Pat Kane: With empathy we can triumph over fascism

Southport, and its consequences, shows many cracks in our societal vase. And although I think we’re a discernible distance from outright fascism in the UK, I don’t think it would harm us much to take a measure of exactly how far away we are. (And to check whether Scotland is on a better, safer path).

I have problems with his current StarmLab cheerleading, but journalist Paul Mason wrote a brilliant book a few years ago, titled How To Stop Fascism. Mason identified various “kinds of trouble” that might drive a popular fervour for the far-right.

It’s a good checklist against our present travails.

READ MORE: Concerns Glasgow will be targeted in far-right disorder this weekend

Neoliberal capitalism’s economic failures fuel the drive for scapegoats. Immigrants – chasing jobs and services, but also building their family businesses – are the obvious targets. The misinformation around Southport, led by the odious Nigel Farage across all his channels, immediately (and mendaciously) assigned a migrant identity to the killer.

Next is what Mason calls the “wall of technological power” – the internet and computation bearing down on everyone. The far-right are profiting from riding its wave. Many experts have noted how adeptly far-right movements organise their actions through social media.

The process is new. “Influencers” point diffuse, drifting swarms towards a behaviour, a location and a grievance. That’s quite different to (and more elusive than) a “leader” mobilising their members through rigorous organisation – which at least could be infiltrated in advance.

The forthcoming “Pro-UK Rally” at Glasgow’s George Square, resplendent with its endorsement from the fascist Tommy Robinson, is being amplified by a curious influencer known as the “Glasgow Cabbie”, Stef Shaw. A cursory search shows the gravid Mr Shaw jumping on various anti-authority causes, mingled with his poetry on Glasgow street life, and complaints about the city’s disrepair.

The poster on Shaw’s site states: “This will remain a peaceful protest to share our distrust and fear of the future.” It’s fascinating language, measured by Mason’s checklist.

Potential fascist supporters are, Mason suggests, “those with no clear, future-oriented identity; those who believe their status is reliant on stopping other people achieving freedom, for example white racists and violent misogynists”.

Well, that fits.

Mason’s other major point is that we get fascism wrong if we think it just appeals to isolated, alienated loners. The hope is that they can be neutralised, by being brought back within the folds of community.

However, Mason discovers research into the pre-Nazi years which shows that fascists were “joiners, not loners”. They buried deep into the fabric of amateur football clubs, annual festivals and the like.

READ MORE: Tommy Robinson warned by council leader that he's 'not welcome' in Glasgow

In short, they embedded themselves into the conviviality of bourgeois life.

The tireless investigations against far-right activity that The Ferret has made over the last decade often reveals exactly this embedding. In October last year, the news site unearthed members of the neo-fascist organisation Homeland taking up roles as elected community councillors in Forfar and East Calder. They looked as bearded and tweedy as any local.

Much of The Ferret’s far-right coverage depicts a motley scene of endless splittists, inflicting desultory stunts on bewildered locals. I reached out to Billy Briggs, one of the site’s founding journalists, to ask him about this shilpit display of Scottish fascisms. Was it evidence that the phenomenon had shallow roots up here?

Briggs urged strongly against complacency. “In Scotland, the far-right is operating and we monitor it. Although we’re talking small numbers – at present – I’d point to events in Greece a few years ago as a stark warning of how quickly things can change.

“In 2019 I visited Athens for the trial of Golden Dawn, a political party accused of orchestrating murder, arson, and assault. Golden Dawn was initially a fringe group of ultra-nationalists but it quickly grew support by exploiting concerns over immigration and Islam after the 2009 economic crisis.

Three years later, Golden Dawn entered parliament, when 18 members were elected.

“The party was behind hundreds of attacks on Muslims, Jews, immigrants, trade unionists, anarchists and political opponents – I interviewed victims of its paramilitary hit squads and the violence was horrific.

“Eventually, the perpetrators were caught, and in 2020 Golden Dawn’s leadership was convicted of running a criminal organisation. They’re in jail now but the far-right remains very active in Greece, including a new party called Spartans, considered a descendent of Golden Dawn.”

The warnings from recent history, concludes Briggs, “are clear.”

READ MORE: Patrick Harvie: Westminster must stop normalising the far-right

That’s super gloomy. But it’s not difficult to imagine an entirely different trajectory in Scotland: an optimism based on evidence.

For one thing, as many are noting, we’ve achieved something in Scotland over the last four decades. Which is the establishment of a civic nationalism, based on residence and participation, as opposed to an ethnic nationalism (based on race, language or other “authentic” markers).

There are various outcomes from that. One of which is a former first minister – a Muslim and an SNP leader – who’s become a leading voice against racism and genocide globally. This goes along with the general tone of the Scottish political class – both culturally welcoming, and demographically pragmatic about increased immigration.

That’s quite different from the last decade of Conservative governments. They’ve been dog-whistling from a far-right menu, giving permission to intolerance and prejudice, within communities whose political horizon is defined by Westminster, not Holyrood.

Another Scottish path away from the Greek experience would be events like the Kenmure Street uprising against the deportation vans in Glasgow in 2021. This, as well as other defences and welcomes, becomes a motivating story. It gives us a script for the beautiful and generous occupation of public space, when the need arises.

In another of his thumbnail definitions, Mason says fascists believe that “violence makes facts”. Well, so does non-violence –the arms of care and protection thrown around the shoulders of fellow humans, all of us struggling away on this stressed planet.

We should be passionate about the power of this kind of call, and be ready to answer it.

The world is on our doorstep, and thus challenges us to keep re-imagining our relationship to the strangers in our lives. For example, the far-right bully boys – wearing politicians’ suits or Fred Perry tops – love to foment disgruntlement about asylum seekers housed in local hotels.

The actual reality of them is poignant. A few weeks ago, after a recent music gig, I arrived early at Perth Central. I took myself to the two hotels nearest the station, hoping to while away the hour with a pint.

In the doorway of each establishment, a large and kindly security man halted my progress. “Asylum seekers, sir. No service here.” I looked around at a foyer of black folks: playing cards, singing among themselves, sitting on the stone wall smoking. A few smiles and nods were exchanged, and I eventually found another hostelry.

A few moments’ phone research revealed that the occupants of these hotels were at the head of the queue for the recent government’s Rwanda deportation policy. I couldn’t tell whether the community was simmering with resentment and fear (though some councillors had expressed a wee bit of angst to The Courier).

But I felt it as a moment of quiet wonder. Here were these grandiose Victorian leisure palaces, hoisted into service to solve a most 21st-century problem. That is, the nomads driven our way, by the degradations that our centuries of colonialism and industrialisation have wreaked on their systems, both economic and natural.

Not terror in a quiet suburb, but connections and futures to be forged, in a similar place. Empathy should be able to overturn fascism. We can still transform matters, out of the worst of acts.