Unscaring the people
IN the United States, it was a week in the Deep South when African American lives were again shown not to matter.
In the UK it was a week in which peaceful protest was overshadowed by violence and disrespect. Locally, it was a week in which a hearing turned into a trial, then into a farce.
Afraid of Police
As George Floyd was laid to rest, peaceful protests continued, but any learning from his passing had been lost, as Rayshard Brooks was shot in the back while fleeing from Police Officers in Atlanta, Georgia.
That there is a problem with US Policing is no longer in doubt. Proposals to defund the Police; Atlanta’s Chief of Police resigning; Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff apologising; silence of the Tweeter-in-Chief; all tell of a country that’s reeling in dismay.
Whether American people, politicians and police will act any quicker than we did in Northern Ireland, getting from Women for Peace (1976) to the Good Friday Agreement (1998), remains to be seen.
Afraid of the Past
Bristol City Council recovered Edward Colston's statue from the harbour and removed his name from Colston Hall, Perhaps by next week they’ll have to rename the Colston Bun?
And why stop with Colston? Two centuries after him, slave owners were benefitting under the 1837 Slave Compensation Act, including the family of UK prime minister William Ewart Gladstone.
Concerns about statues go wider, as those of Churchill, Thomas Guy (Guy’s hospital), Lord Baden Powell (scouts) were covered up at the weekend.
If Black Lives are to Matter we need to do more than just blot out historic figures or their memorials and work a new process of historification – recording, teaching and learning the lessons from history.
Afraid to go out
Despite attempts to move on, the problems surrounding the nation’s approach to Covid-19 are continuing.
This leads me to a personal admission because I’m apprehensive about going out and maintaining social distancing. By the time I get home from a shopping trip, I’m frazzled. And when it comes to making any significant changes in behaviour, I won’t be in a hurry.
Things may be fine if you’ve survived Coronavirus already, but Boris’ brand of bonhomie and bluster isn’t credible. We simply don’t believe you sir, nor do we trust your words.
You’ve scared the people rigid, now how are you going to unscare us all? Suggestions on a postcard to 10 Downing Street please – or to your MP as Boris might actually pay attention to them.
Afraid of the Truth?
Locally, the main political event of the week was the Licensing Hearing for the BBQ King kebab van on Reading Road close to Shute End, WBC’s headquarters.
The agenda showed that the public and press would be excluded from part of the meeting but in ending the formal declaration, the chairman said the reason was "in connection with the prevention, investigation or prosecution of the crime”. By putting in ‘the’ as a definite article he’s “implied necessarily that an entity it articulates is presupposed” (Wiktionary). So what IS the crime and who’s accused of it? Regrettably the meeting didn’t restart for us to hear. By Sunday all the hearing’s documentation regarding the hearing had disappeared from WBC’s website too. One wonders what our secrecy-obsessed council is so afraid of?
What the Neighbours said
Some of our other neighbours are saying that the parrot in its gilded cage is on form again despite its bedraggled plumage, while others have said it should be taught to squawk something new.
Excepting ‘sta komsije rekli’, that was the 13th week of lockdown, that was.