Podcast by Seeds for Change

Transcript, part 2

Zara: [00:00:00] We are a neighbourhood. The good, the bad, the ugly, the messy, the upset, the angry, the sad, like we're all still part of the same place. And I think the more that you do the community, the stronger you become against the violence.

[Music: Aum by K Monday]

Anna: Welcome back to part two of this Seeds for Change podcast, in conversation with Manchester based community organisers, Jamil, Zara, and Dale. Jamil is a community and cultural worker involved in the Greater Manchester Tenants Union. Zara organises with Kids of Colour, an abolitionist youth organisation, and both Zara and Dale are part of the Harpurhey Neighbourhood Project, a community centre in North Manchester helping people navigate the hostility of the state.

In part one, we talked about what we mean by the far right and how it's changed over past decades, the role of the state in the growth of fascist ideology, and the framing of far right narratives around material needs like housing. We discussed the right wing riots of last summer, including the mass participation of young people, and the limitations of street counter protest in the fight against fascism. And we talked about the story of England, presented by the right and countered by the real history of the working class population of England: one of exploitation, deportation, and divide and rule at the hands of the British state.

In this episode, we're thinking more about what can be done, and what it looks like to pursue community organising as anti-fascist strategy. Thanks for listening.

Anna: Hello. We're back. So we talked about a lot of different stuff in part one and it's got me thinking about loads of things. But I thought a good starting point for this episode could be thinking about Cable Street. So the kind of classic historical example of the Battle of Cable Street in East London in 1936, where like thousands of working class people faced off the fascists. Oswald Mosley's fascists, who were marching, protected by the police. And thousands of trade unionists and socialists and Jews came out to fight them in the street. And they won. And it was, like, a really major victory of that kind of conflict of ideas in the street. Of like, facing off fascism in a kind of direct conflict.

So like it's a model we come back to. Like when we were doing these counter mobilizations in the summer, like it's that idea of, like, don't let the fascists have public space, smash them out the streets, like, these ideas are to be fought, like this kind of battle of ideas. And I suppose, like, a lot of what you're saying is kind of challenging the assumptions of that.

And like, yeah, I was just thinking about, like, what else was happening around that time in the thirties. Like, there's Cable Street as an example, but there's also... I don't know if anyone's read, um. There's a book called Our Flag Stays Red by Phil Piratin, who was like a communist in East London. And he later became, I think one of two communist MPs in Parliament. Um, but he wrote this account called Our Flag Stays Red, of organising against fascism in East London, particularly through tenants organising.

Um, so like, he was there at Cable Street. He was actually one of the main organisers in the Battle of Cable Street. But he also writes about Stepney Tenants Defence League, which was organising around housing and fighting slum landlords in Stepney. And, like, he gives this example in the book of being approached about two families that were about to be evicted. So he went to meet them. And when he met them, he found out that both these families were members of the BUF, the British Union of Fascists.

And so Stepney Tenants Defence League resisted these evictions. So they got all the neighbours together, they barricaded the houses, they, they sent off the bailiffs. And after that, so like the fascists had essentially done nothing to like, help these tenants, and they found themselves, like, being kept in their homes by a bunch of communists. Um, and so he says after that, word got round, and like, people were cutting up their BUF membership cards.

So like Phil Piratin and the Communists at the time were involved in both things. They were there at Cable Street, but they were also fighting fascism by, like, building solidarity with people who were susceptible to racist narratives about the poverty that they were experiencing. So like housing was a massive issue that the far right were creating narratives around. And yeah, it's funny, [00:05:00] like a lot of his analysis in the book, from nearly a hundred years ago, is actually, like, really similar to everything we've been saying about the right radicalizing people around material issues. And yeah, like reading this account, it kind of makes you see that Cable Street was just one part of like, a much broader understanding of what it meant to fight fascism.

So yeah, thinking about our context now, like, what are the things we are doing or could be doing that are equivalent to the kind of community organising that he talks about. Maybe this is a question for you, Jamil. Thinking about like the Greater Manchester Tenants Union, like, how does that fit with the kind of street mobilizations that we've all been part of fighting the far right? And like, how do you see the potential of something like a tenants union in being part of the struggle against fascism?

Jamil: I think it comes down to like, a real question of like, where is this coming from? Why do people feel so unsafe? And why do people feel so angry? And I think the thing about the GMTU is that, whilst we are an anti racist organisation by principle, that's not our output. I mean, we're not there just as an organisation to fight the far right. We're there to make sure that people who have issues with their homes have the confidence and the ability and we have the collective expertise to be able to demand the right to live safely and with dignity in our communities.

If you're providing the ability for someone to have to feel safe in their home and to feel fed, those are two of the most material conditions that affect everybody, regardless of anything, culture, age, race, whatever. And this is what the far right have constantly been preying on. Like the idea of, you know, that term, cupcake fascism.

So I remember - I can't remember when it was - it was in the late nineties, early two thousands, but Nick Griffin went over to meet the grand wizard of the KKK, David Duke. And there was a really clear attempt across the Atlantic to shift the conversation and Nick Griffin as the leader of the BNP was saying with David Duke to his side, we need to stop talking about blacks and blood. We need to stop talking about the race wars and start talking about culture and assimilation. He said, drop the swastikas, drop the boots, drop the skinheads, start wearing suits, start wearing ties. Let's get a little bit clever here, a little bit professional. You know, and then years later, they, they, they followed that through, you know what I mean?

And the idea of like cupcake fascism is that fascism is not going to arrive with swastikas and boots. It's going to arrive with food banks and little fairy cakes. And it's going to arrive in the form of supporting your veterans and supporting your elderly. And they've been doing that for decades. Whilst every single local service, you know, every local authority has had to make hard decisions about whether they cut children's services or elderly services or mental health services, rada, rada, rada.

And I think the Battle of Cable Street was, again, like, if people, if organised communities turn up, saying they're going to rampage through your streets and cause harm, on the lines of, you know, we're coming for the Jews, we're coming for the blacks, we're coming for the queers, whichever community is under attack, then it is the duty of everyone in every organised community, you know, in every way to resist. But like, how do we break that cycle of just, whether it's the 1930s, you know, in 2030, do we want to be chasing them through the streets of Lewisham again, do you know what I mean, do we want to be chasing them through the streets of Manchester again?

And I think like the idea of like anti fascism is that everybody's got skin in the game. Because it is about destroying organised working class communities and communities that don't fall into line.

You know, the Battle of Cable Street is famous, but one of the stories that I, people forget that happened in the North West is, they call it a battle, the Battle of Bamber Bridge. But it was actually a massacre. I don't know if you've heard of it, but it was, um, in 1943, during World War Two, there were a bunch of... A segregated American unit. Obviously, this is during Jim Crow. And they went to fight on the Western Front. And obviously, as all soldiers who were coming from America, who had been stationed in, uh, England, they often got put in port towns. But because this was an all black unit, they didn't want to put, you know, a bunch of uppity black people who were, you know, not allowed to drink from the same fountain or go to the same schools back at home, they didn't want to put them in places like Liverpool or Manchester or anywhere where there was like, you know, non segregated areas with a high migrant population. So they put them in the middle of a town called Bamber in between Wigan and Preston.

And everyone was having a great time. Like the record, like literally there were a bunch of people from Wigan who'd never seen that many black people before, opening up their pubs, having discos, people having relationships. But the American soldiers at the time, who were white American officers, obviously didn't like it because they knew these men were going to have to return home with new ideas. So they tried to enforce Jim Crow in the middle of Wigan. And the officers turned around and said, like, literally said to all the publicans, uh, you're not allowed to let these black people into your pub. And all the landlords, you know, white working class men in the middle of Wigan said, fuck off. It's my pub. Like, absolutely not happening.

There was a riot and several black men died and they were all black American soldiers. Lots of locals were injured and I think like one American officer, white American officer either died or was severely injured. And the [00:10:00] next day, in response, all the pubs, uh, white owned pubs in the middle of Bamber Bridge, put up signs saying Blacks Only. And that's in 1943. And like, that story of solidarity, people don't know about it. And to me, that's like, that, that, that, when I first heard about it, that blew my mind. 40 years later, you know, in the 80s, you still had certain venues that were trying to get away with a sign saying, 'no blacks, no Irish, no dogs'. But this is 40 years earlier. And it's like, those moments of like, interaction, where people who, you know, conceivably had nothing in common, joy happens.

And I think the thing is, like where do people have the opportunity to congregate and coalesce? We don't have unions anymore. We don't have youth clubs anymore. We don't really have civic spaces. It's bleak. Do we have spaces to comfortably disagree with each other that isn't when I'm stood in front of you screaming at you calling you a Nazi, or it's online?

Zara: Yeah. I think, the place that I enter this conversation is basically what Jamil, I'm going to summarise into a couple of lines, is like, fascism is a functioning system of oppression and harm and violence. Right? And that there are some people that really situate and root themselves and ground themselves in that ideological framework. And they use, then, everything at their disposal to radicalize sections of our communities. By using... Because what you're speaking about, you know, that superior, like, white power shit is the extreme of fascism, right? But that is then softened through the basic needs stuff. And it's how they reach people.

And I think, and in this conversation, what I really struggled with over the summer was people being like, oh, he's a fascist. And I'm like, is he though? And it might have made me quite unpopular, but let's have some critical thinking here, right? Is this person a fascist? Or is this a person who can be radicalized, victimized, and used by the fash. Like, and there needed to be that distinction for me because what I really struggled with as well was like the categorisation. I think because I work in anti racism and how, like, black communities are surveilled and how black boys are, like, harassed by the police.

And that being, you know, the clothing that young people wear, all of a sudden, 110s, like, black tracksuits, driving a transit van, all these different things are like, oh yeah he's fash. And I'm like, or it could just be my mate. Do you know what I mean? Like, and I found it really interesting how fast we moved into this... those surveillance tactics of the state against racialized communities. How all of a sudden we were doing that in our mobilizing against the far right. Like when we were doing the counter stuff, like how we were doing spotting and how we were categorizing people. Where it, it felt like we were on a bit of a slippery slope for me at that point. Where I was like, whoa, this blanket, everyone's a fash who isn't us, is not going to help us in the long run. But it will solidify divisions and it will make building solidarity harder.

Um, and that, that's where I find, find where we are now, right? Is that there isn't, there isn't a distinction now, at the moment, there doesn't feel to be a distinction between fascists and people amenable to that ideological framework, right? Like, there was people who were hell bent on setting people on fire. We could not deny that. People were after blood. People were scared to leave their house, houses. You know, people are still scared to leave their homes now, we had emergency work plans in place for like, taxi travel and all this different stuff, like we had to respond. There was a real threat to life in the summer. But at the same time, there were also people who weren't there to kill, but were with that crowd. And there's a conversation to be had about that, that we're not necessarily having.

The other thing that I think is really relevant is I grew up in a community where everybody was constantly with everybody. Like, through community centres, just through the local park, your mum knew your neighbour, the school run, like, walking buses didn't need to be organised by the school because the street did it, do you know what I mean? Like, there was this, like, idea that community looks after each other, you all knew each other, if you was causing trouble on the estate, they'd be like, oh, I'm gonna take you back to your mam's, do you know what I mean? Or you get marched round to somebody's house. But people have been pushed out of community spaces.

And we've seen like this, the way that the charity sector, specifically, now I ain't attacking the charity sector, but I ain't necessarily it's friend either. It's now turned into this like [00:15:00] multi agency approach, saviorist, 'we know better than you', frameworks, policies, strategies that need to be enacted and targets and outcomes that need to be reached. And it's removed like community agency, it's removed individual agency. It's removed people's ability to be able to think for themselves, to be able to make decisions, make mistakes, like explore things, try new things. Because now if you've got a problem, there's something that will solve that for you. And it, there's something in that that I think has really fed into this, into this rise of far right ideology in community, right?

Like, we used to be able to battle things out, you used to be able to talk things through, you'd check things with somebody, you'd get told off. Somebody would put you in your place, for want of a better word. Like, you'd do something wrong and you'd get barked at, and then you'd shake hands and you'd learn from it, you'd move on.

Now, with the way that, you know, the internet works, and how people, we no longer have relationships at a community level, unless you're already in relationship. Like, making friends is really something that I don't really see people doing much outside of the circles that they already exist in.

I also think that the left engage themself in a conditionality politic, right? So, we will help you if you agree with our political ideology. If you don't agree with our political ideology, you're not welcome here. I have experienced that time and time again, where there's been like an event, and people are like, you know, well, we, we only want people to come into... Because this idea of like nurturing safe spaces, right? There is no such thing. We can't nurture a safe space. They don't exist. We can nurture spaces where people can come and be brave. Yeah, but I can't guarantee your safety and you definitely can't guarantee mine. Can't control everybody in the room.

And in leftist spaces, they might put on like a community meeting or an organising space or a community event. But the people that come into that room already have to be signed up with what's going on. What the far right seem to be doing is just going, if you want to be warm, if you want to be fed, if you want to be healthy, if you want to be able to get a GP appointment, if you want to have a nice house, we're doing this over here. And that idea of conditionality doesn't exist there.

It's like, there's something about being welcome and accepted. Like we in the centre are confident enough to engage in what would be considered a difficult conversation. What we see them as are just human beings. Like, communicating in the way that they communicate. And we might have to have a longer conversation with why we don't use that kind of language or why that kind of language is deemed offensive. Do you know what I mean? But not everything has to be like a political education session. We don't need to go away, read a book, come back. We just need to go, yo, don't be a bigot. Let's think about why you're talking about that or like that and having those conversations.

And like, it's funny cause I really don't see myself as somebody who has any authority to speak on this topic at all. I've not done the reading and all the, like... And actually in the, next to Dale I'm like really young and I've barely seen anything because he's lived through huge changes over the years and witnessed a lot. And that's why I thought it was important for you to be in this conversation because there's too many, what I think as well, too many young people not in relationship with elders. And that is I think a detriment to our movement on the left. Like, I really invest in staying connected with elders, whether they're organisers or not. Like I've got 50 uncles who I'm not related to and aunties and, you know, hearing their stories and learning the lessons from them, I think is really important and...

I'm going to bring a question then. Back in the days, and this is maybe towards you Dale, right? Back in the day, we had a really strong trade union movement in Manchester. Trade unionism was present on every street in the city, to some capacity. But I grew up on, you join a union, that was it. You've got a job, join a union. There was no, no real reason other than if you're getting shit, they'll help you. Do you get what I'm saying?

Dale: Yeah, I understand.

Zara: Like, you spoke about Thatcher before. Yes. Talk about the connection, if you can, between Thatcher, the breaking of the unions, and the impact on the working, on the working man condition. And how we've got here today.

Dale: Well my biggest, biggest thing I remember, which gets brought up a lot, 1984 and the miners strike. That was a big, I remember that was a really big thing. I didn't even know I was working class back then. But what I do know is, they were having a go at the coppers. I thought, yeah, come on, we're supporting the miners, just for the fact they were having a go at the police.

Because, well, growing up, at that age, in the 80s, [00:20:00] getting stopped left, right and centre. It was unbelievable. Coming back from the gym, two coppers walking up. All right, sunshine, what's in the bag? I said, you're joking. Said I've just finished training. He said, hey, let's have a look. Come on. I couldn't believe it. Open my bag. There's my stinking vest and my stinking shorts. He went, oh, so you've been to gym then? I said, no, I've nicked it off a washing line! So it was constant. Has anything changed now?

So, coming back to the point of Thatcher, and breaking of the unions. Like I said I wasn't that working class until 1988 when I realised I was the working class. It was mad, come to it very late. By then, people were still blaming the unions because of 1978 and the winter of discontent. The bin men went on strike, all on strike, these workers, get some work done, you're wrecking our lives. There was a hatred towards, then, unionism and being in the union. It was a bad scene.

And what, there's only what, five, six million people in a trade union now I think. The leaders are sellouts. We should have had a general strike when it was the pandemic. That's when all the workers should have been out. Mick Lynch and all the rest of them. He was good, but it didn't go the next stage of saying, Right, all workers out. They're afraid. The leaders are afraid. They're all sellouts.

Zara: But I feel like that, what that speaks to is like, playing by the rules of the game. And that's what I think we come back to all the time when it comes to like, fighting in the struggle. Playing by, like, it's that thing of like, your oppressor can never be your saviour, but we're asking the oppressor to save us.

Dale: Mmm.

Zara: Often. Do you know what I mean? And whereas if we really position ourselves solidly and solidify the idea that the state does have the power to change material conditions and stop being racist, stop having authoritarian, draconian policies that they're enacting, stop bombing people on the other side of the world, stop setting up bases here, there, and everywhere. If we can really solidify who they are and speak to that strongly, then we would be able to organise. Understanding that us and them. Kind of thing.

We have to really position the role of the state in all of this, right, and how they feed what's happening to us. When it comes to like, all of the conditionality around benefits and why people can't, haven't got access to housing because they're not being built. There's no rent caps. Benefits don't pay the bills. All that kind of stuff comes from the state. Our material conditions are controlled by the government. Free legislation, capitalism, the economy, all of it.

But we fight about it amongst ourselves. And that's the, that's what's really dangerous in this conversation about the far right. I believe that we have to remember, while we have differences across the political spectrum, across communities, we all have differences and we're entering it from different points, we're all at the mercy of the state. No matter where you're situated on that spectrum.

Like, we can't keep putting our faith in this system that hurts us. And we really do need to recognise like racism functioning as a system. Not just an interpersonal dynamic. It is a system and it works really well. And you have to dismantle the system. It's not about, you know, vilifying one person who does one thing. It's about the whole thing, root and stem.

Anna: I liked your phrase, at risk of racism, people at risk of racism.

Jamil: Oh yeah.

Anna: I thought that was a good phrase. I guess like. Just thinking about what we've been saying about, like, what's changed in the last, like, 40 years. What's changed since the 80s? What changed with Thatcher? What's been destroyed and dissolved in communities during that period? And, like, how is that related to, like, the rise of fascism or whatever we want to call the phenomenon that we're talking about?

It's all the same thing, isn't it? Like. The unions getting battered. The fact that, like, a union now is like a thing you join, but you don't necessarily think about yourself as, like, organising as part of that, or you think about it as, like, a service that you sign up to. The fact that we face that same problem in our tenants unions, and, like, people don't talk to their neighbours. And I guess, like, thinking about the rise of fascism or racism as this isolated thing makes no sense, it's like the same result of, like, atomization.

So I suppose like, I don't know, I'm thinking about like... we're saying, like, the left doesn't have, isn't putting [00:25:00] across, like, strong arguments and answers to these problems for people in the way that the right is. But then we're also saying people are more atomised and they don't have those relationships which are robust enough to, like, argue in, get told off, tell someone they're being a dickhead, whatever, like, challenge each other. I'm just thinking about those two different elements of like the narrative and the politics and then like the relationships and the community building. How do they like relate to each other?

Zara: But that is, it's so, I think that's what, there's so much work to do. And you asked that about narrative of relationships, it's not one or the other is both. And it's on a widespread, on a mass scale, online, in person, in politics, in workplaces. Like there isn't a quick fix. Like, what we're going up against is hundreds and hundreds of years of oppression and racism. It's, it's really depressing. The mass, like the scale of the issue of the problem that we're going up against feels like you can never win.

But, back to the, I wanna just come back to the narrative/ relationship thing. I believe we have to be, like, really strong against violent harm. Like, no matter whether that's a group of individuals in our communities drumming up violent harm, or whether it's the state violently harming us, we have to respond to that with strong resistance. But I also believe that at the same time, we need to build solidarity at a community level where we can create infrastructure that caters to people's basic needs, right?

Like the two things are the same thing at the same time that go at, like, at different speeds with different people. And I think the more that you do the community, the stronger you become against the violence. And like one feeds the other. And it's like a cycle that compliments, or gets in the way of. It works both ways. You can't do one.

And that's why I believe within fascism and the rise of fascism and the rise of far right, I'm actually much more valuable to the movement as a youth worker and somebody in the Neighbourhood Project, than as one person fighting someone. Cause all I need is a knock to the head and I'm out. [Laughter]. But do you get what I mean? Like, and that's not to say that I wouldn't go out and do the fighting, but when I look, think about me as an individual, I think my, I think I'm a good youth worker.

Jamil: I just think the narratives and relationships is just like, it's easy, like, you know, just breaking the false binaries, do you know what I mean? It's like, we need a multiplicity of strategy. We need it all. We literally need it all.

Becks: So I did have a question. And it was thinking about three things that you've said, Zara. So one of them was about, like, talking to kids after the riots, and, like, who's having those conversations and how. And then another one was about, like, safer spaces policies and accountability. And then the other was, like, the sort of portrait of community that you were painting where you were like, people will be like, you've been a dick. You'll get told off, you'll have the conversation, you'll talk it through, you'll get to the bottom of it.

Um. I feel like there's something there about, like, how we have those conversations, how we relate to people in those conversations, and like, yeah, that kind of goes back to the questions you were asking about, sort of, what's the right doing successfully that the left is not doing successfully.

Zara: I think like when I enter this conversation as somebody at the Neighbourhood Project, I enter that from a position of, we are a neighbourhood. The good, the bad, the ugly, the messy, the upset, the angry, the sad, like we're all still part of the same place. And so because we're such a complex and complicated community doesn't make us a terrible place. It's just how, like, living together works. It's like families, in a way, not to, like, trivialise the complexity of community, but family life is extremely difficult and complex. And you can like that person and not like that person and love going to that... like, and you've always got somebody who's saying the wrong thing or that person who's always dependable. And like at the Neighbourhood Project we really try to stay true, like other organisations like work for communities, like we are part of the community, like we, at least 80 percent of our volunteers and staff live within 20 minutes of the centre.

Do you know what I mean? So it, for us, from the project's perspective, it's just, we have to make space. And take time. Not do the quick fix thing. And we could never guarantee anybody's safety. Because we are coping with a [00:30:00] lot of situations where people are literally 50p away from no money for four weeks. And if that doesn't entitle somebody to be fucking pissed off, I don't know what does. Like, people are people, and their feelings are valid.

Dale: Like I get on with a lot of them because I've been sanctioned. So when anyone's coming up for sanction I say, I've fucking been there, I've been sanctioned for a year, so I know exactly what you're going through. They think, fucking hell right, this guy knows what he's on about. So, yeah, you know. It's experience.

Zara: Nothing actually feels further away from politics than working in community sometimes. Like, in the centre, you get there at eight o'clock, you never know what's going to happen. You're there till four, five, six, whatever time. You never know what's going to happen that day. You never know who's going to walk through the door. You're just in it. You're in it. And you just have to be in it. And respond or react or do in that moment whatever feels right then. Do you know what I mean? And we might have values that that's grounded in or a like a resource that we have at that moment. But actually, the big picture stuff is there but it's, it's... When you've got somebody there who's like, I've got four kids and I've got no food at home, the politic behind that isn't the big thing. It's the, let's feed you.

Dale: Yeah.

Jamil: I think just on that as well, absolutely. I think there's... I just remembered a story of like... I remember I was at a gig months ago, and it was Do One, you know, anyway, it's a it's a lot of afro beats, latin house, you know, a lot, a lot of, you know, just music from the Middle East and Africa. And it's a lot of, uh, elder Black Caribbean, Middle Eastern, dance crew who come. And it's a wonderful community event that takes place in Birchfields.

And I was in the smoking area. A man, complete stranger in the smoking area, went to me, yeah, bruv, I just think I'm becoming a racist. I was like, okay interesting, go on. And gave him the time. And he was like, yeah, just, you know, it's immigrants man, you know, they're just, they're coming here, doing this, you know, rada, rada, rada.

And I said to him very clearly, I said, well, to be honest with you mate, I think you've put a bit of an interesting emergency handbrake on there. Because anyone who's actually genuinely at risk of becoming a racist probably... or you know, is a racist, definitely wouldn't turn around to a brown guy and go, excuse me, I think I'm becoming a racist. You know what I mean? It's a weird thing to say to a person you've never met.

Uh, but the thing is there was a knot there. And I think this is what we don't often give ourselves the opportunity to do, is that as soon as someone says something like that, you put them in a box. But there was a knot, and you could see it was uncomfortable. And I was like, hmm, what's at the heart of this? So I just kept asking questions and kept listening. And after all the nonsense about immigrants this and not integrating and da da da da da da, he came out with it and went, listen, yeah, my mum lived opposite the MEN arena bomber. I was like, ah, interesting, go on.

And it turned out that the whole issue was that, uh, you know, his mum was friends with, and he knew of, the man who blew himself up and killed, was it 22 kids in Manchester Arena? Um, and that was a whole new thing for him. And that was the knot. And I think half the time is that like, what's the space for people to figure out where's this trauma coming from? Where's this anger coming from? And I think that, yeah, I'm much more interested in having conversations about how we untie those knots on a bigger scale. And it requires, like, deep listening. And like, uh, you know, empathy and care for the very thing that we're told to... that is dangerous and is not worthy of care.

Anna: Um, Zara, when we were at the GMTU thing, like, the person who was chairing the panel asked all of you guys, like, what, how have you responded to the riots? Like, what have you changed in what you're doing? And you were like, we haven't, we're doing the same thing. And like, I think there is something powerful about that idea of not being reactive. Like I suppose that's like the whole kind of impetus for this podcast and thinking about community organising, is like, it is about building something. And like, the terms of that being set by us and trying to sustain and build something that's ours. That, like, isn't just reacting to what next fucking barbaric thing the state decides to do, or, like, who's coming out in the street to commit violence or whatever, like. We're trying to not just play by the rules that's been set to us, and actually, like, all of these things that have been dismantled deliberately, we want to try and build something in their place. And something different as well. Like, trying to build communities that are resilient to deal with difference and deal with the legacies that we have of racism and violence that, you know, has brought our communities about in the first place.

Zara: Yeah. People are like, what is the solution? I honestly could not tell you. There is room for mobilisations, there's room for, like, political education, there's room for, you know, creating access to resources and different infrastructure. There is no one size fits all, there's no one policy that you could bring in [00:35:00] that would change anything. But, solidarity can interweave all of those different solutions to the problems that we're, we're facing.

Jamil: At risk of sounding overly simplistic, I think you have to start where you are, and like when there are inevitably breaches for wider conversation, then we, you know, we flow. But like, the... What's the biggest opening that we've had in a while for like big leftist conversation in this country? Was Corbyn. Do you know what I mean? That was the last moment when everyone was like, people felt hopeful.

Dale: Yeah.

Jamil: And that was, and that was the first time in my life, actually. You know, being born in 1993, Labour getting in... Blair getting in in 1997. And that very quickly turning into the Iraq War and just neoliberalisation and selling off public services.

The first time in my life as a 30 year old that like there was a moment where I saw, Oh, actually that does align with something that I would be interested in supporting. Um, and it was snuffed out. And I think there's a lot of people who got really burnt out by that and really dejected. But that was because there was, you know, it's a beautiful political moment, but again, all of the hopes and dreams were invested in this one guy who grew turnips in an allotment. [Laughter].

And I'm just like, you know what I mean? It's fantastic, but you know what I mean? The point is like, don't put all your faiths in that gardener. We should all be gardeners. [Laughter]. Do you know what I mean? Like we should all be gardeners. And like food production, access to food justice, access to housing justice. Those are the things I think the left should be tackling. Like, how do we actually engage in like, you know, what is democracy and what is a sustainable community? Those are more interesting questions for me than how do we generally combat the far right.

You know, we are gonna see consistent cuts in funding. And further and more and more, like, economic and ecological crisis. More people are gonna flee here and we're gonna have less and less money to deal with the basic needs here. And so this argument's gonna continue. Therefore, the only thing I think we could do is be like, okay, where's the bread on your table? And uh, how are you making sure you pay next month's rent? And if we are putting ourselves at the forefront of that conversation, then, you know, the narratives will kind of form around that. Because I think that's... the point is that there are no clever answers until we're in confrontation with it. You know what I mean, it's like, it has to develop through the interaction. Yeah.

Dale: Absolutely. I mean, round our end, so we've got the post office, haven't we? Which, in my mind, what would be great is, the people of Harpurhey own the post office. That, I'd love that. You know me, I'd love that.

Jamil: Is that the one at risk of closure at the moment? You know what I mean, there's the campaign.

Dale: Yeah, so there's one. The other one is the Greater Manchester Living Income. That campaign's starting up. I'm well into that. Let's get that basic income trialled in Harpurhey. Just to show, yeah, you give people money, not means tested, just give them the money to live. It'll beat the fash. It'll be before the fash.

Zara: And it undermines their narrative, right?

Dale: Of course it does. Absolutely. Absolutely.

Jamil: One of the things I actually think might undercut the far right is a massive push for devolution. And like, you know, they want people...

Zara: And Manchester is in a position for devolution.

Jamil: Well, we're a devolved city, init. With limited powers, but we're a devolved city. Just like Birmingham. And like, but the idea of like, you know, okay, you wanna talk about taking back control and you wanna talk about, you know, agency, having control over your future, then let's actually get executive control over our own budget and overall legislation for the cities and communities. And not just have Westminster kids basically just dictate for the rest of this island.

Zara: And within that, within that, do you know what I find really interesting though, within that conversation is, right... The subcontracting of local authority contracts, for instance, if we was a devolved city, we would be able to employ local people to do services. So for instance, we have complaints about lots of things to do with the local authority, not least fly tipping. Absolutely. Right. Fly tipping is one of the biggest issues. And if we had somebody off the estate who owned a business and could do this and get paid for it, like localised infrastructure, it's something I'm really interested in.

Dale: Yes.

Jamil: There you go, that's it then. So community wealth building and local democracy will fight the far right better than just shouting Nazi scum off our streets.

Dale: Absolutely.

Zara: We're saying that today. [Laughter].

Anna: Yeah, yeah, yeah. We're still gonna fucking shout it though. [Laughter].

Jamil: No, we will shout it.

Zara: Yeah. We're doing both.

[Music: Aum by K Monday]

Anna: Thanks for listening to this podcast and thanks so much to Jamil and Zara and Dale for coming to talk to us. Um, we're Seeds for Change. We run training and make resources for grassroots groups that are campaigning for social and environmental justice. Thanks for listening.

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Community Organisers in Conversation

Antifascism part 2

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