Gathering point for the antifa demo is Birmingham Intl. Airport
With PEGIDA coming up, this is exactly what they are attempting to connect with, transferring UKIP voters, shy Tories and people who think voting is a waste of time, into a purely street-based extra-parliamentary movement. And despite their claims to be expressing something the political leaders refuse to, they use the SAME rhetoric the government uses about Muslims, terrorism and „British values“.
This is why they are so dangerous compared to previous groups, their aims, and strategies are designed to create a „safe environment“ coaxing attendees to express themselves, without the opposition to stop them feeling ‚reasonable‘, ’sensible‘, ’not racist‘. We are seeing the seeing something happen here that happened in the 1930’s: parliamentary government and extra-parliamentary movements simultaneously picking a target group (Muslims), blamed for our problems and brought to the focus of news attention, and right-wing authoritarian policies.
Anti-Fascists MUST mobilise, particularly Anti-Fascist Network groups (despite the proximity to the Dover demo on 30th Jan), to Block PEGIDA. They cannot be allowed to have images spread in the media of an unopposed, successful, uncontentious march.
We will be releasing an article with more analysis soon, but for now, three mistakes we cannot make:
1) Assume that PEGIDA will „flop like last time“. These are no longer amateurs.
2) Take them marching out of town as „a win“. Pinewood Studio’s are in the middle of nowhere, and we wouldn’t want them marching there. Nuremberg’s rally grounds are also out of town.
3) That because these are middle-class, older, less extreme racists than brick-wielding, tattooed Nazi’s in Dover, that it isn’t worth traveling for. The more extreme elements will become bolder in physically attacking Muslims if PEGIDA UK becomes a popular movement.
Let’s nip this in the bud.
Solidarity,
Midlands Anti-Fascist Network