An intresting account of dealing with the edl

[No pasarán]

http://whitechapelanarchistgroup.wordpress.com/2010/06/21/whitechapel-united-against-division-reflections-on-the-anti-edl-mobilisations-on-sunday/

I'm not a member of WAG, but they are doing some good 'community outreach' and seem to have some realistic views on how to deal with the problems facing people living in london/ the uk. Plus seem to have a higher number of people who are actually from working class background involved and seem to be growing in a steady and positive sense. Another good article from them.

Read some of the background too leading up to that day too, it good reading.

[No pasarán]

And another article by a group associated with WAG, though I've got some disagreements with some of the points in it, overall I agree.

http://www.freedompress.org.uk/news/2010/06/19/the-english-defence-league/#more-2931

[No pasarán]

I wouldn't mind seeing some more discussion on this.

[Adi Shankara]

I always love how, racist groups in Europe always say "oh this place is a no-go area for white people" etc. when often times, these places in Europe are 10x safer than what's in the United States! I have a friend in London who lives in the borough of Newham, and he says it's great because it's much much safer than the neighborhood he lived in Seattle, much more diverse, and the rent is cheaper, for what he suspects, is a bunch of racist people who seem to think people of color detract from property value.

[No pasarán]

Yeah I grew up in Kilburn (nw london), which at the time was irish, black and asian almost exclusively. Now its slowly starting to become fashionable/desireable. While irish people can in some cases be just as rascist and bigoted as others, in my experince they integrated better with the other communities- always been a lot of irish anti fascists from the last few generations, lot of mixed (at least with the black communites) marriges.

I have experinced more rascisim from white people than any other colour (and I'm white, just not english). What the likes of the EDL don't seem to understand is after a few generations, people don't cling to their own cultures as much and begin to integrate. These hardcore/fanatical muslims are a tiny portion of a community that is already startin to become part of the mix. I don't think the majority of the EDL are conciously rascist- but they are overly concerned with mantaining their culture above all others.

Speaking to a couple of WAG members this weekend, they said that although they've hardly had a flood of new members, they have made some important links with the muslim community leaders who seem to understand they are out to genuinely help their community, something the likes of the EDL and even the UAF would never understand.