A-Infos (en) Britain, Anarchist journal Class War Issue #92 Summer 2007 IV. (4/4)

THIRD ANNUAL PROJECTILE FESTIVAL OF FILM, CULTURE AND IDEAS
For three days in May, Projectile will be exploring both contemporary and 
historical anarchism in its cultural, political and artistic forms. --- Now we 
are three, and Projectile just keeps growing. This yearâ??s line-up of films, 
talks, discussions, spoken words and music runs the gamut, from historical to 
contemporary, from Hollywood-style to low-fi. We have films from the UK, the 
US, Argentina, Brazil, Italy and Korea. We have engaging speakers who will 
bring an anarchist perspective to topics ranging from love to class war. And on 
Saturday night, we have a great lineup of provocative sounds and words. Please 
join us, whether itâ??s for the whole weekend, a day of films, or just the 
rocking Saturday event.

Projectile 2007 will take place May 18-20 at the Star and Shadow Cinema 
(www.starandshadow.org.uk) in Newcastle-upon-Tyne. This all-volunteer community
space has a fantastic cinema and friendly bar, and is fully 
wheelchair-accessible. Vegetarian food and snacks will be on offer. Weekend 
passes will go on sale soon at £25 for the full three days (£10 unwaged). 
Entrance to individual films is £4 (£3.50 unwaged) and it?s £5 for just the 
Saturday night show.

The Projectile Collective

Dancing On Maggies Grave
Are you coming to the party of the decade?
Class War has called for a mass celebration in Trafalgar Square at 6pm on the 
first Saturday after Margaret Thatcher dies. Remember ? Trafalgar Square, I?ll 
Be There!

The myspace site that promotes this event can be viewed at
http://www.myspace.com/dancingonmaggiesgrave why not add your site to its list 
of friends?

Anarchist Black Cross T Shirts
Leeds ABC have produced some great T-shirts featuring a classy new rendition of 
the ABC logo. White design on a high quality heavyweight black cotton T-shirt. 
Only £8, and profits go directly to supporting Anarchist and class struggle 
prisoners.
To order, send a blank postal order for £9.50 to Leeds ABC, PO Box 53, LS8 4WP.
Class War Merchandise
A full list of our merchandise is on our website. There is everything from 
books and back issues to fat bastard sized t shirts, cigarette lighters and 
stickers.
An Admirer Writes
Fucking communistic cunts - you want our country to be overrun with pakis and 
wogs. You are the main reason for our downfall as a nation. You have pictures 
of dead politicians on your site you sick fucks - go choke on your own semen 
you monkey loving, paki praising scumbags.

"Joe Wilks"
kangaroopooh@gmail.com

CW Reply: And good morning to you as well! We thought it a little bit excessive 
to say that Class War is the main reason for the downfall of the nation, but 
don?t worry Joe, when your country finally dies, we?ll be stood somewhere on 
the sidelines watching you cry!

Cash Down The Plughole ? Or Up Hazel Blears? Fanny
Dear Class War,
The bureaucrats within the Department for Constitutional Affairs, and the Home 
Office must be having a laugh when it comes to spending taxpayers hard-earned 
cash. Extravagance, waste and incompetence seem to be the norm, especially when 
the DCA?s car pool is worth £5 million.
The police too are an institution that shows an alarming ability to fritter 
away our money. For example in one case a helicopter and a squad car was used 
to tail a woman who was eating an apple whilst driving. The total cost for the 
operation was £10,000. As for the apple eater, she was fined £60 plus £100 costs.
Then there is the Crown prosecution Service. The court injunction to provide 
anonymity for that bitch Maxine Carr cost £100,000 plus an estimate that goes 
into the millions for lifetime protection. Harold Shipman?s legal aid bill came 
to £1,180,000, compared to one of Shipman?s now brain damaged patients only 
receiving £225,000.
And what about the Home Office? They spent £74 million in 2004 on consultants, 
including interviewing 300 drug dealers and smugglers to ?asses the business 
model of the average drug dealer?. What?s that all about?

Then there was £20 million spent half-building an asylum centre which was then 
shelved. £150,000 spent on art for the new Home Office building. £300,000 for 
Met Chief Sir Ian Blair to revamp his office (some fucking office), £500,000 
overtime for coppers to come in on their day off to man speed cameras. £5000 
for two Met officers to visit the San Francisco Gay Pride Festival  to study 
community relations.
Unfortunately though once the authorities catch the criminal they are locked 
up, which is where the Prison Service comes in. I must congratulate the 
employment of two holistic therapists who receive £18,000 a year for providing 
inmates in Peterborough Prison with aromatherapy, reiki, reflexology, 
acupuncture, head massages and shiatsu treatments. And of course the screws 
know a con or two. 3000 man years were lost last year due to sickness in the 
prison service. Auditors found management indifferences allowed a culture of 
pulling sickies to develop ? one screw called in sick for a year ? from New 
Zealand. Another pretended to be run down by a car just before his month long 
holiday in Sri Lanka was over.

Added together the wasteful and useless spending from all government 
departments and it comes to £82 billion. That is more than £4000 per family in 
Britain, and the annual turnover of several European countries. If you wasted 
your family?s cash on this scale, the missus would cut your balls off and send 
you packing. So why should the fucking class ridden establishment get away with it?

Yours,
Stew, Northamptonshire.

CW Reply: Stew, we object strongly to your use of the term ?Hazel Blears? 
fanny?. Here at Class War HQ we try to think of Hazel Blears as little as 
possible, and her nether regions not at all!

US On War Footing?
Dear Class War,
Just as the police are categorized by the amount of public order training they 
get, there is a move in hospitals in the US to increase the number of workers 
(first responders or not) to be trained for ?emergency industrial/terrorist 
catastrophes?.
They want to make as many hospital employees ?first receivers?. These are 
workers from all ranks trained to shift to a military mode of conduct and 
thinking. In short labour relations are the first casualty ? everyone takes 
orders.
Cheers,

Gary, Florida, USA.

CW Reply: Anyone hear of any similar moves in the UK?

Class War Contacts
A full list of regional Class War contacts is available on our website.

Class War National Secretary 		cwfnatsec@yahoo.co.uk
For all membership and press enquiries. Students wanting us to do their 
dissertations for them can expect to be charged hard cash!

International Secretary			cwfintsec@yahoo.co.uk
For all enquiries from outside the UK.

All postal enquiries 				Class War, PO Box 467, London E8 							3QX.

All telephone enquiries 			Tel: 07986 041 207

Website 					www.classwar.org
The Class War website is updated most days.

A Touch of Class
Is a magazine published by the Class War Federation. The first issue looks at 
the anti-war movement, the use of CCTV and ethics. Available for £2 from Class 
War, and from Housmans bookshop in Kings Cross.



Pages 14-15 Reviews Pages

Been There, Done That, Bash The Rich!
Bash The Rich ? True Life Confessions Of An Anarchist In The UK by Ian Bone 
(Tangent Books, £9.99)
Ian Bone's autobiography "Bash the Rich" is probably the most mainstream 
Anarchist book to be published in the UK since Stuart Christie's autobiography 
"Granny Made Me An Anarchist". That is not the reason why you should read it 
though - it should be read for its honesty, its humour and the manner in which 
the author places himself (and Class War) in a radical British political 
tradition that should be supported.
First things first - Tangent Books have done an excellent job in publishing 
what is an immaculately produced book. Whilst billed as Bone's autobiography, 
it in fact covers the period from childhood through to about 1986, abruptly 
stopping before one of the main industrial disputes of the modern era - 
Wapping. We are assuming a follow up is planned! So what do you get for your 
tenner?
Well first off is an interesting Anglo-Scottish childhood as a butler's son, 
and a first person insight into a class system that was once far more formal 
and rigid than it is now. People under 30 may struggle to come to terms with 
just how divided Britain used to be, in a really stuffy way. Ian was brought up 
below stairs, whilst his parents struggled to combine working subservience with 
their Labour party beliefs.
Jack Army ?
There are not many people for whom moving to Swansea it a liberating 
experience, but Bone skillfully describes student life in south Wales in the 
1960s, after a hilarious first approach to the Anarchist movement via Freedom 
Press in London. Politically the scope of groups and struggles touched upon 
from the late 60s through to the 1970s is impressive. The casual reader can 
encounter the student "rebellion" of 1968, anti-apartheid campaigns, claimants 
unions, the Angry Brigade and most amusingly the sometimes violent, sometimes 
comical Welsh nationalist fringe, for whom Ian appears to have been a sort of 
honorary Welshman.
Most significant politically is arguably the two groups Ian helped launch that 
came to major prominence - Alarm in a Labour dominated, corrupt Swansea, and in 
the 1980s Class War. Whilst sticking to what could be termed standard class 
struggle anarchist principles and working firmly from the bottom up, Alarm in 
particular looked to reach out to Joe Public in a simple, non-academic way that 
anyone could identify with. Having first looked to install some backbone into 
the early 1980s Anarchist movement, Class War was to repeat this trick. 
Spectacularly.
If Thatcherism had not existed, Class War would have had to invent it. Whilst 
most of the left cried foul at the attacks of Thatcherism, the aim of Class War 
was always to fight back - both in print and in person. The attempts to "open 
up a second front" during the Miners Strike are the clearest example of this. 
How could the Metropolitan Police have kept the coalfields down and policied 
inner-city riots at the same time? Whilst the 1980s may not seem that long ago, 
Bone also shows us how quickly things change. CND, animal rights and feminism 
barely rear their heads these days (especially in the anarchist movement) but 
all these currents had real influence - and perhaps needed to be overcome - by 
anyone looking to make political progress at that time. ??
In It To Win It?
Class War's honesty was its strongest foundation. Neil Kinnock, and much of the 
trades union movement (most accurately its leaders) were no match for Margaret 
Thatcher, who fought the class war to win it. Those who bought Class War - and 
to an extent still do ? and who were not declared Anarchists, were often people 
who responded positively to the sight of the odd bucket of piss being hurled 
back in the direction of the ruling class. Many were life long Labourites. In 
the best section of the book Bone outlines just what Thatcherism wanted to do, 
and the effect that had on some traditional working class communities:
She didn't just want to smash the miners and displace the inner-city 
inhabitants. She wanted to destroy the idea there was any community of interest 
amongst ordinary people. My mum and dad's caring Alton social networks counted 
for nothing compared to the Thatcher-eulogised, hideous, braying yuppies in the 
city making themselves overnight fortunes in selling off our social assets. I 
might have stopped hating my country but I loathed its ruling class more than 
ever. But this time, common sense was on our side. Thatcher's "no such thing as 
society" was seen as bollocks by most people including mum and dad. We had some 
common ground again, we were no longer the loonies, the crazed Thatcher was the 
'mad cow'. There were millions of people like my mum and dad all over the 
country. Class War needed to reach them. We needed to emphasise the positive 
self-organisation that had come out of the miners strike which was in direct 
contradiction of Thatcher's 'we're all selfish bastards' analysis.

Summing Up?
Gripes? Well Ian briefly repeats the silly urban myth that boxer Freddie Mills 
murdered several prostitutes in the early 1960s (there is actually far more 
evidence that Mills was not interested in women at all!) and the book suffers 
from some bad spelling mistakes and minor errors that could have been removed 
with tighter editing. To claim the Poll Tax riot occurred in 1992 is a bit of a 
howler, especially for a man once confronted by a Brazilian film crew accusing 
him of organising it!
What effect will this book have? Well it has already given Ian the opportunity 
to raise the banner of class struggle anarchism in the media in his own style. 
It has also rejuvenated several other retired, or semi-retired class warriors. 
Ian also hardens attitudes.
Those who hate Class War will hate Class War even more because of this book. 
Bone skillfully places us in a British radical tradition that is certainly not 
strictly anarchist but is optimistic, insurrectionist and based on principles 
of solidarity - from the Luddites to the Chartists, through to those who fought 
the Poll Tax, or the inner-city rioters struggling to pay the police back in 
kind for every person they killed. Ultimately you know who he means.
Bash the Rich is a reminder that there is a big world out there. And it still 
needs changing.
5 skulls.
You can order ?Bash The Rich? from London Class War for £9.99.
Anti-Fascist ? Martin Lux (Phoenix Press, £5.95)

There are very few anti-fascist memoirs. Morris Beckman?s The 43 Group tells 
the story of the fight against Mosley after the Second World War, and Dave Hann 
and Steve Tilzey?s unreliable No Retreat claims to tell the tale of the AFA 
campaign of the 1980s and 1990s. But until now there hasn?t been a decent 
book-length account of what it was like to confront the NF in the 1970s.

Sure, there are books about the Anti-Nazi League, like Dave Renton?s When We 
Touched the Sky. But they?re not written with the confidence or the honesty 
Martin Lux brings to this accomplished work. What makes this a specially good 
read is the atmosphere Lux conjures up. The narrative takes us from Lux?s 
political awakening to the Tory victory in the 1979 election. Between these two 
events, Martin vividly describes the central political events of the decade ? 
from Red Lion Square and the death of Kevin Gately in 1974 to a lesser-known 
battle of Red Lion Square at the end of the 1970s, via Lewisham, Neasen and the 
Grunwick strike, and Southall.

The book focuses on four main areas: the paucity of the fash?s politics, their 
pitiful dress sense, the vigorous anti-fascist campaign and the pretentious 
hypocrisy of the so-called ?anti-sexist men?. The sheer inadequacy of the NF is 
something Martin describes very well. In the main they are shabby middle-aged 
men ? who doubtless consider themselves smart ? and ?child-molester types? in 
?ill-fitting suits replete with the odour of faded mothballs?. As with their 
clothes, so with their politics: crap. The NF?s politics seem simplistic and 
infantile, centred about racism and anti-Semitism with a putrid current of 
Hitler-worship flowing beneath.

The anti-fascists Lux fought beside were of the self-organised working class, 
including a number of anarchists and socialists. Unfortunately, amongst this 
number were some curious pacifist parasites ? the ?anti-sexist men?. These 
creatures argued that ?the racists and fascists are human beings too?, coming 
out with the old line that ?because you believe in violence, you?re just as bad 
as they are?. What utter tosh!

Sadly, another obstacle Martin had to face were the SWP. If one were to believe 
the SWP, then you?d think that Tariq Ali and the original ANL single-handedly 
stopped the otherwise irresistible rise of the NF. This could hardly be further 
from the truth. The effective elements of the ANL were expelled from the SWP 
for being ?squaddist?, many going on to form Red Action. As Martin details, the 
people who got together to stop the NF were not, in the main, members of this 
party or that party but independent working class men and women organising 
autonomously. No single party or alliance could have mounted the lengthy 
campaign against the NF which continued through the 1970s and into the 1980s. 
But that won?t stop the likes of the SWP trying to claim credit ? once again! ? 
for something in which they actually played a minor role.

Lux has something to say, and he tells the story well. This is not a history 
book, but history told from the perspective of one of the people who made it. 
It is a thrilling riot through the 1970s, with heads bashed and boots flailing. 
As well as describing the action, Anti-Fascist also talks about the hows and 
whys of anti-fascism.

In conclusion, this book ? as it says on the cover ? is not for pacifists. It 
is a hard-hitting story, a story which still has relevance today. If you like a 
gripping read about working class politics, this is the book for you. If you 
don?t, you?re reading the wrong paper.

5 skulls.

You can order ?Anti-Fascist from London Class War for £5.95.




Page 16 Sport


TAL Returns

After a two year ?retirement? the Celtic fanzine Tiochaidh Ar La has returned. 
Always one of the best political football fanzines out there, TAL ?s return is 
timely, with Glasgow Celtic PLC looking to reign in the behaviour of large 
numbers of Celtic supporters in what they claim is a campaign against 
?disruptive? and ?sectarian? behaviour in the stands.
You can order TAL from:
TAL Books, BM Box 266, London WC1N 3XX or
www.talfanzine.com

Bringing Racism Into Football
Look at Arsene Wenger during most Arsenal games and you will notice his ?Kick 
Racism Out of Football? badge. Despite Wenger?s habit of ?not seeing? critical 
incidents involving his players, there is no reason to doubt that he is genuine 
in his beliefs in racial equality, and he has spoken out strongly about racism 
in football and in his native France.
Wenger however misses the bigger picture. Arsenal, just like football in 
general, have got themselves into a mess that centres around money, racism and 
anti-racism. To finance their move from Highbury, Arsenal got into bed with 
Emirates, the national airline of the United Arab Emirates.
The UAE is not a country where Arsene Wenger, or indeed anyone else could speak 
their mind. An oil rich dictatorship led by the Al Nayhan and Al Maktoum clans, 
Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid al-Maktoum has been accused of abducting and 
trafficking thousands of children for the UAE?s national sport ? camel racing.
The prejudices of the UAE have sadly begun to contaminate British football. 
When West Ham held a training camp in Dubai last year, the countries two 
Israeli players, Yossi Benayoun and Yaniv Katan were left behind ? Israeli 
citizens are banned from UAE. So much for kicking racism out of football!
Arsenal also faced criticism from supporters who could see the contradiction in 
presenting an anti-racist, community image in north London, but naming their 
new ground the Emirates Stadium. Ben Dimech, from the supporters group 
REDaction commented
?There?s the fact that Arsenal agreed to sell the naming rights of the new 
stadium to the national airline of a country which has banned Jews. Sections of 
Arsenal?s Jewish fans complained but their protests fell on deaf ears?
Arsenal, West Ham and indeed other Premiership clubs need to think long and 
hard about just who they are doing business with when they visit the UAE. Or is 
kicking racism out of football only important when it does not clash with hard 
cash?

MURDER, MATCH FIXING, - AND AL-QAEDA?

Big Bob - is Dead. Who Done It? Oh yes, and the Cricket World Cup

The lead up to Cricket World Cup started all so very predictably. England 
stuffed Bermuda, then wereannihilated by the Aussies in the warm ups - we 
should never have deported all those convicts, they were obviously the best 
sports people around.

The first surprise of the competition proper came when Ireland beat Pakistan 
and virtually knocked them out of the competition. This shock result was soon 
side lined by the shocking news of the Pakistan coach's death, Bob Woolmer. 
However, it soon took on greater significance when the cause of death was 
stated to be murder by manual strangulation. Rumours flew about, so much so 
that India's equally surprising elimination from the competition was almost 
lost in the intrigue.

Initial calls to cancel the tournament due to the tragic circumstances were 
soon quashed. Bob would have wanted the competition to continue, was the usual 
drivel trotted out, but money was the real key here. The Cricket World Cup is 
hardly the biggest occasion on the world's sporting stage, but there is still a 
lot of money to made. The inter island rivalry carve up of rights and fixtures, 
sponsorship and TV rights all come into play. But perhaps the most astounding 
thing is the level of gambling on each match. There can be as much as £1billion 
changing hands for each game.

Pakistan lost to Ireland, Woolmer emailed his resignation early the following 
day, and was later found unconcious in his room and pronounced dead some 90 
minutes later. Initially it was thought to be heart attack or some other pre 
existing condition, after all
there was no external evidence of violence to arose suspicions. Following a 
post mortem the cause of death, manual strangulation, was announced.

Woolmer's coaching career seemed to have courted controversy. He was coach of 
South Africa prior to Hansie Cronje's match fixing admission, and some of his 
Pakistan team members had been accused of drug taking and ball tampering. This 
has led to speculation that his murder was linked with international gambling 
cartels.

Illicit bookmakers in places like Mumbai and Karachi are alleged to be in the 
pockets of gangsters. One of these bookmakers was in Jamaica at the time of the 
murder and in the company of Anees Ibrahim, Dawood Ibrahim's brother. Dawood is 
alleged to be an al-Qaeda fund raiser, is accused of the 1993 Mumbai bombings, 
is linked to illegal bookmakers, and allegedly controls drugs and prostitution 
racketeering. Woolmer is said to have had a  furious bust-up with this bookie 
and thrown him out of his room.

Jamaica's deputy police commissioner Mark Shields (an ex-Met Police pig), has 
confirmed this line of inquiry and also suggested thepossibility of a 
professional hit man being involved. In fact he didn't rule anything out - he's 
obviously floundering.

However, it wouldn't be the first time illicit bookmaking has resulted in 
murder. The gangsters pulling the strings are keen to ensure their profits. A 
number of bookmakers are believed to have met violent ends, including South 
Africa-based Muhammad Hanif "Cadbury" Kodvavi, killed and cut up in May 1999.

The CCTV tapes from the hotel were supposed to reveal all the comings and 
goings from Woolmer's room, but little seems to have resulted from their 
examination. It begs the question as to whether there were any tapes in the 
cameras?

The Pakistan team have been allowed to leave, there is no sign of the bookie, 
and the three fanatical followers who acted as gofers for Pakistan team members 
have disappeared. The competence of the autopsy is also in question. And now 
British police have been called in to assist with the investigation, since 
Jamaica's finest appear totally clueless. Perhaps it's also time to re examine 
the circumstances of Hansie Cronje's death. It should take a bit more than a 
little bad weather to make you fly into the side of a mountain.

Bums On Seats?
One of the most noticeable things about the cricket World Cup was the amount of 
empty seats.
Some analysts put this down to changes in Caribbean culture over the last few 
decades. This is the belief that cricket has declined as a sport as the West 
Indian islands have become more Americanised, and West Indians look to US 
sports like baseball and basketball. West Indians looking to emigrate are 
apparently now more interested in the USA or Canada than the ?mother country?.
There is of course another reason. Greedy capitalist bastards have seriously 
damaged cricket in one of its heartlands, just as they have destroyed football 
in Europe. Tickets for the tournament were only available over the Internet at 
first (despite the fact that  there is no tradition of buying tickets on-line 
in the West Indies) this meant that the plum tickets went to wealthy Western 
tourists, rather than pesky locals. Rather than matching prices to local 
levels, the organisers accepted ICC guidelines on pricing levels ? meaning all 
but the cheapest seats are out of the pocket of locals. The idea any of this 
money making should stop, even when  the coach of one of the teams was 
allegedly murdered, is impossible.
West Indians traditionally traditionally blow on conch shells during cricket 
matches, and bring in huge amounts of their own food and drink to consume. 
These practices have all been stopped, even to the level of people not being 
allowed to take water into the grounds.
All of this makes you think if this is what the cricket World Cup has been 
like, can you imagine how bad the 2010 football World Cup in South Africa is 
going to be?
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