The 2024 Notting Hill Carnival has finished. The event was deemed a tremendous success. Quite how an event that saw eight people stabbed, including a mother of 32 who is still in critical condition in hospital and had over three hundred arrests for various offences ranging from sexual assault to seizures of firearms and included the arrest of a wanted murderer, is deemed a success is beyond me.
This year, Carnival took place amid unprecedented far-right riots.
According to a statement from the World Socialist Website,[1]
“The anti-immigrant riots that erupted this week in cities across the UK
represent the most concerted efforts since the 1930s to develop a fascist
movement in Britain. This week’s riots have not come from anywhere. The growth
of fascist and far-right tendencies is a concentrated expression of imperialist
politics and capitalist decay. The ruling elites are promoting extreme
nationalism and xenophobia to divert explosive social tensions in a right-wing,
anti-immigrant direction, to further Britain’s predatory imperialist wars and
to prosecute a war against the democratic and social rights of the working
class.”
It is usual for the media to run large numbers of
sycophantic articles in the run-up to the Carnival. One of the most stupid,
foolish and provocative articles on this year's Carnival was by Fat Tony. His
piece carried in the Evening Standard was chaotic and delusional. He writes, “It’s
important to say as well that what shines through any of the other bullshit is
millions and millions of people’s unwavering desire to come together and dance
on the streets, communicate and celebrate love and community above all else.
Notting Hill Carnival has, over this past decade, especially become a safe
space, where relationships with the police and volunteers have become far
friendlier, resulting in a festival where (most of) the headlines are what they
should be — about the moment, the people and nothing else.” [2]
It is hard to know where to begin dismantling this
complacent and delusional piece of journalism. Eight people were stabbed, including
a mother of 32. Guns and knives were taken to an event that is supposed to be a
haven of social peace.
If this was not bad enough, he then moves on to insult the
residents who have the good sense to get out of Carnival as a bunch of c**ts. In
the same article, “I’ve gotta say one thing about the locals though. To all you
c***s who board up your houses or go on holiday purposely to get away from it
each year… why? Notting Hill is what it is because of the Carnival, because of
the hectic markets on the weekends, and because of this mishmash of cultures.
Must you evacuate every damn year? I mean, come on. Go immerse yourself in it,
party pooper”.
Fat Tony does not live near the Carnival route and was not
even at this year's Carnival. He does not have to suffer the indignity of being
woken up at 3 am on Saturday by people setting up food stalls. Or listen to the
sound of dirty, great big generators buzzing all night and all day. Speaking of
sound, I am sure he does not have two massive sound systems pumping out music for
three days. He does not have to walk miles to get out of the area or spend over
eight hundred pounds on a hotel to escape this Bonfire of Vanities.
Fat Tony’s article joined a long list of articles that sought,
with varying degrees of success, to explain Carnival’s so-called power of healing
racial strife. This year was no different, and given the recent fascistic riots,
it was important for the ruling elite to use this year's Carnival as a useful
safety valve to head off social unrest.
As I said, several articles portrayed the Carnival’s attempt
to end racial divisions. Some even went as far as saying that Carnival still
adheres to its radical origins. This is a lie. Today’s Carnival is big business.
It is run not as a charity but as a private company. No article went deeply into
the history of the Carnival, let alone explain how Carnival can solve the
complex social and political problems of racism and social inequality in
Britain today.
It is worth quoting from length from an article written in
1958, which addresses almost identical social, economic and political problems that
are faced by workers and youth today. Cliff Slaughter writes, “The race riots
in Nottingham and London came like a bolt from the blue to most ordinary men
and women in Britain, just as they did to the Press, that self-styled watchdog
of the public conscience. The Observer, usually more far-sighted
than most newspapers, spoke of the race riots as something which a few days
earlier seemed a cloud no bigger than a man’s hand. So long as we look only at
the surface of social life, so long as we try to deal with each question
separately as it arises, we shall continue to find ourselves bewildered by
events like the race riots. But they are no nine days’ wonder. This must be
clearly understood by every worker in the country.
Every member of the working class must endorse the
condemnation by the Trades Union Congress of racial discrimination and
violence. But this is not enough. Only if we can trace the social roots of
racial conflict shall we be able to weed them out and, with them, those who
profit from it. The starting point for the working class must be unity and
solidarity against the employers and their political representatives—in the
first place, the Tory Party. All the problems the working class now
faces—growing unemployment, the housing shortage, rent increases, the rising
cost of living, attacks on wages and working conditions, and, above all, the
threat of an H-bomb war—all these can be solved only by the unity and
determined action of the working class. It is no accident that the steady
growth of unemployment over the last year has been accompanied by an
insidiously growing campaign around the slogan ‘Keep Britain-White’.
He continues, “Those Tory and Labour MPs who propose to
solve the problem by restricting immigration are guilty of supporting the
programme of the fascists, whether they know it or not.
Fascism is a movement financed by big business which seeks
support from the ‘middle classes’ and the most backward workers. Fascism’s real
aim is to provide a mass basis for the smashing of workers’ organizations by a
State machine which permits no democratic rights and rules with the whip and
the torture chamber.
To succeed, fascism must detach from the working class
discontented elements who can be persuaded that something other than big
business is their real enemy. This is why the fascists have recently returned
to one of their favourite themes—racialism. Fascists were prominent in the
Notting Hill riots and will cash in wherever they can on anti-coloured feelings.
They will try to create a mob ready to use violence and to attack any scapegoat
rather than the workers’ real enemy.
Any Labour leader who does not condemn fascist ideas root
and branch must be disowned by the Labour movement. Instead of discussing
projects for controlled immigration, Labour leaders should outline an active
joint strategy of struggle against the employing class. Although the TUC
General Council passed a resolution against racial prejudice, which everyone is
prepared to endorse in general, its president viciously attacked trade
unionists who fight the employers with the workers’ only real weapon, the
strike.”[3]
Workers and youth are not going to solve the problems of Racism,
Fascism, or, for that matter, social inequality by attending an event that, at
best, is dangerous and, at worst, fools people into thinking that dancing in
the streets will solve these complex social and political problems.
[1]Britain’s
far-right riots: The class issues- www.wsws.org/en/articles/2024/08/05/vwpr-a05.html
[2] What's the best bank holiday weekend? For London, there's only one answer- https://www.standard.co.uk/comment/notting-hill-carnival-2024-august-bank-holiday-london-b1177720.html
[3]
Cliff Slaughter-Race Riots: the Socialist Answer-www.marxists.org/history/etol/writers/slaughter/1958/12/race.htm
