Up to 30,000 marched against fascism in London
- Maria Assaf
- Nov 21, 2018
- 2 min read
Updated: Nov 28, 2018
On Saturday, 17 November, tens of thousands marched in London to protest the rise of fascism across Europe.
Thousands expressed their fear and discontent about the rise of fascism and racism across Europe during a peaceful march on Saturday 17 November. The protest also featured banners about various causes including the release of the ex-president of Brazil Lula da Silva. One of the organisers of the event was the group Stand Up to Racism.
The rise of racism across Europe and the world is represented by anti-immigrant sentiments expressed by world leaders such as United States president Donald Trump, as well as by Europe's inhumane treatment of refugees and by racist newspapers such as the UK's Daily Mail, which spreads misinformed and malicious fear and promotes a culture of victim-blaming toward those who had to flee their countries due to war, persecution or poverty.
In the UK, such mainstream newspapers continually bash immigrants, blaming them unjustifiably for all of the country's economic problems and portray them as terrorists. Their outright racism, echoed by various political powers across the globe, has gotten out of control.
An episode of The Mash Report humorously showed how UK politicians routinely blamed immigrants for a shrinking job market, receiving too many benefits and slowing down the economy.
However, as a 2016 Centre for Economic Performance report showed, immigrants had no impact on the number of jobs in the UK, were less likely to claim benefits than the UK-born population and paid more taxes than them!
These inaccurate portrayals have promoted and fueled a culture of mistrust and mistreatment of minority populations.
This clip is from The Mash Report Series 1, added to the BBC iPlayer on 17 October 2018.
Asked why he decided to protest, Martin Dolan, 36, a researcher from Oxford said:
“The rise of fascism scares me and I want to be on the right side of history”, said Dolan.
Toward the end of the march, the protesters encountered a small group of young men in clear opposition of the causes of the protest. They sported US president Donald Trump re-election banners.
A hopeful feature of this march was that it resonated among people of various political views and those pursuing different causes. As another blogger, David Rosenberg mentions, being united for this moral cause despite what politics you support, is the best way to work toward achieving equality and for all.
Other worthy causes that featured during the protest included a man pleading for nuclear disarmament on behalf of Japan.
When progressives focus on our differences instead of our similarities, our communal power gets fragmented and dark forces such as Trump, or the Colombian movement against peace use our divides to push political agendas that affect us all.
Here are other snippets of the day.
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