Source
r/discworld•
Angieflibble

The significance of Cable Street

Night Watch is probably my favourite book in the series. Yesterday I was reading Edge of Eternity by Ken Follett and some of the characters were referring to injuries that they had sustained during the Cable Street riots so I had a little investigoogle.

Cable Street, London was the site of the 1936 riot between the British Union of Fascists and various anti fascist groups. The anti-fascists erected barricades to stop the fascists from parading through the mostly Jewish area.

For further info click here

Posted Sep 29, 2017, 1:56 PM UTC

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persiangriffinTrust me.•

AM I ACTUALLY GETTING A CHANCE TO TALK ABOUT THE MEN THEY COULDN'T HANG?!?

anyways, British folk rock group The Men They Couldn't Hang did a song about that event, called "Ghosts of Cable Street." It's a good song, you should listen to it.

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lureynolHistoria magistra vitae est•

Thank you for this. I've just purchased the song. If you had to recommend an album of theirs as an introduction, which one would you go for?

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persiangriffinTrust me.•

Ooh, good question. I'd say Waiting for Bonaparte is generally regarded as their best album, and with good reason. If you liked Ghosts of Cable Street, Waiting for Bonaparte has other songs in a similar "historical" vein, such as "The Colours", a song about the Spithead and Nore mutinies of the Royal Navy. The album How Green is the Valley, which Ghosts of Cable Street is featured on, is also very good and would probably fit your tastes, but if you're just looking for one album as an introduction I'd give the slight edge to Waiting for Bonaparte.

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Kholnoy•

My boy Terry is Antifa!

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lureynolHistoria magistra vitae est•

Fervently. The entire Vimes arc can be read as deeply anti-totalitarian. The most often cited example is "Commander Vimes didn't like the phrase 'The innocent have nothing to fear', believing the innocent had everything to fear, mostly from the guilty but in the longer term even more from those who say things like 'The innocent have nothing to fear'.” (Snuff)

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IsaacEiland-HallFather of /r/Discworld - GNU TERRY PRATCHETT•

Thanks to ADHD, you putting the concepts of Sir Terry (an incorrigible punster) and antifa in my mind has now made me want to make an "antipho" pun somewhere. Probably in a food subreddit.

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raevnos•

But pho is delicious. How can you be against it?

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IsaacEiland-HallFather of /r/Discworld - GNU TERRY PRATCHETT•

I'm antiantipho :)

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DXBtoDOH•

Vetinari would infiltrate Antifa to sabotage the group's activities.... as far as I can tell Antifa is a group of wackos that would need to be carefully monitored so they don't cause trouble.

Pratchett was staunchly anti-totalitarian but I don't see how he'd have done anything but mock the activities of Antifa as being as despicable as the "fascists" they seem to fear. Antifa consists of anarchists (Pratchett was not an anarchist) who openly attack the state structures and laws (denying freedom of speech and assembly to others who, regardless of their ideology, are merely meeting and using their freedom of speech). Pratchett would likely have pointed out that Antifa is just as totalitarian as the totalitarians they supposedly oppose, just in a different way.

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Kholnoy•

Funnily enough I just watched a video talking about why Antifa is not nearly as bad as the fascist they oppose

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DXBtoDOH•

Oh? You watched an video? I see. And it must be right. Pratchett would be so proud.

Leaving aside the reality that there is absolutely no danger whatsoever of any fascist takeover and such groups are only weird nutters, my point was that Antifa are equally nutty and employ the kinds of tactics Pratchett in his prime would have savagely mocked and derided.

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Kholnoy•

It seems like you didn't even look at the video I gave you because it addresses that exact point you made.

The most people apart of Antifa can be blamed with is property damage and assault. Certainly, things that are bad, but people are getting sentenced with 10+ years in prison for these actions. A sentence far, far greater than the crime itself. On top of this, new bills are being proposed specifically to suppress Antifa and their free speech. Meanwhile, white supremacist groups have killed people and haven't gotten much more than a slap on the wrist. One of these white supremacists drove a car through a group of people and didn't spend any time in prison.

My point, and the point of the video you just dismissed, is that Antifa is not nearly on the same level of hate and violence of the ideology they oppose. Nobody is making the claim that these fascists are going to takeover the nation, and the point of Antifa is to combat the nazism that already exists.

Don't assume that Prachett would be on your side, especially if you're so eager to not listen to what people have to say.

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DXBtoDOH•

I’ll just kindly point out the irony of downvoting a post on a Discworld forum. Pratchett would have been appalled at the notion of downvoting simply for disagreeing with someone (and we all know what happens if you get a few downvotes). Hello Grags! Welcome to the forum!

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[deleted]•

[deleted]

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neverTooManyPlants•

He was also suspicious of revolutionaries "the thing about revolutions is they tend to come around again, that's why they're called revolutions"

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redchris18•

Minor point: your link formatting broke because you didn't include the "http" bit, like this

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