The racists who smashed the Citizens Advice centre and tried to torch asylum seekers housing think they scream the loudest. But the tens of thousands marching peacefully every week scream louder.

Go to an antifascist demo to get ahead, said a friend. But were we behind? A week later things feel back to normal in the UK, but we need to keep on marching.

At the antiracism demo in Walthamstow, east London, a few days after the Islamophobic and racist riots up north.

I wrote this last Wednesday on the day that it happened and was set to post it then. Then my computer broke and I went to Albania for the weekend. I was going to delete it, but it seems good to record this.

Last Wednesday I went to a protest - for a change. I’m being sarcastic, of course. This year in London has actually been the year of the protest. Palestine, Assange, the Rwanda scheme, the anti-gay law in Uganda and the bill in Ghana and now the antifascist demonstration in Walthamstow, the east part of the city.

So yes, I didn’t need to go to another protest maybe. But that’s a privilege - in Uganda where I used to live you can be put in jail for years or be killed for protesting. Don't ever take the right to peaceful protest for granted. Ever.

After a weekend of rioting in the north of England and Northern Ireland, word got out on social media and elsewhere that there would be an antifascist demo in Walthamstow. Or would it be a far right riot?

“It’s about getting ahead,” a friend told me on the Tuesday night. About outnumbering the thugs, racists and Islamophobes, she meant. I decided to go.

I thought it was weird that all the shops and restaurants in Walthamstow shut so early, when I got to the area that night. I hadn’t seen an area in London like it, I thought to myself. Then I remembered that people were expecting trouble so they’d all closed. Every one was nervous.

At 7pm, thousands and thousands gathered on the high street of Walthamstow, as they did in Brighton, Birmingham and elsewhere across the country.

“Whatever we do tonight, whatever we do with this protest, the one thing we’re not going to do is let anybody get separated,” yelled one woman into a loud hailer.

“YES!” another with red hair, standing next to me screamed, pumping her first in the air.

“We’re going to stand together. We’re going to watch out for each other” the other woman continued.

“YES!” repeated the one next to me.

There were placards that had “SMASH THE FAR RIGHT!” written on them.

“Whose streets? Our streets?” people began to scream, along with “We fight back.”

There was also a very prescient reminder from the Socialists Workers party.

“The enemy doesn’t arrive by small boat, it arrives by super yacht,” they said as they gathered in a small group on the grass. They spoke about having actual solutions to the grievances of the anti-immigration rioters.

An Audre Lorde quote was flying high in the air:

“It is not our differences that divide us. It is our inability to recognise, accept and celebrate those differences.”

A sign held by a protester in Walthamstow. Photo: Amy Fallon.

My favourite part of the night was seeing a gutsy little boy who only looked about eight on a megaphone yelling “Where’s where’s the EDL?” (That’s the English Defence League). He was with a woman wearing a hijab and a keffiyeh, and the pair took turns chanting different things.

I’m sure that in a perfect world he’d like to not have to be so political, as we now hear some people refer to these days. But sadly because of the colour of his skin I don’t think that he has any choice.

In the end, about 10,000 people showed up at Walthamstow. They completely outnumbered the other side. We had gotten ahead.

But then I thought back to what some activists like Chris Nineham and journalists like Matt Kennard had pointed out the week earlier and a few days earlier respectively.

Every week 100,000 to 150,000 people who are part of an antifascist and antiracist movement now protest in London. There’s been 17 - ten months on. This is taking place whether it's reported in the media or not and whether people see it as important or not.

“I think one of the reasons that the far right are out on the streets is because they’re appalled at the scale of the protests and the scale of the demonstrations,” Chris had told us at the film festival. “It’s an attack on us.”

Fascist Tommy Robinson, the co-founder of the EDL, has also made reference in a video to the anger of his people that these marches are filling up the streets, a point which hasn’t been made widely in the mainstream media.

Matt has reminded us that the Palestinian flag symbolises peace.

The fact that we now know these demonstrations as “the marches” and that even channels like GB News who are opposed to them now refer to them as this as a way of shorthand for them also says it all. (Btw, GB News is Australian-run and one of the slogans that’s become popular in the UK is “Stop the boats” - so don’t think that Australia hasn’t had any part to play in this).

The racists and Islamophobes have seen these gatherings – and they don’t like them at all. “What the hell does it have to do with ‘free free Palestine?’ asked the chief bigot MP Nigel Farage on the channel after they showed a demonstrator screaming this at one of the peaceful rallies, followed by a guest who asked the same thing that very night of the Walthamstow demo.

I’m sure that they’d like to have this support of 100k people every week.

This movement – which is one of the largest in the UK history as Chris reminded us - is not going to go away until there is some sort of change, whether that’s a permanent ceasefire, a halt to sending arms to Israel, people in the docks of the ICJ and ICC or some other measure of progress.

Of course there’s other things that we can do, even if small. And this goes especially for London where someone from Scotland pointed out to me recently people like to stay in their own neighbourhoods and it can be as parochial as anywhere.

For instance, this LinkedIn post by Penny Dakin-Kiley drew my attention to the use of language and terms that we need to use:

It’s disinformation, not misinformation.
Rioters, not protesters.
Ideology, not grievances.
Racism and xenophobia, not thuggery.
Exploiting what happened in Southport, not sparked by it.

I’ve also been trying to follow, RT and read the resources provided by the Centre for Media Monitoring, who I discovered earlier this year when I went to the Media Democracy Festival in Sheffield, to inform my language and reporting. They have several major reports which they authored, which have recommendations and can be found in their resources section. They have also launched a terminology project which has a glossary of common terms associated with Muslims and Islam, which has just gone live.

And I want to go on a mosque tour soon, too.

A week after we thought there would be trouble in London, the sun is back to shining. I am planning on going to the protest again tomorrow and am looking forward to seeing how many people are there.

There’s already talk that Tommy Robinson is planning another march for October - the same month that will mark the one-year anniversary of the latest conflict in the Middle East. But for the time being the terrorists who caused havoc in England and Northern Ireland have run out of energy and been deterred through tough sentences for the troublemakers.

For the time being I am remembering that although they may set the Citizens Advice centre on fire, try to torch an asylum seeker centre, loot Crocs and bath products, call for mosques that are actually their own royal buildings to be banned and more and think that they are screaming the loudest, it's actually the 100,000 people protesting peacefully every Saturday, ten months on, who scream much louder.

Keep on marching.

Also this week: I met up with a pen pal (remember them?!) IRL who I’m still in touch with more than 20 years on! Will write about it soon. Yes, am keen to write about other topics and who says that this Substack won’t be light and shade?!

One of the placards in Walthamstow. Photo: Amy Fallon