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Darcus Howe: setting the record straight

Darcus HoweFour of us stood glued to the television for the best part of five minutes. We were all familiar with Darcus Howe. For my part, I’d seen his gripping TV series on English identity, White Tribe, several years before. This was 2011, and in the wake of riots that the political establishment were struggling to understand, and reported by a visibly shocked and baffled media, Howe was being interviewed live by the BBC’s Fiona Armstrong. Finally calling him by his correct name (as opposed to “Marcus Dowe”, which she used repeatedly in the interview) Armstrong asked: “Mr Howe, if I can just ask you, you are not a stranger to riots yourself, I understand, are you?”

Howe paused, and replied: “I have never taken part in a single riot. I have been on demonstrations that ended up in conflict. And have some respect for an old West Indian Negro and stop accusing me of being a rioter, because you won’t tickle me to get abusive. You just sound idiotic. Have some respect.” It was clear that though the news channels had been repeating the same clips of the riots, this interview would never be repeated by the BBC.

Robin Bunce and Paul Field, the authors of Darcus Howe: A Political Biography argue that this interview was significant in a number of ways. It showed that despite old age and the “national treasure” status he has acquired from a string of successful Channel 4 documentaries, Howe is still unwilling to be subsumed into the establishment and its way of thinking. Indeed, he was “the only public figure who refused to condemn the violence and perhaps the first to offer an analysis that was free from moral panic”. But perhaps even more importantly, the authors note that Howe was introduced by Armstrong as a “writer and broadcaster”. In allowing him the platform of broadcast commentary, the media establishment erased his record as one of Britain’s foremost civil rights campaigners. Why? Because to speak of this would be to acknowledge that a British Black Power movement ever existed.

But exist it sure did. Bunce and Field have meticulously chronicled and cross-referenced the development of a complicated web of political movements and campaigns based around the principles of black self-organisation and liberation.
The organisations and events of Howe’s political life cannot, the authors convincingly argue, be understood without understanding the influence of Howe’s great-uncle and mentor, the writer and theorist C.L.R. James. James’s contribution was defined by an insistence on self-organisation, and a refusal to accept leadership from a vanguard outside the black community.

This was the guiding principle behind the campaign Howe and others led in defence of Notting Hill’s Mangrove restaurant. A hub for West London’s black community, it had been raided by police repeatedly, driving customers away: on each occasion officers found no evidence of the drug dealing they alleged. Howe’s demonstration against this saw dozens arrested, and he and eight others tried for a string of offences including incitement to riot. The “Mangrove Nine” capitalised on the trial to expose the racism of the Metropolitan Police. Notably, several of the nine represented themselves in court, confronting the racism of the authorities head-on.

It is in sections like the one dealing with this episode that Bunce and Field’s book comes alive. This is no mean feat in an academic book. Indeed, it drums home that this book should get a wider audience than its unfortunate cover price allows. Courtroom drama is interspersed with the retrospective accounts of those involved.

While reading the book, I was told again and again by those to whom I mentioned it that Howe was a “controversial” figure. Two charges levelled at him have been that he and others assumed community leadership positions without any democratic mandate and than he is a self-publicist. This biography subtly addresses both of charges. Bunce and Field are candid about assessing Howe “in his own terms”, but present criticisms as well as praise.

On the first charge, the authors rightly see Howe as a thinker more than a leader, and even present numerous instances of him shying away from traditional political leadership. Instead he wanted to build among the black community an environment in which you find “a Plato on every street corner”. To dismiss Howe with a lazy generalisation thrown about for anyone involved in identity politics does not do him justice.

On the second (less significant, in my view) charge – that Howe is a self-publicist – that is for the reader to decide. The authors present the criticisms of some of those he has clashed with over the years, including former Lambeth council leader Linda Bellos. Howe’s own version of events, expressed through a wealth of original interviews as well as his published work, is always present. Bunce and Field clearly find Howe an inspirational figure. But they maintain a professional distance unlike the sort of biographer who talks of their subject as if they – and their reader – are his or her best friend.

As I have argued before, political writing which contributes something new is increasingly being sidelined, not least by the one literary prize that exists to promote it – the Orwell Prize. Instead we are pushed towards a type of political biography that focuses on the personal, often written by a big name. In that context, Bunce and Field deserve applause for producing this compelling and lively account. It must surely be a reference point for anyone who seeks to understand the development of anti-racist politics in Britain.

One Comment

  1. swatantra says:

    Darcus has had the good sense to stay at the rearguard and let others at the front take the blows of the riot police attempting to crush their violent demos. And that about sums up Howe’s philosophy as a Thinker and Writer, let others take the slings and arrows of outrage.

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