The Revolutionary Art of Emory Douglas

 A revolutionary in the true sense of the word, the American graphic artist Emory Douglas created strong, eye-catching imagery for the Black Power movement in the United States during the late 1960s and into the 70s, mostly for the BPP's newspaper The Black Panther. He wasn't just an artist who served the cause of Black Liberation through his art, but also served as Minister for Culture in the party from 1967 until the 1980s when the party was dissolved within a new climate of reaction.

Born in Michigan in 1943, Douglas was politicised at a young age after being caught up in the juvenile detention system, but found opportunities to explore his talent for print-making, and later more formal arts education, a skill he brought with him when he joined the Black Panther Party for Self Defence in 1967.

I cannot help but reflect upon how, growing up years later across the Atlantic, all the books I could find on the comix and art of the 1960s counter culture, including all of the reprints, would tend to focus on sex, drugs, music and mysticism. Growing up in the 1990s the comix of Robert Crumb and Gilbert Shelton were still very popular, including with teenagers my own age. The political satire discussed in both reprints of classic underground comix and histories of the period and the form however tended to focus on the anti-war movement or women's liberation, with the artists and journalists associated with the openly socialist Black Liberation movement barely mentioned.

This oversight is a shame, as there is a power to this imagery which should not be forgotten. I am encouraged that at the time of writing I understand Emory Douglas is still alive and some books and websites are certainly available about his fierce, revolutionary work.

For now, bathe your eyes in the revolutionary art of another time.

These savage cartoons make the editors of Private Eye look like the Cambridge-educated toffs they were (and, as much as I enjoy their work, Shelton and Crumb look like bourgeois liberals):

A  common theme in Douglas' work is the desire to link civil rights struggles within the USA to the wider anti-colonial struggle taking place at that time in Africa and Asia:

The title of this piece reminds me of a quote attributed to Ahmed Sekou Toure, the revolutionary socialist who was the first President of independent Guinea-Conakry:

In this powerful image Douglas brings together the imagery of Black Power with Women's Liberation. This woman is clearly not about to be forced to choose between motherhood or the revolutionary, anti-colonial, anti-imperialist struggle, as capitalism today tries to make women feel guilty for having to prioritise motherhood/career:

Here is a traditional newspaper-style cartoon that pulls no punches in its depiction of the cops:

It's always important for a new generations, especially those of today whose own struggles may have been shaped by the Black Lives Matter movement, to be able to see and draw inspiration from the language and imagery of past struggles. 

The Bloody History of the City of Love

 

The perception of Paris as a city of romance and high fashion may be little more than the result of a sustained and very successful PR campaign. The reality is that, from the Place du Concorde (where the guillotine was raised during the revolution of 1789) to the south-west wall of Pere Lachaise cemetery (against which many of the communards of 1871 were executed by firing squad), the streets of Paris are not just tinged with the rosy red glow of romance, but are also drenched with the blood of countless generations of rebels.
The number of buildings you see dotted around the city that now carry memorial plaques listing every resident arrested and sent to concentration camps during the collaborationist Vichy regime of WW2 is indeed a sobering sight for any visitor to the city. 

Most people alive today will recall the recent ISIS-inspired atrocities carried out at the offices of the satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo and music venues like the one close to the Place du Bastille that shocked the world in 2015.

In 2018 and into 2019 the streets of Paris, especially around the Place de la Republique, as well as many other towns and cities around the country, exploded in popular protest organised by the "gilets jaunes" (yellow vests), essentially fuel protests which saw some extreme instances of police brutality. The streets were drenched in tear gas and some protestors were partially blinded by rubber bullets.

The French are good at preserving their heritage. The Cafe du Croissant, at 146 rue Montmartre in northern Paris, is where the socialist politician and anti-war activist Jean Jaures was assassinated on July 31 1914 by a nationalist. Both the cafe where he was murdered and the newspaper he founded (l'humanite) still exist to this day.

Paris is also the city where one of the leading Moroccan opposition politicians, an anti-colonial activist named Mehdi Ben Barka, was disappeared after speaking to a couple of gendarmes outside Brasserie Lipp (still there) and murdered on 29 October 1965 for his key role in the anti-colonial struggle both in Morocco and the wider Arab world. Details of his murder remain largely classified, and speculation about the involvement of Moroccan, Israeli and US intelligence in his murder is still rife.

Another atrocity of the same period that is rarely discussed in the west, and has only recently been subjected to more rigorous historical analysis, occurred towards the end of the Algerian war of independence. It is an event that will make you look at the waters of the Seine in a whole new light, and may also provide a deeper insight into contemporary Islamophobia in France.

Documentaries about the 17 October 1961 atrocity

17 octobre 1961, un crime d'Etat (dir. Ramdane Rahmouni; 2021)

This is a recent 51 minute documentary (in French with Arabic subtitles) in which historians, activists and witnesses describe the massacre of Algerian protestors that took place in Paris, France. Conservative estimates suggest at least 200 people were thrown from the Pont Saint-Michel into the Seine. For Algerians it is regarded as a “colonial crime”, which was carried out by French police in order to silence Algerian voices during the final stages of the liberation war. It can be viewed here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HquI833DNCk

Octobre à Paris (October in Paris) (dir. Jacques Panijel; France; 1962)

One of the first detailed accounts of the atrocity, the distribution of this film was suppressed by the French authorities until 1973, when it was granted a limited “visa d'exploitation”, and it would have to wait until 2011 to receive a full theatrical release. Other films have been made about this dark and bloody phase of modern French history, including:

Le silence du fleuve (The silence of the river) (dir. Mehdi Lallaoui; 1991), and

Ici on noie les Algeriens (Here we drown the Algerians) (dir. Yasmina Adi; France; 2011).

Books

Jean-Luc Einaudi was a French historian and socialist activist. He remains largely unknown in the English-speaking world (try searching for an English translation of any of his books). Much of his work was devoted to extensively researching the events of 17 October, as well as other crimes and abuses committed by the French authorities in their efforts to put down local support for the Algerian independence struggle. A couple of his books are cited below:

Einaudi, Jean-Luc La bataille de Paris, 17 octobre 1961 (Seuil, 1991)

Einaudi, Jean-Luc Le dossier Younsi. 1962 : procès secret d'un chef FLN en France (Tirésias, 2013)

This article is a draft. Let me know in the comments below how much of the history mentioned above you were aware of. Personally, I only became aware of the events of October 1961 from Arab commentators and Arabic (specifically Algerian) media, so I would be very interested to hear other peoples' experiences.

The Life in Exile of Angel Parra

Often overshadowed by his famous mother Violeta, one of the leading influences who helped shape the sound of the Chilean Nueva Cancion (New Song) movement, Angel Parra's life is in many ways just as interesting, taking him far beyond Chile.

His exile was originally involuntary. Due to his left-wing political ideals and his links with the Popular Unity party of Salvador Allende, after the 11th of September 1973 coup d'état (documented by Cuban film-maker Santiago Alvarez in his film The Tiger Leaps and Kills, but it will Die...it will Die) Parra was initially held at the National Stadium, before being transferred to the Chacabuco prison camp, where he was kept until February 1974.

He used his time there to help set up a committee to organize cultural activities for the prisoners. Before being released, Parra sang to the rest of his inmates, in a performance that was recorded covertly by Luis Corvalán and released in 1975 on an album titled Chacabuco. It was also during his time in prison that he wrote "La pasión según San Juan, Oratorio de Navidad" (The passion according to San Juan) which was eventually recorded and published in Europe.

After his release, he fled first to Mexico to avoid further persecution, before moving to France, which was at that time home to the largest worker's party in western Europe, the Parti communiste français (PCF). It was here that, in addition to being able to record and release his music again, he shared his testimony about the human rights violations he suffered under the US-backed military dictatorship.

One of the first albums he recorded after settling in France was Angel Parra a Paris, which was originally released in 1978 as a double LP, being Angel's most extensive production to date. Most of the songs are composed by Parra himself, some of them drawn from previous albums and combined with studio versions of songs previously only recorded live. There are also some cover versions of songs by his mother Violeta Parra as well as others composed by people like the Cuban troubadour Carlos Puebla. Other albums Parra released around this period are the Chilean popular guitar album La prochain fois (The next time) along with the last album he recorded with his sister Isabel in 1981.

Also in 1978 he made a small cameo appearance in El Cantor (The Singer), a TV movie produced in the GDR (East Germany) inspired by the life of his colleague, the murdered Chilean singer-songwriter Victor Jara. The film was written and directed by the US-born actor and singer Dean Reed (who played Jara in the film) who, like Parra himself, had known Jara in Chile before his murder.

With the successful referendum to restore democracy, Parra returned to Chile in 1989, and during the 1990s he began to see some of his albums reissued in his birth country. However, he continued to make his home in Paris, where he eventually died of cancer in 2017. He is buried in Pere Lachaise, along with other famous exiles like Jim Morrison and Oscar Wilde.

You can buy one of my renditions of Parra, this one in pen and ink, from my Red Bubble shop here.

Anti-war Art

The creation of art that attempts to convey the sterile horror of war has a long history indeed.

Vasily Vereshchagin (1842-1904) was a Russian landscape painter of the nineteenth century and, for a time, an official war artist for the Russian army. His paintings often reflect his own direct experiences. 
He is often categorised as an anti-war artist because of the devastated landscapes he painted drew closely upon his own direct experiences, and were depicted in his distinctive crisp, unflinching classical realism. These paintings are like a "morning after" image, displaying the sterile destruction of life and civilisation that remains once the heat of battle has died down.

Vereshchagin dedicated 'The Apotheosis of War,' to "all great conquerors, past, present, and to come." It can be found today in the Tretyakov Gallery in Moscow, which houses a great deal of his works. 'The Ruins of the Theatre in Chuguchak' (below) can be found in the Russian Museum in St Petersburg.
What makes paintings like these so powerful and disturbing to me is how often images like these have been repeated and recreated in the real world in the century and a half that has elapsed since their creation.

The lifelessness of Vereshchagin's landscapes are echoed by those of the British war artist of WW1 John Nash. The hideous mound of skulls in 'The Apotheosis of War' has been seen in the twentieth century too many times to count, perhaps most infamously and presciently in Cambodia of the 1970s.
In the last century we have seen the power of photography replace painting to convey the reality of war to the public. Think of those photographs of the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, which the Australian journalist Wilfred Burchett, who defied a ban on western reporters visiting the cities following the US atomic bombing, described as "a warning from history".
In the twenty-first century independent journalists like the British photojournalist Guy Smallman have produced similarly stark images on landscapes in Afghanistan. 
Others increasingly rely more on video, which can be easily distributed via social media to anyone with an Internet connection. For example, this footage shot by the British independent journalist Vanessa Beeley of Daraa al Balad in Syria I feel captures the same spirit of Vereshchagin's unblinking vision, which bears witness to our own inhumanity.

Today some of the best anti-war reportage is that which is created by the perpetrators themselves, and it is merely left to conscientious individuals to alert the general public to its existence, as US Army Private Manning did back in 2010.

On Language Learning and the Many Meanings of a Quenelle

There are always different ways to learn a foreign language, and sometimes quite interesting ways of developing a deeper cultural understanding of a place than watching online tutorials or sitting in lecture halls.
Take French, for example. I have retained a very small amount of French from secondary school, which I have expanded slightly through a combination of personal study and multiple visits to France itself.
However, things like slang terms, colloquialisms, and often uniquely French insults, can often remain closed off to the student and tourist alike, so other sources must be found to develop a deeper understanding of the culture and sub-cultures of the country you are getting to know.
You might be able to deduce a few of these from perusing the pages of satirical newspapers and magazines like Charlie Hebdo or l'Echo des Savanes. Of course, mass movements can be a tremendous education too. The content of banners and placards must be short and punchy, which also makes them easier to key into an online translation website. The current Gilets Jaunes are no exception.
For example, in one video posted online I noticed a protestor with the words "Macron la sens-tu la quenelle?" written on the back of his yellow vest. Online translation tools can help with most of this sentence, but offer no alternative or explanation for that last word.
Roughly, it means something like "Macron do you feel the quenelle?"

Quenelle?

With the abundance of information available on the Internet it is not hard to work out that a quenelle is a dish consisting primarily of elongated fish balls.
It gets better. Or worse, depending on your appetite.
Some people have likened the shape of the quenelle to that of a suppository, which explains the phrase "glisser une quenelle" (which means something like "to slide the quenelle").
To top things off, around 2005 the controversial comedian and political activist Dieudonne used the word to popularise a hand gesture some people see as a kind of inverted Nazi salute which has become quite popular in France as a gesture of protest, solidarity etc. Others argue that it is primarily an "up yours" (a British term) to the establishment, although I am still trying to understand if the accusations of racism are genuine or part of a smear campaign similar to the one currently engulfing the British Labour Party. Anti-semitism is real and needs to be challenged, but it would be foolish to ignore the weaponisation of anti-semitism in recent years as a tool to smear those who dare to criticise atrocities committed by the state of Israel.
Islamophobia in France is of course built on the foundations of that countries' unresolved colonial history, particularly in relation to those countries like Algeria that fought bitter struggles against their colonial masters.
Dieudonne, the son of a French mother and father from Cameroon, whose comedy in the 1990s had been defined by a sharp anti-racist sensibility, was an early victim of the extreme political situation in the early years of the War on Terror.
In a style that could be seen as somewhat quintessentially French, when faced with prosecution for alleged anti-semitism, and many of his performances banned, Dieudonne refused to back down or compromise the provocative nature of his comedy. Today he is a vocal supporter of the Gilets Jaunes, and any passing foray into French language social media channels (like his own) that are supportive of the movement reveals just how prevalent the term "quenelle" has become as a kind of rallying cry for its supporters.
I wanted to share these thoughts in relation to my own language learning because such linguistic terms as these will likely be completely lost on people who only follow English language coverage of the Yellow Vests.
It would seem that sometimes learning a foreign language really does promote greater inter-cultural understanding.

The Popular Music of Venezuela

El Cantor del Pueblo (The People's Singer)

By pushing the sun,

the dawn gets closer.

- 'Sombrero Azul' by Ali Primera

Ali Primera was born on October 31 1942, in the small coastal town of Coro, Falcon State, in the north of Venezuela. During his tragically short lifetime he became one of the leading lights of the Venezuelan Nueva Cancion ("new song"), a movement that inspired musicians across Latin America during the 1960s, 70s and into the 80s, by combining both the instruments and rhythms of traditional indigenous folk music of the region with the politically-engaged themes of North American protest singers like Dylan and Seeger.

The songs of Primera were a cry of condemnation against exploitation and repression, which at that time was afflicting the hemisphere in the form of a seemingly endless cycle of CIA-backed military dictatorships, under which an extreme form of capitalism was unleashed upon the countries of south and central America and the Caribbean. But his songs were also a celebration of popular resistance.

He first began to write songs as a student in the 1960s, when he studied at the Central University of Venezuela, initially as a hobby. It was only when his songs 'Humanidad' and 'No basta rezar' were presented at the Festival of Protest Songs in 1967 to some success that he found himself propelled into the spotlight and began to take songwriting more seriously.

Even the most moderate progressives in Latin America at this time were liable to be targeted for disappearance, so with little to lose and potentially a world to gain, Primera accepted a scholarship from the Communist Party of Venezuela to continue his studies in Europe - Romania, to be precise -  where he lived and studied between 1969 and 1973. His first album Gente de mi tierra was recorded in Germany around this time. More albums were soon to follow, and he returned to South America a star.

Sadly, on February 16 1985 he became involved in a fatal car accident on the Autopista Valle-Coche in Caracas. He was just 42.

The album he had been working on at the time of his untimely death had only 4 songs completed, so his brother, the musician Jose Montecano, stepped in to record the remaining songs. They included familiar themes of social justice and peace, alongside what was for Primera new musical styles like 'gaita' - a musical form native to Zulia state, to the west of Lake Maracaibo. The resulting LP Por si no lo sabia (If you didn't know) was a success, even receiving some television promotion, which had eluded Primera during his lifetime.

It is possible to find a little video footage of Primera's performances online, notably from the 1983 Concert for Peace in Nicaragua. It was here that he performed his song 'Sombrero Azul', a message of solidarity to the people of El Salvador, which I quoted a part of at the start of this piece.

Today, a monument to Primera stands in Caujarao, close to the town of his birth in Falcon state. It was unveiled in 2005 by the new socialist Bolivarian government, which declared the music of Ali Primera a national heritage.

Soledad Bravo

Born in the Spanish town of Logrono, La Rioja on January 1 1943 and raised in Venezuela, Soledad Bravo has been one of the other great leading lights of the Venezuelan Nueva Cancion. Although equally proficient at singing traditional folk melodies as she has been at pop songs, Bravo made her greatest impact as a protest singer. Billboard declared that "her voice is an exceptional instrument," and the Madrid-based newspaper Diario described how "her voice captivates you, the range is so wide and its strength is amazing."

Bravo's left-wing political convictions seem natural when we consider that her father was a Spanish republican during the civil war of 1936-39. The family left Spain (then under fascist dictatorship) and emigrated to Venezuela when Soledad was just seven, and it was here that she attended school, and where she first began singing with a group. 

She continued to sing while studying at the Central University of Venezuela. Shortly after her graduation in 1967, Bravo was hired to perform daily on the morning television show 'Buenos Dias', which she appeared on for many years. 

Her debut album, Soledad Bravo Canta, released in 1968, included her interpretation of the Cuban troubadour Carlos Puebla's tribute to the recently murdered Argentine-Cuban revolutionary Che Guevera, 'Hasta Siempre.' 

The title comes from Guevara's well-known saying “Hasta la victoria siempre!” (“Until victory, always!”) and was the first and best known of many cover versions over the years.

Between 1969 and 1976, Bravo focused on popularising both the traditional and radical protest songs of Latin America, releasing three commercially successful albums - Soledad (1969), Soledad Bravo Vol. 3 (1970) and Soledad Bravo Vol. 4 (1973) - touring throughout other Latin American countries like Peru, Argentina, Chile and Mexico. 
Politically engaged folk music has always been a way of preserving and disseminating stories of popular struggle, of the successes and failures of popular movements, and just as British musicians like Ewan MacColl and Chumbawumba have sought out and recorded their own versions of traditional ballads and anthems of revolutionary movements of the British radical past, so too have the musicians of Latin America. Her 1972 double-album, En Vivo, featured songs of the Spanish Civil war, and she also released Cantos de la Nueva Trova Cubana in 1974, Nueva Trova being the Cuban version of the Nueva Cancion which was initiated after the revolution by artists like Carlos Puebla. 
When Bravo was invited to perform in Spain an appearance on Spanish television, in which she was accompanied by flamenco guitarist Manolo Sanlucar, helped bring her national recognition in that country. 
During the four years that she remained in Spain she recorded several albums, including one with Spanish poet Rafael Alberti in 1977, and a collection of songs of the Spanish Jews, Cantos Sefardies (1980), that received a Grand Prix Du Disque award in France. 
From Spain she next traveled to New York, USA, where she adopted a more tropical repertoire, working with salsa musician Willie Colon on the album Caribe (1982). Four years later, she recorded a self-titled album with accompaniment by Eddie Gomez, Airto Moreira, Paquito D'Rivera, Jorge Dalto, Ray Barreto, Yomo Toro and Spyro Gyra.”

Folk music can often be seen as sombre, despite moments of stunning tenderness and sweet simplicity, such as we hear in a peace song like 'Punto y Raya' (Dots and Lines), a song of such gentle subversiveness against war you almost don't notice it at first (especially if Spanish is not your first language). But we must not forget that the Venezuelan musical scene has always been quite broad and diverse. If, for example, you just want to get down in a mosh pit then the energetic ska beats of Desorden Publico may be more to your taste.

In contrast to the Nueva Cancion folk singers like Primera and Bravo, the group Los Amigos Invisibles sound like music from another era, which of course they are. Much like the "Bolivarian Revolution" they emerged during the 1990s, and English-speakers may find their humorous lyrics and cheeky music videos more reminiscent of bands like Madness (from the UK) or the B-52s (from the US).

It is anyone's guess how the country's present challenges will impact its cultural output. If the US-installed President takes root, then a lifting of the economic sanctions that have been strangling the economy for the last few years could make it easier for Venezuelans to export their culture to the world once more. If the international support the Maduro government has received enables it to resist foreign interference, it is anyone's guess what music such resistance could inspire.

Hopefully this briefest of overviews of some of the shining lights of Venezuelan popular music over the last half century shows that, where Venezuela is concerned, any outcome will likely inspire music with a unique richness and variety.

Check out my NEW May Day design on Red Bubble!

If you like the Art Nouveau stylings of my May Day pencil drawing you may want to check out the higher resolution images now up on Red Bubble:

https://www.redbubble.com/people/russmcp/works/31544437-may-day

Thanks to the magic of Red Bubble you can also wear the design as a T-shirt, put it on your wall, or should you wish, get it as a greeting card to fill with messages of solidarity for your friends and family.

Visiting Faraday House

Michael Faraday was the self-taught chemist and physicist who, among numerous other achievements, was responsible for the discovery of electricity. In 1833 he was made Fullerian Professor of Chemistry, an appointment for life at the Royal Institution, and worked as a government researcher investigating, among other things, the causes of a disastrous colliery explosion.

Faraday came from a working class family, and became a devout follower of the Sandemanian branch of the Church of Scotland. He was offered a knighthood in recognition of his services to science, but declined it, as it was against the Bible to accumulate riches and pursue worldly rewards like titles. Faraday preferred to remain "plain Mr Faraday to the end." He also refused on ethical grounds to help develop chemical weapons for use in the Crimean war.

Faraday House, at 37 Hampton Court Road, Middlesex, was formerly the Master Mason's House. The building was awarded to Faraday as a grace and favour dwelling in 1848, after the Prince Consort is said to have made representations on his behalf. He spent his last years here, and true to spirit, turned down an offer of burial in Westminster Abbey, opting instead to be interred in the dissenters' section of Highgate Cemetery.

You can see a pencil study I did from a bust of Faraday, which sits in the British Library, on my Instagram.

The Stone Bomb Anti-Air War Memorial

"There are thousands of memorials in every town and village to the dead, but not one as a reminder of the danger of future wars." - Sylvia Pankhurst, 1936

Between the years 1924 and 1933 Sylvia Pankhurst lived with her Italian-born partner Silvio Corio at 126 High Road, Woodford Wells, Essex (what is now Woodford Green High Road, part of the north east London suburb of Woodford), opposite the Horse and Well pub, which still stands to this day.

In her lifetime Pankhurst was active in struggles for women's liberation, peace, socialism and, in her later years, the independence of Ethiopia from both Italian and British control. Corio was a journalist and painter who also worked at various times as a waiter and street trader, and for many years was active in the anarchist movement, first in Italy, then briefly France, before finally settling in London. In the early years of the twentieth century, before World War 1, he was part of the collective responsible for setting up a short-lived libertarian school near Euston.

The house Corio and Pankhurst moved into in 1924 was originally called Vine Cottage, but after settling in they re-named the four-room building Red Cottage, running a teashop for visitors making their way to nearby Epping Forest. Pankhurst herself had been a longtime visitor to Epping Forest. During WW1 she was fond of taking long walks with her ailing comrade Keir Hardie, the founding member and first leader of the Labour Party. 
Once settled at Red Cottage she began publishing the New Times and Ethiopia News, her contribution to the former British colonies' struggle for independence from another coloniser: fascist Italy.

In 1935, in what was then the building's front garden, a monument was unveiled by R Zaphiro, Secretary of the Imperial Ethiopian Legation London, of a stone bomb on a four-sided plinth. Across the four sides was inscribed a dedication: “To those who in 1932 upheld the right to use bombing aeroplanes this monument is raised as a protest against war in the air.”

The protest monument was designed and carved by the sculptor Eric Benfield, who has explained he was personally motivated by a strong feeling that: “Those [members of the league of nations] who had preserved bombing were politically and morally dead, and this was their gravestone.”
Visitors to the site may find it somewhat obscured by surrounding foliage.

During the 1930s the monument was subject to vandalism, at least one time by fascist Blackshirts. Sylvia, Silvio and their young son Richard, who was born during their time at Red Cottage, subsequently moved down the hill into a larger Victorian building called West Dene, which stood at 3 Charteris Road, next to Woodford station. West Dene has since been demolished to make way for flats, although in 1995 Redbridge council created a small park in the same vicinity which was named Pankhurst Green.

The building that housed Red Cottage was itself demolished in 1939 to make way for new houses. However, Benfield's unique protest monument of the stone bomb has remained, and was even awarded Grade II-listed status, mainly through the efforts of local activists who, during the 1980s, made the area a venue for peace picnics. So it is thanks to their efforts that the quote I used at the beginning of this article is not strictly true. There is still at least one monument that warns of the danger of future wars.
A moderately steep hill connects the Pankhurst Green in Woodford town centre with the busy road at the top where you will find the stone bomb memorial, but it is certainly worth the visit to bear witness to such a unique monument.

The independent micro state of Sweetstopia 2015

This is a very well put together little 16 minute documentary by the Drift Report about last years' occupation of the Sweets Way Estate in Barnet, north London. Sweets Way has been one of the many frontlines in the gentrification of London, which has been transforming the city from a place where ordinary people live into a mere investment opportunity for the global super rich.

The Sweets Way occupation lasted many months, as vulnerable social tenants held out against eviction by private developer Annington Homes, supported by young and seasoned housing and land rights activists. As time went by the site developed into "Sweetstopia", which had aspirations to be an independent micro state, a desire rooted in contemporary history with its echoes of Frestonia (the community that occupied Freston Road in west London back in the late 1970s).

Its a good short film, well worth a watch, as it features some beautiful and inspiring murals, along with a brief explanation of practical DIY permaculture. 

In the autumn of 2015 bailiffs finally succeeded in evicting the last tenants and occupiers (including a disabled father), and the area has become a fenced off ghost town. It is inspiring how long they held out, and how much support they received. I think some supporters may have moved on to running the nearby Dollis Valley Resist Community Centre.

London...where resistance is fertile!

Yorkley Court Fundraiser

Related to my previous post on here, I wanted to share this powerful song by Muddy Summers & The Dirty Field Whores. It is filled with beautiful music and fiery lyrics, and has been recorded as a fundraiser for the more than twenty human beings who have been made homeless by the eviction of Yorkley Court Community Farm, to help them rebuild their homes and lives.

If you have the cash then do please click along to https://muddysummers.bandcamp.com/track/landgrabber-for-yccf and donate what you can.

If you don't have the cash you can still share the song with anyone you know who might enjoy it.

One love x

The need to reclaim the fields

So, Yorkley Court Community Farm, the land occupation down near Lydney in the Forest of Dean, is under siege. The possession order has finally been served, and the land rights activists involved have now apparently scattered into the surrounding woods.
Within the current framework of UK land law, this was all sadly inevitable, in spite of several instances of successful eviction resistance at the site over the last couple of years, it now seems that the prime movers will need to find a new site or fresh tactics for highlighting the gross inequalities of land distribution in England and Wales.
Sadly, I was never in a position to visit Yorkley Court. Now it seems I never will. So it goes.
One of the values of occupations like this is not necessarily their permanence or longevity, although undoubtedly more can be achieved within a given community over a longer time frame, nevertheless a feeling of permanence may inevitably run the risk of contributing to a sense of entrenchment both in membership and imagination, as members become more fixated on the day to day running of the space and less on challenging the dominant culture.
What matters is the example of another way.
This is as true of Yorkley Court as it was of other land occupations of the last five years or so, including some I have visited and reported on here and elsewhere such as the Hounslow Community Land Project and Runnymede Eco Village. Where else can people go to find ordinary women, children and men, no different from themselves, who have chosen instead of endlessly theorising or petitioning for a better and more equitable world, to create a working model in the here and now? By the very nature of their work they create a literal 'demonstration' of an alternative, more ecological and liberated future, that any visitor can bear witness to. Some passersby may be so inspired they even choose to become a part of it themselves.
I have little doubt that those who participate, at whatever level, in experiments such as this remain forever changed by the experience, their awareness of the relative strengths and weaknesses of this way and life informed by their own direct experience rather than any second-hand testimony such as this.

Radical History: The (Occupied) Cambridge Arms Pub

There used to be a pub at 42 Cambridge Road in Kingston-upon-Thames, Surrey (overlooking the Cambridge Estate) which ceased trading sometime around the millennium. It was called, imaginatively, The Cambridge Arms. All you'll find there now are a small block of modern, fairly unremarkable looking flats.

However, in its fallow period, which probably would have been in about 2004 or so, the pub was squatted, the ground floor painted red with the words "BUY SECOND HAND" painted in bold white letters across the front.

Although I never met any of the residents, I understood the message, and this may have been what made me decide to take a photo while passing by one day.

The image above is an embellished rendition made using some image manipulation software like Photoshop. I have included it here to create a semi-permanent record of a highly transitory and easily overlooked period in history. If anyone passing by this blog has any memories of the building as a pub, or even as a squat, you are welcome to share them below.

Reflections on the recent eviction of Runnymede Eco Village

 
Runnymede Eco Village, which evolved peacefully on a few acres of steep, muddy, dilapidated woodland for more than three years, achieving an initially positive legal ruling in the High Court in June 2015, before losing a subsequent appeal in early September, was finally evicted, seemingly without notice and with a quite shocking but regrettably common degree of force, on the morning of Wednesday 16^th September 2015.

 The alternative community had its roots in a land rights campaign called Diggers2012 which sought to highlight the deeply unequal nature of land ownership in the UK. They did this by reviving the spirit and tactics of the historical Diggers of 1649, also known as the True Levellers, a millenarian group created primarily by a former cloth merchant named Gerrard Winstanley. Along with a small group of like-minded people, Winstanley had sought to “make the earth a common treasury for all” by occupying wasteland at St George's Hill in Surrey, building rudimentary structures and sowing vegetables, and inviting all to come and join them. We know about their ideas because, living as he was in the early days of the free press, Winstanley was also a very active pamphleteer.

 As is so often the case, the eviction of Runnymede Eco Village demonstrated the disregard that some bailiffs seem to show towards persons and personal possessions. No attempt was made to spare even the beautiful 16th century-style longhouse that had served as the main communal area for the community for example. Part of me always felt that, even if the residents were one day evicted, the longhouse could still have provided an interesting curiousity, either for visitors to the woods or for future residents at the top of the hill, but perhaps this was a naively hopeful expectation.

 The reality of what actually takes place during evictions of this nature is a disturbing reminder of what is required to create the “blank slate” necessary for more profit-oriented forms of development to take place.

 This may lead some to wonder if the surplus time and energy required (to destroy organic communities and protect private profits) is really worthwhile. Whilst property owners, or aspiring property owners, may think it is, and their attitudes may be shared consciously or unconsciously by those who accept the norms of the dominant culture without question (as being somehow "the best of all possible worlds" or simply "our way of life"), those with different desires may beg to differ, as the poet and former Runnymede resident Ben Cheal explains on his blog.

While there have been some attempts recently to address the issue of land rights north of the border in Scotland, given the increasingly authoritarian nature of the current Conservative administration, it remains a challenge to put forward issues of land redistribution on a national level in the rest of the country. This is not to say that there aren't people active in those struggles however, merely that such activity so far remains very grassroots.
 Prior to the creation of Diggers2012, for example, some of the chief protagonists had staged a one week occupation on part of Clapham Common in September 2011. Land and Freedom Camp, as it was called, was an attempt to highlight many of the same issues later raised by Diggers2012.

 The temporary nature of the Land and Freedom Camp may offer a more endurable model for future land rights campaigns, one that would perhaps circumvent the trauma commonly associated with evictions. Of course, for those more interested in pursuing an alternative lifestyle than campaigning exclusively for land reform such a shift in tactics may require a larger adjustment as they are forced to adopt a more nomadic life. However this may turn out to be not without its own appeal. It is worth remembering that nomadic, hunter gatherer societies have often demonstrated a remarkable longevity and environmental sustainability compared with more settled civilisations.

 One thing that becomes apparent with many fixed communities which come together in a spirit of protest is that the longer they persist the more the focus tends to shift over time, as different people come and go. This is less so in the case of occupied spaces like Faslane Peace Camp or Grow Heathrow, which have both maintained very clear campaign goals (against nuclear weapons and airport expansion respectively) over many years. In the case of more anarchic communities like Runnymede Eco Village its three year existence saw the focus of the community shift, as older members of Diggers2012 left and younger campaigners from the Love Activists group moved in.

 The Love Activists have been specifically focused on the related issues of housing and homelessness, which has been exacerbated by PSPO's (Public Space Protection Orders, which are used by local councils to criminalise homelessness and begging) and increasing gentrification, both symptomatic of the short-sighted focus of many politicians who remain intent on catering to the disengaged prejudices of the middle and upper classes.
 The Love Activists group first drew media attention for their short-lived occupation of an £80 million, grade 2 listed, offshore owned, former HSBC building in Charing Cross on 20^th December 2014. This was part of their 'Homes Not Banks' campaign, a form of creative direct action intended to open the empty building up to the homeless of London for unconditional food and shelter. Undeterred by an eviction on Christmas Eve, they maintained a street kitchen on the pavement opposite the former bank well into the following January.

 The “hippies” who are focused more on stepping out of mainstream society often remain a persistent presence throughout such long-running protest camps, based as they are around maintaining an alternative community, a model of the kind of egalitarian world many of us might rather build for ourselves given sufficient time and space. The same could be said for many of the artists and poets seeking the freedom to create in a space where the pressure of money no longer holds sway.

 When the Runnymede Diggers were eventually evicted they carried the distinction of having maintained their peaceful occupation for twice as long as the historical Diggers of 1649. The group's community page on facebook had attracted over 1,800 likes and the community had a distinct culture of its own. While some evicted residents apparently held out in a disputed patch of woodland between the now enclosed, derelict campus site to the south and the National Trust-owned Runnymede Park to the north, other former residents have already hit the ground running.

The Four Seasons Community Cooperative, whose new community page attracted 136 likes in its first two days, held its first open meeting on Sunday 20^th September 2015 at the newly occupied Oast House Adult Learning Centre in Staines, a council-owned property just along the River Thames which has apparently been empty for more than eight years. The current intention is to “pave the way toward a transition network” in the Staines area, and they have already launched a 38 Degrees community petition to Staines County Council, in an attempt to have the building they are presently occupying designated an Asset of Community Value.

 Those keen on campaigning on the front lines for a fairer system of land rights and more affordable housing, as well as those simply seeking an alternative, more liberated and ecologically sustainable life, will most likely roll on, come what may, learning skills at each new occupation. What I find most inspiring is the practical DIY approach and respect for individual freedom and autonomy at work in these spaces, together with the awareness that despite the violence of the eviction, the spirit of Runnymede will very likely be carried far and wide, the seeds needing only a little bit of fertile ground to grow. 

Anyone interested in learning more about the full spectrum of campaigns for a fairer and more sustainable distribution of land in the British Isles (or WISE Isles, if you will) may be interested in following the work of campaign groups like The Land Is Ours or the magazine The Land. 

Amended: June 3 2016

Zine review: Morgenmuffel

I cannot believe I have not mentioned Morgenmuffel, which for more than a decade between the 1990s and very recently, has chronicled the life of its creator Isy, a German-born anarchist, and her experience of life, love, friendship, political activism and DIY culture in the UK.

There is a humanity to Isy's work which is as beautifully honest as it is by turns angry, impassioned, funny and, at times, heartbreaking. In 2009 many of the main stories from Isy's early zines were collected in book form by Last Hours as Diary of a Miscreant. The collection runs the gamut from anti-G8 protests and climate camps to mini-rants about things that annoy her (everything from periods to the gentrification of Brighton, England, a place which long-term followers will know I'm very familiar with). I found the most personal identification in shorter pieces of hers like "My First Big Demo" and "Bovine Encounter," as well as the title itself, which is apparently derived from a German word for a person who do does not like waking up early.

If you're lucky you might find a few copies via Active Distribution of London. Age, life events and a downshift to a rural co-op means that Isy will be producing Morgenmuffel far less than previously, but I hope more will follow soon, together with a fresh print-run of Diary of a Miscreant.

Learning to Talk the Language of Peace

 
A friend recently gave me a book by Jonathan Schell called The Unconquerable World: Why Peaceful Protest is Stronger Than War (2004). It is a thoroughly argued polemic written at the height of the United States' Bush-era arrogance. I was about halfway through reading it when I got the news that Schell had passed away.
It is primarily through a detailed analysis of the evolution of what he terms "the war system", as well as in numerous historical examples of apparently bloodless social and political change, that Schell finds cause for hope and makes his case for the supremacy of nonviolence in bringing about lasting social change.
As someone who has spent my whole life as an inhabitant of the WISE Isles I was particularly interested to read about the "Glorious Revolution" of 1789.
An observation which Schell makes towards the end of the book also caught my attention. It is the fact that there is, as yet, no positive word in the English language for 'nonviolence', or 'nonviolent action', if you will. The word itself is a negative because it refers only to a lack of violence. The importance of this observation ought to be clear to anyone who, reflecting on the almost subconscious way in which violent, militarist thinking and logic has colonised our language and thought ('bullet' points, anyone?), has paused to think about what it takes to build a culture of peace. Reclaiming our language is part of that. 
Many people have tried, but none have yet caught on. Gandhi perhaps came closest when he coined the term 'satyagraha'. The closest you can come to an English translation of this word is to talk about 'truth force' or 'soul force', and Schell draws parallels between this and what nonviolent Soviet dissidents like the playwright Vaclav Havel called 'living in truth.'
Schell also gave some consideration to Hannah Arendt's attempts to reclaim the word 'power' from its traditional usage as an expression of force, which may have influenced the concept of 'people power'. Schell himself chose the phrase 'cooperative power' as something distinct from 'coercive power'.
It seems that, at least for the time being, we will have to make do with a wide array of terms before we find one that best captures the essence of positive action.