Following the 75th anniversary of the Battle of Cable Street, it is important to remember not just the day itself, but where it came from. The most important thing about what happened on that day was how the other major East End community – the largely Irish dockers – came out in solidarity with the Jewish community in Whitechapel. The roots of this solidarity lie in the strikes of the Great Unrest period more than 20 years before.
Tag: rudolf rocker
Blame the anarchists – this time the Olympics
I wrote this last week and sent it to the Independent as a right to reply piece. I got no answer. Of course, since I wrote it, the Project Griffin “report anarchists to the police” stuff has come out – more on that later.
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Meeting: Bringing syndicalism back into the mainstream
Last year at the Anarchist Conference, there was general consensus that a proposal to do something big to mark 2012 was a good idea. No, not because of the Olympics, but because it’s the centenary of the Jewish tailor’s strike in London’s East End that was the high point of anarcho-syndicalist Rudolf Rocker’s influence in the UK.
As I thought about it, I looked into the period between 1910 and 1914, known as the Great Unrest, when syndicalism was a major force for change in the UK. I realised how ignored this part of the history of these islands (Ireland, at the time, still being part of the UK) has become.
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Anarchy in the NUJ
This year’s ADM had lots of highlights, but one of the main ones for me was the success of the fringe event I organised with the Irish anarchist organisations Organise! and my old Dublin comrades the Workers Solidarity Movement (WSM). Proving that anarchists are capable of organising, there was a pretty good turn-out at the event planned to mark the 50th anniversary of Rudolf Rocker‘s death.
The revolution will be streamed 