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A. Sivanandan’s ‘From resistance to rebellion’

01 April 2012

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Detailing the resistance of black communities to the discrimination of the British state, Sivanandan reminds us throughout that acts of resistance are made necessary by the realities of everyday oppression. The pattern of black and Asian struggles in Britain, writes Sivanandan, "was set on the loom of British racism". And resistance may not always take conventional forms.

With the ongoing and excessively punitive sentencing of those involved in last August’s unrest, we are hearing from the rioters in Tottenham that continual aggressive stop-and-search measures makes them feel policed against, not policed for. Sivanandan’s words thirty years ago are still as pertinent today:

"A government which is not accountable to the people - a government which governs with the politics of the stick and the policies of a thousand cuts, which is anti-working class and anti-women and anti-youth - must have a police force that is accountable to it and not to the people."

See: From resistance to rebellion

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