Le mouvement « Rock Against Racism » (RAR) fut créé à la fin de l’année 1976, et rapidement il s’associa au mouvement punk naissant. Aux yeux de beaucoup de militants, journalistes et historiens, la relation étroite entre les deux fut symbolisée par le « Carnival Against the Nazis », organisé à Londres en avril 1978, lors duquel Jimmy Pursey du groupe Sham 69 interpréta « White Riot » avec les Clash. Cependant, leur vision d’un mouvement punk homogène et fortement politisé pose problème. En effet, elle dissimule la nature complexe de la relation entre le punk et RAR. De plus, elle ne rend pas compte des changements intervenus au sein du punk, en particulier de l’apparition du post-punk et de ses éventuelles implications pour RAR. En réalité, des groupes punk soutenaient RAR pour de nombreuses raisons, tandis que l’émergence du post-punk ne fut pas sans conséquences pour RAR.
Rock Against Racism was one of the most dynamic and innovative British social movements of the 1970s, bringing together music fans and left-wing activists in the struggle against the far-right National Front. This surprising alliance was forged by members of the Trotskyist International Socialists/Socialist Workers Party who had a long-standing interest in popular culture and championed punk as a form of working-class revolt. This attitude contrasted sharply with that of the significantly larger Communist Party of Great Britain, which tended to view mass culture as a development of American capitalism. Seeking to adopt the dominant social and cultural norms of the labour movement, communists were unable to relate to the subversive irreverence of punk. Rock Against Racism disappeared in the very early 1980s but acted as a template for future attempts to link music and politics.
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