Dresden February 13th 2007

Nazi numbers were down to 1,600 – among them extremists from Hungary, the UK, Austria and France – for the 2007 annual fascist commemoration of the Allied air raids on Dresden in February 1945. For several years the event has been a key date in the German and international nazi calendar. Two years ago more than 7,000 fascists attended.

As usual the nazis marched with the slogan “No bombing Holocaust ever again”, ridiculing the victims of the real Holocaust, Hitler’s industrialised mass murder of Jews, Roma and Sinti. This year the demonstration was accompanied by an “action week” organised by an alliance of all Dresden’s rightwing extremists outside the National Democratic Party (NPD) under the leadership of “Free Nationalist”. The NPD’s leaders attended the march.

The nazis were faced with a strong protest from 1,000 mostly young anti-fascists who repeatedly blocked their path, delaying them and finally forcing them to shorten their demonstration. Some of the more militant nazis tried violently to break out of their own demonstration but ran into conflict with the police and anti-fascists. To some extent they succeeded but ended up fighting with police and anti-fascists.

Scandalously, however, the police this time allowed those nazis who had not already gone home in frustration at the anti-fascist blockade to demonstrate directly opposite the New Synagogue. Nevertheless, anti-fascists, encouraged by their success in ruining the nazi’s evening, are optimistic about preventing next year’s demonstration.

Frank Buschmann reports from Dresden via Antifaschistisches Infoblatt, Antifa-Net , and International Searchlight.

Now read about, and see, Dresden, 13th February 1945.
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Music that knows who the real enemy is

'Vote for Enoch Powell,' came the counsel from a stage in the West Midlands. 'Stop Britain from becoming a black colony ... Get the foreigners out ... I used to be into dope, now I'm into racism. It's much heavier, man.' Not some ranting nutcase from the National Front, but an inebriated Eric Clapton (now CBE), formerly of Cream and latterly of Hello! magazine. Yes, Clapton - who played the blues, but whose outburst in August 1976 came hot on the heels of another from David Bowie, proclaiming Adolf Hitler to be 'the first rock star' and urging that what Britain needed was a 'right-wing dictatorship'.

People may feel grateful to Bowie and Clapton for their own reasons, but perhaps the most gratifying contribution this duo made to music was to detonate the revulsion at their sentiments and clear the stage for Rock Against Racism, the first edition of whose fanzine, Temporary Hoarding, appeared on May Day 30 years ago. 'We want rebel music,' it proclaimed. 'Crisis Music. Now Music. Music that knows who the real enemy is. Rock Against Racism.'

Essential reading from today's Observer. Which does prompt the question, is classical music really a multicultural community?

Header photo is the Clash performing at the 1978 Rock Against Racism event, when 100,000 people marched the six miles from Trafalgar Square through London's East End - the heart of National Front territory - to a Rock Against Racism concert in Victoria Park, Hackney. Photo credit the Combative Clash Page. Any copyrighted material on these pages is included as "fair use", for the purpose of study, review or critical analysis only, and will be removed at the request of copyright owner(s). Report broken links, missing images and other errors to - overgrownpath at hotmail dot co dot uk