arch/ive/ief (2000 - 2005)

For weeks the Asian community of Oldham have waited with patience at the behest of community ‘leaders' and police despite far-right provocation. Local racists buoyed up by media and police lies, electioneering politicians and nazi propaganda thought that Saturday night was the night to make their mark. They got more than they bargained for after a gang of white youths attacked Asian homes and women in the Glodwick area of the town. Asians - defending themselves and their communities - were arrested while the racists walked free. Local Asian youth could not sit by any more.

The police provoked this riot just as they had provoked the original ‘cause' for grievance from a layer of the white community in Oldham which the NF have been trying to stoke ever since. A vicious assault on a white pensioner was presented as a ‘racial attack' by the police and their media dupes despite the man and his family saying the incident had nothing to do with racism.

Yet again any illusions in waiting for state laws - the ‘authorities' and the ‘law' to ban nazi marches and provocation have been shown to be an illusion and a waste of time.

We say Self-Defence is No Offence.

No Platform support the youths who are defending themselves against fascist provocation and racist / police attack. No Platform supports work towards building a genuine united self-defence campaign alongside the Asian community to support all those held and to support the active defence of the local community against further attacks. We call on all anti-fascists and anti-racists in Oldham to extend their hand to build this.

The kept media will now be spouting off about the need for ‘peace' and ‘understanding' and crudely presenting this as ‘Asians v Police. Maybe they should of thought about that before spreading the propaganda and lies on which the far-right have been feeding. The Asian community in Oldham did not want this and did not start this but they have shown that they are willing to finish the fight if forced to. So the police got a bloody nose – they deserved it. As Malcolm X would have put it: "The chickens have come home to roost"