[lbo-talk] Fascism, right-wing populism, and contemporary research

James Heartfield Heartfield at blueyonder.co.uk
Sun Feb 21 13:57:45 PST 2010


Doug: 'This use of the word "fascism" is mystifyingly promiscuous.' Hear, hear.

Yes indeed, and more than that. It is hopelessly unserious. Why would you bandy about this fighting talk if you were not willing to take up the fight? If you really thought that fascism was on the rise, wouldn't you be going round and breaking up their meetings? Picking fights in the street?

When the National Front was taking off in Britain in the late 1970s and 1980s, we marched against them, and organised 'workers' defence against racist attacks'. I spent many Sunday mornings in Brick Lane facing down the NF paper sellers, and evenings walking around east London council estates, patrolling to stop NF thugs from fire-bombing asians out of their flats. Often we waited up in the homes of people who had been attacked by NF-inspired bullies.

In the event, the NF petered out. It was a flash in the pan, not the rise of a substantial movement - but as long as it looked like it might be a resurgent fascist movement, the proper answer to a street-fighting right, would be in kind, no? Or is all this talk about 'fascism' just a way of sounding dramatic?



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