Al-Thawra 2011 - الثورة

Hoods, Freedom & Dancing

I love the Hackney Gazette. Mostly because it comes free through my postbox, its local and not stapled, meaning I can read it page by page as I walk my dog and use it to scoop his poo off the pavement. I dont though agree with it's big brother policy of posting photos of looters so that we can all pretend to be hey-diddly-doo neighbour vigilantes in Fahrenheit 451. Reminds me of the graffiti I saw in Greece, 'WE WEAR OUR HOODS UP SO YOU CAN LOOK US IN THE EYE'

A friend of mine just wrote to me: 'the only forces who feel empowered to express themselves in our society r the yobs who riot for flatscreens. the rest is divergence...'

As usual I find myself somewhere in between all stances and I still go with Emma Goldman's philosophy, if I can't dance I dont want to be part of your revolution:

'I did not believe that a Cause which stood for a beautiful ideal, for anarchism, for release and freedom from convention and prejudice, should demand the denial of life and joy. I insisted that our Cause could not expect me to become a nun and that the movement would not be turned into a cloister. If it meant that, I did not want it. "I want freedom, the right to self-expression, everybody's right to be beautiful, radiant things." Anarchism meant that to me, and I would live it in spite of the whole world — prisons, persecution, everything. Yes, even in spite of the condemnation of my own closest comrades I would live my beautiful ideal.' (Goldman 2006)

London Riots and Structural Violence

Photo: Sebastian S. Fuller

Spent the last few days doing what most people in London avoided, going towards places where skirmishes were taking place. I wanted to see for myself exactly what was going down, mediated information is never the same and like it or not simplifies any extraordinary event into a single lens. Even the pictures that my companion shot that night seem somehow much more violent than the actuality of walking down the street. 

I cycled round the confrontations early on Monday around 6:30pm at Hackney Central and a large amount of people in the street just watching lines of riot police form and reform. The mood of the crowd was celebratory, with a mix of ages, races, genders. I saw veiled girls, lanky teenagers, council mums with their prams, older Eastenders holding a can of beer, hipsters on bicycles and a few groups of young guys in hoodies definitely looking like this was the most fun they've ever had. The only sign of political unrest was a single young guy with a swollen black eye and an agitated staffie at the end of a lead. He was shouting about police abuse, violence against minorities, lack of government help among other topics. I appreciated his anger and recognised at least here a cause and motivation. I cant say I saw the same power of protest in the fat teen who came past in a balaclava causing a group of teens to launch into hysterical laughter.

Nothing was happening really. Then about a dozen officers with barking German Shepards moved towards the scattering of people near St. Augustine's Tower. The most aggressive people there were the police so I decided to leave but quickly was boxed in. They began shouting at people to leave, actually many of us were trying to. One man who was walking through didnt realise what was going on and got yelled at by an over eager officer. At first startled he then got very upset and the situation easily escalated. I left it was clear that the antagonism would continue, the kids would break stuff up and run from the cops and the police would have a real field day.

Zooming out of the effect and looking at the cause:

There is a context to London's riots that can't be ignored

Haringey youth club closures: 'There'll be riots' - video

and for a step-by-step of the match that lit the fire: 

Anatomy of the London Riots

But the prevailing sentiment heard on the media is of 'us' law-abiding citizens and 'them' the thugs who are rioting. The condescending tone of this BBC article is a prime example: 'What turns people into looters?'. Though the riots were not race-based at all (the kids I saw breaking glass came in all shades) it does feed into the white british fear of minorities. And how can it not, in a country where wealth disparity and racism is both rampant and unspoken. And lest the UK pride itself in how mixed the country is lets not forget the actual statistics, it is over 92% white and even these statistics when you navigate them are clearly coming from an ethnocentric point of view, an us and them comparison.

The most surprising thing to me is not that the riots have happened, its that anyone is surprised at all. When you punch someone in the face what do you expect? People seem startled by a burning car and smashed window but what about the violence of policy and budget cuts. This is a direct result of poor social policy of a government continually led by a core of well-funded individuals who have no experience with need, poverty or discrimination. 

I recommend Gilligan's book Violence: reflections on a national epidemic to begin understanding root cause and subsequent effect in the body politic. Though he is writing about the US prison system, his perspective on marginalisation and its aftermath are spot on. And I also keep thinking about Paul Farmer's take on structural violence in his book Pathologies of Power and how poverty fractures the social fabric. According to Farmer the capitalist division between affluent and poor, creates a series of politic manoeuvres which not only sustain the status quo but are violent in their impact on poor communities. Read this is a great article on structural violence and human rights for extended explanations on the topic. 

This is why it seems to me when as a governing principle you kick the most economically-challenged in a the teeth, you're going to get some broken windows and missing trainers... 

Linked by Graeme Miller

Did the intrepid journey that is the audio tour of Graeme Miller's archive of stories surrounding the construction of the M11 in East London and subsequent displacement of locals and protest culture that arose from the development.

Alas technology has erased all my notes, but I'll try to give an impression. Linked is a tour of East London given through a series of sound installations that are broadcast from transmitters attached to light poles across a 4 mile stretch. You have to pick up your own receiving devise and headphones in order to listen to the work, but these are hard to come by. Luckily Redbridge Museum had a few, adding a good amount of miles to our journey but somehow part of the adventure (if you plan on actually doing this walk plan ahead).  Though there is a map, finding each transmitter is still a challenge, though a group of us were lucky to be guided by Oliver James Hymans, who wrote a dissertation on psychogeography with this piece as a case study.

As you approach each transmitter the sound slowly starts feeding into the headphones. Its slightly eery and ghostly, as if you are overhearing a conversation through an open window somewhere nearby. It becomes clear the recordings are testimonials of people affected by the construction of the M11 motorway and destruction of well anything in its path. The recordings are sampled and remixed with music giving it the impression of an early negativland track. The testimonials range from residents, to squatters, to elderly focusing mostly on the energy of protest and the destruction of sites of memory and places of local identity and history. I particularly like the transmission coming from a light pole in between two chestnut trees that referenced The Battle of George Green and the feeling that the takeover of the park by protesters was like a return the common land before the Acts of Enclosures privatised areas across England, a fantastic analogy and still powerful today.

I was interested in the people who lived in the houses near these transmitters and I wondered if they had any idea about it. Though I loved the experience, even for me who loves to explore and is interested in site, history, memory and place this was not an easy task to fulfill. This was mostly due to such poor maintenance of the artwork itself by Museum of London and Arts Admin. I couldn't help to wonder about those transmitters powered 24/7 and broadcasting empty messages to deaf ears. Perhaps this is the route history eventually takes, most people forgetting the struggles of the past for the comforts of the future. After the work I felt happy to have learned a piece of history and a new respect for a locale and yet somewhat melancholic in thinking about our constant move towards greater privitisation and development. As a radicant myself I wonder about how to save and respect roots while helping us move across borders freely.

The M11 felt both like a massive border and yet somehow an escape route...


Created with Admarket's flickrSLiDR.

Race as Military Propaganda

I was researching the Detroit race riots of 1943, when I came upon some Japanese propaganda duringWorld War 2. This lead me to this incredible website: Psychological Warfare, Psychological Operations (PSYOP), Black Propaganda, and Aerial Propaganda Leaflets.

Check out the race as military propaganda page

Budget Cuts Mural @ Bucks New University

Somehow the University gave me free access to create a mural about the budget cuts just in time for the visit of University Minister David Willetts. I'm told her was steered clear from ever viewing it on the day he came to campus. Nevertheless a great endeavour and mention in this article of Times Higher Education.

Click for Link to Article


Created with Admarket's flickrSLiDR.

Kleftes! (Thieves!) (performance of protest)

Performance by Maria Agiomyrgiannaki & Roberto Sánchez-Camus @ MKII in Clapton, London

Created with Admarket's flickrSLiDR.

Crude 2010 - Liberate Tate

Oil Painting Protest over BP sponsorship in Tate Modern Turbine Hall
Liberate Tate calls for footprint of art museum to be free from Big Oil

Tuesday (14 September) art activists from Liberate Tate staged a guerrilla art intervention in Tate Modern, covering the floor of the iconic Turbine Hall with dozens of litres of oil paint in protest at the museum taking sponsorship from BP.

The flash mob-style event was staged a day before a Tate Board of Trustees meeting. Liberate Tate are part of a growing public movement calling on Tate’s governing body to end its sponsorship agreement with the oil company. Tate’s Board of Trustees has decided to review the BP corporate sponsorship.

At 5pm, around 50 figures dressed in black entered the gallery each carrying a BP-branded oil paint tube. In a circle they placed the paint tubes on the floor and each stamped on one, spraying out dozens of litres of paint in a huge burst across the floor. The installation art work, ‘Crude’, was then signed ‘Liberate Tate’ and offered to Tate for its collection.
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National Identity Renunciation Bureau

http://www.identityrenunciation.org/

We are born and socialized into our national identities. We learn to belong to a community defined by claims to a common culture, language, ethnicity, history, place, and religion.

This sense of identity is not ethically neutral. If we take pride in our nation and its members, we must also bear responsibility for their moral failures.

The National Identity Renunciation Bureau certifies indi-viduals who wish to renounce their national identity and free themselves from that responsibility. The Renunciation Bureau issues identity cards to such individuals after they undergo a rigorous application process.

This renunciation does not address the renunciant’s legal relationship to their nation or state. However, it has seri-ous consequences. The renunciant must forgo all special concern for their nation's past, present and future, and all feelings of national pride, attachment and belonging.

Only those who understand the gravity of this symbolic act are encouraged to apply.

Iran's Green Revolution (updated)

The situation in Iran is intense and I just received this incredible first-hand report of the protests happening right now. This is information that is not posted in most western media outlets and is incredibly informative. The report was sent via an Iranian friend, you can check out his facebook for more links and information.

They have requested we please share this, so I am blogging it and ask you to forward it as well:

" 'So this is what a coup d’etat looks like,' said a friend today. You go to bed and wake up the next day and see the police everywhere. The “military” government announces its unprecedented victory, calling it a sign of “divine approval”. And any sign of unrest is immediately dealt with through a show of the police state’s force. Is this it? Being in the middle of such events
makes it difficult to try and compare it with what one knows from history, or, the image of that history that one has in one’s mind."

Click to continue reading Part 1

Update:

"Why does it feel so natural to say just that: ALLAHU AKBAR? If I wanted to, I could have stuck with the more politically charged “Death to Dictatorship”. But there are very clear reasons why I, and I am not alone (of course, this is not to doubt that other people may have stronger religious sentiments than I do), choose to participate in this, with absolute confidence in saying it: ALLAHU AKBAR. It is an invocation. On the one hand, it is strategic for all of us to use this system‟s own language against it: by saying ALLAHU AKBAR, we show that we are not against the Islamic Republic. We show not only a unity with one another, but also with the same system that has stolen our vote, spat on our integrity, the same system that sends its police and plain-clothes militia men to the streets to beat and stab people in the name of “God”."

Click to continue reading Part II (updated 14 June 2009)