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As we walked wearily through Brixton we were greeted by a banner draped across the street which proclaimed "Brixton Gays Welcome Anti-Fascists." Which is great but we probably wouldn't have given the sign a second glance, having seen through the day so many diverse groups expressing their opposition to racism and the National Front. But spilling out of every floor of a house underneath the banner were male gays cheering uninhibitedly, drawing attention to their wildly extravagant appearance, their riotously colourful clothes and make-up.
On the first-floor balcony were a couple pretending, not very regally, to be the Queen and a ludicrously camp Prince Philip, bringing back memories of the black guy at the Notting Hill Carnival who dressed up as the Britannica who adorns some of our coins, effectively challenging in the same kind of way the tyranny of the stereotypes within which society seeks to constrict us (like the obvious white heterosexual worker with housewife tagging along, perniciously subscribed to by the Labour Party in their recent "family" campaign). And the gays' message was perfect: "This Queen Says Smash The National Front."
You could say that the positive side, of the second major Anti-Nazi Carnival was, encapsulated in that tableau — the movement needs to encompass not only the fight against something, but also the fight for the liberation of all races, gays and women.
The day began at around ten, as coaches started to arrive from all over the 'country and people assembled in Hyde Park near Speakers Corner. They were greeted by a vast range of badges, and banners, perhaps the best badge being "Pogo on a Nazi" and the best banner "We are black, we are white, we are dynamite" (adapting a football chant with expletive omitted to great effect, the work of the fast-growing SKAN, Schoolkids Against The Nazis). There was an abundance of radical literature, from Women's Voice to the excellent Leveller (containing articles on the music business, and, more importantly, on sexual / macho conditioning in rock) to the well-produced Carnival programme, which bewilderingly endorses plays like Jesus Christ Superstar and Once A Catholic along with all the leftist messages and organisations.
At 11 the speeches started on a disquieting note. Paul Holborow is the Secretary of the Anti-Nazi League. He is also a member of the SWP and seemingly unable to restrain himself from the kind of low-level sloganising which is associated with that party by its detractors. His speech was a horrible piece of rabble-rousing which seemed to take for granted the mindlessness of the entire audience, essentially using the same tactics as the Front by demanding the crudest of emotional responses. The effect was thoroughly embarrassing — the currently rife accusation that the ANL is no more than a front for the SWP is grossly unfair, though even the SWP would probably agree that it's healthy that their extensive involvement (invaluable in organisational terms) has been brought out into the open. As long, that is, as the revelation doesn't prompt everyone to regard the League as a Communist conspiracy, as it appears the Young Conservatives and the Jewish Board of Deputies do now.
It's easy to see why moderates are alienated — even the chairman of this meeting, Ernie Roberts of the Engineering Union, took every possible opportunity to say things of the "one step on the road to Socialism" kind. Tony Benn and Bill Keys were a little, and Arthur Scargill a lot better (the Daily Mail will doubtless have gone into paroxysms of reactionary rage on seeing its two greatest bogeymen, Benn and Scargill, on the same stage).
"I'm sick and tired," said Scargill, "of the moralising of the Whitehouses of this world. There is more decency and morality in this gathering than in all their outpourings over the last ten years — they should be here on this platform associating with you... We are involved in a campaign the like of which has not been seen since CND. We should see that it becomes the largest movement ever against racism and fascism."
But by far the best, and best-received, speech came from Tom Robinson, who eschewed conventional dogma to emphasise that most NF members are not monsters but ordinary people being conned by a sick Nazi leadership.
"The most important work is to be done not here at the Carnival," he said, "but by you when you go home — at school, at work, in the pubs by talking to people. Don't come on like Joan of Arc and bore them shitless but talk to them, keep up a dialogue, because racism thrives on ignorance." Tom Robinson's words were the most sensible spoken from a stage all day — the real enemies are the racialist attitudes which work their way into everyday thinking, because it's those on which the National Front feed. Will there be mass carnivals aiming at enlightened thinking when the cancer is more abstract?
The four or five mile walk to Brixton's Brockwell Park began at about mid-day, a long tail that straggled past Victoria and over Vauxhall Bridge, characterised mainly by its youth (the average age was probably early twenties, and grey hair was predictably a very rare sight) and its white colour. The vast majority of the black and brown people I saw were those who stood by their houses watching us pass by with a usually bemused and always uninvolved expression.
The atmosphere on the march itself was pretty subdued — bands like Crisis, Charge and Eclipse provided music from floats (when they could be heard above the piercing whistles that were as annoying as the merciless hooters at a Continental football match), and there was even a set of bagpipers, but the mood was quiet and docile rather than excited or celebratory. The chants which are part of any Socialist march, for instance, never really caught on — there were a few indefatigable shouters, but showing " solidarity " by chanting seemed fairly pointless, since we'd proved where we stood by rallying anyway, and we certainly all knew without learning it by rote that "the National Front is a Nazi Front" and that it should be smashed. The only chants which won any real response around me were humorous ones — "1, 2, 3 and a bit / The Nazis are a load of shit" and "If you've half a mind to join the Front, don't worry, that's all you need." Still, 1 don't think even the most blase, sun-wilted participants could have avoided the feeling that they were doing something worthwhile, walking into a better future if you like, and things like a local cinema sign saying "Ritzy Against The Nazis — Have A Nice Day" helped along that impression — as one tubby middle-ager wheeled around to tell me, "things are really looking up."
Brockwell Park was already quite well-populated when I arrived, and Misty had taken the stage. They play quite accessible reggae, dominated usually by watery keyboard runs — though that may only have been because of the mix, which left the rhythm-section (especially the bass) much too weak. The balance definitely diminished their impact, and from where I sat near the back of the crowd it was almost impossible to respond to their exuberant bouncing up and down or to focus properly on them, with the result that the odd lyrical snatch sounded like unconvincing Rastattudinising, and that their long set (perhaps inevitably at such a festival) became mere background music. Certainly applause for them was less than rapturous until someone announced "Without Misty RAR wouldn't be in as many places as it is — they've done more gigs for us than just about anybody," until we were applauding what they stood for rather than their music.
AS Misty left Jimmy Pursey came on to deliver a ferociously passionate speech — he's clearly been tormenting himself with what it's right for him to do. "All this week you've probably read a lot in the papers about Jimmy Pursey and Sham 69," he shouted, "well lemme tell you this, you've also read a lot that's untrue. We've been dictated to by everyone around us. I decided in bed last night that I wasn't gonna come today, but this morning I met this kid who said 'Why ain't you doing it? You ain't doing it 'cos all your fans are National Front.' And I thought, 'That's just what everyone'll think if I don't turn up.' WELL I'M HERE! I'm here because I believe in that" (he points upward to the Rock Against Racism sign)" and no one's gonna tell me what I should and shouldn't do." His confused anger was enormous, and he won a great reception. Whether Sham were right or wrong to withdraw I find it difficult to see how anybody could doubt Pursey's commitment; certainly a lot of his fans belong to the Front or to the British Movement, but that's not because of anything he's said, and he works harder and more pertinently at talking to those kids, showing them that racism is wrong at the same time as he cares deeply for them, than just about anyone else who took part in the Carnival. As Tom Robinson has said: "The great thing about Jimmy is that he's actually communicating with people the Left find hardest to reach — The Other Side... It forces him into constant compromises, contradictions and a stance that is often ambiguous, but then he's treading an incredibly difficult path. The British Movement has no doubt at all about which side he's on and it's very important that people on OUR side should give him all the support we can."
Another of the most heartening things about the Carnival was that there were a considerable number of skinheads around wearing RAR and ANL badges. The worrying thing about the skinhead revival has been its close association with the NF, which is why the newly-formed Skins Against The Nazis is one of the ANL's most important sub-sections.
Jimmy Pursey's appearance was followed by two announcements which thoroughly soured the day and cast further doubt on the League's attitude. The first came from the Brick Lane Defence Committee. As you will doubtless have heard, the Front planned an inflammatory march to Brick Lane to coincide with the Carnival, and the SWP were desperate to defend the street's Asian community. The debate on the Left about the validity of physical confrontations is an important one — I think the policy does more harm than good, and that positive demonstrations like the Carnival are more worthwhile, even if despicable media coverage makes me doubt that sometimes (despite the fact that the ANL Carnival was arranged first and drew an estimated 30,000 people, BBC News gave more coverage to the Front's 2,400 supporters and represented the Carnival as merely "a counter-demonstration ").
But howsoever you may stand on the issue, the approach of some SWP members to the possibility of confrontation is very depressing. When I marched with them in Manchester some were reminiscing about what a great fight Lewisham had been, what exactly so-and-so had done to the bastards, and the attitude of the speaker from Brick Lane who was pleading for more recruits wasn't much better: " Those of you who want to stay and listen to the music, have fun; but the troops — over there." Troops? They really do resemble kids " playing soldiers ' at times.
The second announcement was a further taint to the occasion: "That's it, we've just heard," they said, " there are 100,000 people in the park " — and Peter Hain later jumped the figure up to 120,000. The claims were both absurd and senselessly duplicitous. The BBC's estimate of 30,000 may still have been too high, since there never appeared to be more than an average-sized football crowd in the park. Which means, of course, that the turnout was smaller than for the previous Carnival (habitually estimated at 80,000).
That may or may not have had something to do with the musical lineup, the obvious appeal of Elvis Costello hardly matching the big-name depth of TRB, The Clash, Steel Pulse and X-Ray Spex. Certainly, and rightly, the music seemed less important than the event (I'm sure very few came solely for the concert). One major reason for that was that the music blended less well with the cause than did the fiercely political work of TRB and The Clash before.
Elvis Costello has two anti-fascist songs, and he played them both, opening with "Night Rally" in what was for him an unusually predictable move. His, however, was the right policy. He's always keen to move on, to debut new material, but it would have been wrong to do that at the Carnival, with everyone bent on celebration rather than concentration. As it was, all the material was familiar except "Oliver's Army," which was couched in characteristic and convincing style (was it about National Service?) and followed the first of his very few words to the crowd — "Hi and welcome to the Black and White Minstrel Show," which fell completely flat.
He played most of his best material (the most notable omissions being "Alison" and "I'm Not Angry") and tried very hard, but was struggling throughout against the same problem as Misty — the bass was inaudible and the guitar little better, and the sound as a whole faded and loomed like a distant radio station. The only consistently powerful instruments were that full-coloured Sixties swirl organ and Elvis' voice, so upfront that it seemed almost eerily disembodied from any musical foundation.
The sound didn't improve, but in the end the Attractions won through because of the sheer inescapable quality of the songs, driving through "Lip Service," "Chelsea" and "This Year's Girl" to the incomparable "Watching The Detectives," perhaps his finest song, and not even robbed of its impact here by a melodramatic talkover section in the last verse that didn't work at all.
He went out on a high with the excellent "Radio, Radio," long-familiar and at last to be released as the next single, and encored with what was a positively inspired choice in the circumstances — Brinsley Schwarz's "(What's So Funny 'Bout) Peace, Love And Understanding."
It had been clear for a while that Elvis's departure would mean a mass exodus, and by the time Aswad appeared the crowd was drastically reduced and there was room to move to the front where the sound had much more body. The moon was putting out a tentative red toe to touch the horizon as they played, and they fitted the fading light perfectly.
I've been told so many times by people who know and love reggae far better than me that Aswad are Britain's best reggae group that I may be succumbing to brainwashing, but I thought their performance very fine. What seemed to set them apart, in the new song "Children Of The Rainbow," for instance, was the subtle way in which the fluid keyboard and guitar interjections give the basic form a delicate, changeable colouring that seems unusual in reggae, at least to an outsider. Having said that though, they were most effective when they moved into the robust, rootsy feel of "Natural Progression," featuring a great vocal from Brinsley Forde.
"Why are we here today?" he shouted near the end. "We're here for the beginning. One love, one aim, one destiny." And as everyone in the crowd joined hands and raised them in the air, chanting their responses back at the stage, you could be forgiven far forgetting all the negative aspects of the day and believing him.
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