(London, England)
Norfolk conjures up images of a traditional, rural lifestyle played out in small market towns, of a place unspoilt by the more pernicious aspects of the industrial revolution and certainly far removed from the post-industrial information holocaust. Here you can find Norwich, the greenest city in the UK and one of the most polite, or Sandringham, the beautiful royal estate set in 8,000 acres of stunning English countryside.
As it happens, Norwich has the highest number of internet users in the country, and shows itself to be a modern, cultured city. And nearby King’s Lynn also offers an ambiguous image, for this quiet rural haven was the first town in the country to have CCTV cameras installed, suggesting a population of thuggish ne’er-do-wells and an absence of law and order.
However, Norfolk is not alone in being tainted by the connotations of modern technology. Bournemouth, the sedate retirement town on the south coast and home to the Winter Gardens and The Royal Bath Hotel, suffered a similar fate in 1985 when it became the first town in the country to have these cameras installed on the streets, evoking images of wild lawlessness.
It is estimated that a generation later there are between four and five million public and private surveillance cameras (the government being by far the biggest operator), which in a population of approximately sixty million translates as one camera for every twelve to fifteen people. Not 12,000 to 15,000 or even 1,200 to 1,500 – one camera for every 12 to 15 people.
Norfolk is certainly a county which matches England’s view of itself and indeed for many years the view that the rest of the world had about the English – polite and calm, a fair-minded people with their emotions under control and a strong sense of right and wrong.
However, the visitor to the modern UK will surely be overwhelmed by a sense of panic on seeing the number of security cameras. And they are everywhere, on all forms of transport including taxis, all town centre buildings including shops and restaurants, and on every street corner be it city centre, urban outskirts or rural idyll. And now they are to be accompanied with Orwellian loudspeakers which utter anonymous, monotone instructions to the citizens as they go about their daily business.
How ironic, therefore, that those same cameras betrayed the forces of government oppression when they attempted to cover up their brutal murder of Jean Charles de Menezes. And how appropriate now that the people should use their camera-phones and video cameras to capture more examples of police brutality during the G20 protests, namely the manslaughter of Ian Tomlinson and the assault on another young woman.
However, perhaps the greatest irony of all is the fact that the conservative population of middle England – whose representatives in blue have been found out in such an unequivocal way – will eventually suffer the consequences of ‘getting what they wished for’. An unsurprisingly high number of English people are in favour of the presence of constant surveillance to back up the popular ASBO court orders – it is part of the typically English desire to control every last movement of their neighbours and to be able to have that all-important last word by proving that their neighbours are indeed indulging in such anti-social behaviour as not putting their bins out in the correct way or parking on the kerb.
Having loudspeakers tell people what to do is the ultimate asexual fantasy of those who lurk behind net curtains and in the corner of bay windows, squinting at those awful people from across the road (or indeed across the seas). Barked orders and short, sharp shocks is what middle Englanders have always threatened to impose if they were ever made Prime Minister.
I have every sympathy for that young woman in London and for the family of Ian Tomlinson, people who tried to exercise the supposedly traditional English rights of free speech and freedom of movement but who became victims of the age-old English desire to oppress. I have no sympathy whatsoever for the conservative middle class who are hanging themselves with the electrical cables of their own CCTV.
Friday, April 24, 2009
Monday, March 16, 2009
When a weapon is attacked
(Lahore, Pakistan)
Lahore is a beautiful city boasting an exotic mix of impressive monuments, exquisite street food, modern media companies and traditional festivals. It would be a tourist paradise were it not for the problems that still beset this jewel. The city was torn apart during Partition, and soon afterwards riots between Sikhs, Muslims and Hindus further damaged both the physical infrastructure and everyday life. It was the objective of an attack by the Indian army in 1965, and its position close to the new border has never let it rest. Today Lahore figures prominently in the conflict against between the West and its enemies.
On March 3rd a group of gunmen opened fire on a bus carrying the Sri Lankan cricket team, killing six people (five policemen and a driver) and injuring nine more. Comparisons were quickly made to the violence at the Munich Olympics in 1972, when members of Palestinian group “Black September” kidnapped and later killed eleven member of the Israeli Olympic team.
However, the Olympics are widely regarded as an event which brings nations together in a sporting festival which still observes the accepted ethics of competition and morals of human co-existence. The irony of the Lahore attack is that it was committed against a team engaged in a “sporting” activity which was used as an unsubtle truncheon in the English class war and more importantly as a weapon in the colonial domination of a post-abolition British Empire.
Many people have likened sport to war – not least when the situation in question involves English football supporters – and there are obvious parallels between armies and teams, flags and team colours, trophies and conquests and primitive tribal belligerence and football crowds. Some would even point to a direct connection between the gentlemanly rules of engagement and the gentlemanly rules of a sport. Whatever the extent of the similarities, it was only a question of time before the already blurred boundaries between these two “sporting” activities were shot to pieces.
Lahore is a beautiful city boasting an exotic mix of impressive monuments, exquisite street food, modern media companies and traditional festivals. It would be a tourist paradise were it not for the problems that still beset this jewel. The city was torn apart during Partition, and soon afterwards riots between Sikhs, Muslims and Hindus further damaged both the physical infrastructure and everyday life. It was the objective of an attack by the Indian army in 1965, and its position close to the new border has never let it rest. Today Lahore figures prominently in the conflict against between the West and its enemies.
On March 3rd a group of gunmen opened fire on a bus carrying the Sri Lankan cricket team, killing six people (five policemen and a driver) and injuring nine more. Comparisons were quickly made to the violence at the Munich Olympics in 1972, when members of Palestinian group “Black September” kidnapped and later killed eleven member of the Israeli Olympic team.
However, the Olympics are widely regarded as an event which brings nations together in a sporting festival which still observes the accepted ethics of competition and morals of human co-existence. The irony of the Lahore attack is that it was committed against a team engaged in a “sporting” activity which was used as an unsubtle truncheon in the English class war and more importantly as a weapon in the colonial domination of a post-abolition British Empire.
Many people have likened sport to war – not least when the situation in question involves English football supporters – and there are obvious parallels between armies and teams, flags and team colours, trophies and conquests and primitive tribal belligerence and football crowds. Some would even point to a direct connection between the gentlemanly rules of engagement and the gentlemanly rules of a sport. Whatever the extent of the similarities, it was only a question of time before the already blurred boundaries between these two “sporting” activities were shot to pieces.
Marching out of time
(Helmand Province, Afghanistan)
The Helmand province of southern Afghanistan is mainly a desert, although the Helmand River provides extensive irrigation for agriculture. The main crop is poppies, and this region produces nearly half of all of the world’s supply of opium. It has also been the epicentre of intense fighting between first American, and then British occupying forces and the Taleban.
Last Saturday it was announced that another British soldier had died in Helmand, bringing the total British casualties in the eight-year war in Afghanistan to a round figure of 150. In Iraq the British army has lost closer to 200 soldiers. To those who share the petty-minded, flag-waving mentality prevalent in a tiny nation with a disproportionate ego, these people are heroes, and are always labelled as such by the British press.
This hero-worship reached its hysterical zenith last December when Sky 1 screened an awards ceremony which had apparently been dreamt up by Prince Charles and sponsored by The Sun newspaper. The ceremony was criticised by readers of others newspapers as being a cynical attempt on the part of The Sun to increase its circulation and by veterans’ associations as a glossing over of the real issues for survivors.
A DROP IN THE OCEAN
Despite the criticism, the programme was a success among that alarmingly large sector of the British population that still believes that if you take a gun and invade a foreign country and kill civilians in order to take control of natural resources you are a conquering hero. Prince Charles himself declared:
...as I speak many members of our Armed Forces are far away from their families, working in austere, challenging and often dangerous environments.
It appears to be as lost on him as it is on the rest of the warmongers that they would not have to be working in such conditions if they had not gone to a foreign country with a gun etc. To put it simply, people have a choice. The people who enlist in the army do so voluntarily and in full knowledge of the consequences – at some point they will have to kill somebody. And perhaps at some point they will have to die.
Let us not forget that this is not some humanitarian force which arms itself for self-protection while undertaking aid projects in areas in need of a more permanent infrastructure. Their losses are a drop in the ocean – or indeed a grain of sand in the desert – compared to the hundreds of thousands of civilian deaths they have caused in Iraq and Afghanistan. The numbers vary wildly depending on the source, with some organisations quoting as many as one million civilian deaths, but everybody agrees that the figure is at the very least 100,000.
WHITE FEATHERS
Many countries have seen great empires rise and fall on the back of military conquest and plunder, but most modern people would accept that these are feats that have not only been consigned to the history books but should also never be repeated. The British army may be a collection of heroes to some British people, but – from Cromwell’s crimes in Ireland through the phosphorous fire-bombing of Dresden to the fuel-air bombing of Iraq – to the Argentines, Afghans, Germans, Irish, Indians and Iraqis they are no more than war criminals.
The British government will continue to use its army as an imperialist battering ram for as long as such actions continue to receive support from a large proportion of the British population, and awards ceremonies such as the “Millies” will only fuel that support. It is time for the silent millions who do not support British involvement in wars to stand up not only in the occasional – albeit impressive – street protest, but also on a daily basis.
There needs to be a recognised symbol for those who are brave enough to show their disdain for the army in public. Perhaps an appropriate gesture would be to serve a white feather with pints of beer to those who have enlisted or those who have encouraged others to do so, as a symbol of peace and of the cowardice of those who would seek to bully countries into submission using guns and bombs.
The Helmand province of southern Afghanistan is mainly a desert, although the Helmand River provides extensive irrigation for agriculture. The main crop is poppies, and this region produces nearly half of all of the world’s supply of opium. It has also been the epicentre of intense fighting between first American, and then British occupying forces and the Taleban.
Last Saturday it was announced that another British soldier had died in Helmand, bringing the total British casualties in the eight-year war in Afghanistan to a round figure of 150. In Iraq the British army has lost closer to 200 soldiers. To those who share the petty-minded, flag-waving mentality prevalent in a tiny nation with a disproportionate ego, these people are heroes, and are always labelled as such by the British press.
This hero-worship reached its hysterical zenith last December when Sky 1 screened an awards ceremony which had apparently been dreamt up by Prince Charles and sponsored by The Sun newspaper. The ceremony was criticised by readers of others newspapers as being a cynical attempt on the part of The Sun to increase its circulation and by veterans’ associations as a glossing over of the real issues for survivors.
A DROP IN THE OCEAN
Despite the criticism, the programme was a success among that alarmingly large sector of the British population that still believes that if you take a gun and invade a foreign country and kill civilians in order to take control of natural resources you are a conquering hero. Prince Charles himself declared:
...as I speak many members of our Armed Forces are far away from their families, working in austere, challenging and often dangerous environments.
It appears to be as lost on him as it is on the rest of the warmongers that they would not have to be working in such conditions if they had not gone to a foreign country with a gun etc. To put it simply, people have a choice. The people who enlist in the army do so voluntarily and in full knowledge of the consequences – at some point they will have to kill somebody. And perhaps at some point they will have to die.
Let us not forget that this is not some humanitarian force which arms itself for self-protection while undertaking aid projects in areas in need of a more permanent infrastructure. Their losses are a drop in the ocean – or indeed a grain of sand in the desert – compared to the hundreds of thousands of civilian deaths they have caused in Iraq and Afghanistan. The numbers vary wildly depending on the source, with some organisations quoting as many as one million civilian deaths, but everybody agrees that the figure is at the very least 100,000.
WHITE FEATHERS
Many countries have seen great empires rise and fall on the back of military conquest and plunder, but most modern people would accept that these are feats that have not only been consigned to the history books but should also never be repeated. The British army may be a collection of heroes to some British people, but – from Cromwell’s crimes in Ireland through the phosphorous fire-bombing of Dresden to the fuel-air bombing of Iraq – to the Argentines, Afghans, Germans, Irish, Indians and Iraqis they are no more than war criminals.
The British government will continue to use its army as an imperialist battering ram for as long as such actions continue to receive support from a large proportion of the British population, and awards ceremonies such as the “Millies” will only fuel that support. It is time for the silent millions who do not support British involvement in wars to stand up not only in the occasional – albeit impressive – street protest, but also on a daily basis.
There needs to be a recognised symbol for those who are brave enough to show their disdain for the army in public. Perhaps an appropriate gesture would be to serve a white feather with pints of beer to those who have enlisted or those who have encouraged others to do so, as a symbol of peace and of the cowardice of those who would seek to bully countries into submission using guns and bombs.
Saturday, February 28, 2009
Decadence, recession, anonymity
It was a mighty empire, built on the invasion and occupation of other countries and the arrogant belief of superior and separate people that it was their sole responsibility to spread “civilisation” and its mores to the world. It worked for a time, while their military superiority outweighed the increasing decadence of a self-satisfied, bloated society, fat from the spoils of victory.
However, the decadence brought about recession, and the recession led to downfall. Soon, all that was left was the language, an international parlance which continued for another thousand years among the people who wielded the power, even though the empire that had first seen the rise of the language was nothing but a vague memory.
The descendants are still superior and separate but considered irrelevant in anything other than a localised context. Some people try to glorify that empire; they are rightly dismissed as fascists. When decadence and self-glorification lead to recession, the result is downfall and anonymity.
However, the decadence brought about recession, and the recession led to downfall. Soon, all that was left was the language, an international parlance which continued for another thousand years among the people who wielded the power, even though the empire that had first seen the rise of the language was nothing but a vague memory.
The descendants are still superior and separate but considered irrelevant in anything other than a localised context. Some people try to glorify that empire; they are rightly dismissed as fascists. When decadence and self-glorification lead to recession, the result is downfall and anonymity.
Friday, February 20, 2009
Dances with defiance
(Los Angeles, U.S.A.)
Los Angeles: Rodney King, earthquakes, drugs gangs and the Oscars. For better or for worse, a city’s reputation is based on broad brushstrokes of history, and L.A. is no different. A visit to any city may leave us with fond memories, but for those who watch from afar it is the most unsavoury aspects of the city’s life which often attract more attention, and there is nothing more appealingly seedy than the annual bun-fight that is the Academy Awards Ceremony.
This year, like every year, there are clear favourites for most categories and films which promise to clean up, but there is one film which has only merited one nomination, slipping under the radar as easily as an Israeli plane over American-controlled territory. “Defiance” tells the tale of Jewish resistance and heroism in the Second World War, and was released to mixed reviews on New Year’s Eve of 2008.
WAR (FILM) – WHAT IS IT GOOD FOR?
In modern cinema, there are few things more pointless than spending two hours watching – not to mention hundreds of millions of dollars making – a film which attempts to glorify violence, especially that perpetrated by successive criminal Western governments in the name of some fallacious cause.
Inevitably, for a generation after the end of WW2, there were a plethora of such films, tales in which the men were men and the enemy was nervous. For the most part they were unashamedly chauvinist, phallocentric and stereotypical and served no greater purpose than to perpetuate the ridiculous myth that war is glorious and dying for your country an honour.
When the interest in WW2 films finally – thankfully – waned, it was replaced by films about the Vietnam War. Fortunately, people had also finally realised that wars started or continued by certain Western governments were no more than war crimes committed in the name of an arrogant belief in Western “civilisation”, and the films which dealt with Vietnam showed the war as futile, arrogant and flawed.
OUT OF THE BLUE
Recently we have been spared too many trashy American films glorifying Western atrocities committed in, for example, Afghanistan or Iraq, and there have obviously been only a handful of films glorifying WW2 during the last decade or so.
How strange then that there should suddenly appear a $32 million American film about the plight of the Jews – the first since “Schindler’s List” in 1993 – at a time when nobody else in the world of cinema seems to be interested in such ancient history. The massacre of Israelis in Munich, maybe, but WW2 is no longer in fashion.
A cynical interpretation of events would focus on the coincidence in the timing of the release of the film with the atrocious Israeli attacks on the Gaza Strip. How better to confuse the issue of these attacks by setting up the usual Israeli-American smokescreen of reminding the world once more of previous atrocities committed against the Jewish people.
SMOKE SIGNALS OR SMOKESCREEN?
This is not the first time American money has helped to create confusion around contemporary topics. Back in 1990, “Dances with wolves” was greeted as a sympathetic portrayal of Native Americans at a time when various peoples were struggling to retain the rights to their ancestral land and when the American authorities had successfully driven a wedge among them in the shape of gambling licences.
More recently, in 2007, the film “300” met with criticism for its extremely negative portrayal of the Persians – the people indigenous to the territory which is roughly now Iran – at a time when the American administration’s sword-rattling towards Tehran was at its loudest. In 2005 “Jarhead” showed an extremely pro-American view of the Iraq War when the Bush administration was coming under increasing pressure to justify the number of casualties among the armed forces (although not among Iraqi civilians, for some reason).
A POWERFUL TOOL
Cinema is a medium which enjoys instant worldwide acceptance and is in the enviable position of being able to reach a global audience with the simple yet effective communication of a message. There are times when cinema brings us films of protest and indignation about man’s inhumanity to man and shows that it is a force for good.
However, with power comes responsibility, and Hollywood would be wise not to promote any films which could be suspected of abusing that power. The eyes of the world are invariably focused on America, and now more than ever it is time for the more prominent American institutions to show integrity and transparency, two qualities which are notably absent from recent American foreign policy.
Los Angeles: Rodney King, earthquakes, drugs gangs and the Oscars. For better or for worse, a city’s reputation is based on broad brushstrokes of history, and L.A. is no different. A visit to any city may leave us with fond memories, but for those who watch from afar it is the most unsavoury aspects of the city’s life which often attract more attention, and there is nothing more appealingly seedy than the annual bun-fight that is the Academy Awards Ceremony.
This year, like every year, there are clear favourites for most categories and films which promise to clean up, but there is one film which has only merited one nomination, slipping under the radar as easily as an Israeli plane over American-controlled territory. “Defiance” tells the tale of Jewish resistance and heroism in the Second World War, and was released to mixed reviews on New Year’s Eve of 2008.
WAR (FILM) – WHAT IS IT GOOD FOR?
In modern cinema, there are few things more pointless than spending two hours watching – not to mention hundreds of millions of dollars making – a film which attempts to glorify violence, especially that perpetrated by successive criminal Western governments in the name of some fallacious cause.
Inevitably, for a generation after the end of WW2, there were a plethora of such films, tales in which the men were men and the enemy was nervous. For the most part they were unashamedly chauvinist, phallocentric and stereotypical and served no greater purpose than to perpetuate the ridiculous myth that war is glorious and dying for your country an honour.
When the interest in WW2 films finally – thankfully – waned, it was replaced by films about the Vietnam War. Fortunately, people had also finally realised that wars started or continued by certain Western governments were no more than war crimes committed in the name of an arrogant belief in Western “civilisation”, and the films which dealt with Vietnam showed the war as futile, arrogant and flawed.
OUT OF THE BLUE
Recently we have been spared too many trashy American films glorifying Western atrocities committed in, for example, Afghanistan or Iraq, and there have obviously been only a handful of films glorifying WW2 during the last decade or so.
How strange then that there should suddenly appear a $32 million American film about the plight of the Jews – the first since “Schindler’s List” in 1993 – at a time when nobody else in the world of cinema seems to be interested in such ancient history. The massacre of Israelis in Munich, maybe, but WW2 is no longer in fashion.
A cynical interpretation of events would focus on the coincidence in the timing of the release of the film with the atrocious Israeli attacks on the Gaza Strip. How better to confuse the issue of these attacks by setting up the usual Israeli-American smokescreen of reminding the world once more of previous atrocities committed against the Jewish people.
SMOKE SIGNALS OR SMOKESCREEN?
This is not the first time American money has helped to create confusion around contemporary topics. Back in 1990, “Dances with wolves” was greeted as a sympathetic portrayal of Native Americans at a time when various peoples were struggling to retain the rights to their ancestral land and when the American authorities had successfully driven a wedge among them in the shape of gambling licences.
More recently, in 2007, the film “300” met with criticism for its extremely negative portrayal of the Persians – the people indigenous to the territory which is roughly now Iran – at a time when the American administration’s sword-rattling towards Tehran was at its loudest. In 2005 “Jarhead” showed an extremely pro-American view of the Iraq War when the Bush administration was coming under increasing pressure to justify the number of casualties among the armed forces (although not among Iraqi civilians, for some reason).
A POWERFUL TOOL
Cinema is a medium which enjoys instant worldwide acceptance and is in the enviable position of being able to reach a global audience with the simple yet effective communication of a message. There are times when cinema brings us films of protest and indignation about man’s inhumanity to man and shows that it is a force for good.
However, with power comes responsibility, and Hollywood would be wise not to promote any films which could be suspected of abusing that power. The eyes of the world are invariably focused on America, and now more than ever it is time for the more prominent American institutions to show integrity and transparency, two qualities which are notably absent from recent American foreign policy.
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