Love Music Hate Racism benefit gig

I am organising a Love Music Hate Racism benefit gig with the help of 32 lovely people who signed a pledge I made at pledgebank.com.

Love Music Hate Racism is at the forefront of fighting fascism in the UK and as I am a musician I am choosing to get involved by putting on shows to help raise money and awareness.

Originally the idea was to put on a little gig with us and some friends to raise a little bit of money for LMHR. But then I went and got ideas above my station...

So I asked two of my favourite bands in the UK to play with us at what I think is the best venue in London, The Luminaire. I figure if I'm going to do it then why not do it bigger and earn MORE money for the good people at LMHR and MORE awareness of the issues while having even MORE fun?

So far, fingers crossed, all is going to plan. The venue is up for it and so are the bands assuming we can find a date. But I'm not saying anything until it's all confirmed becasue I dont want to jinx it!

An adventurous gig will need adventurous promotion, decoration and execution so if you would like to be involved in any capacity you feel capable or willing of offering then please email me at backbeatking@gmail.com

What follows is my attempt to explain my reasons for doing this and to try and inspire other people to help me or to do their own thing in the fight against fascism. I am also going to attempt to do it without swearing. Quite some feat I can tell you...


THE BNP
It‘s not just the odd person down the pub spouting racist nonsense any more, the far right are organised and they are growing. They distribute leaflets/videos/propaganda, they court media publicity (and to the discredit of the UK media they get it), they march, they campaign and they knock on doorsteps. They wear suits now, they call themselves The British National Party and they hold a total of 55 council seats in the UK. By spreading lies and untruths they are breeding hate, discrimination and division though parts of our culturally rich country.

The BNP are Nazis. They see Hitler as a hero, they deny the occurrence of the Holocaust and they believe in an all white Britain. This of course is only possible by the forcible removal of all non-white people; as we know the far right are not historically known for their pacifism.

Watch this for an undercover BBC investigation with a reformed member of the BNP:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=__DdFiV7aT8&feature=related


THE RECESSION
As we enter what could be a long deep recession awareness of fascism is more important right now than it has been at any point since the second world war. This is not meant to sound dramatic, but it is true. The far right is gaining ground all across Europe and the BNP are our own shameful bunch of home grown Nazis.

The far right traditionally makes massive gains in times of hardship for people. As people look for someone to blame for their misfortune the far right make sure they are there, offering up scapegoats in the form of ethnic/religious minorities. However, the BNP has never gained a council seat in areas where it’s campaigning has been challenged and “counter-campaigned” against. When the lies the BNP spread are exposed they fail and they don’t gain enough support from the good people of the UK to gain any power. We need to make sure that their messages of hate and intolerance are challenged at every step - If they try to engage in discussion then we need to win the argument, if they campaign we campaign harder, if they march we need to make sure we are there marching too with 100 times the numbers. At present this is all we have to do.

60 years ago millions of people died at the hands of the nazis and hundreds of thousands of people had to lay down their lives to stop them for us. For you and for me. Does anyone think that the Nazis of today, given money and power, would be any different to the nazis of the 30’s and 40’s?

And so…


EUROPEAN ELECTIONS AND VOTER APATHY ****READ THIS*****
This July the BNP are fielding as many candidates as they can in the European elections in an attempt to get their leader Nick Griffin, at the very least, elected as a member of the European parliament. If this happens the BNP will receive huge amounts of funding from the European Parliament as all elected MEPs are entitled to. It will be far more money than they have ever had at their disposal before. Not only that but we will have the shame of knowing that one, maybe more, of our representatives in Europe are nazis.

The low turn outs at elections in recent years and the apparent widespread disillusionment with the mainstream political parties means that every vote the BNP gets holds more weight.

If the BNP get a European candidate elected it will increase their ability to spread their lies massively. This is a VERY real threat. But we can stop it.

PLEASE REGISTER TO VOTE IN THE EUROPEAN ELECTIONS AND SIGN UP TO THE HOPE NOT HATE CAMPAIGN.

It is being run by anti-fascist publication Searchlight and the team who just ran President Obamas election campaign, Blue State Digital. To beat the BNP we need to get active and unite. These people are the guys that are trying to make that happen and we can all help with minimum effort. Visit their site. They explain it way better. I signed up and I signed the petition talked about in the following link. The petition was directly resposible for the BNP cancelling a march in Liverpool city center due for 14th March. It was easy, we can all do it and it works!

http://www.bluestatedigital.com/blog/entry/a-victory-for-hope-not-hate/

Anyway, there you go. Some light reading for you! Like I said before if you would like to get involved with the LMHR gig please email me and let me know what you are up for. Here are some useful links:

Love Music Hate Racism – http://www.lovemusichateracism.com
Hope Not Hate Campaign - http://action.hopenothate.org.uk/page/s/defeatthebnp
Unite Against Fascism - http://www.uaf.org.uk/
Searchlight Magazine - http://www.searchlightmagazine.com/
Our pledge on the LMHR website! - http://www.lovemusichateracism.com/news/2009/02/09/pledge-to-do-a-lmhr-event-london-pledge-shows-the-way/

PS I made it to the end without swearing! I didn't call them wankers, I didn't call them tossers and I definitely didn't call them scum sucking hateful little cunts who should sort out their latent homosexuality issues and stop beating the crap out of innocent people. Oh bollocks...