The violent attack on Bookmarks at the weekend could never have happened without Trump, and Britains hostile environment, says Bookmarks manager David Gilchrist
Just as we were preparing to close up our shop on Saturday evening, about a dozen men invaded Bookmarks bookshop in central London and started knocking over displays and shouting at staff. One was wearing a Donald Trump mask, others wore baseball caps saying Make Britain Great Again. One wore a union jack as a cape. Theyzeroed in on books about Islamophobia, andripped up copies of an anti-racist magazine.
Thankfully nobody was hurt and damage to the shop wasnt extensive, but the message this attack sends is chilling. This was a group of so-called alt-right protesters who decided that a socialist bookshop, whichstocks radical literature and working-class history titles and provides stalls for national trade unionconferences, was a legitimate target for violence.
And Bookmarks is not alone here. In April, Gays the Word, the renowned LGBT+ bookshop up the road from us in Bloomsbury, central London, had its windows smashed. Again, no one was hurt, and theres no reason to think the attacks are related, but they certainly take place in an atmosphere in which racists, bigots and the far right in general feel emboldened.
Donald Trumps election as United States president has released a feeling among some on the hard right thatits now OK to say out loud things that had been made unacceptable and that feeling can easily turn into violence, as we found on Saturday.
But its not just Trump. Here in Britain, weve seen the emergence of organisations such as the anti-extremist Football Lads Alliance, which has targeted Muslims and prominent black figures such as MP DianeAbbott. The movement that has gathered around Tommy Robinson, the founder of the far-right English Defence League, is another recent example.
And these movements are growing in a fertile ground prepared by Theresa Mays hostile environment for migrants which, as weve seen, poisons our whole society by reopening older racisms such as those faced by the Windrush generation 70 years ago.
Thankfully its not all going in the same direction. When Trump visited Britain last month we saw enormous demonstrations. London had a carnival atmosphere as hundreds of thousands marched for womens rights, against homophobia and transphobia, against racism, climate change and war.
Following this weekends attack, Bookmarks has received thousands of messages of support from aroundthe world. Since we reopened this morning the phone has been ringing off the hook with people offering solidarity; visitors have dropped off cards and donations. Weve had authors and other prominent figures contacting us to offer to speak or read at our solidarity day this coming Saturday.
It is easy to see why. When the far right starts attackingbooks, alarm bells ring for anyone who wants to live in a democratic society. In May 1933 the German student union, a Nazi organisation, initiated the mass public burning of books in an attempt to purify societyand rid it of un-German influences. Tens ofthousands of volumes were hauled from libraries andarchives and burned in public squares.
Among the first to be burned were books by socialists and communists such as Karl Marx, Rosa Luxemburg, Friedrich Engels and Bertolt Brecht, and novelists including John Dos Passos, Jack London, Maxim Gorky, Franz Kafka and Upton Sinclair. Books by all of these authors can be found on the shelves of Bookmarks today.
It was notable that one of the titles the attackers singled out on Saturday was The Jewish Question by Abram Leon written shortly before the Jewish author was murdered by the Nazis in Auschwitz in 1944. The men who attacked Bookmarks grabbed it from the shelfand threw it across the shop.
In response to the Nazi book burnings, the American author and activist Helen Keller wrote: You may burn my books and the books of the best minds in Europe, but the ideas those books contain have passed through millions of channels and will go on.
The fantastic response Bookmarks has received sinceSaturday lets us know that were not alone andthat people understand the value of independent bookshops in a world dominated by big business. We aregrateful to everyone who has supported us: it shows that we cant be cowed by the forces of intolerance and the far right. The most important outcome will be if morepeople learn the true meaning of solidarity thatan attack on one is an attack on all.
David Gilchrist is the manager of Bookmarks
Read more: http://www.theguardian.com/us
