The Comment Factory

Where I live in London has a long history of political radicalism. Social dissidents from Daniel Defoe to Paul Foot to T-Rex frontman Marc Bolan have lived in Stoke Newington over the ages. The working-class roots of the area have been somewhat usurped over the last decade by a more genteel bistro culture for young Guardian-reading parents (Stoke Newington has the highest per capita amount of babies in the UK), but there is still the residue from this rich history of activism, mostly confined to the older generation now, but showing shoots younger down as well. Last night there was something of a renaissance as living legend Tony Benn came to give a lecture on what could be called the Stokey Strip, Church Street. He was speaking alongside three others, two international activists, and President of Stop the War coalition Lindsey German, at Abney Public Hall.

About 250 turned up, a diverse crowd from newsagent owners to teachers to students, to talk about NATO and Afghanistan, although the focus of the discussion leapt about.

First to speak was Haci Ozdemir of the Refugee Workers Quarter Association. “Member states of NATO are at the moment celebrating the sixtieth anniversary of the organization,” he said. “But for workers and for us it should be about condemnation and struggle against NATO… Since April 4th 1949, when it was created, every country occupied by NATO has seen murder and massacre. It was created to encircle the Soviet Union, which was achieved when Greece and Turkey joined in 1951.

“After the disintegration of the Soviet Union the point of it was unclear, but then they attacked Yugoslavia in 1999 to ensure the break up of Yugoslavia into different pieces.”

He went on to talk about 9/11 providing the West with a new enemy and the different machinations of NATO to keep Russia out, and expand into Eastern Europe via Georgia and Ukraine.

The subject of his ire then turned to the Turkish government. “The role of Turkey is crucial,” he said. “Since 1951 they have supported this alliance without qualification. Everyone remembers Israel’s war in Lebanon, well there were Turkish soldiers sent their to be ‘peacekeepers’, and there are 1,300 Turkish soldiers in Afghanistan.”

He also pointed out that a former so-called social democratic Turkish premier is now the governor of NATO in Afghanistan.

According to Ozdemir, NATO has been used in Turkey to combat Kurdish activists, trade unionists, socialists, and other enemies of the state. “NATO troops are supposed to be prepared for foreign invasions, but actually they are used against democrats in Turkey.”

Tony Benn then came on and mentioned that his dad had been born in Kyverdale Road nearby 132 years ago and when his father was 2-years old the British had invaded Afghanistan, but were eventually slung out in 1840 with 1,500 British soldiers dying on the way out.

He recommended Mapsofwar.com, and its feature below:

“The weapons we have now could lead to our extinction,” he said. “If they are used then it is likely the end of humanity. All wars,” he continued, “are about the powerful wanting to steal resources from the weak, in the case of Afghanistan they wanted bases.”

He went on a brief historical lesson then mentioning that from 1914 to 1945 105 million people died in the two world wars. That wasn’t a good record, he thought. “It’s why at 84 I feel like I have to treat young people with respect. My generation cocked it up, but young people seem to understand what is going on.

“They have to keep you frightened,” he went on. “Frightened people don’t ask questions, they just follow orders. It will be China next, there will be a MI5 man in every Chinese takeaway, you can trust me on that.”

On his journey through 20th century history, Benn next talked about Hiroshima and Nagasaki. “The interesting thing about the Cold War is that it began before the end of the last war. The atomic bombs dropped in Japan were the first blow in the Cold War. I went to Hiroshima and they took me around. They pointed out a mark on the curb. I asked why they pointed it out, and they said a child had been sitting there when the bomb literally vaporized them, there was a metal lunchbox next to it; it vaporized the child, but couldn’t destroy the lunchbox.

“When I went to Japan, I came to understand that the Japanese had offered to surrender before the bombs were dropped.”

He finished by saying he’s an optimist — “You have to be at my age!” — and said that everyone should ask three questions when presented with a political issue: 1. What’s going on here? 2. Why is it going on? And 3. What do you do about it? “That’s hard to do with our media,” he conceded, “but you can try!”

Finally, Gan Majicek, from the No Bases Initiative in Czech Republic spoke out. “We formed in 2006,” she said, “and started organizing against the agenda of our government and its mission to put bases in our country. They spent $500,000 on a propaganda campaign as to why we need these bases, but still polls show 65-70 percent of Czechs are against the Radar bases.”

She said the argument is that they need Radar to stop attacks from Iran or Germany. But then mentioned that the scientific community has pointed out how missile defense systems are just not practical because they can be derailed by decoys very easily.

Down the road, the brilliant author Iain Sinclair was discussing his new book about his wanderings around Hackney — which is the borough that Stoke Newington sits in. Despite the gentrification and the genericification of Stokey, something is growing here.