back on the ball
Finally after months of nothing. A constant stream of
distraction, the death of WAG , the near death of my Dad, the birth of ALARM ,
the birth of 3 babies in my life, finally today I sat down and started work.
The words of Greg the midget film maker still ringing in my
head “when are you going to write that fucking book you lazy shit?” finally dealt
another haunting blow to my endless ability to procrastinate.
I lit up a red pall mall, smoked it as a heard martins words
stirring from my crappy speakers, staring at Canary Warf an its bastard
children the banking towers, a cloud of rain started to move on my block ,
catching my 9th floor windows with a blast of rain.
An I sprang to life, writing about broken legs, car crashes,
sexy nurses, riots, burglary , drugs.
I know Martin better now, so much better, more of an idea
about just how cunning the bastard really is.
An now I’m seeing just how fun it is to write it all down.
From her Majestys subjects
My blogs just lit up, im guessing my interview just went out on dutch radio, hes an bit i wrote for the Whitechapel Anarchist Group with the help of some comrades.
FROM HER SUBJECTS
We oppose the royal family. All this publicity to ‘celebrate the royal wedding’, it rubs us up the wrong way. We hate it. But in the press there’s no reasons coming out as to why people hate the royals.
Here’s why we’re against them.
We often hear how the monarchy have no power, they’re just figureheads. Fuck off. They have more power than me or you, how many doors do you think the name Windsor can open for you? Clegg’s been moaning about sharp elbows recently, well the royals have got diamond tipped razors on their elbows.
Apparently their power is meaningless. Balls. It’s her majesty’s courts, her majesty’s prison service, Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary, her majesty’s armed forces. Even her majesty’s government. And finally us, Her majesty’s subjects.
If you want to have a good look at who controls British society look at the honours lists. Look at the awards handed out from her majesty. Yeah sure there are a few youth workers from Hackney, a dustman from Peckham but the rest are the rich, the powerful. Everyone eventually succumbs, even our cultural rebels; the Rolling Stones, the Beatles, all have bowed in submission to Her. Even Mr Rotten of Pistols fame declared his disappointment at not being invited to play the queen mum’s birthday.
They act as a symbol for conservative values, the family. Blue blooded presiding over all. But it’s all a front, them preaching family values when it’s clear even from a glance that Harry isn’t Charles spawn, the duke’s a racist idiot, and Charles didn’t even have the sense to stop waving as a mob surrounded his car and started booting in the doors last year in London. Diana holds a soft spot in this country’s heart. I like her because she was the only one with enough sense to run like fucking mad from this psychotic family.
The monarchy is the cement that holds the bricks of state together in British society. When you talk about removing it you’re not spoken to seriously. There’s no debate about republicanism, you might get a quick “well the tourists love it” (a bizarre reason to keep a form of rule from the dark ages)
But for the most part you’ll just be called a party pooper, spoiling all the fun.
The fun? People bowing down to this mad shit. We look to the middle east for inspiration, the removal of unelected heads of state that no one thought would fall. Not one person in WAG has ever lived under any rule other than that of her majesty Liz 2. She has been at the centre of state and government for nearly 60 years, we want her gone.
But us wanting her gone is different from what’s being expressed in the name of “anarchy” throughout the mad papers.
The high points so far have been in the Sun and the Standard, where we hear tales of 40,000 anarchists planning to attack the wedding backed up by soldiers. Protesters mingling with families and waiting to attack. This is all bullshit seeping out into the press from the Bolshevik Chris Knight’s camp.
And of course this has fuck all to do with Anarchy.
Some of the biggest lies in the press come from a source from the Standard, a builder, ex-soldier and ‘black bloc’ member revealing all in a shock horror Katie Price-esque story. Scaring the British public with his carrying of a gas mask, catapult and hammer with him on protests. We don’t know whose agenda he’s pushing forward, but it certainly isn’t an anarchist one.
Some of us will probably be out on the day, but not in an official WAG capacity, more to witness the surreal madness of people weeping at the sight of two boring ugly people being chained together in holy matrimony. But a lot of us won’t be there, and couldn’t give less of a shit, why get yourself nicked when all our forces are going to be needed on May 14th to disrupt the right wing gathering under the Rally Against The Debt name. We pick and choose when to come out on the streets and make a nuisance of ourselves, not having the media or police dictate our actions.
Will I hear her howling?
As a child I was told the about a women my Nan saw when she was growing up in Ireland.
My Nan could see her in the bursts of lighting, a women who sat on her own in the rain on a
little rock, combing her long wild grey hair with a broken comb. One of her
eyes was small, and the other large. She sat howling and crying at sky, a sound
of pain and loss, barely human. This she believed this was the banshee. Her cry
is for the dead of your family.
My Nan died on a Easter weekend, there was a storm and my dad said he heard a screaming and howling from outside. Outside our flats was never quite, the rumble of trains, screams
from other flats and the foxes fucking often drifted throughout the night. That’s
what I always through the banshee was, two foxes crying mixed with a late train
in a storm.
8 days ago my dad was taken into hospital. After 20 years of being thirsty his had his last
drink, his body started to give up. A whole in his stomach was patched up by surgeons.
But an infection started to kick his lugs, breathing machine. There’s bile in
his intestines, tubes to take it out. Hearts weak, livers not cleaning, kidneys
aren’t doing their job.
His in intensive care, the whole ward mockingly smells of alcohol rub. He lays unconscious
underneath a robotic archway of breathing machines, monitors, drips, and masks.
His been coupled with this robot since he went in, linked through dozens of
tubes and wires that push fluids in him and then pull them out.
His been sedated for most of the time, when he comes round he shudders to life and rips
the breathing tubes out. So his sedated again and their reinserted.
I’m off to the hospital to see he again tomorrow, I try to go every morning, and now
despite several close calls the nurses say his getting better.
But still my mind is absent,
Ten years ago at my dad sat waiting as his mum struggled to carry on, wondering if he’d hear that women from the storm howl. This Easter I’m wondering the same.
can it be done? post 3.
Can it be done? The first three chapters are done; the monumental task of the rest of the book still waits. But righting a whole book… about someone else’s life?
Every time I re read the three chapters they seem to get worse, my confidence shakes, sure their interesting, but the sentences don’t fit. Or they do then they don’t, they need more bite, more anger, more love. I went back over martins previous books, before I was sure I could outshine them, but now? Fuck, so much in so few words.
Orwell said writing a book is like having a demon inside you, it’s more like constipation, the runniest green’ist shit you’ve ever had filling up every tube in your gut with squelching painful gassy inspiration swishing round and round. And when you squat nothing comes out, well sure every now and again you get a Squirt, but it’s never enough to make you comfortable. You need to be ready to shit at any time, and if you miss your moment by a few second it goes right back up more than happy to fester and brew for a few more months.
Lots changed since I last wrote on this.
Bailiffs came. They smashed the doors, threw people out. But I’d left a week earlier, housing association had sorted me a flat in the East End. Of course I went back to the squats, called the bailiffs out, wound them up (one nearly cried) and got into hassle with the police, it was a nice way to say good bye to squatting.
A flat with stability I fucking loved it, I’d forgotten how squatting takes you away from the real world, I forgot how housing benefit officials can sadistically twist you with bureaucracy , tease you with promises of payment then laugh at you. Squats had dulled me to most people’s living.
I gave up politics, then stated it again with a trip to Birmingham to spend the day intimidating Tory scum at the conference.
I keep changing my life in the hope I can shit out this book better… but I just get confused.
I’m not sure why anyone would read this, the wordpress stats show that people look at the page, but I can’t think why, I guess that’s why I don’t update often, I also got a comment left. It said.
“What a sad pathetic excuse for a man you are, give everyone a break from your self pitying ramblings and give up your blogg.
If your writing thus far is anything to go by, I should give up now and save yourself the humiliation of trying to get the damm thing published (fat chance there).
Why don’t you do something useful with your MA, or better still they need ablebodied men in Afghanistan”
I read this just before I moved.
I don’t have any money and had none for furniture when I was moving to the flat. My neighbour died. He was 87, I had known him since I was 3. He fought in the Second World War. He fought Nazi’s.
He spoke about the War twice in the whole time I knew him, once after Normandy he saw an officer feed his dog steak, their supplies had been delayed and he hadn’t had food that day, he said nothing just walked away. As a kid I couldn’t understand why.
Once I watched him hold an old Lee Enfield rifle and watched him move it with ease, going through his old drill laughing and talking about the guns he’d used, he was 83. He never said anything else about it. At his funeral I was reminded of the saying, an old solider doesn’t die, he just fades away.
His flat was emptied, rather than the furniture going in a skip it came to my flat. I think he would have liked that.
I was thinking about him so I emailed the person that left the above comment calling them a cunt, but the email address linked to their comment wasn’t real. So I’d like to say it here. Fuck you, you cunt. Why don’t you fuck off, you don’t have to come here. You bastard, talking of a battle that never needed to be fought, Happy to send more people off when the ones coming back aren’t taken care of and the ones from the last world war are just left to fade away.
I like to finish off with something Martins written but I can’t be arsed to transcribe an article right now, so here’s something off bones blog- for and about Martin standing in an election next year.
It was 2010.
Vicious government cuts virtually unopposed. Rise of the EDL ineffectually challenged. Fear, alienation,helplessness stalking vast swathes of the population.The anarchist movement petrified, retreating further into sterile lifestylism, deadend activism,internet gazing. We require a daring initiative to break this impasse.
The forthcoming Olympics, the subsequent devastation of our historic and evolving East End, and wrecking of communities needs to be seriously challenged. Reversed. But given previous failings……How?
This meeting is to announce a bold departure. We intend to stand a couple of candidates in the East London super constituencies on an anti-authority populist patform.Obviously not to gain votes but to utilise, in those months before the Olympics, an opportunity to unite all disaffected grass roots groups,isolated individuals, and rebellious elements into a new movement.This will present a unique challenge to those who seek to divide us such as the BNP, EDL and fundamentalists of all stripes.And we shall do this on the streets and in our communities. Come along to challenge or support us in the most controversial and rowdy meeting of the bookfair’.
UAF, the EDL an a little bit of history repeating.
I’m reading Martins old articles, pieces of writing form Class War, Extra, Anarchy and a ton of other Anarchist rags.
The one below seemed relevant. It was written in 1976. It talks about recession, the “Right to Work” campaigns and the problems of the parasitical left. It seemed relevant because were in the same situation today .
Yesterday the EDL were meant to walk through Tower Hamlets to protest against an event being held at the Troxy, they didn’t. They cancelled nearly two weeks ago.
But the UAF, the self appointed organisers of the anti EDL march, had already paid for the flyers, so the march was to happen anyway.
There were 2 weeks of scare mongering, people were told the EDL were coming to town to attack Muslims (even after they’d cancelled)
In this time anyone questing the religious speakers who support anti-Semitism, homophobia, military camps etc that wanted to speak at the Troxy were called Islamophobic and told to join the EDL, apparently you can’t be Antifascist and against the imposing of Shari Law.
Last Tuesday there were rumours that the EDL had come to Whitechapel, raped and murdered and were still in the area. Gangs of masked up kids were on the streets, angry and nervous, wanting to fight these scumbags. Ten men from the racist EDL had appeared and quickly left, but rumours’ were out and tensions were rising.
The UAF continued their rhetoric, calling for a repeat of the ‘Battle of Cable Street’ and at the same time for a peaceful march.
If the EDL had come to town they would have been annihilated. Yesterday I saw real solidarity. The gangs were not fighting, a truce was in place for the day so they could act together against the racist EDL. The march had a few lefties on it but was mainly young, Asian, and angry. Around 3000 pissed off local kids on the streets with about 2000 protesters from other parts of the community. It was pretty good.
My only worry was that at night they would start looking for an enemy that was never going to come here. But they didn’t, seeing their numbers and how organised they were the Police didn’t even try and kettle, or wind up them up.
I walked around all day handing out bust cards (leaflets with stop and search legal advice) and received nothing but good conversation and a bit of banter from the local gangs.
The Unimaginative Arrogant Fuckers or UAF ran away as soon as their rally had ended, back on their coaches to their various universities, or on the tube to Hampstead.
In their time here they did everything they could to stop any working class unity develop, shouting down any questions or attempts at debate. All they wanted was numbers out on the day and drones filling in SWP membership forms.
A local group that was formed (East End United) had at their early meetings mutterings about the group developing into a local campaign to fight the coming cuts to public services. Instead (under SWP coaching) it became the UAF’s East London Branch.
The SWP doesn’t want a strong working class group in the area, if there was one then no one would join up to their recently re-launched “Right to Work” campaign.
What Wankers.
Martin wrote in 1976 “We must guard against the left, who will use “revolutionary” arguments like “we mustn’t do anything premature” or “we can’t do anything without the unions”. When a large scale movement starts, the left parties and the unions will be the most dangerous obstacles.”
He was in his early twenties. He still believes the same today an was also walking around chatting to the young angry locals yesterday.
Anarchy issue 21. price 20p – From the Anarchy Collective, published by Anarchy Magazine
The Right to Work or the Right to Fight to Live
Crisis
Despite the fact that Britain is deep into yet another economic recession, plunging ever further, with rampant unemployment, runaway inflation, massive public spending cuts and Union-Government controlled wage restraint, the most amazing thing about the crisis so far is that there has been no working-class response. When I say this perhaps I’m exaggerating, but on further reflection, perhaps im not. The rumblings of discontent that we have witnessed lately have been an alarming support for the ultra right organisations like the National Front, which can be illustrated by the large number of voters they are picking up in local and by-elections. On the other hand there has been a reaction to the recent racist success, large militant sections of a semi-political immigrant youth are starting to break out of their traditional subservient roles and organising and fighting against their more immediate oppressors, the police and racists. But again, apart from that, there has been no mass working class response to the crisis.
THE LEFT
But what about (for example) the “Right to Work” campaign is not the working-class reply to the crisis- it is that of the left. (You can “fight for the right to work” with the Communist party, International Socialists, Workers Revolutionary Party, the unions, all running their own different campaigns.) What can one say about the “Right to Work” except it’s a cynical attempt by the left parties to mobilise unemployed workers under their banners. Such campaigns themselves are just souped-up versions of the 30s hunger marches, which even during the period were archaic, pitiful and demoralising actions, begging for a few crumbs off the capitalists table, so what are they now? Among the other reactions of the left to the crisis is the mindless slogan “bring down the Labour Government”, meaningless demagogic drivel, for the same people that are calling for the Labour Government to resign, come the next election, apart from putting up their own shabby candidates, will be out on the streets urging the working class to “Vote Labour – to keep the Tories out” Other idiotic ideas include class for more nationalisations, and the banning of overtime, which would mean that many workers would take home smaller wage-packets, that is unless the bosses are feeling generous and pay the workers more money for working fewer hours, which, unless the bastards undergo a complete transformation, they will not.
An endless list of their stupid demands could be drawn up but a reading of their papers will prove just how much out of touch with reality they really are.
A MARCH
I didn’t need much convincing that there must be a better alternative then the “Right to Work” march which took place at the earlier part of the year. The march had walked all the way from North of England, the whole thing had been so placid, so irrelevant, so unnoticed by the general public that the biggest surprise of the whole event was the police attack on the march at Hendon where over 40 marchers were arrested and assaulted by crazed pigs. The final stage of this march passed without incident as about 3000 IS supporters marched through one of London’s wealthy areas, Kensington, down Kensington High Street past miles of denims shops and antique markets, without provoking one hostile word from the wealthy local inhabitants, who lost no sleep that night after observing such a servile effort. The march finished up with a rally inside the Royal Albert Hall- and we are promised more marches like this in the future.
Response
The real response to the crisis is just simmering just below the surface. One can expect the initial reaction of the frustrated unemployed and low-paid to be very violent, and when it comes it will be totally out of control of the left (although they might get the blame). The whole thing could spark off by something like a riot at an employment exchange in an area like, say, Brixton, which if it spilled out into the surrounding streets could cause the built up frustrations of people living in the area, with its high unemployment, bad housing and large scale police harassment, to snowball (especially if the authorities over-react) and trigger off happenings in like areas. Eruptions like this, if they persist, could lead to the formation of street-committees, defence groups, expropriating and propaganda groups etc. This is inevitable- it will happen sooner or later (we have small disturbances already but they have been contained). The left as usual will attempt to deflect such events and the struggles that develop out of them; how unsuccessful they are depends on our reactions to their defeatist manoeuvres.
Campaigns
Against this background, against the crisis, a much more realistic approach should be made by the anarchist movement. Already moves are being made to build a “Fight to Live” campaign. I don’t know where a campaign like this will find its priorities, but when the disturbances arrive, instead of attempting to deflect such movements as the left will do, we should join in and try to widen the struggle. Already as a response to the London Transport fair increases, a small militant direct action group is running a “deferred payments” campaign. Its successes are limited so far, but its a step in the right direction. For the past few years the homeless have been taking direct action and squatting. (The squatting campaign was initiated by people who included anarchists – the left at the time sat back and howled “Adventurists”.) Right now squatting should be widened to include those working class elements who are hostile, by urging them to squat their unemployed and homeless youngsters and their friends in empty houses instead of waiting for council handouts that will never come. Another recent action that springs to mind is that of the Battered Wives and their struggles, also the emergence of Claimants Unions and prisoners organisations. All such trends should be linked into a “Fight to Live” campaign.
Without a doubt, as a reaction against intolerable food and commodities prices, some people such as the unemployed and low-paid will have to raid large food and clothing stores. We will certainly see this because of the drought, an unforeseen event, which will push up food prices to unimaginable heights; some people will have to raid in order to survive. “Fight to Live” campaigners should actively intervene in all such events (from organising defence groups in semi-insurrectionary areas to mass shoplifting) and in some cases initiate them.
Actions
So far I have said little about the organised working class. It is obvious that the exceptional industrial peace Britain is experiencing is thanks to the unions and governments recent efforts. But as the crisis gets deeper and deeper with no sign of an end to it, a social and political upheaval the like of which has never been seen in this country is on the cards. The only question is, when? I think rather than wait for the organised working class to galvanise itself into action (we have been waiting about 60 years, lefties) the unemployed, unorganised and low paid sections should be encouraged to carry out their own actions. We must guard against the left, who will use “revolutionary” arguments like “we mustn’t do anything premature” or “we can’t do anything without the unions”. When a large scale movement starts, the left parties and the unions will be the most dangerous obstacles.
We must make it more difficult, as the struggle progresses, for the government to govern, for the police to keep “order”, for the authorities to rule us and use their powers. “Fight to Live” groups should be autonomous, each group reflecting and reacting to the situation of their own areas and to the crisis in general, choosing for themselves what actions to take or support. “Fight to Live” groups could perhaps be linked to factory groups or real revolutionary groups, again linked, say, to a national network. One thing that should be held in mind as extremely important is that there should be no involvement of the bourgeois “politics”, like marches to the House of Commons, lobbying MPs, canvassing or supporting government election candidates or getting people to join “revolutionary” parties or trade unions – all of which are dead ends. We know the alternatives, we are aware of the consequences, we are not afraid we will “Fight to Live” and as our struggles progress towards other dimensions revolution could be in the air- unless of course all you want is the “Right to Work”
M.P.W
(note from editor- the above article was written before the Notting Hill Riots took place)
Open the second front part 2.
I should have been working…but like i said the funding for my jobs gone, its pretty hard to be bothered about it , so instead i wrote up the second half of Martins article open the second front.
Martin doesn’t type, he only writes- so when this was first printed in 1984 some poor sod in Class War would have had to sit down an knock it into typed format , now im doing the same. It beats working.
Page 3. Of Class War -“ANOTHER FUCKING ROYAL PARASITE” issue
Never mind the Left, Labour party and TUC. What has the anarchist contribution been? Collecting for the miners may ease the conscience of some anarchists. Sure, we all give money for food but really there isn’t all that much of a difference between collecting for the strikers and the starving of Africa. Going to the picket lines makes no real overall difference. What’s another couple of dozen here or there mean? Most anarchist papers do little but pour out irrelevances. A class war raging and one calls for a ballot! Others go to the other extreme and print articles offering full support- to the NUM bureaucracy! Another idiot writes that the miners can be starved into revolution!
So, after 6 months of this momentous strike, with the prospect of it lasting in 1985, we seriously propose a state of minor insurgency as the real anarchist contribution.
In the past, we of the autonomist/ class war type current have been ridiculed when we predicted mass political violence on the streets during the comparatively tranquil mid-70s. With the struggle against the Nazis, the foundations were laid for the uprisings of ’81. Again we predicted this occurrence fairly accurately. Far from being passive commentators or spectators many of us were part of the events. Simultaneously we looked forward to insurgent strikes of a continental variety. And to a certain degree its been blazing away for months.
So as the strike enters the winter months with the possibility of power cuts, we put forward these as yet rough suggestions to genuine revolutionaries and anarchists who aren’t of the wally variety.
1). To organise from within the movement, as we’ve done in the past by word of mouth and the usual informal contact meetings involving delegates from as many trustworthy anarchist groups as possible.
2). Planning deliberate spectacular mini riots as soon as the power cuts arrive (or failing that, late afternoon darkness). The aim being to spark off trouble in the major urban areas, thus drawing police out of the mining areas.
HOW TO ACHIEVE THIS WORTHY TASK
As proved on the July anti-Regan demo we can cause thousands of pounds worth of damage without suffering a single arrest, if well planned and co-ordinated. Judging by ‘Stop the City’ turnouts and our own interventions we can raise a force of at least 200 in London alone. This may be a conservative estimate. Obviously we don’t intend squandering people in face to face confrontation, as we may need to repeat the performance. Besides, we’re not of the martyr material. In case the sceptical reader may wonder how such a plan could be achieved, here’s a brief scenario. Of course its only by comrades working together that we can oil out the mechanics of the operation.
1). Thanks to the Electricity Board publishing where the blackouts occur , we could assemble in a certain area at a pre-arranged time. Any sign of abnormal police presence would mean postponement.
2).The ideal area would be a shopping area such as a high street. The crowds providing perfect cover when assembling our teams. Plenty of escape routes would be necessary. Gloves, scarf’s and balaclavas wouldn’t arouse suspicion during winter.
3). At a pre-arranged signal upon the advent of lights out, the mob could condense within seconds, swinging into action. Parked cars should be dragged across the road turned over, or even set alight, forming barricades, and causing traffic chaos there by making police access more difficult. Windows must be smashed, looting encouraged. Those police first on the scene if small in number could be resisted with bricks and other throwable material. Before they can gather sufficient strength, again at a pre-arranged signal, we’d disperse into darkness.
4). Headlines captured it wouldn’t take long for the example to spread. Against this background we’d blend, time to add our political dimension.
5). Propaganda urging the opening of a second front, with the attendant looting and rioting, must appear beforehand. It should be made clear that these actions are a deliberate effort to spread class conflict as opened by the miners’ strike. While the spreading of propaganda is an important task, we cant afford to dilute our numbers by having some engaging in their own individual actions simultaneously as has happened in recent times. Not only do they draw numbers away but these alternative actions mysteriously fail to appear. As a side interest this would show who really meant business and who was just all mouth. No one group should lead it, this is our common task. We’ve just contributed with this suggestion, now’s the time to discuss the matter seriously.
There is no alternative as far as we can see. Its all right to sloganise about setting up factory committees or community councils and call for a general strike. As these don’t seem to be materialising it all remains a comfortable abstraction. We’re not the vanguard but as a tiny fraction of the class the plan mapped out above is the only realistic action we can indulge ourselves in, gain results for the miners AND ourselves.
Open the Second Front
My name is Gawain Williams, right now I’m sitting in a pub, it has free internet and I want to cry a little bit. I’m in two and half grand of debt; the funding to my job has just been cut by the new Conservative Liberal government so in about a month I will be back on the dole. I don’t have a home, well I do but it’s not mine, and on the 22nd of this month I will be going before a judge who will set a date. On that day bailiffs will come to my squat, use sledge hammers and drills to smash open the door and make me leave.
Through this I’m trying to juggle my life- my little sisters 8 months pregnant and I haven’t seen her in over a month. I’m trying to use my spare time to find a new job, a new squat and volunteer in an anarchist library in Whitechapel.
I’ve just spent the last hour in this pub, trying to make one pint last and look for funding opportunities for young writers. From what Google tells me I’m fucked. No one wants to fund someone writing what I want to write. I guess I shouldn’t be surprised by that.
I’m writing a book. It’s nonfiction. It’s a story that’s heartbreaking, raw and needs to be told so badly that I’m willing to do anything to get it written.
Two years ago I moved back to London after four years in Essex, I was a Marxist, a bit of a wanker and pretty stupid. I came across a few people with ideas id never met before, class struggle anarchists. One of them was Martin Wright. I became his friend, his stories excited me, tales of the poll tax riots, drug binges with his friends, surviving cancer, his time in Class War.
I read his books, his written two, one is a snippet of his life it’s called Anti-fascist and tells the story of his street fighting youth in London with a firsthand account of the battle of Lewisham. I loved it.
A year later I picked up the second book he wrote, the story of Daniel Lux- his brother- Martin wrote the book but it was all Danny’s story, sadly Danny never knew that anyone wanted to read his book, the day Martin found out it was to be published Danny died of a heroin overdose.
As i sat in a friend’s house, high with my eyes a bright red, I was asked- “what are you doing with your life?”
“I’m an Anarchist”
“ Your just waste, you’ve got a MA, you want to write, you’ve got a man right in front of you who wants his story written, write his story, ask him, by your age id already made an award winning film, your just wasting, when are you ganna do something with your life?”
I never got to ask Martin if I could write his story, I was just getting the courage to ask when my good friend asked Martin about it with me in the room.
Two weeks later I was sitting with a digital recorder listening to the life story of Martin Wright. Over the next four months we met once a week spending between 2 to 5 hours recording Martins story with me asking him questions at the end.
We stopped recording nearly a month ago. Now a elderly anti fascist prone to using violence is asking where his book is.
I’ve got to start writing, no money, no home, no more beer in my glass and I’m down to my last 3 cigges…
This blog will tell anyone that gives a fuck the story of me getting this book written and getting it published.
To give you a taste of Martin here’s the first half of the amazing article “storm the second front” .The second half will be put up tomorrow if I can gather £3 .40 for a pint in this yuppie pub).The articles not online, I’m typing it up from an a copy of Class War that Martin handed to me.
It was the first article Martin wrote for Class War. The headline of that paper was “ANOTHER FUCKING ROYAL PARASITE” with a picture of Diana holding the new prince of this country in her hands.
It was 1984.
Open the Second Front
State of play
In the terrain of industrial dispute we can claim, without the slightest fear of contradiction, that the miners strike has gone far beyond anything seen on mainland Britain. No mere wage struggle this, with everything played according to the book (i.e. mostly non violent excepting of course by the police). The positive aspects of this strike, that have on occasion erupted into brutal class war, are evident even for those of us who rely upon the sickening diet of newspapers and television for our misinformation.
So, what do we regard as positive?
1.Mass proletarian violence that has ranged from set-piece confrontations involving thousands of massed pickets and police. Not only the classic push and shove tussle, but full scale riots with intensive stone throwing, barricade building, wreckage and arson.
2. Violence not only at colliery gates and power plants, but police stations in pit villages attacked without warning, police and scab convoys ambushed, the birth of ‘Paramilitary’ Hit Squads causing vast amounts of damage to NCB[1] property. Cowboy outfits profiting from strike breaking and related activities have also been visited. Nothing within living memory has ever happened here on such an extensive scale. Not only have the police deployed riot equipment but such scenes have become commonplace. A precedent for the future?
3. The spirit of determination exhibited by the strikers, holding out against the massive police onslaught while showing no sign of caving in to intimidation.
4. Allied to this is the fact that the communities in solid areas are standing together with no intention of slinking back to work defeated. The strength of this struggle derives not only from the workplace but the community. (By community we don’t mean the idealistic pipe dream of some inner city lefty gentrification, but a vibrant living entity). The impressive involvement of womens support groups is a product of this
5. As an added bonus, scattered reports and rumours, somewhat difficult to substantiate at the moment, have been percolating down to us that some groups of miners no longer care whether they return to work or not. Others, in spite of the obvious hardships, are enjoying the longest break in their working lives. The re-possessed videos and t.v. sets haven’t caused mass outbreaks of despair contrary to expectations. Violent class conflict has temporarily freed a section of the working class from hollow consumerism. We’ve also heard that small groups of miners are beginning to show an interest in anarchist politics.
We don’t see the miners as passive victims of police brutality. In the heat of class war many are indeed on the receiving end of police boots and truncheons but as far as we’re concerned the more violence and injuries the miners inflict on the police the better. However, the strikers have shown extraordinary signs of autonomous initiative, ignoring union pleas to keep within limits that have crippled the working class.
Hit squads, attacks on police stations, incidents during mass pickets such as Orgreave are an indication, a pointer to unknown territory. Its not the purpose of the article to ‘criticise’ Scargill and the N.U.M[2] Sufficient to say that we don’t in any way regard the unions as a revolutionary organisations. The time for post-mortems will be after any sell-out. But neither is it our task to berate other comrades for their rightful criticisms.
At this point we’d also like to mention some of the negative aspects of this struggle.
1). The striking miners are not questioning, so far, the nature of unionism, its role in capitalist society, the system. This probably won’t happen until the final phase of the dispute, particularly if any sell-out or compromise is too blatant.
2). There’s no denying that the police, in some areas, have constituted themselves into a virtual army of occupation, employing a terror so far only experienced by the rebellious young of the decaying inner cities. The police have also had the chance to perfect the future strategy of state repression. Still, its better the pigs suffer their causalities in a genuine struggle that in riot training. The strikers, not without cost (over 5,000 arrests) have also learnt a thing or two.
3). The ferocity of the struggle has tended to obscure a glaring fact. The miners stand alone. Below we hope to indicate an untried path that could remedy this situation. Drastic action that doesn’t require the assistance of the T.U.C.
4).Perhaps the most repellent aspect has been the behaviour of the self proclaimed leftist vanguards. Swooping like trained hawks, the see conflict in terms of paper sales and eventual recruitment. It goes without saying that the majority of these individuals are from a background far removed from that of the proletarian fraternity. Nevertheless the amount of demoralisation they are capable of causing is tremendous, perhaps more so in the wake of strike. Even when performing what appears to be useful tasks such as collecting ‘for the miners’ rumour abound about misappropriation of cash raised, some of it apparently being hived off into party projects.
5). Even more revolting (if such things can be imagined) is the attitude of the TUC and Labour party, whose leaders are more concerned with preventing proletarian violence then winning the strike. Kinnock is even resorting to form a left-nationalism in his pathetic attempts to curb the healthy development of class violence. Its “alien to the temperament and the intelligence of the British trade union movement”. Nor will ballots. Instinctively, if nothing else, the strikers are aware of this , yet still they listen and tolerate Labour politicians prattling on about ‘victory’ at their rallies. Politically the strikers have yet to make the break. But thats not to say it wont happen.
[1] National Coal Board
[2] National Union of Miners
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