peep Investigate The Far Right Resistance Group ‘We Are United’ Fighting Racism and Fascism In Newcastle

This is an interview for peep magazine. peep catch up with Far-Right Resistance movement We Are United. We’re still at the OXYGEN ART SHOW . This preview night was organised by Sandy Duff and Stuart Mel Wilson.

peep : Can you talk about why you guys are here and can you talk a bit about the art show and what you guys are putting with the far right resistance movement

We Are United : I mean there’s various reasons about the show like, sometimes it’s kind of just a showcase for local artists, you know graffiti and all the rest of it. So some performances as well which aren’t necessarily political. We’re here in a capacity with representing ‘We Are United’ which is quite new, but basically is just trying to mobilise around the core issues of Far right resistance in the UK, but more specifically the northeast in Newcastle.

So, we are here in a capacity for anti-racism and anti-fascism. We have got a craft space out there and we are encouraging people to join us and make banners, placards, messages that show support, solidarity for refugees, migrants that are pro migrant rights uh pro human rights um basically just trying to counter some of that um narrative that’s um unfortunately very very rife uh across the UK.

um and very nearby to where we are now, on a weekly basis for about however many months it’s in since about August last year. Uh far right demonstrations outside the bridge hotel which house Asylum Seekers.

peep : So, is this the one of your first far right resistance events to encorprate within the arts?

We Are United : This is one of the first events that we United have put on yeah. So there’s been organising going on over the last months and we were looking for an opportunity to do something that would engage community in a positive way. So celebrating culture, celebrating the whole power of people getting together and supporting each other, being in solidarity with each other. Um and how powerful it is when we actually use our our talents, our resources for good, you know, to support people and to be in solidarity with people. I think a lot of the time what’s happening in our country at the moment is that people, I think, feel very disengaged because they feel abandoned.

They feel left behind. The government hasn’t looked after people everywhere, you know, especially up here in the northeast – there’s a lot of poverty. There’s a lot of disengagement and rightfully so, because people feel like they haven’t been cared about, they’ve been left behind. And that can lead people to feel like they’re on their own and that they do find community with others.

Far Right Resistance in Newcastle upon Tyne

Sometimes it’s in places that are about division. So, it’s about us and them. And, what we’re trying to say is actually we’re all very much in the same boat. We’re our anger should be if anything um you know against the people who are profiting from that from that division and who are making a lot of money from things like immigration, housing contracts from immigration detention centers, from privatised health care systems – things like that. That doesn’t benefit the everyday person here in in the northeast. The profits are all going into the pockets of a few very wealthy people. So, what we want to try and get across, is that, if we get together, support each other, show community in that way, in practical ways, in meaningful ways, then actually we can achieve a lot together.

We can look after each other and that we don’t need to be hating on someone else who’s probably equally struggling just like we are, you know.

Yeah. I think also, just building on that the issue of immigration centers, detention centers with Newcastle, but still within the Northeast. So I don’t know if you’ve heard of Derwentside Immigration Removal Centre?. It used to be called Hassockfield . I believe it’s the UK’s only female only detention center which is very much a private company. They’re profiting from human misery basically. There’s a very spirited, very passionate campaign to shut it down. It’s also been called to Hassockfield.

peep : So how how important is it to incorporate art and activity within underrepresented communities? I mean I think it is quite largely forgotten about the arts and there’s not a lot of money plowed into the arts, especially in the northeast. I think that’s about to change in the next two or three years with the northeast combined authority or you know plowing a lot of cash into the northeast. Kim McGuinness, the new mayor. I don’t know how you feel about this or I don’t know how much you know of this and I don’t know if you want to elaborate on what I’ve just said and do you know much about it.

We Are United : I think there’s some positive things within the growth plan and within the general ideas about investing into the region, which is definitely necessary. It has been underinvested, you know like in the same way that often people in Africa are blamed for their own poverty when actually Africa was underinvested in and in fact was robbed from and that’s why there is poverty there otherwise there would be incredible richness on that continent. The northeast is similar, you know, this was a region of innovation, this was a a region at the forefront of technology. It was a region rich in resources and it was stripped of that through, you know, previous governments who, you know, closed those industries without due care for the workforces who relied on them. We absolutely support the idea of investing in our local communities, providing opportunities for young people, making sure that artists and art is accessible to everyone, because as far as I’m concerned art is a human right, and art, is part of who we are as people – as human beings. It comes from us as human beings and it’s a tool that everybody should have access to.

Unfortunately, the North East growth plan also includes things like investment and interaction with arms companies. So one being Pearson Engineering on Scotswood Road which is owned by an Israeli state-owned company called Raphael, it’s a site where there are regular protests, because there are a lot of people in our community who don’t believe that we should be allowing Israel to make profit that you know funds genocide and funds the dispossession and the bombing of people now in many countries around the world not just in Palestine. So, when it comes to things like that, we have a big problem with the growth plan and the fact that we talk about investing in young people, but we don’t care about young people somewhere else in the world who’ve had their homes, their schools, their universities, their healthcare systems obliterated.

We can’t just care about what we see as our own. We have to see ourselves as part of the world because we are part of the world. We always have been and we always will be. People have always moved across the planet. We are globally connected more so now than ever we have ever before. And therefore, our concern cannot just be for those right next to us, people who look like us. Our concern has to be for everyone, because at the end of the day, that’s what our humanity depends on and that’s what our future depends on.

Our Call to Kim Mcguiness

So our call to Mayor Kim Mcguiness would be – let’s not have hypocrisy. If we’re going to invest in our young people here, it has to be with responsibility to the impact that might have somewhere else in the world and it shouldn’t be driving young people in the Northeast into jobs that involve harm.

peep : Is there anything else that you would like to comment on?

We Are United : I think just on that question, about the importance of integrating the arts and political education and kind of positive radicalisation, engaging in our common ground our sense of humanity and empathy. So in terms of we are united the kind of framework going forward as Far Right resistance leader Rosa said, this is kind of more or less the first public facing outreach event we’ve been put on, in collaboration with Oxygen Art Show and all the other artists involved. Looking ahead, our intention is to put on cultural events mostly around music, but not necessarily, all kinds of arts, basically coming together to infuse the two, that will be hopefully over the summer moving forward, and not just a kind of one-off box ticking kind of exercise sort of thing. And the ultimate aim would be to stage something like a kind of major festival in the kind of rock against racism sort of model taking inspirations not just from that, but other anti-racist anti-fascist movements around the world that have used arts to mobilise to empower and to energise the kind of social movements that we need for for progress for everyone.

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