sentences.
The verdiet at the Old Bailey was both a victory for the Mangrove Nine and the black organisations supporting them. It was also a terrible indictment of the lack of support shown to the black brothers and sisters by the Left generally. It was a victory for the Mangrove Nine not because of the verdict. It was a victory because they consistently fought the case on a political level and refused to back down from this position. They refused to confine themselves to the mere "facts' of the frame-up, but consciously sought to show the all embracing nature of racism and harrassment towards blacks within the system. Police harrassment is nothing new for blacks. What is new is the way the com rades here fought it. This contrasts markedly with the way the defence was run at the Purdie/ Prescott trial. Here the "defence'(!) lawyers were allowed to print Jake as a figure of pathos. POLITICS IN COMMAND The taking of a principled and militant political position by the Mangrove 9 had an effect on both the judge -Clark-and on the jury. The effect on Clark is shown by the fact that whereas at the beginning of the trial he felt strong enough to be openly hostile (for instance, his cant nefasal to allow a particular black porker to sit on the jury) yet by the time of his up he was deliberately far more restrai. on the jury was shown both o in the long disI with the alat on the jury levite one of the black beothers to address his local trade union branch on racism. SOLIDARITY WITH VERDICT: All comrades not guilty on riot charges, 4 comrades found guilty of "lesser" offences and given suspended Finally the principled position taken by the comrades will inevitably have a profound effect on the black community itself-a community which has seen black brothers and sisters standing up and fighting back. They were helped in this by the activity of the Black People's Information Centre who each week prepared a summary of the trial and distributed it not only around Nottinghill but also abroad. Such propaganda is vital in a political case like this to counteract the the distorting role of the bourgeois press. This role began the day after the demonstration which provoked the frame-up. Here the unfree press came out with headlines such as 'Black Mob Runs Wild' (at one point in the trial Clark admitted that he thought this was the case). Again the distorting role of the press was seen during the trial itself when although much coverage was given to the prosecution evidence yet the main body of the defence case was virtually ignored. Finally the bourgeois press was seen in its true light when the main evidence for the prosecution was provided by the Daily Mirror photographer on the demonstration who handed over his photographs to the Department of Public Prosecutions.
THEY ARE MARKED MEN & WOMEN! However though it can be said that the Mangrove 9, collectively and individually and with the support of other black comrades, gained a victory by taking a principled political position yet it would be fatally wrong to assume that they left the court "free" men and women. On the contrary they left as marked men and wome Thus the saspended sentences given by Clark were not a total concession. Instead their purpose is to terrorise those who received them into remaining passive, in future. What this WETS S SOME 0 PATe 0311008 Gordan 24 bours later charged with assaulting а робс Back Row: Rhodan Gordon, Godfrey Millet, Rupert Boyce L-R: Frank Critchlow, Roddy Kentish.
Middle: Radford Howe.
L-R:
Front: Althea Lecointe, L-R:
The point is that revolutionaries cannot really gain victories inside bourgeois courts themselves. Victories can only be gained on the streets-in order to force the bourgeoisie into retrating before revolutionary forces. To think that revolutionaries isolated in the courts can wage anything but the most limited defensive struggle is to spread mystification about bourgeois "justice" and "legality'. There is no question of ever gaining "justice' in these courts all we can do is expose them and we can only successfully do this through showing strength outside the courts as well as inside them LACK OF SOLIDARITY The tragedy about the Mangrove Nine is that outside the black groups, the comrades received hardly any support of any sort from the organised Left. To say that only the IMG of all the left groups came out in solidarity both Money for the defence and future work should be sent to the Black People's Information Centre, 154 Barnsbury Road, London, N.1. in our press and elsewhere is not to make a sectarian debating point. We only wish it was different.
This passivity in face of black repression is merely a further reflection of the passivity of of the left in face of bourgeois repression generally. The reverse side of this is the utter reluctance of the left to even consider challenging bourgeois norms of legality. We suspect this is why no other group outside the IMG is prepared to support the IRA-they can't even support vicariously the idea of fighting back. In fact the question now poses itself in Britain whether we can continue to struggle here in support of the Irish militants confronting large scale repression by the bourgeois state: the answer to that would be to discuss political methods of resisting it rather than watering down our solidarity.
S.C.
RED MOLE TELEPHONE:
This is to inform readers that our telephone number 01-837 6954 is
----- pull-quotes -----
All out February 10th at Marylebone Magistrates Court in support of Rhodan Gordan