IF YOU WANT to know What's happened to Britain's rain, ask the anti-racists who marched Enrouen It In BaCKDurn IasI Saturday. But the 4,000 militants were not depressed by the downpour. Headed by a contingent of Asian youth, the march was disciplined and militant.
The response from Blackburn's shoppers was very different as well. Last May some had booed and heckled a march against racism and then cheered a National Party demo headed by Kingsley Read. This time tney nstened in quiet respect, a lew even buying 'Fight Racism' badges. The display of solidarity with Blackburn's Asian community was an impressive sight.
It's not hard to discover why the fascists nave -Howered Blackburn. in months. Despite the new shopping centre, the town's prospects are not good. A string of redundancies over the last year have put 7.1 per cent of the workers on the dole.
More are threatened. Edgar Pickering, who employs 1,000 workers on the Whitebirk Industrial Estate, recently picked up a Queen's Award for Industry for Exports — and promptly celebrated by threatening the wole workorce with the sack incre was any trouble.
Housing tells the same story. Some pokey new homes have been built, but many streets nave been uncantee for decades The immigrants are crowded into streets Tike those of Whalley Range, stepping out of their houses onto the still cobbled roads that rise steeply up the hillsides. It's a bleak place at the best of time Sabotage Racism has also been fed by the local rag, the Lancashire Evening Telegraph. It has retailed the racists' lies without any critical comment, and did its best to sabotage Saturday's demonstration. On Tuesday 7 September a banner headline read Keep Away — a reference to an appeal by Tory, Labour, Liberal and Ratepayer party chiefs to boycott the demonstration. Apparently the Labour leaders in Blackburn think that when Barbara Castle gets a bullet through the post from the fascists, the best way to respond is to run like a rabbit.
The Telegraph finished its run-up to the demo with a front page comment column echoing the church leaders, the erstwhile vicar friends of the Communist Party who had withdrawn any support from the demo: *Perhaps we should all be on our knees in church, rather than on our feet in the streets.' "On their knees' is undoubtedly where these scribblers would prefer the Asian population of Blackburn to be. There might be a few Uncle Toms in the leadership of the Asian community who accept this, but the message from the militant youth is a chficrent one: 'Stand Up and Fight.' A Clear C demonstration of where their roots lie is in the cafes of Whalley Range Three quarters of the re on the juke boxes might be in Asian language but they prefer to play the Rolling Stones don't share the more deferential attitude of their immigrant parents. They were born and bred here, and they're determined to stay.
On the demonstration itself this was clearly reflected in the enthusiastic welcome given to the slogans of the 700-strong contingent of the International Marxist Group. The slogan must support black self-defence' was particularly Important The IMG's attitude that blacks and anti-racists must detene remserves wa underlined by the three rows of helmeted stewards who headed the IMG contingent and by the helmeted stewards who flanked each line. Any fascist thinking of provoking an incident would have thought twice. The demonstrators imposed their own order on the march, not that of the police.
The International Socialists provided a similar number, with the organisations of the far left as a whole making up about half the demonstration. However, this was not reflected in the platform at the packed rally in King George's Hall.
In the vast hall the Broadside Mobile Theatre found it difficult to get their antiracist street theatre across, and then the Communist Party-organised platform defused the militancy of the meeting with a speech from Vishnu Sharma (president of the Joint Council for wellare Immigrants) and songs from the Spinners. More speeches followed, but by this time the militant youth were streaming out of the hall to find out what the National Front was doing up at its meeting in Accrington Road.
Saturday's march probably did much to guarantee that it will be a Labour candidate and not a National Party or NF thug that is returned in Thursday's local by-election, caused by the hasty resignation of one of the NP's two councillors. What remains to be seen after Saturday is whether the leaders of the local labour movement will take their heads out of the sand and confront the racists nead-on