STOP EDL! - Stockholm 4th August

[aty]

Royal Swedish Vuvuzela Orchestra outside the british embassy to protest EDL interrupting an annual swedish tradition!

+ YouTube Video

[aty]

I encourage everyone with twitter to use the tag #stoppaedl and retweet stuff during the day

[pastradamus]

What are the EDL doing in Stockholm?

[Crux]

What are the EDL doing in Stockholm?

"Counter-Jihad" congress.

also:


Oh an dirigent "Valdemar Ledin" I see what you did there!

[Olentzero]

I am currently sitting in a bar in downtown Stockholm having a beer and going over the events of thos afternoon. Suffice it to say I consider the evebt to be an unmitigated disaster and I lay the blame solely at the feet of tbe Black Bloc.

The rally started out nicely at about 1:00 PM with a sound truck and several speakers who had the crowd in a very good mood. At 2:00 PM the rally ended and the crown turned to face the EDL event a couple hundred meters away; many had vuvuzelas and noisemakers while others jeered and chanted.

It was then that these irresponsible jackasses in the crowd started throwing homemade explosives and firecrackers over the heads of the police, which caused them to don their riot gear and pull out the billyclubs. The barrage didn't stop; the cops called in the horses and started pushing us back.

Many people, including me, locked arms and did our best to stand fast, but once the horses started bearing down on us it was all over. People broke backwards and tried to get out of the area as quickly as they could. I didn't see anyone get hurt in the rush; if nobody actually got hurt it was a miracle.

For about fifteen minutes the explosions kept up and the cops cleared the counterdemo area, the park behind it, and the surrounding streets. Utter chaos.

So congratulations, you bandana-wearing fucks. You swung your dicks around anonymously and brought down the wrath of the cops on some 500 unsuspecting people, exposing them unnecessarily to the risk of arrest and/or injury and certainly causing them to think twice about coming down to the next anti-fascist demonstration. Oh, and nice job threatening people who were taking pictures.

Fuck you and your 'propaganda of the deed'. All you did was fuck everything up.

[Sasha]

"unsuspecting people", sorry but you are talking about an antifa action in Sweden, shit always goes down there. Now don't get me wrong, it sucks to be caught up in violence if it gets you nowhere but anyone not suspecting substantial violence at an Swedish antifa action from either the fash, the cops or the antifa has been living under a rock for the last 3 decades and shouldn't have been there to begin with...

[Crux]

There's this thing called tactics...
And I don't think the minority who were there to throw shit at the cops has a right to mess thing's up. Now I wasn't there, but I've been on plenty of demo's, yes with blac blockers present too, that have not ended up that way.

[Sasha]

There's this thing called tactics...
And I don't think the minority who were there to throw shit at the cops has a right to mess thing's up. Now I wasn't there, but I've been on plenty of demo's, yes with blac blockers present too, that have not ended up that way.

hey, i totally agree.
but anti-fascism is serious buisness, and in sweden certainly some of the most serious. any people going to any political action, and certainly confrontative anti-fascist action should always expect violence.
and when your fash have a history of both mass street violence and terror campaings and you have antifa groups like Revolutionära Fronten that make even AFA look tame hippies by comparison at times you should assume shit wil hit the fan. it might be counter effective and stupid violence and one should always hope stupid and counter effective violence (opposed to non-stupid and effective violence) takes a day off but if you didnt expect it you shouldnt have been there.

and yes, if shit goes down you stop filming anything but the cops... if you take pictures of comrades that break the law you should be happy you didnt get your camera broken...

[Sasha]

anyway, according to the only english languaged news report i haver found the EDL meeting atracted less that two hundred, the counterdemo much more, good work....
http://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/news/int...l?cid=33245130

and i must say 15 minutes of ear splitting firework in the edl demo does gives me hope for some entertaining video footage....

[Crux]

hey, i totally agree.
but anti-fascism is serious buisness, and in sweden certainly some of the most serious. any people going to any political action, and certainly confrontative anti-fascist action should always expect violence.
and when your fash have a history of both mass street violence and terror campaings and you have antifa groups like Revolutionära Fronten that make even AFA look tame hippies by comparison at times you should assume shit wil hit the fan. it might be counter effective and stupid violence and one should always hope stupid and counter effective violence (opposed to non-stupid and effective violence) takes a day off but if you didnt expect it you shouldnt have been there.

I reitirate there's this thing called tactics. I've been on antifascist demos with RF too. Saying "that's just the way it is" is simply neither accurate nor an excuse. Oh and the Swedish Defense League are a fucking joke. Anyone know if they were the only swedish attendees on the EDL side?

Also if shit goes down because of police provocation that's one thing, but doesn't appear to have been the case here. The blac bloc do not have a right to fuck shit up and it's not good for anyone. If they really really wanted to get at the EDL, pick them off after the demo. Don't engage in boring fetishism at the expense of everyone else, including the demo as such. Just saying.

[Olentzero]

any people going to any political action, and certainly confrontative anti-fascist action should always expect violence.

Which just keeps the people who don't agree 100% with your tactics from coming to anti-fascist demonstrations. So it ends up just being you bandana-wearing idiots pretending you're heroes of the revolution.

and yes, if shit goes down you stop filming anything but the cops... if you take pictures of comrades that break the law you should be happy you didnt get your camera broken...

Fucking thug. Your tactics are a dead end.

[Olentzero]

Anyone know if they were the only swedish attendees on the EDL side?

I couldn't get a good look at who was in the audience for the EDL rally - like I said, we were a couple hundred meters away - but I heard later on that the EDL speakers took the two Swedish speakers off the list. Can't confirm that one, though.

[Crux]

SDL has little potential to grow I think, because the Nazis won't touch them due to their extremely pro-Israel position and the Sweden Democrats want nothing to do with them because they have enough problems coming off as "respectable" already.

[Sasha]

Which just keeps the people who don't agree 100% with your tactics from coming to anti-fascist demonstrations. So it ends up just being you bandana-wearing idiots pretending you're heroes of the revolution.Fucking thug. Your tactics are a dead end.

As compared to standing around and saying "bad nazis!" from behind a police line? What did that ever accomplish?
That's not even an tactic....

[Crux]

As compared to standing around and saying "bad nazis!" from behind a police line? What did that ever accomplish?
That's not even an tactic....

We've driven away nazis before simply by surrounding them, several times, whereas the "throw shit at them" tactics has considerable less good record of success and usually ends up with the cops attacking the counterdemo, arresting people etc.

[Olentzero]

As compared to standing around and saying "bad nazis!" from behind a police line? What did that ever accomplish?
That's not even an tactic....

Kept the KKK in Annapolis, MD from being heard at all and demoralized them so much they haven't been back to try again since 1997.

Prevented the World Church of the Creator from marching on the White House in Washington, DC and demoralized them so much we haven't heard shit from them since 2002.

Both times there were no firecrackers or stupid provocative stunts from the Black Bloc, and both times there were several thousand counterdemonstrators who didn't hear "boo" from the police the whole time. In fact the DC march (which must have been about 2,000-3,000 people) convinced the cops to let us through the barrier they'd set up and occupy the park where the WCC (all four of them that showed up at the staging point in Virginia) was to have demonstrated.

Both times a safe place for people to come out and shout down the racists and Nazis.

Unlike Saturday, where a group of us from the RS had to make sure one of our comrades - a political asylum seeker from China who is currently awaiting permission to stay - got out of the melee safely so he didn't get swept up by the cops. How do you think it would have gone for him if he'd been arrested? How do you think it would have gone for him back in China if he'd been deported because of the arrest? Is that something you'd even care to think about, or is tossing your latest experiment from the Cookbook more important?

[Sasha]

So ehm, how many times exactly do I need to say i dont support unnescecary, reckless, counterproductive violence before you lay of the strawmans? One would think me saying it in abour evwey single post in this thread should be enough...
I just say your naitivity is just as fucking dangerous and reckless. It's not that the cops ever need an excuse to beat or arrest anyone and it could just as easy have been that the real nazis would have siezed on the opportunity to jump some commiescum or throw some improvised explosives of their own.
stepping in these kind of actions naive is at least as dangerous as going in rambo style.

Oh, and you cant get deported to china, China doesnt take back illegals not even refugees, not that that was your point but at least get your facts straight for your strawmans..

[Olentzero]

So ehm, how many times exactly do I need to say i dont support unnescecary, reckless, counterproductive violence before you lay of the strawmans?

I don't need strawmen, you're making my arguments for me. Like this one:

if you take pictures of comrades that break the law you should be happy you didnt get your camera broken...

Destruction of personal property: unnecessary, reckless, and counterproductive violence, in response to people reacting to other unnecessary, reckless, and counterproductive violence - namely chucking firecrackers at the cops.

Cops don't generally need an excuse to attack demonstrations, we know this, but that doesn't mean they're *always* going to attack demonstrations, and it certainly doesn't mean that Black Bloc anarchists have leeway to provide them with a reason.

Whether or not China accepts deportees or refugees is irrelevant - the point is that Sweden would no longer be a place our comrade would be permitted to stay if he got arrested in the sweep following the Black Bloc rioting. Life isn't easy for him now but at least it's somewhat stable and routine, and the Black Bloc shenanigans put that all at risk. But sure, it's just one Chinese guy, what does he matter? We gotta show how badass we are and how much of a threat we are to society, so we gotta throw these firecrackers.

[Crux]

So ehm, how many times exactly do I need to say i dont support unnescecary, reckless, counterproductive violence before you lay of the strawmans? One would think me saying it in abour evwey single post in this thread should be enough...
I just say your naitivity is just as fucking dangerous and reckless. It's not that the cops ever need an excuse to beat or arrest anyone and it could just as easy have been that the real nazis would have siezed on the opportunity to jump some commiescum or throw some improvised explosives of their own.
stepping in these kind of actions naive is at least as dangerous as going in rambo style.

Oh, and you cant get deported to china, China doesnt take back illegals not even refugees, not that that was your point but at least get your facts straight for your strawmans..

I get that you're not cheerleading this particular action, psycho, but the thing is you are still failing to see why the strategy is shit.
See if the nazis, or the cops for that matter, had been actively attacking the demo we don't oppose self-defence, hell we've had to fend off nazi's before although those attacks usually happen either when we're just having our ordinary activity or after demo's. See, even the fash usually have sense not to employ a tactic that gets them carted off by the cops in no time. So we're not being naive and your argument is just as much of a straw man.

Uh yes they can. It was only recently that the swedish government decided to temporarily stop deportations of Uigurs back to China. And this is not just a point about China, actively bringing down police repression on a demo, such as these pointless throwing shit-tactic tend to do, is endangering anyone in the demo who is without papers, have a warrant on them or any other thing that might land them in serious trouble. And it's on those who choose to employ such tactics that are acting to endangering people in such a way. So again, some people really really need to get a clue about tactic's and not act out bullshit fetishism to make them feel good about themselves. For all the talk of "diversity of tactics" I usually see very little actual tactics being employed when such an approach is used.

Case in point would be during one of the demos during COP15, what did the brave streetfighters of the blac bloc do when the police attacked? They scattered, to do "chaos" (their words not mine) elsewhere and left the demo to fend for itself.

[Sasha]

I don't need strawmen, you're making my arguments for me. Like this oneestruction of personal property: unnecessary, reckless, and counterproductive violence, in response to people reacting to other unnecessary, reckless, and counterproductive violence - namely chucking firecrackers at the cops.

Cops don't generally need an excuse to attack demonstrations, we know this, but that doesn't mean they're *always* going to attack demonstrations, and it certainly doesn't mean that Black Bloc anarchists have leeway to provide them with a reason.

Whether or not China accepts deportees or refugees is irrelevant - the point is that Sweden would no longer be a place our comrade would be permitted to stay if he got arrested in the sweep following the Black Bloc rioting. Life isn't easy for him now but at least it's somewhat stable and routine, and the Black Bloc shenanigans put that all at risk. But sure, it's just one Chinese guy, what does he matter? We gotta show how badass we are and how much of a threat we are to society, so we gotta throw these firecrackers.

you see, thats not how this works, you either principally accept an diversity of actions and then you are entitled to an debate wheter in this specific case violent tactics (and i dont consider throwing some fireworks really violent but i'll let that debate slide for the moment) where the best tactics considering the target, the crowd, the circumstances etc etc but you have no more right to demand 100% non-violence any more than the gungho rambo's have the right to demand 100% violence. even less, as pacifist tactics provenly serve only the state and enforce racist, patriarchal privilige; http://www.agamsterdam.org/teksten/h...cts-the-state/
if you going to demand blanket pacifism you can sodd off and play pretend at anti-fascist activism somewhere else.
tactics; violent, non-violent or a diversity there off are an personal choice, people choosing violent tactics should never enforce their tacticts (and where in their controll its consequences) on people choosing non-violent tactics but that goes both ways.
the radical block/actions should stay outside of less-radical blocks/actions unless invited there but you can never enforce your non-violence on people outside your block/action.
if you do, or if you for example photograph fellow activists without their consent i would consider that person at that moment an tool of oppression/extension of the state and therefor an legitimate target.