Dave Douglass: Why I'm No Longer a 'Wobbly'! *

 Farewell British Isles Industrial Workers of the World
by Dave Douglass

Follonsby Miners Lodge Banner

FOR almost fifty years I have been a member of the IWW since it reformed in Britain in the late 70’s.  At that time it did what it said on the tin, it was a revolutionary union based on the principles on which it was founded in 1905 in Chicago, the principle of One Industry One Union, with all workers in one industry in the same union regardless of craft or skill or grade. United through their industries to One Big Union of all workers.  It sought not just a fair days wage but abolition of wage slavery, it fought for the next slice of bread and demanded the bakery.  Unions like the NUM and NUR at that time were based upon the principle after the early Industrial Unionists and Syndicalists in 1908/ 1909 and programmes like The Miners Next Step, and Industrial Union Britain had a profound influence on the trade union and labour movement.  We (The IWW through the 70’s 80’s and 90’s) continued to work within the mass unions as cells and duel members, we of course worked within communities on community issues too.  During the decades I was associated with the IWW I worked a lifetime in the mines and during that time South Yorkshire and North East IWW branches.  We organised large conferences and rallies within the heart of working-class communities and in mass mobilisations of the class and militant sections of it.  North Eastern IWW hosted a conference on Clean Coal technology and Climate change and commissioned a pamphlet in support of the coal communities and industry in defence of the miners union on the basis of clean coal technology.

The IWW internationally had had a significant impact on the pre-WW1 war and post WW1 war period, particularly within the Irish Socialist Republican Movement and coalfields Miners Federation of GB.

George Harvey first national organiser of the IWW in Britain, creator of the Follonsby (Red)Banner. Lodge Secretary Follonsby Wardley Lodge.

It is the inspiration of the miners ‘red banners’ and northern IWW members were influential in recreating the red miners Follonsby banner and forming the Follonsby Miners Lodge Association.  It carries the portrait of Harvey first British organiser of the IWW Connolly first national organiser of the IWW and founder member, Arthur Cook syndicalist president of the Miners Federation during the 26 lock out and General Strike, and V I Lenin whose slogan All Power to the Soviets sounded like the same aims of the IWW and the international Industrial Unions.

It has toured the country and been used as a central plank for lectures on our revolutionary history and culture, as well as publications on the banner and founder members of Industrial Unionism in Britain.  We had been regular guests at the James Connell commemoration in Kills County Meath, a Wobbly and author of The Red Flag, our banners and his influence inspired a radical red RMT union banner.  In major commemorations of 1912, 1926, and annually the Durham Miners Gala where we always had a marquee and bookstall and organised major rallies and discussions about revolutionary class politics.  From time to time we organised workers into the union and represented them at work and tribunals.  I had the honour last year of having the Follonsby Banner as the backdrop to a lecture on the struggles of the IWW and the Wobblies in Irish revolutionary history and the British mines, at the Socialist Republican commemoration of the Hunger Strikers.

To cut a decades long story short, over the last ten years and more I have been more and more distanced and disillusioned with the team calling itself the British IWW , to start with it has become hugely more centralised than it has ever been in its creation.  The decentralised democratic function of the branches is now controlled and centralised into a national leadership.  Sad to say the ‘union’ has become dominated by the south of England and within that a largely middle class London based membership who have carried their liberal left agenda’s straight from that milieu into the policy of the union.  You could be listening to the young liberal leftist Corbynista’s, Climate Extinction or now the IWW.  The social outlook of this milieu has grated for some time.  I was amazed for example as a person who fought for my class for ten years from 83 to 93 against pit closures and the slaughter of the coal industry and miners union and community, to hear anti coal anti mining agenda’s rolled out in the name of the union.  It was simply assumed this being the attitude among the southern middle class it was generally agreed, it wasn’t, not by any of us in the rust belts.  But the final straw for me is the wholesale adoption of Identity Politics, the sectarian politics of sex and gender with enforced PC positions again just assumed to be common sense and currency.  The agenda of class struggle and the sovereignty of the working class as a whole the bedrock upon which all other forms of oppression stem and around which we unite as a common class is the absolute bedrock of the IWW or has been up to now.

IWW picket line Gateshead 2014

Today I get sent this:-

Gemma (East Scotland area organiser) and Maddi (Clydeside Branch co-communications officer) are inviting you to the IWW's first online welcome session for women & non-binary members: Wednesday 15th July, at 7pm on Zoom (details below).

Please note: This message is being sent to all IWW members so that everyone can help spread the word. The welcome session on the 15th is specifically for women (trans-inclusive) and non-binary members. If you are a cis-gender man (you were assigned male at birth, and are still male now) then please stay tuned for news of future welcome sessions, or reply to this email if you'd like to speak to someone from your local branch or in your industry.

And today I resign, it’s a long way from Fellow Worker to cis-gender man and designating me not on my class and class orientation but whether I have a problem with the gender I was born with and actually assuming that that is some common feature of humanity.

The IWW for a long time, even when we were doing great things was always a very poor tribute band to the original, today it is no longer a class struggle organisation and is completely shot through with Middle class PC Identity liberal leftist politics.  A Sad and sorry end to a once great organisation, but they can't take away its fine past and heroic contribution. 

*  Origin of Wobbly Theory #1 - "Eye Wobble Wobble"

Also known as the "Chinese Restaurant Owner Theory", this is the most often cited and embellished theory.  There exists plenty of anecdotal evidence to support this theory as having a grain of truth to it.  Although it is equally likely to be little more than a cleverly crafted tall tale or yarn. We quote from Three Original Sources:
(1) The earliest known reference to the term:

In Vancouver, in 1911, we had a number of Chinese members, and one restaurant keeper would trust any member for means. He could not pronounce the letter "w" (due to the "l" sounds in the pronunciation of the letter), but called it "wobble" and would ask, "you Eye Wobble Wobble?" and when the [red] card was shown credit was unlimited. Thereafter the laughing term amongst us was "I Wobbly Wobbly".

--Mortimer Downing, IWW Member. Quoted in Jack Scott, "How the Wobblies Got their Name," in his Plunderbund and Proletariat (Vancouver, BC.: North Star Books, 1975), p. 153. Also quoted in Jerry Lembcke and William M. Tattam, One Union in Wood, A Political History of the International Woodworkers of America (New York, NY.: International Publishers and Madeira Park, BC.: Harbour Publishing, © 1984), pp. 188-89 n31.
(2) The following account is from the Official IWW History:

It was at this time (1912 during a "thousand mile picket line" railway strike in British Columbia) that the term "Wobbly" as nick-name for IWW came into use. Previously they had been called many things from International Wonder Workers to I Won't Works. The origin of the expression "Wobbly" is uncertain. Legend assigns it to the lingual difficulties of a Chinese restaurant keeper with whom arrangements had been made during this strike to feed members passing through his town. When he tried to ask "Are you I.W.W.?" it is said to have come out: "All loo eye wobble wobble?" The same situation, but in Vancouver is given as the 1911 origin of the term by Mortimer Downing in a letter quoted in Nation, Sept. 5, 1923..."

--From The IWW: Its First 100 Years by Fred W. Thompson and Jon Bekken, 2006, IWW: Cincinnati, page 60..
3) This account is further elaborated in the following quote:

The word "Wobbly", a nickname for IWW members, humorously illustrates the union's efforts to combat racism. A Chinese restaurant keeper in Vancouver in 1911 supported the union and would extend credit to members. Unable to pronounce the letter "w", he would ask if a man was in the "I Wobble Wobble". Local members jokingly referred to themselves as part of the "I Wobbly Wobbly," and by the time of the Wheatland strike of 1913, "Wobbly" had become a permanent moniker for workers who carried the red card. Mortimer Downing, a Wobbly who first explained the etymology, noted that the nickname "hints of a fine, practical internationalism, a human brotherhood based on a community of interests and of understanding."

--Mark Leier, Where the Fraser River Flows, The Industrial Workers of the World in British Columbia (Vancouver, BC.: New Star Books, 1990), page 35.

Weighing the Evidence

Conceivably, Downing's account could be the honest truth. According to Dan Cornford (in Workers and Dissent in the Redwood Empire, ©1987, Temple University Press), The IWW was the first labor union in North America to refuse to discriminate against Chinese and Chinese Americans. (Many earlier left-wing organizations, including the Greenback Labor Party and the Knights of Labor discriminated vehemently against Chinese and Japanese Americans. Former members of these organizations (such as George Speed) later joined the IWW and jettisoned their racism). Such interracial solidarity most certainly did not go unnoticed in the Chinese American community, and they would likely have responded favorably to the IWW.
However, all the evidence of the "Chinese Restaurateur Theory" apparently stems from Downing's letter. There is no known independent source that verifies Downing's story. His account may just as easily be a romanticized embellishment of the truth, or it could be pure fiction, and there is no credible proof that it isn't. Downing's narrative also suggests deeply ingrained stereotypical views of Chinese and Chinese-American speech patterns, even by 1911 standards.
Quoting Mark Leier again:

In a letter to the author, dated 31 January 1989, Craig M. Carver, managing editor of the Dictionary of American Regional English states that the Chinese restaurateur version is not given "much credence ... because the story is simply unverifiable." Those with a scientific bent must conclude that the etymology is unknown; romantics may choose to stick with Downing.

--Mark Leier, Where the Fraser River Flows, The Industrial Workers of the World in British Columbia (Vancouver, BC.: New Star Books, 1990), p 35.

***************************

Manchester Anarchist Bookfair Review 2019

 by Christopher Draper

AFTER years of uncomradely bans and exclusions that led to the organisers themselves being banished from this favoured venue it is good to see the Bookfair back at Manchester’s Pumphouse Museum.  Saturday December 7th’s 2019’s fair was efficiently organised with a good range of books, associated literature as well as music, tee-shirts, badges etc on offer.  Admission was free and with a café on site a good time was had by all, or nearly all (more of that later).


Six hour-long talks were advertised:  “Anarchism and Education”; “An Introduction to IWW”;  “What is the Anarchist Party?”; “Marie Louise Berneri’s - Journey Through Utopia”;  “The Government of No One” and “Chav Solidarity” respectively.


Having practiced anarchist education within and without the state system for 50 years I was especially interested in the first talk.  The speaker, Dr. Nick Stevenson, a sociology lecturer at Nottingham University, promised to discuss “more humanistic alternatives” but confined most of his speech to elucidating the ideas of Ivan Illich.  He seemed a nice bloke but this was woefully inadequate as even a basic introduction to “Anarchism and Education”.  Nick seemed blissfully unaware of the numerous practical anarchist educational initiatives that have taken place in Britain since Louis Michel founded her “International School” in London in 1891.  Instead of ivory-towered philosophising about Illich we would have been much better occupied analysing the rise and fall of the dozens of living and breathing free schools that flourished all over Britain in the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s, never mind the continuing libertarian education on offer at Summerhill.  When I met Nick afterwards he spoke movingly of how his own children had suffered at the hands of the state system and it struck me that this would have provided a better starting point for discussion of real life anarchist alternatives, past, present and future.


My fears of abstract philosophising only increased after attending Dr. Matthew S Adams, Loughborough University lecturer’s talk on Utopias and then Dr. Ruth Kinna’s (another Loughborough lecturer) talk about her book, “The Government of No One”.  I wasn’t reassured when I googled Mr Adams and discovered he’s just published a “Handbook of Anarchism” (Palgrave-MacMillan 2019) that costs £199.99!


Unfortunately the “International Workers of the World” couldn’t even manage to organise themselves so their talk never happened and consequently for the second hour the valuable discussion space remained empty and unused.  I took the opportunity to walk around the hall and chat to stallholders. Despite my lack of affection for Marxism I found the “International Brigade” stallholder most comradely and appreciated our discussion about the decline of politicised working class culture and the collapse of the Clarion movement.   I similarly enjoyed comradely conversations at the Hunt Sabs, PM Press, and West Yorkshire Communist Anarchist stalls and was particularly impressed by the latter’s newsletter that wittily describes Hebden Bridge as, “A nice little drug-town with an unwelcome tourist problem.” 


I’d only half completed my circuit of stallholders by 12.30 so missed “The Anarchist Party’s” talk but as I later learned they advocate voting Labour it’s just as well I didn’t attend.  Unfortunately I had to leave before the last talk to catch a train back to Wales so can’t comment on the “Chavs” although that might well have proved the most useful event of the day (perhaps someone could enlighten us?).

Overall the Bookfair was a great achievement by the organisers. In today’s political climate it’s easier to sit back and do nothing, they dared to bring anarchism back into a venue that is precious but fraught with problems (more of that in a forthcoming article).  They had to steer a difficult course between providing lively debate but avoiding the destructive antagonisms that have so blighted recent anarchist bookfairs.  Unfortunately I learned afterwards that even this event wasn’t free from censorship.  When a group of women from “Make More Noise” attempted to distribute leaflets on gender politics they were asked to leave on the basis that only approved stallholders could distribute literature (there’s more of this on Twitter).  Apparently there was no consequent violence or blacklisting but neither was this an entirely satisfactory conclusion.  Couldn’t the leaflets have been left on a stallholders table or perhaps a table provided for non-stallholders to leave “non-authorised” leaflets?

The organisers must be congratulated but anarchism requires more than sycophancy and the “Freedom” website regrettably treated the “Make More Noise” women and their Twitter supporters with contempt.  My main concern is that the predominance of academic philosophising in the discussion space (3 out of the 5 talks delivered). In the 1960’s Feminism was a revolutionary, libertarian movement (I was there when Germaine Greer spoke at the Warwick University occupation in 1970!) but it spawned “Women’s Studies”, provided safe academic careers, was increasingly commodified and now “Women’s Hour” compiles an annual list “Women’s Powerlist”!  Is anarchism going the same way, with ever more academic chiefs and fewer activist Indians? We mustn’t let professors define our politics or encourage the emergence of an academic “Priest-Class”.  These ivory-towered experts share their musings in the journal “Philosophical Studies” (available at the Bookfair), but how many working class activists are going to read it, let alone write for it, at £14 an issue?   I’m not anti-intellectual but Kropotkin, Russell and Chomsky were also activists and theory must surely be constantly refreshed and informed by struggle to be useful. Anarchist theory and anarchist activism cannot flourish if conducted by separate groups with the former leading the latter – we are not Marxists.


The problem is wider than the Bookfair and I don’t doubt that the academics and the organisers are all nice people but that doesn’t preclude constructive criticism.  I would suggest two modifications for next years Manchester Bookfair.  Firstly no more than one philosophical talk with five more practical workshops led by everyday, down-to-earth anarchists and secondly an open-to-all “Free Speech” stall including material that may well shock and offend, perhaps supported by a “Free Speech” workshop?

For Peace, Love & Anarchy……………………Christopher Draper, Llandudno

*************************

Death of Anna Campbell of Bristol IWW

 NORTHERN VOICES wishes to note the tragic death of the Bristol IWW member Anna Campbell,  a 26 year-old plumber formerly from Lewes, East Sussex, who was killed by a Turkish air strike along with 100 other Y.P.J. volunteers on the 15th March.

We publish below the statement from her Bristol Branch

***

IWW BRISTOL BRANCH STATEMENT:

It is with great sadness that we learn of the passing of Fellow Worker Anna Campbell, killed by Turkish forces while fighting alongside Kurdish Women’s Protection Units (YPJ) in the defence of Afrin.
 
Anna was a dedicated feminist, social justice and environmental campaigner known to members for her activism around the student occupation movement, ecological and community outreach projects in Bristol and Sheffield.  She was a key organiser in the IWW’s IWOC group, also being involved with the Empty Cages Collective, Smash IPP and Bristol ABC.

Anna travelled to Syria last May to participate in the grassroots feminist and socialist revolution that continues to grow in Rojava (the autonomous Kurdish region of northern Syria). Anna spent her first months in the country fighting in Deir ez-Zor, Isis’s last major stronghold. However when Turkey launched an assault on the city of Afrin in late January. Anna insisted that she be redeployed there. She gave her commanders an ultimatum, ‘Either I will go home and abandon the life as a revolutionary or you send me to Afrin. But I would never leave the revolution, so I will go to Afrin’.

A spokesperson from the YPJ said of Anna (who took the nom de guerre ‘Helîn’ in Rojava): “comrade Helîn will always be a symbol as a pioneering internationalist woman.  We will live up to her hope and beliefs. We will forever pursue her aim to struggle for women, for oppressed communities.”

Our thoughts and condolences are with Anna’s family, friends and comrades at this time.
Rest in Power Fellow Worker.

***

SAD END TO A GREAT INSTITUTION!

'Bookfair couldn’t guarantee the banner’s safety', said Dave Douglass
 

by Dave Douglass (South Shields}

THE annual Anarchist Bookfair in London was for many many years the highlight of the Anarchist and radical Marxist calendar.   It brought together the most splendid , vivid fascinating and eccentric, profound and trivial, exciting and profane, hilarious and spiritual assortments of people.   They came in thousands, they bathed in the rainbow variety of factions, tendencies, visions and issues.   Workshops and presentations, entertainment and discussion filled the entire day as the crowds crammed past stalls laden with literature and art, T-shirts and stickers, posters and badges, cards and calendars, a myriad of interesting and unique stuff you would never find anywhere else under one roof.   The Vegan food commune outside the venues hawked the most interesting of pastries and butties, tatties and cakes, rich wonderful chocolate cakes and angel cakes which tested the will power of the most dedicated of health freaks.  In my own judgement the Anarchist bookfair almost vied with the Durham Miners Gala (almost) in terms of ‘not to be missed’ events.  Ancient aud Anarchists rubbed shoulders with the Mohican punks of yesterd-a-year, born again hippies, young activist, and what a Glasgow paper talking of the anti polaris demonstrators of the 60’s called ‘ beardies, weirdies and lang lagged beasties’ 
 
Sadly the great spirit of comradely diversity, the ‘let a million flowers blossom let ten thousand schools of thought reign’ which Mao had once said and may actually at one time believed, had started to change and smoulder into authoritarian intolerances.  In a gradual change of attitude which I think has spread from the Ultra PC ‘no platforming’ ‘shut them up’, ‘safe space’ evangelists of the US campuses, only very particular schools of thought would be allowed to be heard.  

Invited to speak one year I suggested I bring the famous ‘red’ miners banner of the Follonsby Lodge.   The banner originally drafted in 1928 famously sets forth the options and variety of radical working class ideologies and ‘roads’ depicting as it does Social Democracy, Bolshevism, and Anarcho-syndicalism, the ballot box and the gun, in the form of Kier Hardie, James Connolly in the uniform of the ICA, V.I.Lenin , A.J.Cook and George Harvey.  The banner encapsulates the trajectory of ideological struggle and events which led through the birth of the IWW, the ILP, the development of the Soviets, the General Strike, The Easter Irish rising and the Russian revolution.  In this trajectory the debate around the nature of the state and working class democracy ideas of the anarchists and syndicalists, the Industrial Unionists, how society could function once capitalism was defeated were all marked by the birth of this banner. 

I had concluded that the Anarchist Bookfair was an ideal platform to retell this story and the way in which working class history had developed.   'Nope’, I was told , the bookfair couldn’t guarantee the banner’s safety.  One look at the central portrait of Lenin flanked by the hammer and sickle would be enough to stifle any debate and could lead to the destruction of the banner.   It was an early demonstration of the chain of thought which would seek to re-write history by tearing down all statues and memorials and references to un-pc historic figures.   It would be the fingers in the ears while shouting 'lalala’ to stop the sound of words too wounding to be heard. 
 
Then four or five years ago we had a gang attack on Comrade Brian Bamford of the Northern Anarchist Network.  Brian has a knack of rubbing folk up the wrong way it must be said, he had been irreverent to an old stalward of traditional anarchism who had passed away, Brian’s obituary was thought to be insensitive, which it undoubtedly was.  But it led to his stall being turned over his books trashed and he beaten up and sprayed with ketchup.  This was in the middle of an event of Anarchists who are supposed to believe we can govern ourselves without enforcement and laws imposed upon us.   It got worse, as first Brian then members of his group were banned from regional anarchist bookfares, not simply from having a stall but attending on pain of violence.   Book and Newspaper shops which stocked the NAN magazine were visited and warned not to stock the journal, the printers likewise were given the Gypsies Warning.   He hasn’t mounted a bookstall since. 
 
Last year, a section of the Anarchist wing fighting alongside the PKK against ISIS were invited to speak at a workshop.  The hall was invaded by students from the Gulf states who although purporting to be progressives were basically supporters of the Jihadists and Theocrats.  They stamped and chanted and no platformed the speakers.  Bending over backward to preserve our traditions of free speech they were invited to present an alternative view before the anarchists spoke, which they did, and then broke up the meeting and stopped them being heard. 
 
This year was the final straw.  One of the anarcho-feminists had been circulating a leaflet saying why they didn’t allow transmen to attend women only sessions and workshops, when she was surrounded and shouted down and threatened by a gang of 'transmen’, who not only stopped those sessions but demanded a whole list of demands from the bookfare in general be met.  This was as to content of stalls, workshops, items displayed and on sale.  The organisers under a constant barrage have just said ’bollox’ you organise your own, we’re done’.  ‘That’s it, were done organising this event’. 
 
I cannot in conscience blame them.  The only way to stop this march of intolerance would have been to not tolerate it and to physically impose free thought and free speech on people who plainly don’t believe in it.  Which would be a contradiction too hard for Anarchists to cope with.  Its a sad reflection on where mostly middle class ‘safe space’ victim-mongering, no-platforming , witch hunting, tyranny has taken us.   It is a very sad day in my view.  We have to ensure that this intolerance and denial of free speech and basic liberty is not fed into working class organisations and events. 
 
Tyneside anarchists in conjunction with the Follonsby Wardley Miners Lodge Association will be hosting a Guy Fawkes Workers Bookfare in Newcastle next year, Nov 3rd.   This will be an opportunity to present books on working class political ideology and history and progressive thought which one would not get the chance to see in conventional book venues. It will very much be in the tradition of the once famous bookfare although we don’t expect the same numbers.   At this bookfare the principle of free speech and political liberty will be guaranteed, and anyone who doesn’t accept the principle ‘left’ or right will be not invited and if necessary excluded. 
 www.fiveleavespublications.blogspot.com/2012/10/  

******

SORRY END TO A GREAT INSTITUTION

by Dave Douglass (South Shields}

THE annual Anarchist Bookfair in London was for many many years the highlight of the Anarchist and radical Marxist calendar.  It brought together the most splendid , vivid fascinating and eccentric, profound and trivial, exciting and profane, hilarious and spiritual assortments of people.  They came in thousands, they bathed in the rainbow variety of factions, tendencies, visions and issues.  Workshops and presentations, entertainment and discussion filled the entire day as the crowds crammed past stalls laden with literature and art, T-shirts and stickers, posters and badges, cards and calendars, a myriad of interesting and unique stuff you would never find anywhere else under one roof.  The Vegan food commune outside the venues hawked the most interesting of pastries and butties, tatties and cakes, rich wonderful chocolate cakes and angel cakes which tested the will power of the most dedicated of health freaks.  In my own judgement the Anarchist bookfare almost vied with the Durham Miners Gala (almost) in terms of ‘not to be missed’ events.  Ancient aud Anarchists rubbed shoulders with the Mohican punks of yesterd-a-year, born again hippies, young activist, and what a Glasgow paper talking of the anti polaris demonstrators of the 60’s called ‘ beardies, weirdies and lang lagged beasties’ 
 
Sadly the great spirit of comradely diversity, the ‘let a million flowers blossom let ten thousand schools of thought reign’ which Mao had once said and may actually at one time believed, had started to change and smoulder into authoritarian intolerances.  In a gradual change of attitude which I think has spread from the Ultra PC ‘no platforming’ ‘shut them up’, ‘safe space’ evangelists of the US campuses, only very particular schools of thought would be allowed to be heard.  

Invited to speak one year I suggested I bring the famous ‘red’ miners banner of the Follonsby Lodge.   The banner originally drafted in 1928 famously sets forth the options and variety of radical working class ideologies and ‘roads’ depicting as it does Social Democracy, Bolshevism, and Anarcho-syndicalism, the ballot box and the gun, in the form of Kier Hardie, James Connolly in the uniform of the ICA, V.I.Lenin , A.J.Cook and George Harvey.  The banner encapsulates the trajectory of ideological struggle and events which led through the birth of the IWW, the ILP, the development of the Soviets, the General Strike, The Easter Irish rising and the Russian revolution. In this trajectory the debate around the nature of the state and working class democracy ideas of the anarchists and syndicalists, the Industrial Unionists, how society could function once capitalism was defeated were all marked by the birth of this banner. 

I had concluded that the Anarchist Bookfare was an ideal platform to retell this story and the way in which working class history had developed.  'Nope’, I was told , the bookfare couldn’t guarantee the banner’s safety.  One look at the central portrait of Lenin flanked by the hammer and sickle would be enough to stifle any debate and could lead to the destruction of the banner.  It was an early demonstration of the chain of thought which would seek to re-write history by tearing down all statues and memorials and references to un-pc historic figures.  It would be the fingers in the ears while shouting’ lalala’ to stop the sound of words too wounding to be heard. 
 
Then four or five years ago we had a gang attack on Comrade Brian Bamford of the Northern Anarchist Network.  Brian has a knack of rubbing folk up the wrong way it must be said, he had been irreverent to an old stalward of traditional anarchism who had passed away, Brian’s obituary was thought to be insensitive, which it undoubtedly was.  But it led to his stall being turned over his books trashed and he beaten up and sprayed with ketchup.  This was in the middle of an event of Anarchists who are supposed to believe we can govern ourselves without enforcement and laws imposed upon us.   It got worse, as first Brian then members of his group were banned from regional anarchist bookfares, not simply from having a stall but attending on pain of violence.   Book and Newspaper shops which stocked the NAN magazine were visited and warned not to stock the journal, the printers likewise were given the Gypsies Warning.   He hasn’t mounted a bookstall since. 
 
Last year, a section of the Anarchist wing fighting alongside the PKK against ISIS were invited to speak at a workshop.  The hall was invaded by students from the Gulf states who although purporting to be progressives were basically supporters of the Jihadists and Theocrats.  They stamped and chanted and no platformed the speakers.  Bending over backward to preserve our traditions of free speech they were invited to present an alternative view before the anarchists spoke, which they did, and then broke up the meeting and stopped them being heard. 
 
This year was the final straw.  One of the anarcho-feminists had been circulating a leaflet saying why they didn’t allow transmen to attend women only sessions and workshops, when she was surrounded and shouted down and threatened by a gang of 'transmen’, who not only stopped those sessions but demanded a whole list of demands from the bookfare in general be met.  This was as to content of stalls, workshops, items displayed and on sale.  The organisers under a constant barrage have just said ’bollox’ you organise your own, we’re done’.  ‘That’s it, were done organising this event’. 
 
I cannot in conscience blame them.  The only way to stop this march of intolerance would have been to not tolerate it and to physically impose free thought and free speech on people who plainly don’t believe in it.  Which would be a contradiction too hard for Anarchists to cope with.  Its a sad reflection on where mostly middle class ‘safe space’ victim-mongering, no-platforming , witch hunting, tyranny has taken us.   It is a very sad day in my view.  We have to ensure that this intolerance and denial of free speech and basic liberty is not fed into working class organisations and events. 
 
Tyneside anarchists in conjunction with the Follonsby Wardley Miners Lodge Association will be hosting a Guy Fawkes Workers Bookfare in Newcastle next year, Nov 3rd.   This will be an opportunity to present books on working class political ideology and history and progressive thought which one would not get the chance to see in conventional book venues. It will very much be in the tradition of the once famous bookfare although we don’t expect the same numbers.   At this bookfare the principle of free speech and political liberty will be guaranteed, and anyone who doesn’t accept the principle ‘left’ or right will be not invited and if necessary excluded. 
 fiveleavespublications.blogspot.com/2012/10/

******

Tyne & Wear IWW: Condemn Bookfair Attack

LAST night, Dave Douglass told us at Northern Voices that the Tyne & Wear Branch of the IWW had this month moved a resolution condemning the attack by members of the Anarchist Federation on the Northern Voices' Bookstall and the editor of N.V. at the London Anarchist Bookfair on the 27th, October 2012.