Counter protesters at head of an anti-immigration protest in Walthamstow, London, August 7, 2024
PEOPLE power has changed the narrative. The threat of fascist riots is not over, but they look far more isolated than they did before Wednesday night.
Even those who are not usually friends to street demonstrations have saluted the spirit that brought hundreds of thousands out in Bristol, Newcastle, Walthamstow and many other places.
Metropolitan Police Commissioner Mark Rowley acknowledges the role the counter-protests played in preventing far-right violence. “Frankly the show of unity from communities together defeated the challenges that we’ve seen… the fears of extreme right disorder were abated.”
Even more surprising was approbation on the front pages of right-wing papers. The Times, the Mail, the Express are associated with hatred of the left: the latter two, particularly, with migrant-bashing. Yet all ran glowing tributes to anti-racist popular rallies on their front pages.
There is hypocrisy here. But that only underlines the significance of a movement that forces them to take this line. They have read the mood of the country and realised it is not with the racists.
This explodes the logic of anti-socialist fanatic Lord Walney, whose bid to call out “Russia and Iran” for whipping up disorder was an attempt to associate the arson, assault and vandalism of the fascists with peaceful marches in solidarity with Palestine.
It will be harder for authoritarians in government to use the riots as an excuse for a sweeping crackdown on public demonstrations now that the country’s biggest police force and most of its major newspapers are on record praising street demos mobilised by the activist left, most prominently Stand Up to Racism.
25,000 counter-protesters take to the streets in show of clear resistance
…
Weyman Bennett, co-convener of Stand Up to Racism which has helped organise rallies around the country, said: “In city after city, people came together to unite against racism and the far-right threat.
“We need more of that. They’re not going to go away.
“We’re building a movement across Britain to stop the far right — and it’s a movement built on solidarity and unity.”
…
Prime Minister Sir Keir Stamer chaired another Cobra meeting as the country braced for another 20 potential gatherings this evening before the Morning Star went to print.
Ahead of the meeting, he said that violence was prevented on Wednesday thanks to the police deployment, ignoring the crucial role of tens of thousands of counter-protesters who had mobilised to defend their communities nationwide.
He said the decision to speed up prosecutions of those involved in riots “sent a very powerful message.”
Many newspapers took a rare break from peddling racist hate to feature the large counter-demos on their front pages.
…
The surge of racist violence came after the fatal stabbing of three young girls in Southport last week.
Far-right agitators exploited the tragedy and spread lies online claiming that the attacker, who was born in Britain to a Christian family, was Muslim and a migrant.
Wind turbines at Loftsome Bridge, East Yorkshire, with Drax Power station in the distance
ACTIVISTS slammed the police today for diverting resources away from tackling racist riots and targeting peaceful climate protesters instead.
Protesters opposing Drax power station, Britain’s largest carbon emitter, were due to set up a protest camp today.
But police pre-emptively arrested 22 activists under public order offences, including conspiracy to interfere with key national infrastructure.
Police seized tents, toilets, a track for wheelchairs and other equipment to make the peaceful protest safe and accessible, organisers Reclaim the Power said.
The Silver Commander for the police operation, Supt Ed Haywood-Noble, admitted that police resources were “stretched nationally,” but still thought it was “essential” that the operation go ahead.
He claimed: “Policing is not anti-protest, we are anti-crime, and we are here to protect the public.”
The protest organisers hit back at the force for making the “unfathomable decision” to divert resources away from communities under attack in the racist violence sweeping Britain.
They accused the police of prioritising the arrest of peaceful protesters over “locating and arresting people who are actually organising far-right riots with bricks, knives and other weapons.”
I’m wondering why the police are seizing “tents, toilets, a track for wheelchairs and other equipment to make the peaceful protest safe and accessible”. Is that part of their job too?
Sheikh Hasina addresses party rally last year (Photo: Delwar Hossain/ Wikimedia Commons)
The protests, initially led by students demanding reforms in the quota system in government jobs, took a violent turn in the last weeks of July
Prime Minister of Bangladesh Sheikh Hasina resigned and left the country, army chief General Waker-Uz-Zaman announced during an address to the nation in the afternoon of Monday, August 5.
The Army chief also claimed to have taken full responsibility over the government, promising that an interim government would be formed soon after consulting all the opposition parties. He also appealed to the protesters to end their demonstrations with a hope that the violence would stop.
Waker-Uz-Zaman promised that he will make sure that all persons responsible for the killing of protesters are held accountable for their acts.
Despite the announcement of Hasina leaving the country, demonstrations continued throughout the day in Bangladesh. There were reports of Hasina’s former official residence being stormed and Dhaka’s international airport being shut down in the afternoon.
Protesters reportedly blocked roads at different places in the country, vandalized the statue of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, considered the founder of the nation, as well as the offices of Hasina’s Awami League. Attacks were also carried out against the offices of various other parties, and continued into the evening.
Over 300 people, including security personnel, have been killed and thousands of others have been injured in the protests so far.
The protests in the country have been ongoing for over a month now. The first weeks of the protests saw university students demand reforms in the quota system in the recruitment in government jobs, and were largely peaceful. Protests turned violent after they were allegedly attacked by members of the ruling Awami League Party under the cover of security in the third week of July.
Amid the intensification of the protests, the Hasina government called for all universities to be shut down, imposed a curfew and a communication blockade. A shoot on sight order was also issued to the army deployed to control the violence.
Over 200 people were killed and thousands were injured in clashes between the security forces and protesters in the following week of July.
On July 21, the country’s Supreme Court scrapped most of the quota, fulfilling the central demand of the protesters. Yet, the protests continued with growing demands for action against the perpetrators of the violence and against the government itself.
The second round of protests erupted on Sunday, August 3, with thousands gathered in different major cities in the country calling for Hasina to resign. Chittagong, one of the major centers of quota reform protests witnessed the hundred of thousands of people flooding the streets, waving national flags and shouting slogans against Hasina.
Over 100 people, including over a dozen security personnel, have been killed in Sunday’s protests.
Hasina’s government and her Awami League party had alleged that the violent protests were initiated as a part of a conspiracy against the elected government. Hasina had accused the opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) of collaborating with Jamaat-e-Islami, an extremist group, to provoke violence across the country in order to bring regime change in the country as they could not win popular elections.
According to a source on the ground, the violence during the quota reform movement was used by the imperialist powers led by the US to orchestrate regime change in the country. They also claimed that the new regime would be used to undo the secular and progressive reforms initiated by the Hasina government during her four terms.
In January’s national elections in Bangladesh, Sheikh Hasina had won her fourth straight term as prime minister since 2009. This was her fifth term as prime minister in total. She was first elected as prime minister in 1996. The US had questioned the legitimacy of the last elections in January.
A wanted war criminal addressing US Congress proved to be a pitched battle between the state and tens of thousands of anti-genocide protesters
Tens of thousands of people demonstrated in Washington, DC yesterday in opposition to Benjamin Netanyahu’s joint address to Congress. While war criminal Netanyahu received a standing ovation from both chambers of Congress and both major establishment parties, thousands took to the streets directly outside the US Capitol building to register their disgust with the US’s support for and complicity in the genocide of 186,000 Palestinians.
Protesters rally in front of Capitol (Photo: Addison Clapp)
Police forces launched pepper spray at demonstrators and made several arrests, but demonstrators, who came as individuals or part of organizations of the working class such as student groups, labor unions, and tenant organizations, overcame intense police repression in order to assert their right to protest. In doing so, these protesters registered the mass discontent among the people of the United States regarding the US’s bankrolling of Israeli genocide. Recently polling has shown that as many as 61% of people in the US are against sending aid to Israel. Among people under 30, that number jumps to 77%.
The state made drastic preparations to protect Netanyahu’s speech to Congress from demonstrations. Over 200 New York Police Department officers were deployed ahead of protests. The layers of barricades and protections around the Capitol building far exceeded those on January 6, 2021 when far-right demonstrators were able to go as far as scaling the building and entering the offices of the highest-ranking politicians. “Look around the area, there are snow plows, police barricades, eight-foot high fencing,” said Brian Becker, Executive Director of the ANSWER Coalition, one of the key organizers of the demonstration, during the rally preceding the march through Washington. “This US Capitol, which says to itself, we are the people’s house, it should be renamed, it should be called Fort Netanyahu.”
Mass march experiences heavy repression
Police deploy pepper spray (Photo: Jason Bixon)
Following the rally of tens of thousands which convened in front of the Capitol, demonstrators prepared to march. Shortly after the march began, protesters were blocked by a line of police officers from multiple agencies, including DC police, Capitol police, and NYPD. After it became clear that the police intended to stop the march in its tracks, Becker addressed the crowd from the frontline, “The police have decided to block the people of the United States from exercising their constitutional right to go to the point of the protest. We say no. We have the right to go on Constitution Avenue, there’s no rule against it. The permit is called the First Amendment of the Constitution.”
Protesters provide treatment to one another following pepper spray (Photo: Kaleigh O’Keefe)
With that, the crowd decided to press forward, after which, police deployed pepper spray liberally amongst the crowd, injuring several protesters.
“This proves to us that our police forces are training with the IDF, they’re learning tactics from the IDF,” Ibtihal Malley, an organizer with the Palestinian Youth Movement, told Peoples Dispatch directly after police pepper sprayed the crowd. “They are afraid of the people, and they’re afraid of the mass movement for Palestine, so they resort to violence to brutalize our people, just as they brutalize us in Gaza.”
“We are here in DC marching with tens of thousands of people that are asserting their right to march and to protest, and we were blockaded by tens of police,” said Lameess M., also a lead organizer in the Palestinian Youth Movement, in an interview with Peoples Dispatch following police repression. “[Police are] here to protect a war criminal and use our tax dollars to protect that war criminal, while pepper spraying the people that they claim to represent.”
The incident of state repression only made the crowd more defiant. The march quickly diverted to another street, where they continued to evade police lines for several blocks throughout Washington, DC, before rallying once again in front of Union Station. Inspired demonstrators took it upon themselves to take down three massive US flags in front of the station, replacing them with Palestinian flags, and burning the US flags along with a puppet effigy of Netanyahu.
This expression of popular anger at genocide has been seized upon by mainstream media as well as the highest-ranking politicians in the country to denounce the protests. Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic Party favorite for the 2024 presidential elections, released a statement making no mention of the reason that tens of thousands had gathered in Washington, DC to protest the celebration of a war criminal. Instead, she condemned “the burning of the American flag.”
“That flag is a symbol of our highest ideals as a nation and represents the promise of America. It should never be desecrated in that way,” Harris stated. “I condemn any individuals associating with the brutal terrorist organization Hamas, which has vowed to annihilate the State of Israel and kill Jews. Pro-Hamas graffiti and rhetoric is abhorrent and we must not tolerate it in our nation.”
The ANSWER Coalition released a statement following the demonstrations. “To try and misdirect people’s attention, some parts of the corporate media and the White House itself are now trying to minimize the significance of these actions,” the anti-war organization stated. “They are attempting to demonize the protests, and focus on one individual sign or some individual’s burning of the American flag. This is designed to distract the public from the actual police violence yesterday, and the true mass violence that has claimed over 40,000 Palestinian lives and millions more in U.S.-led wars across the world. But the rising of the Palestinian flag on multiple flagpoles in front of Union Station and in the shadow of the US Capitol grounds is a clear indication that the tide has turned. Public opinion has been transformed so dramatically that no attempt at deflection can turn it back.”
Organizations of the working class denounce genocide
Despite heavy repression, organizations of the working class used the platform of the demonstration to denounce the US’s unconditional support for Israel. The day before the demonstration, seven major unions, representing almost half of all unionized workers in the United States, penned an open letter calling for an end to all US military aid to Israel and a ceasefire in Gaza. Leaders from some of these major unions addressed demonstrators in front of the Capitol.
These leaders include Mark Dimondstein, President of the American Postal Workers Union. “In the spirit of working class solidarity and justice, the American Postal Workers Union… stands with humanity and the suffering people, workers and unions in Gaza, in calling for a long overdue ceasefire and massive humanitarian aid to the 2.3 million people of Gaza,” he addressed the rallying crowd. “While they are displaced, homeless, bombed, killed, injured, diseased, and starving behind the war crimes of the Netanyahu-Israeli government, fully backed by US military aid.”
Mark Dimondstein, President of the American Postal Workers Union, addresses demonstrators in Washington, DC (Photo: Craig Birchfield)
Dimondstein’s denunciation of US government policy is not only reflective of his personal opinion, but that of the workers the APWU represents. “Just last week in our convention we voted,” calling on the US government to halt military aid to the US government, “and to stop using our tax dollars for more war,” he said.
“It’s a labor issue. We believe in social justice, we believe in international solidarity,” Dimondstein told Peoples Dispatch in an interview. “Workers pay taxes, and the last thing our taxes should be used for is to kill, maim, and starve innocent men, women, and children of another country.”
“The workers are deeply affected in Palestine and the unions are deeply affected in Palestine,” he continued. “And it’s also a working class issue because there’s real danger of a wider war. And who has to fight, kill, and be killed in these unjust wars if it’s not the working class?”
“US taxpayers are basically funding a genocide,” said Arrion Brown, the director of the Support Services Division within the APWU, in an interview with Peoples Dispatch. Brown has been a postal worker for 24 years. “Those same tax dollars would do so much better in the US, helping actual working people.”
“Working people hold the power of the country, of the world. So it’s important for working class people to express our thoughts, to let the powers that be, the establishment know that they’re not going in the direction we want. Ultimately, we are the political power, we are the working power, and we are the power of the world.”
Brandon Mancilla, a leader in the international board of the United Auto Workers, also addressed the crowd on behalf of the over 400,000 workers of diverse sectors represented by the UAW. In his speech, Mancilla credited rank and file workers with pushing the leadership to call for a ceasefire in Gaza, a step the union took back in December. “Autoworkers in Dearborn, Michigan, have been personally affected by this issue, and have demanded that their union and their government stop funding a genocide. Because academic workers all across the country in countless campuses in almost every state of this country have been protesting for their literal right of free speech, to call on their universities to divest and be held accountable,” he mentioned. The UAW notably represents not only auto workers but a large portion of organized academic workers across the country. Following the brutal crackdown against the Gaza solidarity encampment at the University of California – Los Angeles (UCLA), UAW Local 4811, which represents academic workers within the University of California system, went on strike for the right to protest for Palestine, representing the first strike in US history in relation to the Palestine solidarity movement.
For Mancilla, the letter that seven unions signed onto on July 23 represents an “escalation.”
“A ceasefire has not been realized, it has not been actualized, and in order to actually make that happen, not only do we have to keep negotiations going, and agree to the framework, we have to also materially intervene, which means ending arms shipments to Israel,” Mancilla told Peoples Dispatch.
Labor unions march with demonstrators (Photo: Addison Clapp)
Unions were not the only organizations of the working class out in full force that day—Peoples Dispatch also spoke to tenants organized with CAAAV (Committee Against Anti-Asian Violence), an organization that united Asian-American communities in New York City against gentrification, among other issues. Bingjie, a young member of CAAAV from the NYC neighborhood of Chinatown, told Peoples Dispatch that it’s unjust that tax dollars are being used to fund genocide “when tenants don’t even have enough in New York.”
“The fight for Palestine is not just a fight for Palestine itself, but for liberation for the whole entire world,” she said.
