Student Resistance: The Re-Awakening of British Youth.

The events of the past few days have shown how politically-aware sections of British youth have become.Seven months of Tory austerity measures, culminating in last Thursday's vote in Parliament to triple the cost of university tuition, have managed to galvanize thousands of youths into mass protest action.
It has been a long time since the centre of London has borne witness to such frenzied anti-government protest.
Last Thursday's demonstration, the latest in a series which is bound to continue well into the New Year, was attended by students from all over the country.Young people as young as 14 (some skiving - off  school) turned out to lobby Members of Parliament belonging to the Conservative/Liberal Democrat Coalition which has been governing the country since the May Elections.
It comes as no surprise to me that much of the students' ire ( as well as that of their their teachers and lecturers) has been aimed at the treacherous Lib-Dems.
Prior to the Elections,they made a great show of their opposition to the raising of tuition fees. Their MPs were falling over themselves  to portray the Tories as evil tax-hikers who were hell-bent on raising VAT, cutting social programmes--and raising tuition fees.
They signed, publicly and ostentatiously--in front of cheering students --a pledge not to raise tuition fees. This made for good TV, and helped to garner votes, as well as Ministerial seats, after the Tories failed to get them vertiginous majority for which they had been yearning.
Labour lost their majority---but the Tories did not win.They became the largest party, without the ability to rule, as they were short of a majority.Consequently, they had to compromise with their erstwhile leftist foes.
As predicted, this cobbled-together  marriage -of-convenience is now showing signs of strain.LibDem Members of Parliament are finding it hard to back Tory policies which go against their political grain.Some senior members even went as far as to abstain in Thursday's vote on tuition fees!
Students have formed the vanguard of popular resistance to the enforced budget cuts which the Coalition has imposed on all areas of Government spending.
 An astonishing 80% cut in Government's support for university teaching has been put in place, the deficit being imposed on individual students---after they graduate.In addition, the EMA (Education Maintenance Allowance), the subsidy to poorer students before they enter university, is to be cut.Hence the anger.
The privileged cabal of  Old-Etonian-Oxbridge aristocrats who are disproportionally- represented in the present Cabinet, will not be personally affected . Their children will never have to worry about how to pay for college fees!
The overwhelmingly-Right-wing Press here have chosen to focus on the fighting and crowd trouble which took place during the demonstration.In doing so, they aimed to delegitimize the real grievances of the youths.Public opinion, it hopes, will thus turn against the students.It now becomes easier for the brightest and the best of the young generation to be labelled as "yobs" and "mindless hooligans". The ill-discipline of the few is thereby used to portray the majority.Little mention is made of the police-state tactics now being employed in quelling dissent.
In a week in which the whole of the Press and mass-media celegrated the award of the Nobel Peace Prize to an imprisoned Chinese citizen  who wants to overthrow his government, the Metropolitan Police are allowed to impose imprisonment without trial of up to 10 hours on ordinary citizens who choose to avail themselves of their constitutional right to protest.
 The majority of our Conservative-supporting Press have chosen to overlook the use of "kettling" as  a means of dissuading people from coming out to protest.
This tactic involves cordoning off a small area of the demonstration, forcing everyone to stay in that area---( for up to 10 hours!). Any attempt to escape from the "kettled" area is met with beatings and charges by mounted police.There are no provisions for food or toilets.FOR TEN HOURS!
 The Right-Wing then wonder why the thus-imprisoned demonstrators choose to resist! While they wag their finger at the Chinese authorities, they condone such tactics in the centre of London! Sadly, such commentators always lack a sense of history.
  Not so long ago, groups of women engaged the authorities in similar clashes. Some chained themselves to the railings outside Parliament, they went on demonstrations, rallies, protests. Some succumbed to brutal beatings, some, indeed, died for their cause.
What were these terrible women so fired up about? Why were they disturbing the peace, rattling the status quo? What great cause mede them risk their freedom, their very lives?
 They were the pioneers who were campaigning for votes for women.
 The whole population now views this as an unalloyed  good. Indeed , most modern people in Britain think this right is "natural", and very few people can imagine a Britain in which women do not have this right.
   The lesson for today's students?  Every "right" has to be fought for.

The Mayor's bikes,the Maze, George Bush and WMDs.

It is early in August, so the usual signs of summer are in evidence all over the centre of town. Large groups of  foreign students laden down with large rucksacks take up the whole of the pavement without paying any heed to the needs of others.Some behave as if the pavement belongs to them---ill-mannered youths exporting their uncouth ways.Bad tourists who, one hopes, will mature into good, well-mannered guests with the passage of time.

  On every corner  there is a pretty tourista grappling with a map, looking helpless. I am constantly amazed at the number of single young women who travel to London.White, Black, Yellow, Brown , and all shades in-between!

  One novelty which caught my eye in the centre of town is the recently-introduced bicycle-for-hire scheme.

  The Mayor, Tory Boris Johnson, has decided that what London needs is a bike-hire scheme----just like the one in Paris, and, long before it, Amsterdam.As a result, London has teamed up with one of the big banks, and installed a few thousand sturdy unisex bicycles which are on loan for a few hours, or a  few days at a time.

   On the face of it, the scheme seems to be an excellent idea, but I have one major reservation----there is no supply of  helmets to accompany the shiny new bikes!

   These are essential in a bicycle-unfriendly city like London. More thought should have gone into safety considerations before the scheme  was rolled out.

cycles-for-hire
There was a similar scheme in Amsterdam years ago.As I recall, it was instigated by the Provos, a sort of idealistic anarchist group of the late 60's-early 70's.A whole load of white-painted bicycles were made available---only to be stolen!
I hope, for London's sake, that the same fate does not befall Mayor Boris' scheme.Furthermore, I do hope that he will provide helmets to accompany the bicycles. After all, a tourist who may not have ridden a bike for a long time, on a short vacation to London, can not be expected to spend a large amount of money on a bicycle helmet which he/ she will only  use for a few hours or days...
Down in Trafalgar Square, I came across this artificial maze which was erected for a few days. It seems to have been a crowd-pleaser, but, by the time you read this, it would have been removed.Shame.
Further up the road (well, about 2 miles  away, actually), I visited an exhibition called "After the Bombs Dropped".
This is an exhibition about the massive destruction and devastation caused by the atom bombs which were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki  by the Americans at the end of WW2.
Everyone should see this. Once you do, I am sure you will not be able to think of weapons of mass-destruction in the same way.Ever.
George Bush & co. knew this, that is why they did not allow the American public---and the rest of the gullible world to see pictures of the dead and wounded in  the ill-fated adventure in Iraq.Once you see the gruesome after-effects of war, it becomes so much harder to wish such suffering on your fellow human.
The exhibition is on at :Friends House,173,Euston Rd.,London,NW1 2BJ., until 12th August 2010.
www.quaker.org.uk/hiroshima

Notes On A Man About To Die

Once in a while, an event occurs which makes everyone sit up and take notice, question the very basis on which reality is built. Some events are so momentous that, upon hearing of them we wonder if the person informing us is, in fact, recounting a scene from some outlandish film.
This is how I felt a few weeks ago when one of my colleagues asked me, a propos of nothing much, if I'd heard the news about Akmal.
“No, what news?”, I queried.
He told me that Akmal had been sentenced to be shot by firing squad for drug trafficking in China. The execution was imminent, barring a last-minute reprieve being granted by The Court of Appeal.
   I bent over the office computer, and typed the name Akmal Shaikh into the search engine. Straight away, Google poured out a list of pages and articles about the death sentence. I was shocked, but not entirely surprised. I had been well aware that this man was a massive risk-taker, a person who would leap without a second glance either to his left or to his right. How could he have come to this?..
   I had been a self-employed leaflet deliverer--- a sort of private postman who went from door to door shoving cards, menus, and leaflets through people's letterboxes. Because of the low fees which I charged all my clients, I was seldom without work, and I enjoyed the freedom which it gave me. The solitary nature of the job gave me a lot of time in which to think, and to organise my creative ideas. In good times, I would combine two types of leaflet from different firms, thereby doubling my wages for the same distance walked.
It was through this line of work that I came into contact with Teksi, a fairly-successful cab firm in Kentish Town, North-West London. The owner of the firm was a short, squeaky- voiced chap called Akmal Shaikh, a Pakistan-born Briton.
    He had a kind of wariness about him whenever I went into his office. Was it unfriendliness, disdain? I didn't care, since I was my own boss, a freelance who chose his own working hours. I would be in there for, at most, twenty or thirty minutes at a time. He was at his most cagey whenever his female employee was in the office.
    She was a homely young Polish woman, wholly devoted and protective of her boss. It soon became plain to me that, although he was married, he and the Polish secretary/ telephonist were more than colleagues. There were times when I would see her sitting on his lap as I entered the office. One day, right out of the blue, he announced that they were now married! Several months previously, he had begun to call her by a Muslim name which he had given her. She soon left the firm, went back to Poland after the birth of their first child---his fifth.
    She was now living full-time in Poland, while he ran his business from London. He would go over for weeks at a time to be with his now-Muslim new wife. Since she left there was a vacancy for a telephonist. He employed a succession of pretty young ladies, mostly Poles, who were glad of the chance to work here. Their country had only recently emerged from Communist rule, and membership of the-then European Economic Community (now The European Union) was several years away.
During his return trips to London, it is rumoured that he had affairs with a succession of the young girls in his employ. Some claim that he set up home with one of them. When she left to continue travelling , he sought a replacement.
    By this time, I had long since stopped working for him, having taken up a sedentary job as a controller with a rival firm. After a year or so, my new employer closed his doors, apparently because Akmal did not want a rival to be based only a hundred yards away from him; he claimed that Akmal had made numerous complaints about our drivers' noise-making to the local council, in which he had some influential friends.
I moved on, having secured a controller's post with yet another firm, this time about a mile away. I kept bumping into old colleagues from Akmal's office. None of them had a good word to say about him. There were constant rumours of unpaid wages, monies being unfairly held on to...One night he made a phone call to my employer ( a former employee of his with whom he had had a falling- out). He wanted him to know that he was selling up, quoted him a price, and demanded an answer there and then. Upon hearing this, I advised my employer not to have anything to do with it---I could smell a rat.
    A few months later, we realised what had caused his hasty departure....The local newspaper had a shocking report of a mini-cab boss who had been charged with sexual harassment of a female employee. On the third page, there was Akmal's photo for all to see. He was fined a large sum of money by an Industrial Tribunal, after he lost the case which had been brought by the young woman. His loss of face was complete. He fled to Poland.
     The next time I heard about him, it was claimed that he had split up with his wife ( the devoted Catholic who loved him so much that she had changed her religion for him), other rumours had him being arrested for I don't know what...Out of the blue, one ex-colleague had me in stitches by saying that Akmal had been sending him emails inviting him to “ do jihad “ with him! I almost fell off my chair laughing...
    The newspaper articles all talk of a trip from Warsaw to a remote part of China. Upon searching his luggage, Customs found a quantity of heroin. Some say it was four kilos, others, seven. He claimed no knowledge of the drug's existence, claiming that he went to make a pop record about world peace. It is also claimed that he was homeless at the time, and had befriended a shadowy figure who claimed to have contacts in the music industry.
    Newspaper reports say that the judges at his trial laughed openly at some of his claims, his testimony is said to have been rambling and incoherent. He bombarded the British Embassy with long letters. The rights group, Reprieve, claim that he suffers from bi-polar disease and is delusional. The Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, has been persuaded to make representations, all to no avail, it would seem.
    He may already have been shot. China, after all,  is one of the governments which is most ready to execute prisoners. Even if he were to be released tomorrow, his life is in tatters. I pity his children. They were polite and pleasant young people whose lives are forever tarnished. Their ambitious father---he once visited the Dassault factory in Toulouse saying he wanted to buy an aeroplane with which to start an airline ---he is gone from them, even if he were to be released and pardoned.
    I am not in favour of the death penalty, not even for mass – murderers. After all, did Jesus of Nazareth not tell us to spare the sinner, or cast the first stone if we have never sinned? The Chinese authorities take a different view; after all, did the British and French imperialists not seek to weaken their society by selling them hard drugs not so long ago? The memory of the opium trade may still be fresh in the minds of their officials.
I find it a pity that a man who may have been mentally-imbalanced is being made to pay the price of those past wrongs.

On the South Bank of the Thames

The South Bank of the River Thames houses one of the great collections of cultural and artistic meeting- places in London. The complex consists of The National Theatre, The Royal Festival Hall, The Hayward Gallery, The Queen Elizabeth Hall, and the Purcell Room.

A trip to the South Bank Centre is best approached on foot across the Waterloo Bridge.The view from the bridge is absolutely spectacular; on one side, there is the Palace of Westminster, wherein are The Houses of Parliament, as well as the world-famous London Wheel.

The Royal Festival Hall , one of London's premier concert venues, has been in existence since 1951.Like the rest of the South Bank complex, the building is in the style of the-then-fashionable "brutalist architecture" of the post-war period.Opinions are divided as to its aesthetic worth, but I believe it is now a listed building.

During the day, it is common to see buskers and other street musicians around the concourse .Around the side of the building, there is a large bronze bust of Nelson Mandela, as well as various cafes and eating places.There are plenty of seats and benches on which to sit , and drink, and to watch people go by...In fact, it would be possible to spend an entire day in the Complex--starting at a contemporary art exhibition at the Hayward Gallery, the visitor could then go to sit and eat at one of the cafes or restaurants. Those who enjoy a spot of reading can pop into a bookshop  or the Poetry Library( Level Five of the Festival Hall)...

There are often free recitals of classical music , as well as photographic exhibitions in the foyer of the Festival Hall. During the summer, there is a great book market along the river bank, with a large number of vendors with their stalls in front of them.

After visting the art gallery, the free concerts , and other attractions, the visitor might like to end their visit by attending the National Theatre to take in one of their productions.This is the home of some of the most-acclaimed heavyweights of British theatre.

A visit to the South Bank is a" must-do" for the visitor to London.It is a family-friendly and relaxed day out, especially in view of the pedestrianised nature of the complex, and the picturesque backdrop of the River Thames.There is bound to be something there for everyone.

A Visit to Portobello Road Market.

Scenes from Portobello Road& Pembridge Road(bottom picture).

The visitor to London should pay a visit to Portobello Road Market. This is one of the capital's landmark tourist attractions.

The best way to approach it is by turning right into Pembridge Road from Notting Hill Station, and following the crowds! A few yards down the Pembridge Road, you will notice that the majority of the pedestrians turn left at the "World in Splendour" pub.

This is the beginning of the Portobello Road.

Before proceeding down the road, and rummaging through the myriad of antique and other shops, it may be worth your while to pop into the pub. It is just as pleasant to buy a drink, lounge around on one of the benches outside, as it is to sit inside this bustling meeting place.

Down the road there are stalls in front of almost all the buildings, many of them sell antiques of one kind or another, while others sell such touristy articles as t-shirts and badges.Antiqe sterling silverware jostles for space and attention with crockery, glass, and other expensive items.Prices here can not be described as cheap--after all, this area, Notting Hill, is one of the most affluent in the whole of the country.Residents here include well-heeled American bankers who feel hard-done-by if they don't receive their £200,000 -per-year bonuses on top of their salaries!

If you become hungry after shopping or browsing, go to the junction of Westbourne Grove, turn right, and you'll find an embarrassment of culinary riches.Here you will find a restaurant to suit every taste.

It is worth pointing out that at the end of every August, there is a national Bank Holiday.This is when the whole of Notting Hill becomes the backdrop for the world-famous Notting Hill Carnival.During those three days, the whole neighbourhood shuts down, and the air is filled with colourful and boisterous street dancers and their musicians.

This is, without doubt, one of the most vibrant streets in the whole of London.It is well worth a visit on any weekend!

Green And Pleasant Land

This post contains photos from  locations  outside London .If you ever fancy a day out from the husle-and-bustle of London, you could do worse than going down to the lovely South  of England, especially the county of Sussex.

Both the picture at the top---of a scene from Rye--and the picture of Beachy Head, were taken by Eddie  Anderson, an old  friend of  mine.

You can view  more  of  Eddie's photos on his page: http://domus001.googlepages.com.

The most famous zebra crossing.

Every single day of the year hundreds of tourists  flock to  a  pedestrian crossing  in North-West London to pay homage to four of the most  famous musicians of the recent past----John, Paul, George and Ringo..

   Abbey  Road  Studios  was  where  they  made  most  of  their  records,  under  the  stewardship  of  George  Martin.

     The  walls  outside  the  studios  are  the  only  spot  in  London  where  nobody  gets  arrested  for  scribbling  or  spraying  graffiti  . Indeed,  there  is  so  much  of  the  stuff  that  the  record  company  managers  send  someone  out  once  every  few  weeks  to  whitewash  the  walls....They  are  soon  covered  up  by  new  messages.

     The  zebra  crossing  outside  the  studios  was  immotalised  on  the  front  cover  of  the  eponymous  "Abbey  Road"  album,  which  was  released  shortly  before  the  four  members  of  the  Beatles  split  up  and  went  their  separate  ways.

       It  has  been  about  three  decades  since  then,  but  the   flow  of  pilgrims  keep  flocking  to  this  corner  of  St. John's  Wood.   Thanks  to  them,  the  legend  will  never  die...

Abbey  Road