What Riot? Punk Rock Politics, Fascism, and Rock Against Racism.
The punk-rock movement or youth sub culture of late seventies Britain was and is, even today, the cause of much controversy. It has often been accepted that the political orientation of the movement and its outcomes are decidedly located on the left wing, including, in particular, a strong anti-racist agenda. This has perhaps been emphasized in the public consciousness, particularly in light of recent retrospectives such as the 2007 film Joe Strummer: The Future is Unwritten , or the 2005 documentary Punk: Attitude . Both characterize punk as a movement with distinctly anti-authoritarian and cosmopolitan leanings, almost to the point of naiveté. A factor that is often uncritically referred to is the obvious relationship between punk rock or “new wave” and Rock Against Racism (RAR). RAR was an organization that was initially formed in response to a drunken outburst by Eric Clapton at a Birmingham concert in 1976, but which quickly developed into a dynamic moveme...
