Zebra Crossing and the Salt of the Earth

 

 

Watching last night's Zebra Crossing on Film4 was an uncomfortable experience. The film is full of violence, swearing, drug-taking and sex, and as such I would not recommend it to any who are adverse to the portrayals of such behaviors on film or stage.

The film chronicles the lives of a gang of friends on a south London housing estate for whom physical aggression is a normal part of everyday life. Violence is not only between other gangs and drug dealers, but also family members and the local police, who are portrayed as cruel and corrupt. One member of the group, Justin, becomes increasingly aware of his need to escape the hectic lifestyle of hatred and fighting that he has grown up with. But he lacks the knowledge of how to achieve a way out.

Justin's only hope lies in his contact with a black man Marcus who he meets in a church that Justin wanders into. Marcus (Michael Maris) appears to be some kind of community outreach worker. The fact is that he does not say a lot to Justin during the film. Not a gang member, not a drug-taker, Marcus is an alternative role model and a human contact who may be a steadying influence as Justin tries the difficult path of trying to break free from his lifestyle.  

Although Zebra Crossing - filmed in black and white and winner of the Audience Award at the Raindance Film Festival in 2008 - is as sickening in parts as A Clockwork Orange or American History X, its fast-paced and foul-mouthed violence is not gratuitous but essential. The story is about that way of life and the near-impossibility for the 18-year-old protagonist to break away from it.  

Marcus symbolises for me one aspect of the church's role in such a broken-down society. Although I half-expected Marcus to preach to Justin, his actual role as listener, example and human contact enables a safe relationship to be formed, which may offer Justin the possibility of starting to change. Marcus was analogous to the role that salt plays in traditional societies - a preservative, a restrainer of decay, a savouring presence and a medicine. I was also struck by the role that the physical church building played in the story. It was literally the only environment in the film in which acts of violence would not break out at any moment. 

There is nothing sentimental about the film. And the apparent Christological element in the film's final scene in no way jars with the gritty realism of the portrayal of the lives of the young men caught up in the nihilism that they have become conditioned to. Instead, it made me think that the director Sam Holland in his debut film may have something to say to the church about its role in the world and to the world about the peaceable kingdom that exists, often out of sight, on its fringes.  

The official trailer to Zebra Crossing can be viewed here.











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London's Olympic Opening Ceremony Unwrapped - for the Benefit of the Rest of the World

American sprinter Michael Johnson summarised the issue when asked on the BBC whether the rest of the world would "get" the messages of London's Olympic opening ceremony. Since he worked and travelled here often, Johnson replied, he felt he could appreciate it at a cultural level, but he thought that many of his fellow Americans and the rest of the world would not.

Or, as one contributor put it on Twitter: "This is just plain weird."

 

So, without further ado, here is the opening ceremony unwrapped, for an international audience.

The key to interpreting director Danny Boyle's extravaganza, in my view, is to understand the opening scene. While the crowds filtered into the stadium in the hours before the official start, they were greeted with a stadium filled not with ranked masses of drummers or dancers, but by a green field on which grazed sheep, cattle and goats, tended by farmers and labourers dressed in outfits reminiscent of pre-industrial Britain. Bearded gentlemen played cricket on a village green; white clouds floated gently over the idyllic pastoral scene.

source: gorgeaux

The official opening of the ceremony involved the singing of the traditional English anthem Jerusalem, supplemented by national songs of Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland. 

Written by nineteenth-century poet, artist and mystic William Blake, the words of his poem And Did Those Feet were put to music by Hubert Parry in 1916. The song - known ever since simply as Jerusalem - has come to be widely adopted as an unofficial national anthem for England, sung regularly at international sports matches, and even at the wedding in 2011 of Prince William and Catherine Middleton.

The poem has been sung at party conferences by several of the main political parties since the second world war. The song Jerusalem has come to be seen as critical of the damaging effects of industrialisation and of the consolidation of economic power by a landed, industrial and ecclesiastical elite. Blake, raised as a Moravian, was a life-long critic of the established Church of England. In place of such a history, Jerusalem articulates an alternative vision of England - one shaped at every level by the mysterious presence of Christ.

And did those feet in ancient time.
Walk upon England's mountains green:
And was the holy Lamb of God,
On England's pleasant pastures seen!

Drawing on mythical themes such as the visitation of Jesus as a youth to the British Isles, accompanied by his supposed-uncle Joseph of Arimathea, the poem combines religious, mystical and political themes and has come to be seen as expressing a longing for a just, political and economic settlement in the British Isles, infused with Christian ideals.

I will not cease from Mental Fight,
Nor shall my Sword sleep in my hand:
Till we have built Jerusalem,
In England's green and pleasant Land

This imagery was not lost on the British audience last night. Phillip Blond, author of the influential book Red Tory: How Left and Right have Broken Britain and How we can Fix It, was tweeting lyrical throughout the ceremony. The political think-tanker, economist and one-time theologian enthusiastically tweeted of the opening scene's imagery representing

"A pre-enclosure and pre-capitalist haven - this is already so political - magnificent - romanticism at our heart."

Daily Telegraph blogger Tim Stanley, meanwhile writes of the opening scene's depiction of

"The brutal uprooting of rural Britain. Was this written by GK Chesterton? It's fantastic."

Blond affirms this interpretation of British history:

"It's essentially a Catholic theory of British history" which sees "enclosure as the original crime." 

The idea that the enclosure of common agricultural lands from the 16th to 19th centuries is a root of much of Britain's current economic problems was explored in the early twentieth century by Roman Catholic social theorists such as Chesterton and Hilaire Belloc. More recently, socialist historian EP Thompson argued in his The Making of the English Working Class that "Enclosure (when all the sophistications are allowed for) was a plain enough case of class robbery."

 

It is perhaps not coincidental to learn that Boyle himself was raised in a Catholic household in the north of England and was at one time considering attending seminary to become a priest.

 

Much else that followed in last night's Olympic extravaganza was a re-telling of this British story. The achievements of the industrial revolution, for instance, were set alongside the fruits of its ugly expression in the efficiency of modern warfare.

The idea that the common assets of the British working class have been appropriated by their rulers continued through the ceremony's subsequent tableaux. Although framed in terms of children's fairy tales, dreams and nightmares, the lengthy section filled with nurses, pyjama-clad children in hospital beds, and frightening apparitions appeared linked to the story of the enclosures. The message was that Britain's greatest human asset - its National Health Service - is under threat from dark forces.

Source: Julie70

The allusion to the highly controversial NHS reform bill recently passed through Parliament - which gives greater access to the Service to private companies, and which was strongly opposed by all of the main professional medical organisations - will not have been lost on a British public widely dissatisfied with the legislation brought in under the current coalition government. The implication that J.K Rowling's Lord Voldemort could be compared to health secretary Andrew Lansley was both excruciating and exquisite.

That a fictional character - the magical Mary Poppins - was instrumental in driving away the threats to the sick children illustrates an additional strand within Boyle's ceremony, namely that of the British romantic tradition. As blogger Cath Elliott noted:

"So Mary Poppins bravely fought off the tories and saved the NHS. Or something."

Romanticism was a key element in William Blake's creative work, expressed in part in Boyle's opening ceremony through humour. Rowan Atkinson, James Bond and the Queen parachuting into the stadium were all part of this tradition of self-deprecating British humour. Mr Bean also performed the first scripted fart at an Olympic opening ceremony. Blond again:

"And it just gets better - this is the true Britain - romantic, visionary and arcadian - and very very funny." 

 

Comparisons with the opening ceremony in Beijing four years earlier are inevitable and the contrast between creative London's story-telling and formal massed ranks of well-drilled citizens could not have been greater.

The ceremony was visionary in the best sense of the word - even as William Blake saw visions throughout his unconventional life. Here was a view of modern Britain with Christian and egalitarian roots, overcoming the forces that would create a harsher, more oppressive future.

William Blake's etching/watercolour "Ancient of Days" ( Wikipedia)

The young artist George Richmond was at the bedside of his visionary mentor and friend William Blake when he died in 1827 and describes the scene in moving detail:

He died ... in a most glorious manner. He said He was going to that Country he had all His life wished to see and expressed Himself Happy, hoping for Salvation through Jesus Christ.

– Just before he died His Countenance became fair. His eyes Brighten'd and he burst out Singing of the things he saw in Heaven.

Danny Boyle has expressed things slightly differently: "We can build Jerusalem. And it will be for everyone."

 

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The Police, Notting Hill Carnival and the Permanent 'State of Exception'

Image via Wikipedia

 

 

This article is published by Aaron Peters, and openDemocracy.net and re-published here under a Creative Commons licence.

 

The original article can be found here. 

 

“The flames of November 2005 still flicker in everyone’s minds...As an attempted solution, the pressure to ensure that nothing happens, together with police surveillance of the territory, will only intensify.” - Account of the policing fallout after the 2005 riots in France.

What qualifies as a 'successful' Notting Hill Carnival now seems open to debate. This year's carnival with its unusually good weather, high turnout and great food and music meant that, as ever, Europe's largest carnival (the second largest in the world after Rio in Brazil) was a feast of the senses and a day in which Londoners of all ages, creeds, colours - and importantly classes - could mix, share and dance.

Dawn raid ahead of Notting Hill Carnival: PA

Was this, then, a success?

After the London riots some two weeks ago, the media drummed up the possibility of further public disorder. After all, as recently as 2008 there were indeed riots on the streets of Notting Hill in the immediate aftermath of the event. At the previous 2010 Carnival, 230 arrests were made over the two days.

It is clear, then, that the avoidance of major public disorder in excess of that seen since 2008 represented a 'success' for the Metropolitan police, the event organisers and much of the mainstream media. When combined with the usual joy of the event itself, high attendance and the fortune of clement weather, it should come as no surprise that carnival organiser Chris Boothman declared that the event had allowed Londoners to "reclaim the streets".

This is of course not the first 'successful' policing of a major public event this year. There was the 'success' of the Royal Wedding, with its bizarre pre-arrests of dozens of activists, followed by equally ludicrous arrests on the day itself. The policing for the Royal Wedding was all done within the broader context of a Section 60 of the Criminal Justice Act, which was imposed on the City of Westminster, just as we saw a Section 60 imposed for the Notting Hill Carnival. 

A brief clarification of what Section 60 of the 1994 Criminal Justice Act actually is. It gives  a police officer of the rank of inspector or above the competence to,

“...request  authorisation for additional search powers on the basis of a reasonable belief that incidents involving serious violence may take place or that people are carrying dangerous instruments or offensive weapons in the area without good reason", such powers relating to,"...pedestrians and vehicles in a specified locality, for a specified period, not exceeding 48 hours at a time.”

In the case of the Royal Wedding, the 'specified locality' of the Section 60 issued was the City of Westminster. For Notting Hill Carnival, the Section 60 was applied to the whole of London - a truly unprecedented step. The application of the section was not applied to a 'specified locality' but rather to a city of eight million residents. Is London, a global metropolis, now considered a 'specific locality' where normal legislation can be temporarily suspended for 48 hours? To what extent, then, is the United Kingdom or England considered a less specific locality?

As with the Royal Wedding, we saw a number of pre-arrests before the carnival. Whereas the Royal Wedding arrests essentially had a pre-crime basis, the arrests before the carnival were more about getting as many people as possible on rather minimal charges, such as possession of cannabis, and then inserting non-attendance to carnival within their bail conditions. A highly expensive process for the taxpayer ensured the non-attendance of around ninety individuals who may or may not have chosen to attend the event. One can only wonder how many pre-crime arrests or targeted charges with bail impositions will accompany the run-up to the Olympics in 2012 or the Queen's forthcoming Diamond Jubilee. My guess is far, far more.

Along with these pre-emptive arrests and the deployment of the Section 60 itself, there was of course the policing of the event on the Saturday and Sunday. How can one really call any event resulting in 274 arrests and 32 hospitalisations peaceful? What was the nature of these arrests? Will the police provide a breakdown of those arrested: their race, age, gender and reasons for their arrest? In light of the unprecedented police numbers on the streets of West London and the issuing of a citywide Section 60 this is the very least the Metropolitan police should be doing.

Anecdotally, I have been informed of several incidents during the carnival involving arrests. The first is that of a man who was stop and searched under a section 60 for blowing a vuvuzela. Before I relate the incident, let's make this clear: the police can stop and search under a section 60 if there has been serious violence or disorder in the vicinity. They can resort to Section(s) 43 or 47 ( sometimes invoked against people taking photographs for example) if there is sufficient grounds to 'suspect' involvement in terrorist activities.

What explanation can account for a person being stop and searched for blowing a musical instrument?  The story is recounted below by a friend who witnessed the events:

“...he was walking up Westbourne Park road with one of the free vuvuzelas they were giving out. A line of police was walking up towards him taking up most of the road. He was blowing on his horn and they deemed it to be too close to them and jumped on him and pulled him over to one side with a cop on each arm holding him in a crucifix position. around 10 cops surrounded him and one of them bruised his girlfriend's arm when she tried to help....they searched him, found nothing but continued to hold him asking for his name, address and date of birth.
"My mate refused to give them and asked why he was being searched: it was under section 60. He asked what violence and they claimed that blowing a horn near them equated to assault and that either way, "you are swearing aren't you, you dickhead!". A long row ensued with them allegedly threatening to nick him several times. Unable to get his name, they found his credit cards started addressing him by that name. He denied they were his so they threatened to nick him for theft! Eventually he gave them his name, DOB and address and they let him go. It took 15-20 minutes though. Officers numbers I caught where KF982, KF119 (Forest Gate). The officer who conducted the search was  a constable Elton from forest gate.”

Another incident involved a man who was arrested because he had given a 'thumbs down' to a passing cohort of police officers from the balcony of his home. As one friend of the arrestee in question recounts:

"...the arrest happened when some police were walking past us - we were on a rooftop. My friend gave them a thumbs down, and they stopped and beckoned him down. He refused to go down but they posted men on the door of the house we were in and said they wouldn't leave until we had gone down.
 "After fifteen minutes or so we went down to talk to them. The officer at the door (A) said my friend had sworn at his colleague (B). This was a lie and we said so - we all knew he had said nothing. It was clear to us they had decided to take offence at the thumbs down and had invented the swearing to justify their over-the-top reaction. Officer B shouted over 'If he denies it just arrest him'. Then Officer A told my friend to go and apologise to Officer B and he would not be arrested. He explained that my friend should be 'humble - very humble' when he apologised, he should address Officer B as 'sir', and he should not deny he had sworn.
"My friend agreed to apologise to Officer B (mostly because his mother was in the house I suspect) but felt the need to be truthful and say he hadn't sworn. For this he was arrested. His mother then went to talk to Officer B to try to clear up the misunderstanding and he threatened her with arrest. The friend was released not long after, having been told he would get a fixed penalty notice."

The same man who had witnessed this event also said, “I had another friend the previous day who had an officer threaten to smash his face in because he laughed at the officer's threats during a stop and search issued under a Section 60".

Over 250 individuals arrested during the carnival, nearly 100 arrested before the event and banned from attending (mostly as part of bail conditions for minor offences), a London-wide 'suspension' of normal legislation with regards to stop and search: Notting Hill Carnival was anything BUT evidence of Londoners 'reclaiming the streets' as Chris Boothman would have it. Instead, it offers yet another example of the insidious nature of how basic civil liberties are being compromised with increasing ease by the London Metropolitan Police. This continued erosion of liberties is equalled only by the passivity of a highly uncritical and uninformed media whose ambitions are to demand that we 'keep calm and carry on' regardless of what occurs.

The 'exceptional' manner in which Notting Hill Carnival was policed shows that the Royal Wedding was anything but an anomaly and that in all probability there is worse to come in the remaining year and 2012. Expect Section 60s to be issued at party conferences this Autumn (where large demonstrations are anticipated) and at any major student or anti-cuts demonstration.

The suspension of 'everyday' legislation is now becoming normal. 'Exceptional' conditions are increasingly viewed as quotidian, something Giorgio Agamben explores in his book 'State of Exception'. We will increasingly see tactics designed to deal with crisis employed during ANY situation of mass public assembly – whether it be a political protest, carnival or sporting event.

As Brett Neilson writes of Agamben's thinking on the matter,

"...this figure of generalized catastrophe under a sky void of transcendental authority...(is) characterized by 'governmental violence that ignores international law externally and produces a permanent state of exception internally, while all the time pretending to uphold the law." 

In light of Cameron's remarks on the recent London riots and 'silly' European human rights legislation, Agamben's views on executive power replacing legislative power in contemporary ‘liberal democracies’ are especially pertinent.

On Twitter, I remarked about all of this being a 'new normal'. A  friend remarked that it was anything but new for young, primarily BME males in London and other major UK cities. I am inclined to agree. Before the confrontational and counter-productive policing practices that have caused so much anger among the urban young become common practice in everyday policing, the public must start holding the police to account, particularly over excessive numbers of arrests, the use of section 60 and stop and search. The mainstream media, political commentariat and the political parties are, as usual, dismissive or unable to see the very real problems of arbitrary authority and the lack of transparency and accountability with the British police.

A section 60 for a whole city under the auspices of policing a public event is an abuse of power. We must ask that it does not happen again.

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Related articles

• VIDEO: 5,000 police at Notting Hill Carnival (bbc.co.uk)
• Notting Hill carnival starts amid heavy police presence (guardian.co.uk)

Divide and Conquer: Who Benefits from the UK Riots?

After the fires, the looting and the deaths, now the backlash begins.

More than 175,000 people (at the time of writing) have put their name to the following on the government's official e-petition website:   

"Any persons convicted of criminal acts during the current London riots should have all financial benefits removed. No tax payer should have to contribute to those who have destroyed property, stolen from their community and shown a disregard for the country that provides for them."

Apart from the obvious difficulties in implementing such a proposal, and ignoring the social consequences were it implemented fully, the petition reveals one of the legacies of the recent riots. Working people are being divided from one another, this in-fighting taking the place of united political action against the consolidation of economic power by those at the top of the social system.

On any other quiet news day in the middle of the summer silly season, the revelation from The High Pay Commisson that FTSE 100 directors in the UK received pensions of up to 29 times the rest of the workforce would have become the day's top news story. The BBC story, buried on its web site among the wall to wall coverage of last weekend's looting, notes that the Commission's report

.

"comes at a time when many employee pension schemes are being closed or becoming less generous. The HPC said about 97% of FTSE 350 firms have kept open company-sponsored schemes for directors, but only one-third have stayed open for workers."

The HPC's report is simply another illustration of the reality of vast economic and social inequality in Britain. Consider the following highlights of a 2010 report based on statistics from the Department of Work and Pensions:

• the richest 10% of the UK population have seen their incomes increase by 37% in the preceding decade
• the poorest 10% have experienced a decline in their incomes by 12% in the same time period
• four-fifths of income increase over the last ten years has gone to those with above-average incomes (two-fifths has gone to the richest tenth) 
• the richest tenth earn 31% of total UK income (the poorest tenth earn 1%)
• Inner London is the most economically divided region of the UK

Against this economic backdrop, the sight of workers (or unemployed) destroying their own communities and targeting fellow workers by stealing from them is a classic example of the alienation of labour, defined as "the estrangement of people from their humanity." 

The rising anger among these same communities is being turned , understandably,  towards the looters, with increasingly extreme voices calling for punitive action beyond the due process in the courts.

Meanwhile, the millionaire politicians and their billionaire financial backers remain largely unaffected  by the recent riots. Just 7 per cent of the public interviewed for a Channel 4 survey thought that the chaos was triggered by social inequality and 5 per cent blamed Government cuts.

It is likely that the cuts agenda will survive the rioting, albeit with some modification around police funding. Beyond that, the government's position will remain intact, with the in-fighting taking place among those currently bearing the largest burden of the current crisis in developed capitalism.

Other beneficiaries of the riots include the police. It will now be politically impossible to follow through on cuts to the police, despite the fact that one of its officers pulled the trigger on Marc Duggan, though he had not fired a shot - the spark which set off the initial protest in Tottenham.

Less tangibly, the large-scale calls from working people for retribution against the looters is creating a climate in which the call for "strong law and order" will increasingly be heard. This climate will benefit those seeking "stronger leadership" in government. Historically, when such sentiments take root in a nation, they can often pave the way for the emergence of extreme parties who promise to end the lawlessness. 

Which is why, one of the best responses working people can do in the aftermath of the riots, is continue to work and campaign for greater fairness in society, and for structural changes that will reduce the unacceptable levels of economic inequality that have emerged in the UK in recent years.  

 






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Will the Housing Benefit Cap Become the New Poll Tax?

I am very concerned about the proposal to limit the amount that housing benefit recipients in Britain will be able to claim under the changes outlined in the government's recent Comprehensive Spending Review.

The proposal would limit the amount that could be paid to an individual to one third of the average rental income of the area where the claimant lives. At present, the claim is capped at half of the local average.

The government's assertion is that it is "not fair" for a jobless person to be able to live in a property (for instance in central London) that a working person would not be able to afford. Which, taken in isolation as a philosophical statement, is possibly worth debating. But, put in context of the real world and the actual economy, translates to an outcome that seems as cruel as it is unfair.

Under the proposed change, a family (for instance) who were claiming housing benefit in an expensive area would be unable to continue to receive the payment if it ran above the new capped level, meaning that they would probably have to move out and find cheaper accommodation.

The problem with that is that, in most cities, such a move would require a significant relocation to a poor estate on the edge of the city, or out of the city altogether.

This would result in a number of undesirable outcomes:

• the claimant would be further removed from the geography of the job market which they need to access in order to move out of benefit and into work (which is a key idea in the government's welfare reform plans)
• the claimant (and family) would be removed from their existing relational networks and social support systems - important aspects of the Big Society - which would make it more difficult for them to escape poverty and its attendant evils
  
• children of such claimants would be removed from existing peers, school and other support systems, which are particularly important when a family are on a low income, and which take time to reproduce elsewhere
  
• cities would become increasingly segregated economically. Do we really want to see a Paris-style urban settlement, with the poor pushed out to the physical periphery of the city, leaving the heart exclusively for the rich? British cities are already economically segregated to a significant degree and this proposal will make it much worse, with the social upheaval that such a move would bring in its wake.
• the recipient neighborhoods, many already dealing with high levels of crime, drug misuse and social breakdown, would receive an influx of non-working households who are geographically uprooted, possibly resentful and less able to access employment than they may have been before their move. This is hardly a recipe for building safe and cohesive local communities.

A growing number of informed people seem to be expressing similar concerns , and there is some evidence today that the message might be staring to get through to Iain Duncan Smith at the Department of Work and pensions, who are behind this proposal.

Let's hope that IDS has the sense to scrap this unjust measure. Failure to do so could be a catalyst for the kinds of protest and disorder that accompanied the last great nationally unpopular policy from a Conservative government. The Poll Tax ultimately failed because it was widely perceived as unjust. It is to be hoped that this housing benefit measure receives the same treatment, before it is implemented and its ill effects felt across our cities.

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Related articles

• Housing benefit cap 'may change' (bbc.co.uk)
• Letters: Our fears over the housing benefit cuts (guardian.co.uk)
• Benefits cut, rents up: this is Britain's housing time bomb (guardian.co.uk)
• Nick Clegg rejects social 'cleansing' claims (news.bbc.co.uk)

Jeff Koons in London

How disappointing.

The Serpentine Gallery in London has decided to delight us all with a major exhibition by American artist Jeff Koons - his first (and hopefully last) "major exhibition in a public gallery in England."

Koons' kitsch and banal creations represent all that was wrong about the culturally dishonest decade when the former Wall Street commodities broker first set himself up as a full-time artist. Like his art, the 1980's was a crass and selfish era during which the seeds of the current economic collapse were sown in the Anglo-American economies through the affirmation of unrestrained greed as a social good.

Koons has weathered the economic storms, creating such vulgar works as Michael Jackson and Bubbles, and continues to create works of factory art as shallow as the philosophy he espouses.







An hour and a half by train from central London, by contrast, lies the fair city of Bristol where, free of charge, members of the public can see an alternative exhibition to that offered by the Serpentine. Banksy Versus Bristol Museum offers a different vision of life and is well reviewed here.

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