Campaign Against Racism and Fascism (CARF) was an
anti-racist
Anti-racism encompasses a range of ideas and political actions which are meant to counter racial prejudice, systemic racism, and the oppression of specific racial groups. Anti-racism is usually structured around conscious efforts and deliberate ...
group and publication based in
London
London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...
which originated in the mid 1970s as an anti-racist/
anti-fascist paper published by the federation of Anti-Fascist Committees in
Greater London (Anti-Racist, Anti-Fascist Co-ordinating Committee). From 1979 it appeared as a section within the anti-Fascist ''
Searchlight'' magazine, produced by the CARF Collective based at the
Institute of Race Relations
The Institute of Race Relations (IRR) is a think tank based in the United Kingdom. It was formed in 1958 in order to publish research on race relations worldwide, and in 1972 was transformed into an "anti-racist think tank".
Proposed by ''Sund ...
, and later still it split with ''Searchlight'' to publish as an independent magazine for some years before closing down in 2003. The CARF group then operated as a support group for the IRR's news output.
History
The journal ''CARF'' was first published in 1976 by the
Richmond &
Twickenham Anti Racist Committee. In 1977 it was adopted as the paper of the (London) Anti-Racist, Anti-Fascist Co-ordinating Committee (ARAFCC) - a federation of the broad-based anti-fascist committees that had sprung up across Greater London in response to the growth of the
National Front and its
Strasserite offshoot, the
National Party.
ARAFCC and CARF were also associated with the
Institute of Race Relations
The Institute of Race Relations (IRR) is a think tank based in the United Kingdom. It was formed in 1958 in order to publish research on race relations worldwide, and in 1972 was transformed into an "anti-racist think tank".
Proposed by ''Sund ...
(IRR).
Liz Fekete was part of both CARF and IRR.
When ARAFCC wound down in 1979 CARF continued to publish under an agreement with the then editor of ''
Searchlight'',
Maurice Ludmer
Maurice Ludmer (1926–1981) was a British anti-fascist activist and journalist. His father was a Salford hairdresser and mother a teacher of Hebrew. His family moved to Birmingham in 1939. As a young man he was interested in sport and joined the ...
, with whom they had generally good relations, and ''CARF'' appeared for several years as a separately edited section within ''Searchlight''. This arrangement continued after the untimely death of Ludmer in 1981, but was put under some strain by the perception that ''Searchlight'' maintained too close a relationship with pro-
Zionist groups (Zionism being regarded as a racist ideology by some leftist and anti-racist groups and organisations in the UK).
This strain came to a head in the 1990s when ''Searchlight'' editor
Gerry Gable was accused of racism for promoting openly pro-Israeli/pro-Zionist groups. The CARF editorial group decided to end their relationship with ''Searchlight''. ''CARF'' was re-launched as an independent publication and survived for over a decade until it was dissolved in 2003.
The CARF Editorial Collective continued to meet and to operate for some time as a support network for the IRR.
References
Further reading
*
External links
Official website*
* {{cite web , title=Campaign Against Racism and Fascism , website=Undercover Policing Inquiry, date=2020-09-22 , url=https://www.ucpi.org.uk/search-results/ , ref={{sfnref , UNDERCOVER POLICING INQUIRY , 2020 , access-date=2021-06-04
Anti-fascist organisations in the United Kingdom