Sheffield Indy Radio Show #2 - Deportations, The EDL and Divide and Rule

Introduction

The show starts with a live intro to Nazi Punks Fuck Off from The Dead Kennedy s (original audio source) and a studio version of the song (original audio source). We then have a extract from Lyn Gerry's reading of Richard K. Moore's "Escaping The Matrix" essay on divide and rule which has been taken from episode #87 of Unwelcome Guests and was repeated in Unwelcome Guests #505 which has been posted to Sheffield Indymedia (original audio source).

After the show run down we have the upcoming events slot from Bob from alt-sheff with news about upcoming happenings in and around Sheffield including festivals in August.

Threatened Deportations

Odette Sefuko, fled the Democratic Republic of Congo via Uganda in fear of her life five years ago and came to the UK to claim asylum. A meeting to launch the Campaign Against the Deportion of Odette Sefuko (original audio source) on 14th July featured a screening of The Greatest Silence: Rape in the Congo, a film produced and directed by Lisa F. Jackson and we have an extract of her from 2008 talking with Mike McCormick on Mind Over Matters, the full 30 min interview, is available on the A-infos radio project (original audio source) at radio4all.net. There is a Facebook page for the Campaign Against the Deportion of Odette Sefuko at tinyurl.com/sefuko.

Lem Lem Hussein Abdu, was abandoned in the UK in 2007 by a Saudi family she had worked for as a domestic servant. The Home Office are trying to deport her to Ethiopia despite the fact that she has never been there. She was born in 1950 in Eritrea and in 1978 her village was burned down and her entire family was murdered during an attack by Ethiopian forces. Following this she fled to Sudan and from there to Saudia Arabia, where she obtained a position as a domestic worker. On 20th July 2010 there was a protest (original audio source) against the deportation of Lem Lem, which at the time, was threatened for 21st July, following the protest new came through that she will be released from Yarls Wood and allowed to come back to Sheffield, however, until Lem Lem is granted indefinite leave to remain in the UK, the battle will not be over. There is a Facebook page for the campaign against Lem Lem's threatened deportation, Lemlem must stay!.

The BP Gulf Oil Spill

We have extracts from Democracy Now about the BP Gulf oil catastrophe, from two shows which were titled, Years of Internal BP Probes Warned that Neglect Could Lead to Accidents (original audio source) and Rolling Stone’s Tim Dickinson on the Inside Story of How Obama Let the World’s Most Dangerous Oil Company Get Away with Murder (original audio source). The edit ends with music taken from a YouTube video, Lenny Kravitz, Mos Def and More Jam for Gulf Aid (original audio source), see gulfaid.org for more info on this campaign. For more on the spill see these Ecoshock shows, After the oil rush: BP news, Danger Deep in the Gulf and Dark Conspiracies of the Gulf.

The English Defense League (EDL)

On 13th July 2010 around a dozen supporters of the EDL invaded a Sheffield Indymedia meeting which was being held in the upstairs of The Rutland Arms, on Brown Street, in Sheffield City Centre. This is the first time the English Defence League have physically disrupted a Indymedia meeting, though it had previously been threatened in Birmingham and Bradford.

This was not the first activist meeting disrupted by the EDL, on 3rd July, an Leeds Anarchist Federation meeting was disrupted by 5 EDL supporters, in March a Bristol UAF meeting was attacked, in April a Newcastle UAF meeting was attacked and on 12th June 2010 a Palestine solidarity stall in Birmingham was attacked.

In March Barry Kade exposed the EDL's anti-working class agenda:

"The EDL’s master plan is to set worker against worker, first dividing us on religious lines. Anti-Muslim hatred is the thin end of the wedge, the easiest prejudice to whip up because of the climate of fear already generated by Blair and Browns bloody and criminal wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. From this start, the EDL’s secret bosses hope the poison of division will spread, tearing the working class apart and leaving it defenceless in the face of the growing offensive by big businesses and global finance…"

"The EDL are bankrolled by millionaire buisinessman Alan Lake to do this dirty job. Lake talks of dominating the streets, and has said: “Football fans are a potential source of support. They are a hoi polloi that gets off their backsides and travels to a city and they are available before and after matches.” These are the puppets he intends to use to promote the right wing agenda of big business against the trades unions and the English working people. Any working class person who supports the EDL is a fool and a class traitor."

And in June, Nick Lowles, writing about the "the complete failure of the authorities to address the growing EDL threat", said that:

"The problem appears to stem from the Public Order Unit at the Home Office, who have taken it upon themselves to act as the champions of free speech in advising successive Ministers that EDL protests should be allowed to happen."

Also in June, Bob Pitt, writing about a EDL protest in Cardiff said that:

The Plaid Cymru AM for South Wales Central addressed a counter demonstration by Unite Against Fascism on June 5. But she said she was "appalled" that South Wales Police had spent money "building a steel fence and kettling in the anti-racist protesters, while the English Defence League were escorted to a pub and then escorted on a march around the city centre".

In September 2009 The Guardian reported that Alan Lake was "considering funding the EDL" and we pick out some of the lies from Alan Lake's talk in Sweden (original audio source).

Chat

After crossing the invisible line with Nafeez Ahmed (original audio source) and Noam Chomsky we have some bollox chat about the EDL and who might be pulling their strings and the show ends with a dub mix from Old Boy.