The Washington Peace Letter is published monthly for the social justice community of the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area. It's purpose is to support local, national and international struggles against oppression. It seeks to present a radical analysis of current events, covering information not readily available in the corporate media.

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I was in London on April 24 when the second of a series of three hate-related bombs detonated, this time in Brick Lane, a predominantly Bangladeshi part of the city.

This explosive, also a nail bomb—clearly intended to maim and kill—brought the wounded total to 45. Six people, all Bangladeshis, were hit by flying glass and shrapnell—thankfully none seriously. A week before, the first bomb went off at Brixton Hall, a predominantly Black area of London. Thirty-nine people were injured in that explosion, including a 23-month-old-boy who underwent surgery to remove a nail embedded in his brain.

The third bomb exploded on April 30, this time killing three and injuring more than 70. Professor Gus McGrouther, a consultant plastic surgeon at University College and Middlesex Hospitals, told The Independent in May that five young men were so badly injured in this blast, staff had been unable to identify them—they were simply given numbers. “Handfuls” of glass, nails and fragments of metal had been removed from wounds, McGrouther said. This bomb went off in the Admiral Duncan, a pub on Old Compton Street in Soho. The Admiral Duncan was a gay pub.

Terrible. But what has this to do with the Peace Center’s work? In my opinion, everything.

The convergence of these vicious attacks and this month’s celebration of queer—transgender, lesbian, bisexual and gay—pride highlights for me why the Peace Center is critical to a vibrant, active and strong movement for social justice in the DC metro area. And the best way to explain why I feel this way is to talk a bit about some of the groups that claimed responsibility for these bombings.

Four right-wing extremist groups claimed responsibility for the attacks, including a group of neo-Nazis calling themselves Combat 18. According to a Combat 18 manifesto published in 1993, all “non-whites” should be shipped back to Africa and Asia “in body bags.” This manifesto also exhorts adherents to “execute all queers...white race-mixers...and Jews” and includes instructions on how to make bombs such as the ones that maimed more than 100 and killed three in the April bombings in London. Another group, the White Wolves—a splinter group from C18 and deriving its name, purportedly, from a Serbian terrorist group—sent a threat to an Asian newspaper in east London after the Brixton bombing that read, “Notice is hereby given that all non-whites (defined by blood, not religion) must permanently leave the British Isles before the year is out.... Jews and non-whites who remain after 1999 has ended will be exterminated.”

Thus far, one man, David Copeland, has been charged with murder in the bombings, and it is not clear yet whether he considers himself a follower of any of the groups that claimed responsibility for the attacks. Nonetheless, the hate that far-right groups such as C18 and the White Wolves—and similar groups in the United States and around the world—espouse is important not for how many may follow their seemingly extreme mandates. What is notable is how these groups extend their hatred to all “other” categories of people.

For these groups, everyone else is the enemy. And for progressive activists, these groups’ wholistic perspective—while based in hate—is instructive.

Too often, I see that some groups and individuals who identify themselves in any one of the targeted categories draw false distinctions between the injustice they face, and the injustice others face.

This perspective allow us to say that homophobia is my issue, but racism—it hardly exists anymore. Or, I face racism daily, but sexism—that’s a non-issue. Or, the police harrass me regularly for standing on the corner with my friends, but queers don’t deserve “special rights.” Poverty is not my problem...INS raids don’t have anything to do with me...my government’s war campaign against Serbia has nothing to do with my life....

We cannot separate the injustices we may experience in our own lives from what is happening to our queer neighbors of all ethnicities and races, what is happening to Albanians and Serbs in the former-Yugoslavia, what is happening to our immigrant and African American neighbors who suffer harrassment and sometimes death at the hands of police.
This is not to say that different groups working against one component of injustice should broaden their mission to encompass all manifestations of injustice. That doesn’t make sense. Instead, progressive people need to create the space for making the links between what we are doing in our work and activism with what others who are working on a whole different issue are doing in their work and activism.

In Washington DC, the Washington Peace Center provides such a space. Our monthly newspaper which you hold in your hands right now provides a forum for making the links between the various manifestations of hatred and injustice in DC and internationally. More importantly, it also provides a calendar of events and actions—things you can do to create a more just world. The Peace Center provides information and networking opportunities for groups working on components of issues in the DC metro area—such as through our joint Economics for the People Series that concluded last month. And the Peace Center intends to grow, to provide more opportunity for interaction and alliances, and to provide the space where we can remind ourselves that we are not alone in this work for justice.

Groups like Combat 18 likely have no more than 50 “members” according to anti-hate groups tracking C18’s activity in Britain. The Washington Peace Center community, and the multiple communities in DC that are involved in work against oppression and for justice number in the thousands. Imagine what we can do together.

Catherine Sheehy is a member of the Coordinating Board of the Peace Center.

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