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

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'We Are The Many' at Hebden Bridge

Sent in from Trevor Hoyle

Hebden Bridge Picture House -- Sunday 17 July

'WE ARE MANY'

AHEAD of the upcoming publication of the Chilcot Inquiry, it feels timely to revisit Amir Amirani's incendiary documentary We Are Many. It's the story of 15 February 2003, when over 30 million people in over 800 cities across the world marched in demonstration against the Iraq War. How did this day come about?  Who organised it?  And was it, as many people claimed, a total failure?

Who Killed FREEDOM?: an update: March 2015

by Chris Draper

IN 2014, the world’s oldest radical newspaper, FREEDOM, ceased publication.  In February 2015 I identified the culprits and causes of its destruction in a ten-page critique, 'Who Killed FREEDOM?'  Angry members of the collective attempted to portray my critique as mere personal criticism and proffered no substantive refutation, excepting the claim by Simon Saunders that, 'readership of the paper remained broadly stable from the time Vernon (Richards) died (2001) until it closed – around 300-400.'  More typical responses endorsed my analysis and forwarded supplementary evidence.  As a brief update I summarise a small selection of these new insights:

1.  In response to Saunders’ claim, I’ve been reliably informed that in the summer of 2003, Toby Crowe, the editor responsible for introducing FREEDOM’s controversial 'class-first' regime addressing a meeting at Height Gate, Hebden Bridge claimed, 'that the circulation of FREEDOM was then around 800 copies.'

2.  It appears the destructive implications of regime-change engineered by Toby Crowe were presciently anticipated in Spring 2004 by Jonathan Simcock of Total Liberty in the magazine’s editorial column:
'Sadly, the longstanding flagship of British Anarchist journals, namely FREEDOM, has increasingly abandoned the broader church of Anarchist ideas, and has metamorphosed into a poorer version of Black Flag.'

In the following edition, Simcock rammed home his analysis and critique:
'To reach ordinary people Anarchist papers need to re-evaluate Anarchist ideas and to hold an open debate. I am afraid the regular dose of 19th century Marxist and Class Struggle dominated viewpoints to be seen in FREEDOM will repel not attract people to anarchism. FREEDOM has lost its way.'

3.  A third correspondent offered a graphic illustration of the regime’s determined imposition of its collective will, not only on recent contributors but also on FREEDOM’s political legacy.  Colin Ward’s 1971 classic statement of peaceful, constructive libertarianism, 'Anarchy in Action' was, in 2008, given a makeover insurrectionary cover featuring hooded youths and an anonymous “anarchist” lobbing a missile.  A grotesque, perversion of the political philosophy of an author who believed, 'Ideas not armies change the face of the world,' whose self-declared intention was, 'to put anarchism back into the intellectual bloodstream, into the field of ideas which are taken seriously.' 

4.  An example of FREEDOM’s abuse of editorial responsibility so upset one subscriber that he recalled the incident (and forwarded the evidence to me) fully 5 years after the event, though not themselves the injured party.
'I have been a subscriber to FREEDOM for some 30 years at least, and so it is with sadness that I have decided I no longer want to receive the paper', wrote Ian Pirie to FREEDOM in January 2010. 'Two recent issues of the paper finally made me realise I had enough.'

Mr Pirie, whose father, incidentally had subscribed to FREEDOM long before him, was no longer prepared to put up with the paper’s use of gratuitously offensive language and celebration of violence.
 
Pirie cited recent publication of the 'Bookfair Song' with its first line ending 'you cunts', asking 'How are you going to get anarchism a broader public if you print such sexist and frankly juvenile, stuff?'  ('It’s the place to settle scores / And you know you’re getting yours” and “our scene is not a playground / For wankers to hang out').

Pirie further cited an article by Ian Bone praising the group Os Cangaceiros, who apparently 'join demos armed with sling-shots, rice flails and an array of martial arts weapons' and linked in the paper with Mesrine, described in the same issue as a 'loony who killed two policemen…beat his wife up…kidnapped and tortured a journalist.'

Wondering 'What has this thuggery got to do with anarchism?' Pirie concluded; 'I will continue to do my best to propagate the positive and constructive aspects of anarchist politics where I can. But FREEDOM is no longer any help to me in doing this.'

Rather than reflect on the implications of loosing yet another long-time subscriber the paper printed a mocking response from “Gawain the cunt Williams” (his self-chosen appellation) of the 'Whitechapel Anarchist Group':
'Ian Pirie wrote how this paper no longer represented his liberal whining politics because it printed the word ““cunt”” and apparently his pacifist eyes couldn’t handle it…  Throughout the ‘70s the feminist movement fought against its use. I wasn’t around then so I don’t know if cunt actually meant cleft of venus then, but I know that since I’ve been on this earth it sure as fuck hasn’t. Instead it describes people who are muppets, arses, tossers…  People who hate the word cunt seem to hate it because they’re tired of being called one or because they’re middle class cunts trying to impose some sense of decency on working class men…Makhno was a great anarchist because he used to shoot people. If you can’t handle people being called cunts then how are you going to handle an article about Mahkno?...  Finally, Mr Pirie, maybe you should realise that if the word cunt offends you so much it might be because you are in fact…a cunt. FREEDOM’s been doing a cracking job under its new editors.'!

Future updates will include observations and conclusions from inside the final collective and the Board of 'FRIENDS OF FREEDOM PRESS'.  For now I’m content to leave readers to contemplate the implications of an editorial collective that derides the constructive, intellectually respectable anarchism of Colin Ward as 'reeking of allotments, of forgetting class, of irrelevance and reformism' yet receives such glowing commendation from Gawain “the cunt” Williams.

Christopher Draper, Llandudno

The Spirit of 45 – what next?

[This is a leaflet given out at a showing of Spirit of 45 at the Picture Palace, Hebden Bridge, West Yorkshire on 11 April 2013]

KEN Loach has said that he wants his film to kickstart a conversation which gets beyond opposition to the current government’s punitive policies, and as Mark Steele recently said beyond 'yelling at the telly, or if you’re really dedicated, the radio as well.'

We have to continue opposing the policies of the government but at the same time we have to look at what the spirit of co-operation and consensus means 70 years later. How should it change our approach to housing, welfare, health, education etc? What is our vision? 

This is a call to all those millions of people in Britain who face an impoverished and uncertain year as their wages, jobs, conditions and welfare provision come under renewed attack by the government. 

The People’s Assembly is being driven by a coalition of unions representing millions of workers in both the private and public sector; activists in the Labour and Green Parties; campaigners for disabled people, and for tax justice; and people who are just stranded, without a political home.

With some 80 per cent of austerity measures still to come, and with the government lengthening the time they expect cuts to last, we are calling a People’s Assembly Against Austerity to bring together campaigns against cuts and privatisation with trade unionists in a movement for social justice. The Assembly will provide a national forum for anti-austerity views which, while increasingly popular, are barely represented in Parliament.

The aim of the People’s Assembly, which Ken Loach is supporting, is to unite all opponents of policies being inflicted on this country. On 22 June there will be a 3,500-strong meeting at Westminster Central Hall, but in the meantime people will be touring the country, encouraging local groups to be set up in every town and city. 

For more information go to www.coalitionofresistance.org.uk

[The following is intended for local people in the Hebden Bridge and surrounding areas, though I suppose all views are welcome]

If you have thoughts about the film or how the Spirit of 45 can be revived, go to www.hebdenbridge.co.uk  where there is a discussion forum. 

ROCHDALE: Why is it not on the Musical Gig Map of England?

A report by Chris Hewitt:
CHRIS Hewitt is a Rochdale ex pat who grew up promoting live music in the town and continues to do so around the world as well as running a record and music dvd company which has strong links with musicians who originally came from Rochdale.
The recent blue plaque day evening event saw a host of music fans attend a £15 a ticket event at the 250 capacity town centre Back Door. 
Venue at Broadwater- unfortunately people paying £15 a ticket to see original live music in Rochdale is somewhat of a one off. The fact that the powers that be through the years have consistently failed to maintain or even provide a suitable venue in the town centre together with funding /subsidies for regular music events has meant that Rochdale has slipped down the ladder behind towns much smaller than it.
The Gracie Fields theatre was built as a poor substitute for a town centre theatre/ music venue. The College Halll had its stage door access wiped out by the expansion of St Mary’s Gate to a dual carriageway and furthermore despite being originally in the control of the Council’s own Education department and hosting some great town centre live pop music events and the youth music festival it was always a bureaucratic obstacle course to hire it- even when I was running concerts at the college in conjunction with Paul Gibson who was then in RMBC Entertainments we found that trying to book the College Hall from Education was even difficult in the name of another council department. I believe Hopwood Hall no longer allow bookings of the College Hall for concerts ? Champness Hall hosted some great concerts in the 70’s but would not survive as a concert hall today as not having an interval bar under the Methodist rules would mean it would not work as a cultural venue in today’s climate- does this no alchohol rule still apply to Champness Hall today?
Until such time as one of the grand schemes for a town centre theatre/ music venue are actually built ( and don’t forget to budget for some funds for events to put in it or you still have a building that is a white elephant- as Rochdale needs funding for music and arts events to put it back on the cultural map of England ) surely an investment of say £50,000 per annum towards a series of indoor live music events for over 18s at Back Door Broadwater would help to bring some much needed cultural status back to the town and continue the great positive feeling that the blue plaque day and evening created. Whilst Rochdale Development Agency does a great job of bringing new business to the borough and the Re-Thinking/branding project preaches sermons about why people should be thinking about “why I want to visit Rochdale or I want to go to Rochdale it’s assets are attractive” a positive thriving live music and culture policy for over 18’s from RMBC / Link4Life in a venue like Back Door which would take so little to continue after the success the blue plaque day and evening created would help to bring people back into the town centre in an evening and encourage people from outside of Rochdale to visit the town. The general feeling of well being and being part of a cultural event is something even the police have mentioned when I have been at meetings about music and culture in Rochdale. To quote a strap line from Bury Met below- they present music and theatre at their 240 capacity venue that leaves people inspired and enriched. Rochdale has created some great musicians ( and many musicians from outside have used Rochdale to record their music there), artists, poets writers, and great sound technicians and the one thing we haven’t got is a focussed venue hub where these people and the ones who will be tomorrow’s and the audiences can meet.

Rochdale Metropolitan Borough has a population of around 206,000;
Rochdale has population of around 94,000. 

Holmfirth has a population of 17,970 

Holmfirth played host/ plays host to the following indoor live music in 2009- this is just a few from the last quarter of 2009: 
American touring blues man Walter Trout on the 23rd October £17

Barclay James Harvest 25th October £21

Magnum 30th October £18-50

Southside Johnny and the Asbury Dukes ( from the USA) 19th November £20

Kiki Dee 21st November £15

Steve Hackett ( ex Genesis) 22 nd November £22

Boomtown Rats 4th December £12

Bad Manners 27th December £16
Hebden Bridge has a population of 11,253: 

Hebden Bridge Trades Club has hosted concerts by:
Gong Legend Daevid Allen plays the Trades

Juno winner James Keelaghan visits Trades

DJ James Holroyd, Sisters of Transistors and the Hello Sailor burlesque team Motion Theory, Salsa, quiz and 20/20 cricket at the Trades

Big Apple troubadour Jeffrey Lewis plays the Trades

Live Ashes at the Trades

Celtic rock kings Peatbog Faeries play Trades

New Trades Roots label Owter Zeds 25th anniversary event at the Trades Top poet Simon Armitage to rock the Trades

Ska warriors Natural Rhythm storm the Trades Club

Monkey business and Steve Gifford at the Trades

Glastonbury favourites 3 Daft Mondays swing into the Trades "Incredible" Mike Heron at the Trades

Dr Feelgood back at the Trades

Nick Harper hits the peaks at the Trades May Day weekend at the Trades Club

Peter Kay rocks the Trades Club Squeezing out the hits at the Trades Southern Tenant Folk Union at the Trades

Becks and The Bullets back at the Trades

Australia's Emily Barker plays the Trades.

Bury has a population of 60,718: 

Bury Met has a capacity of 240. 
It presents new and exciting artists who go on to become household names as well as established artists performing to sell-out audiences all over the world.  Audiences at The Met have enjoyed a pre-Partridge Steve Coogan, legendary performances by Joy Division and The Pixies, pre-Elbow Elbow, pre Hollywood Lee Evans and live music and theatre that leaves people inspired and enriched.

Ashton Under Lyne has a a population of 44,000:

The Witchwood in Ashton is a small but much extended public house now a listed building owing to its contribution to live music and part of the live gig

music circuit of the UK. When Rochdale/Middleton’s indie guitar world stars The Chameleons decided to reform in the early 2000’s they decided to try one night not in their home borough ( because there is nowhere with that cultural live music buzz in RMB )but in Ashton because it has such a great venue. Their one night sold out and became five consecutive sell out nights and then they went on to play London Shepherd’s Bush Empire and then toured the world for a second time.

The Witchwood Ashton – a small selection of upcoming gigs below. 

Limehouse Lizzy 14th Nov £12

Bad Manners 14th Dec £14

UK Subs 10th Dec £8

Prodigy tribute

Legend Bob Marley tribute £12

Clone Roses £10. 

My point is Rochdale has the largest population of all of these towns, in the past it has had the largest effect on the UK music scene through it’s recording studios, Deeply Vale Festivals, Rochdale Festivals, bands that were created in Rochdale, the growth of Wigwam into one of the major sound production companies in the UK and yet Rochdale has lost its way in supporting a live music venue for over 18s. I believe a lot of hard work from the team of people ( including myself) who want to solve this problem and create an over 18’s music venue at the Back Door on Saturday evenings initially and finance from RMBC / Link4Life and even business sponsorship would put Rochdale back on the cultural map of the UK not just for the one day that it happened on September 23rd 2009 – the blue plaque day.  Incidentally press articles mentioning that day and Rochdale in a positive light are still happening even now over a month later. 

Review: 'Shed Your Tears & Walk Away' by Jez Lewis

Noticing the Natives in Hebden Bridge

A FEW YEARS AGO my grand-daughter, who lives in the working-class town Todmorden, said she was not going to secondary school in nearby Hebden Bridge because there 'Mi Mum says all the "druggies" come out in the afternoon'. At the time I thought that that was a false view or excuse to keep her out of Hebden based on 'inverted snobbery', imposed upon her by her mother who didn't really care for the middle-class incomers from the South and elsewhere who swarm round the streets of this former small mill town. I didn't at that time believe there was a drug problem in Hebden; in a way I idealised it having first gone there as a kid of ten or eleven around 1950-1, when I was shocked by the broadness of their Yorkshire dialect: living in Lancashire, I'd never heard nowt like it.

It only goes to show that not only are some things 'seen but unnoticed' but that we also hear what people say but don't digest it: 'Shed Your Your Tears & Walk Away' is a film about the genuine natives of Hebden Bridge, the folk I was once dazzled by when I went there to buy tropical fish from old Marnie with my Dad. The children and grandchildren of the people I saw and heard and so admired for their rough talk in 1951, have now been deposed by upper-class incomers.

Mostly it takes place in an exotic setting, near the park, against a dramatic backdrop of a lush green landscape both in the centre of Hebden and in the surrounding hills around Heptonstall, where a former poet laureate used to live, and another poet is buried. Indeed, a lot of the action is played out in front of a newish apartment block where till recently two anarchist incomers, one a member of the Northern Voices editorial panel, used to live. With the mills gone these lads and lassies in the film have become society's rejects - almost foreigners in their own land inhabiting a kind of nether world; a world within a world that most of us walk past without noticing. The town is full of tourists during the day, like nearby Howarth, and where there where once antique shops there are now cafes, bookshops and a sun dial in St. Georges Square.

The film is both directed & narrated by a former native of Hebden, Jez Lewis, who went to London, but came back because he was concerned about his friends from school who where dying at a frighteningly young age. People in the film attack the cultural colonisation of Hebden by incomers, it seems the jobs are just not there for people who make things anymore. Instead, there is a vegan bakers on Market Street, where now an anarcho-syndicalist member of the Solidarity Federation who works at Leeds University and comments on gender politics, goes to buy his vegan croissants in the morning.
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Chris Draper commenting yesterday on the above film says that he doesn't expect to include it in his forthcoming feature on Six o' the Best Northern Films in Northern Voicies 12 because it is not a commercial film and is a documentary. There will be a more refective review in the Bit on the Side section of NV12.