SCHIZOPHRENIA
1979 was a very weird year. A schizophrenic year.
Swinging from Left to Right but with no set rhyme and no set reason.
It had started with what was called The Winter of Discontent where
thousands of public sector workers were on strike. January 22nd was
the Day of Action when an estimated 1.5 million workers downed tools
and took part in the largest stoppage of labour in the UK since the
General Strike of 1926.
Following the mass protests that took place that day
many unions chose to remain on strike until their demands for a
proper pay increase were met, among these being gravediggers and
waste collection workers. It was the strike action taken by these two
particular groups of workers that came to define that period, with
the press depicting the streets of the country as strewn with piles
of uncollected rubbish and with unburied bodies piling up in cold
storage depots. That's not to say these things didn't happen and to
have happened at all might be deemed as wholly unacceptable but it
wasn't quite on the same scale as projected into the public
consciousness by the press - the Right-wing press, it should be
noted.
Strikes were flaring up, however, left, right and centre
leading to stoppages at water and sewerage works, schools, hospitals
and old people's homes. All in a bid to gain nothing more than a
basic minimum wage though if reading the newspapers anyone would
think Britain was in the throes of revolution and that the barbarians
were at the gate. And to some people perhaps they were?
In a further twisting of the truth, when Labour Prime
Minister Jim Callaghan returned to Britain from an international
summit in the Caribbean and was asked by waiting reporters what his
thoughts were on the strike actions taking place, he replied he
didn't believe it amounted to the kind of chaos the reporters were
suggesting it was. The headline in the Sun the next day famously
declared 'Crisis? What Crisis?' and was taken if not as a direct
quote then as the opinion of Callaghan, which of course it wasn't. Or
not quite.
After much vilification of the strikers by politicians,
newspapers and media pundits, the government made a deal with the
unions and their demands were met. The workers had won
and were now gaining their feet. The government had lost and was now
on its knees. A short while later, Callaghan found himself in
Buckingham Palace asking for a dissolution of Parliament, followed
thereafter with an announcement of a date for a General Election.
Throughout this Winter of Discontent, the Conservative
Party in Opposition had been busying themselves with making hay
whilst the sun shone, using the strikes to their own advantage and
making mischief whenever possible. In a Party Political Broadcast
presented by their leader Margaret Thatcher, the public sector
workers were labelled as 'wreckers' and trade union reform was
called for to avoid "not just disruption but anarchy".
Meanwhile a little further to the Right, the National
Front were busy arranging an election rally for their supporters to
be held in Southall, in London, an area well known for its large
Asian community. Insulted and somewhat intimidated by what they
perceived as a racist invasion into their community, residents
requested that the meeting be banned but as this was now an election
year, the Home Secretary declined the request and instead ordered
that the Metropolitan Police safeguard it and prevent any disruption
to what was after all, the democratic rights of a legitimate
political party.
Come the day of the rally as hundreds of National Front
supporters were bussed into Southall, thousands of local Asian
residents and anti-racists rallied to protest against it. The police
were there also, of course, and in huge numbers with the express
intention of ensuring the NF rally proceeded unhindered. For some
strange reason they seemed somewhat overly zealous in administrating
the execution of this duty as they sealed off the whole area
surrounding the venue, thus preventing any form of peaceful protest
at all. Frustrated by the police actions and provoked by the pushing
and shoving of them by the police, tension within the amassing crowds
inevitably rose. It was from within the ranks of the police, however,
that an ugliness suddenly reared its head in the form of the police
punching and batoning the protesters for no apparent reason. The
police suddenly started going berserk.
From behind their front lines more police appeared but
this time wielding riot shields and then from behind them came
mounted police practically galloping into the crowds causing
widespread panic. A riot situation immediately erupted but this, as
everyone there would later testify, was exclusively a police riot.
With barely disguised enthusiasm the police attacked
anyone within reach be they black, Asian, white, man, woman or child.
Fleeing from the violence a number of protesters sought refuge in a
local community building called People Unite, run by members of
acclaimed reggae band Misty In Roots. Not so easily thwarted, the
police simply charged in after them and in the process smashed
everything up inside including the heads of the people in there.
Misty In Roots' manager, Clarence Baker, was one of those people and
due to being batoned was put in a coma. "Clarence Baker, no
troublemaker" as The Ruts would later sing in their song Jah
War. "The truncheons came down, knocked him to the ground.
See the blood on the streets that day. The blood and the madness."
Outside on the streets, others fared even worse.
Blair Peach was a 33 year-old school teacher from
New Zealand who was there that day protesting alongside his friends
in the Socialist Workers Party. His body was found laid out on a road
near the back of the venue where the rally was being held by some
local residents who immediately called an ambulance. Later that night
in hospital Blair died from injuries sustained from a blow to the
head. Witnesses came forward to say they had seen Blair being set
upon by police belonging to the Special Patrol Group, a formidable
and notorious mobile police unit specialising in public order
confrontations though more akin to a hardcore football hooligan firm
than any normal idea of how the police should be.
A pathologist's report later stated that Blair had been
killed not by a blow from a truncheon but by something more along the
lines of a rubber cosh filled with lead. A raid on lockers belonging
to SPG officers discovered a cache of such home-made, illegal weapons
along with Nazi regalia but no-one ended up being charged for Blair's
murder. During the investigation into his death, police officers
belonging to the SPG blatantly perverted the course of justice
through lying and hiding and destroying evidence but still no-one
ended up being charged for Blair's murder. The investigation finally
whittled it down to six suspects, highlighting one specific SPG
officer as being the one most probably responsible but still no-one
ended up being charged for Blair's murder.
10,000 people gathered for Blair Peach's funeral and to
this day his name is synonymous with both anti-racism and police violence. In Southall a plaque has been erected in his name and
a primary school named after him. But still
no-one has ended up being charged for his murder.
The following day after the police riot in Southall the newspapers were full of praise for the way in which the police had maintained the democratic rights of the National Front and allowed them to have their rally. Such a good job had been done in protecting Fascism from a 'Left-wing hate mob'.
Just over a week later the Conservative Party as led by
Margaret Thatcher won the General Election.
And at No.1 in the Charts that month and subsequently
being constantly played on the radio was Bright Eyes by Art Garfunkel
in which Art was plaintively enquiring "How can the light
that burned so brightly suddenly burn so pale?" The same
question that coincidentally was being asked by a lot of other people
though unlike Art they weren't referring to a bunch of rabbits....
