'Battle of Lewisham' show Darcus Howe with megaphone standing on toilets on Clifton Rise with the (now mostly demolished) Milton Court Estate tower blocks behind him

 Ceri says: 'Our single The Battle of Lewisham 1977 is out today on the 44th anniversary of the protest. Big thank you to everyone who helped out with this track. Lead vocals/guitars Mark Sampson/myself, bass Nathan Persad and drums Andre St. Clair Dyer. Bvs from Nathan, Andre, Alice Renouf, Caffy St Luce, Daryl Castillo, Clare Portman, Mark Salmon, Robert Robertson. NoNameKid for editing and Pat Collier mixing/mastering. Photography by Syd Shelton. All profits go to Love Music Hate Racism'.

The accompanying video features various local faces and was filmed at locations significant on the day, including Clifton Rise SE14 and the Lewisham Clock Tower.

'In Clifton Rise and New Cross Road, many decent people showed, 

to oppose their racialism and far right fascism...

The people united won't be defeated'

New Crass Massahkah on South Bank

Linton Kwesi Johnson’s New Craas Massahkah poem, about the 1981 New Cross Fire, is on display by the South Bank Centre where the track is being played on the hour every hour until the end of August.

 

Women's Day for Disarmament 1983

'Women's Day for Disarmament' took place on May 24 1983, with hundreds of events across Britain. This was the period of the Greenham Common Women's Peace Camp against cruise missiles and the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament was at its height.

In South London events included a temporary peace camp on Clapham Common near to the South London Women's Hospital, which was threatened with closure. South East London Greenham Women put white crosses on Peckham Rye before marching to the Imperial War Museum. Later 5000 women gathered in Trafalgar Square before making a chain around the Ministry of Defence in Whitehall

Socialist Action, 13 May 1983

Socialist Organiser, 26 May 1983

Black Lives Matter in South London, one year on

'ACAB' 'Floyd' - Albert Embankment SE1, April 2021

A year ago today the killing of George Floyd by a police officer in Minneapolis sparked off the latest round of the global Black Lives Matter movement. The UK movement really started off with a march in Peckham on the 30th May and today Black Lives Matter activist Sasha Johnson is in our thoughts, seriously ill in Kings Hospital after being shot in Peckham last weekend. We have covered some of the many protests and posters in South London here before, but a year on here's a few more examples of the visual impact of the movement locally.

'FTP/BLM', Cold Blow Lane SE14

'Black Lives Matter', Hilly Fields

'Abolish the police' - Queens Road, Peckham



Lewisham Way, outside Goldsmiths



'George Floyd' with fist, Barry's Food Store, Barry Road, East Dulwich



'Black Lives Matter - we understand that we will never understand. However, we stand'
(London Theatre, 443 New Cross Road)

'More blacks, more dogs, more Irish' - sticker on Lewisham Way

Black Lives Matter topiary, Brixton end of Dulwich Road

A number of professionally designed posters appeared, including on paid for advertising billboards. The messages and images were sometimes strong, but I did feel uneasy at a kind of marketing style 'aestheticisation of rage.'  

'I can't breathe' - Brockley Cross

'Black British History is British History', Amersham Road SE14

'Bun the Police' - Queens Road station

   

Arguments about appropriate (or even appropriating) imagery came to a head in relation to the use of the instantly iconic photograph of Patrick Hutchinson carrying an injured white man following clashes in London on June 13th. On that day a large number of right wing eejits demonstrated in central London, supposedly to defend statues from Black Lives Matter protestors. They had a punch up with the police and as some warriors of the master race were heading home via Waterloo station they were humiliatingly decked by anti-racists. Dylan Martinez got a great photo of Hutchinson, and this was reproduced all over the place - including on this 'bank note' billboard by Queens Road station, Peckham. 

Soon though people began to question why this image had become so acceptable in mainstream media. It seemed to being used to suggest some cosy reconciliation between racists and their opponents, mediated by the figure of a 'respectable black man'. This was certainly not Hutchinson's intention. In interviews since he has been very clear that racists can't complain if they face the consequences of their words and actions, and his motivation on the day was partly to prevent young black people ending up on serious criminal charges if the guy had ended up  badly injured or worse. 

Local mural artist Lionel Stanhope painted a mural based on Martinez' picture on hoardings in Lewisham in September 2020. Lionel is a good guy and meant well but the critical discussion about the overuse of this image was reaching its zenith. Somebody painted over it 'We don't rescue racists in Lewisham, we run them out'. Soon it was painted out altogether (see discussion at Huffington Post).

Builder Balfour Beatty had allowed the original mural to be painted, along with other street art, on the boards around its property development near Lewisham station. The limits of its tolerance were exposed shortly after when Balfour Beatty painted over a mural opposite the police station in memory of Kevin Clarke who died while being restrained by police in Catford in 2018. A reminder that we have our own George Floyds closer to home who also must not be forgotten.

Lewisham Museums of Migration and Neoliberalism

With museums and galleries reopening let's celebrate two small but perfectly formed and radical museums in the borough of Lewisham, with a few photos from pre-lockdown period.

The Migration Museum

The Migration Museum in Lewisham Shopping Centre reopens on 19th May 2021.

 I visited in that brief inter-lockdown window in Summer 2020 and saw The Singh Twins great artwork 'NHS v. Covid 19: fighting on two fronts' showing an 'an Asian nurse on horseback slaying the Covid-19 dragon' while highlighting 'Britain's historical dependency on people of BAME origin' and the 'labour and resources' of the 'colonised and exploited'

Angelica Dass's humanae is an ongoing attempt 'to document humanity's true colours' in terms of colour tones 'rather than the inaccurate labels... associated with race'

The Museum of Neoliberalism

The Museum of Neoliberalism is in Lee Green at16 Eltham Rd, London SE12 8TF.  It remains closed, but hopes to reopen in July 2021, pandemic permitting.

'The 1970s is a period known for cults, serial killers and the capitalist class becoming organised to defend its interests'

Curated by Darren Cullen and Gavin Grindon it features some highly imaginative exhibits including a Grenfell Tower Cross Section...

...a bottle of Amazon worker's urine and a working model of an Amazon warehouse (sorry fulfilment centre)...

...as well as some interesting toys and games like this Hornby Standing Room Only Passengers set

Music Monday: Elephants and Castles - Song for the Birds

We've featured some of  Elephants and Castles' South London-tinged songs here before, including Concrete Love (filmed in the now vanished Elephant and Castle subways) and The  World's Greatest Complainers, filmed in Jenny's cafe in Deptford.

Their latest single, Song for the Birds, was inspired by hearing birdsong down Deptford High Street during lockdown  'so we wrote a song back to them, trying to explain the shit show they've been looking down on over the past year or so'. The video was filmed in Deptford and Cornwall, featuring the band's Robin Spencer and Chris Anderson, as well as birds including a robin, great tit and waxwing I think. Never seen the latter in SE London, but a quick google search found an old Brockley Central posts with a photo of some in Arklow Road SE14.

You can support them by buying the single at their bandcamp site as well as on iTunes.

In case you missed their earlier lament to the demise of the Elephant and Castle shopping centre and the Heygate Estate, What's Left for Larry and Janet?, here it is:

The Covid Memorial Wall

The National Covid Memorial Wall has been painted over the last month by volunteers along the South Bank of the Thames between Lambeth Bridge and Westminster Bridge, opposite the Houses of Parliament, and including the riverside wall in front of St Thomas' Hospital. There are around 150,000 hearts, each representing one of the UK Covid dead (so far) and many of them dedicated to named individuals. This unofficial memorial was started by people involved with Covid-19 Bereaved Families For Justice UK.

It is hard to do justice to the scale of this monument in photographs, stretching as it does for around 500 metres. I strongly recommend that if you get the chance you visit it yourself.

Harder too to keep a dry eye as you read the names and messages on the wall, and feel a rising sense of sadness and anger.

The impact of Covid is so often rendered as a series of statistics in which the individual lives lost and damaged are rendered invisible, the wall places these lives back at the centre - mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters, grandparents, lovers and friends.

'The UK has one of the highest death tolls in the world. While many have become used to seeing the statistics associated with Covid-19, it is important to remember that each one of these numbers represents a loved person, a life gone too soon and a family torn apart. Our loved ones were not just numbers, but treasured relatives who will be missed forever.

As more and more information comes to light, it has become clear that the UK hasn’t ended up with one of the highest death tolls in the world by coincidence. Gaps in the country’s pandemic preparedness, delays to locking down, inadequate supplies of PPE and the policy of discharging into care homes among other issues have all been identified as having contributed to the level of the death toll. Despite this, the government continues to refer to its ‘apparent success’ and being ‘proud’ of its record. Not only is this deeply hurtful for bereaved families who have already gone through a traumatic loss to hear, but this reluctance to engage honestly with what has gone wrong is a barrier to learning. Every day the government fails to learn lessons, more families are going through the same loss and trauma. It is heart breaking to see the same mistakes repeated over and over'

(Covid 19 Bereaved Families for Justice)

Most of the names on the memorial are of UK dead but good to see acknowledgement too of the global dimension of the pandemic including a heart for Li Wenliang, the Wuhan doctor who was one of the first to raise the alarm about Covid.

'When politicians and experts say that they are willing to allow tens of thousands of premature deaths for the sake of population immunity or in the hope of propping up the economy, is that not premeditated and reckless indifference to human life? If policy failures lead to recurrent and mistimed lockdowns, who is responsible for the resulting non-covid excess deaths? When politicians wilfully neglect scientific advice, international and historical experience, and their own alarming statistics and modelling because to act goes against their political strategy or ideology, is that lawful? Is inaction, action? How big an omission is not acting immediately after the World Health Organization declared a public health emergency of international concern on 30 January 2020? At the very least, covid-19 might be classified as “social murder”'

(Kamran Abbasi, Covid-19: Social murder, they wrote—elected, unaccountable, and unrepentant, British Medical Journal editorial, 4 February 2021)