Wednesday 17 February 2010
Becoming British
An article in the Guardian yesterday on applying for British citizenship...I thought this fitted well with earlier entries in this blog.
Friday 22 January 2010
One Nation Under CCTV
Reposting permitted by the original author:
In recent years there has been frequent media coverage of the UK’s position as the “world leader in video and digital surveillance” [1], with more CCTV cameras per citizen than any other country [2]. Some of you may have seen a news item that came out in many newspapers a week or so before Christmas. This item was the announcement of a new report on CCTV in the Great Britain by Big Brother Watch [3]. This report brought together the various arguments against CCTV with a “definitive list of the number of CCTV cameras operated by Britain’s 428 local authorities” [4] obtained through Freedom of Information requests sent to every single local council in Great Britain. The report did not include “the many cameras controlled by private individuals and companies, by central government, on our nation’s motorways, or those controlled solely by Transport for London and situated on the bus, tube and tram network” [5].
Perhaps inevitably, the Big Brother Watch report has already inspired responses critical of its methodology and sceptical about its figures [6]. There have been similar responses to earlier widely circulated figures of one camera per 14 citizens in the UK [7], and ‘300’ being the number of times a Londoner appears on camera on a daily basis [8]. While it is right that these commentators should draw attention to the questionable accuracy of these statistics, in a sense their responses miss the point. Whether there is one camera per 14 citizens or perhaps only one per 10, the UK remains a world leader in CCTV surveillance. It was reported in 2009 that “over 6000 officials from 30 countries have come to learn lessons” from the underground CCTV room at Piccadilly Circus in central London [9], where “trained staff view more than a billion images taken on 100 cameras in a typical 12-hour shift” and are able to “manually manipulate cameras set high above storefronts, zooming in on a person’s face or a car’s license plate from well over 100 feet away” [10]. Presumably these 6000 officials were impressed neither by the figure 14 nor by the figure 300, but rather by the fact that the existence of this room is a concrete demonstration of both the capacity of the UK government to watch its people, and its eagerness to do so.
Apologists for CCTV surveillance often argue that it is an efficient and cost-effective way of reducing crime. However, there is a lot of evidence to suggest that this is not the case. A 2002 report by the National Association for the Care and Resettlement of Offenders noted that
“Three quarters of the Home Office Crime Prevention budget was spent on CCTV between 1996 and 1998, yet a comprehensive review has revealed the overall reduction in crime was only five per cent. A parallel systematic review carried out by the Home Office that looked at street lighting, however, found a highly significant reduction in crime of 20 per cent.” [11]
In 2005 a review of 13 CCTV projects by the Home Office Research, Development and Statistics Directorate reported that in the areas covered by these projects, “CCTV had a negligible effect on crime rates” [12].
The arguments against CCTV primarily revolve around privacy issues. Although cameras are not always switched on (they are often used merely as a deterrent rather than to record), there is always the possibility that ordinary, law-abiding citizens are being recorded carrying out innocent activities. More significantly though, CCTV has the potential to do more than merely record events in a space; CCTV can be used in discriminatory ways to track specific individuals. In 2006 the Surveillance Studies Network (SSN) reported that several British cities were already moving towards digital CCTV systems that “use computer algorithms to search automatically for stipulated people or behaviours” [13]. In this sense, Banksy’s maxim ‘One Nation Under CCTV’ [14] is misleading. We are not all equally subjected to CCTV surveillance; rather, the advent of systems such as those described by SSN provide a new mechanism for categorising people into ‘normal’ and ‘deviant’ populations and treating differently those that fall into the latter category. It is often argued that ‘innocent (i.e. normal) people have nothing to fear’, but the fact is that in a time of global War on Terror the definition of the normal and the deviant can change rapidly and in directions that many of us would not agree with. In addition, besides being used to track people of colour, Muslims, youths wearing hoodies, and so on, CCTV can and has been used to spy on young women, for example by pointing the camera through their bedroom window [15-18].
With these points in mind we could perhaps think of CCTV as an affront to liberal democracy, on the basis that the entire raison d’etre for liberal democracy is the protection of the private property of the individual including the individual’s right to privacy. Alternatively we could draw parallels between CCTV and Foucault’s discussion of the Panopticon, a system of social control in which the very awareness of being under surveillance leads the individual to change his or her behaviour, to conform to the norms of society, to manage the self [19]. We could see CCTV as part of the shift from disciplinary societies to societies of control [20], in which “mobility goes hand-in-hand with traceability” such that you can move only if you are willing to leave traces of your position and of what you are doing, whether it be licit or illicit [21]. Whichever way you look at it, we seem to be sleep-walking into a system that nobody has voted for, that does not seem to achieve what the government tell us it will achieve, and that raises important questions about real and ideal relationships between public and private, individual and society, the people and the state.
It would seem that it is time to wake up, to take action. What can you do? 1. For all its limitations, looking at the methodology of the Big Brother Watch report is a start. You can submit Freedom of Information requests. However, Freedom of Information won’t help if you want to approach particular private individuals and companies about their usage of CCTV. Here there are other laws which may be usefully deployed; for example, the Data Protection Act 1998 [22, 23] and the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000 [24]. 2. CCTV cameras can be destroyed, although this would of course be regarded as a criminal act and consequently this author cannot condone such action. A website exists to provide information on how to do this most effectively and without being caught [25], and Mike Davis offers encouragement [26]. 3. ‘Video sniffing’ is a term used to describe a methodology of legally hacking CCTV footage [27, 28]. 4. Subvert the cameras by playing to them [29]. 5. We need to initiate a public debate on CCTV. That doesn’t mean another review by a government committee, another report by a watchdog organisation like Big Brother Watch, or another newspaper article reacting or responding to one of these reviews or reports. Unless we can start an engagement with the issue that is deeper and more sustained than our Attention-Deficit-Hyperactivity-Disorder media will allow, we are going to keep heading in the same direction we are currently going. One step in the direction of such an engagement would be to organise a public meeting on the issue [30]. 6. Here’s another: I will soon be setting up a CCTV wiki to build up information and photos on CCTV, and anyone who wants to add to this is most welcome. 7. There is a protest organised by No Borders Network in January [31].
1. Liberty (undated) “Closed Circuit Television – CCTV”, http://www.liberty-human-rights.org.uk/issues/3-privacy/32-cctv/index.shtml
2. Paul Lewis (2009) “Every step you take”, The Guardian, 2 March 2009, http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2009/mar/02/westminster-cctv-system-privacy
3. Sky News (2009) “‘Big Brother’ Councils Treble CCTV Cameras”, Sky News, 18 December 2009, http://uk.news.yahoo.com/5/20091218/tuk-big-brother-councils-treble-cctv-cam-45dbed5.html
4. Big Brother Watch (2009) Big Brother Is Watching: The first comprehensive analysis of the number of CCTV cameras controlled by local authorities in Britain in 2009, http://www.bigbrotherwatch.org.uk/cctvreport.pdf, page 1
5. Big Brother Watch, Big Brother Is Watching, page 1
6. Tom Reeve (2009) “The real cost – and value – of CCTV”, The Guardian, 22 December 2009, http://www.channel4.com/news/articles/society/factcheck+how+many+cctv+cameras/2291167
7. Channel 4 News (2008) “FactCheck: how many CCTV cameras?”, http://www.channel4.com/news/articles/society/factcheck+how+many+cctv+cameras/2291167
8. David Aaronovitch (2009) “The strange case of the surveillance cameras”, The Times, March 3 2009, http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/david_aaronovitch/article5834725.ece
9. Paul Lewis, Every step you take
10. Jennifer Carlile (2004) “In Britain, somebody is watching you”, 14 September 2004, http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5942513
11. R. Armitage (2002) To CCTV or not to CCTV? National Association for the Care and Resettlemnt of Offenders (NACRO), May 2002, page 6
12. Gill and Spriggs (2005) Assessing the Impact of CCTV London: Home Office Research, Development and Statistics Directorate, cited in Big Brother Watch, Big Brother Is Watching, page 4
13. Surveillance Studies Network (2006) A Report on the Surveillance Society, http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/shared/bsp/hi/pdfs/02_11_06_surveillance.pdf, page 24
14. Mail Online (2008) “Graffiti artist Banksy pulls off most audacious stunt to date – despite being watched by CCTV”, The Daily Mail, 14 April 2008, http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-559547/Graffiti-artist-Banksy-pulls-audacious-stunt-date--despite-watched-CCTV.html
15. BBC News (2006) “Peeping Tom CCTV Workers Jailed”, Friday 13 January 2006, http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/merseyside/4609746.stm
16. Big Brother Watch (2009) “Are you being watched?”, 16 Dec 09, http://www.bigbrotherwatch.org.uk/home/2009/12/are-you-being-watched.html
17. Big Brother Watch, Big Brother Is Watching, pages 8-9
18. Big Brother Watch (2009) “Another example of CCTV abuse”, 18 Dec 09, http://www.bigbrotherwatch.org.uk/home/2009/12/another-example-of-cctv-abuse.html
19. Michel Foucault (1979) Discipline and Punish: the birth of the prison, trans. Alan Sheridan, Harmondsworth: Penguin Books
20. Gilles Deleuze (1990) “Postscript on the Society of Control”, October 59, Winter 1992, MIT Press, Cambridge, pages 3-7, http://www.n5m.org/n5m2/media/texts/deleuze.htm
21. Olga P Massanet (2009) “How do we move beyond ‘I’m being watched’?”, Mute Magazine, January 2009, http://thisisnotagateway.squarespace.com/storage/How%20Do%20We%20Move%20Beyond%20I%20Am%20Being%20Watched.pdf, pages 1-2
22. See the Information Commissioner’s Office website, http://www.ico.gov.uk/
23. Camera Watch (2008) “February 2008 Forum – Minutes Extract: CCTV Compliance – Legal Perspective”, http://www.camerawatch.org.uk/media/2163/cctv-legal-perspective.pdf
24. Liberty (undated) “Targeted Surveillance”, http://www.liberty-human-rights.org.uk/issues/3-privacy/targeted-surveillance/index.shtml
25. Schnews (undated) “Guide to Closed Circuit Television (CCTV) destruction”, http://www.schnews.org.uk/diyguide/guidetoclosedcircuittelevisioncctvdestruction.htm
26. Mike Davis (2007) “‘Resisting, Subverting and Destroying the Apparatus of Surveillance and Control’: An Interview with Mike Davis”, Voices of Resistance from Occupied London, March 2007, pages 16-19, http://zinelibrary.info/files/4138-resisting_subverting_and_destroying_0.pdf
27. Christopher Werth (2008) “To Watch The Watchers”, Newsweek, 10 October 2008, http://www.newsweek.com/id/163113/output/print
28. Ambient Information Systems (undated) “DIY tool kit”, http://www.ambienttv.net/content/?q=node/389
29. Surveillance Camera Players (2008) “Someone to watch over me”, Youtube video uploaded 5 June 2008, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pkjuy6WVYD0
30. Olga P Massanet, “How do we move beyond ‘I’m being watched’?”
31. See No Borders website, http://london.noborders.org.uk/lifestooshort
In recent years there has been frequent media coverage of the UK’s position as the “world leader in video and digital surveillance” [1], with more CCTV cameras per citizen than any other country [2]. Some of you may have seen a news item that came out in many newspapers a week or so before Christmas. This item was the announcement of a new report on CCTV in the Great Britain by Big Brother Watch [3]. This report brought together the various arguments against CCTV with a “definitive list of the number of CCTV cameras operated by Britain’s 428 local authorities” [4] obtained through Freedom of Information requests sent to every single local council in Great Britain. The report did not include “the many cameras controlled by private individuals and companies, by central government, on our nation’s motorways, or those controlled solely by Transport for London and situated on the bus, tube and tram network” [5].
Perhaps inevitably, the Big Brother Watch report has already inspired responses critical of its methodology and sceptical about its figures [6]. There have been similar responses to earlier widely circulated figures of one camera per 14 citizens in the UK [7], and ‘300’ being the number of times a Londoner appears on camera on a daily basis [8]. While it is right that these commentators should draw attention to the questionable accuracy of these statistics, in a sense their responses miss the point. Whether there is one camera per 14 citizens or perhaps only one per 10, the UK remains a world leader in CCTV surveillance. It was reported in 2009 that “over 6000 officials from 30 countries have come to learn lessons” from the underground CCTV room at Piccadilly Circus in central London [9], where “trained staff view more than a billion images taken on 100 cameras in a typical 12-hour shift” and are able to “manually manipulate cameras set high above storefronts, zooming in on a person’s face or a car’s license plate from well over 100 feet away” [10]. Presumably these 6000 officials were impressed neither by the figure 14 nor by the figure 300, but rather by the fact that the existence of this room is a concrete demonstration of both the capacity of the UK government to watch its people, and its eagerness to do so.
Apologists for CCTV surveillance often argue that it is an efficient and cost-effective way of reducing crime. However, there is a lot of evidence to suggest that this is not the case. A 2002 report by the National Association for the Care and Resettlement of Offenders noted that
“Three quarters of the Home Office Crime Prevention budget was spent on CCTV between 1996 and 1998, yet a comprehensive review has revealed the overall reduction in crime was only five per cent. A parallel systematic review carried out by the Home Office that looked at street lighting, however, found a highly significant reduction in crime of 20 per cent.” [11]
In 2005 a review of 13 CCTV projects by the Home Office Research, Development and Statistics Directorate reported that in the areas covered by these projects, “CCTV had a negligible effect on crime rates” [12].
The arguments against CCTV primarily revolve around privacy issues. Although cameras are not always switched on (they are often used merely as a deterrent rather than to record), there is always the possibility that ordinary, law-abiding citizens are being recorded carrying out innocent activities. More significantly though, CCTV has the potential to do more than merely record events in a space; CCTV can be used in discriminatory ways to track specific individuals. In 2006 the Surveillance Studies Network (SSN) reported that several British cities were already moving towards digital CCTV systems that “use computer algorithms to search automatically for stipulated people or behaviours” [13]. In this sense, Banksy’s maxim ‘One Nation Under CCTV’ [14] is misleading. We are not all equally subjected to CCTV surveillance; rather, the advent of systems such as those described by SSN provide a new mechanism for categorising people into ‘normal’ and ‘deviant’ populations and treating differently those that fall into the latter category. It is often argued that ‘innocent (i.e. normal) people have nothing to fear’, but the fact is that in a time of global War on Terror the definition of the normal and the deviant can change rapidly and in directions that many of us would not agree with. In addition, besides being used to track people of colour, Muslims, youths wearing hoodies, and so on, CCTV can and has been used to spy on young women, for example by pointing the camera through their bedroom window [15-18].
With these points in mind we could perhaps think of CCTV as an affront to liberal democracy, on the basis that the entire raison d’etre for liberal democracy is the protection of the private property of the individual including the individual’s right to privacy. Alternatively we could draw parallels between CCTV and Foucault’s discussion of the Panopticon, a system of social control in which the very awareness of being under surveillance leads the individual to change his or her behaviour, to conform to the norms of society, to manage the self [19]. We could see CCTV as part of the shift from disciplinary societies to societies of control [20], in which “mobility goes hand-in-hand with traceability” such that you can move only if you are willing to leave traces of your position and of what you are doing, whether it be licit or illicit [21]. Whichever way you look at it, we seem to be sleep-walking into a system that nobody has voted for, that does not seem to achieve what the government tell us it will achieve, and that raises important questions about real and ideal relationships between public and private, individual and society, the people and the state.
It would seem that it is time to wake up, to take action. What can you do? 1. For all its limitations, looking at the methodology of the Big Brother Watch report is a start. You can submit Freedom of Information requests. However, Freedom of Information won’t help if you want to approach particular private individuals and companies about their usage of CCTV. Here there are other laws which may be usefully deployed; for example, the Data Protection Act 1998 [22, 23] and the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000 [24]. 2. CCTV cameras can be destroyed, although this would of course be regarded as a criminal act and consequently this author cannot condone such action. A website exists to provide information on how to do this most effectively and without being caught [25], and Mike Davis offers encouragement [26]. 3. ‘Video sniffing’ is a term used to describe a methodology of legally hacking CCTV footage [27, 28]. 4. Subvert the cameras by playing to them [29]. 5. We need to initiate a public debate on CCTV. That doesn’t mean another review by a government committee, another report by a watchdog organisation like Big Brother Watch, or another newspaper article reacting or responding to one of these reviews or reports. Unless we can start an engagement with the issue that is deeper and more sustained than our Attention-Deficit-Hyperactivity-Disorder media will allow, we are going to keep heading in the same direction we are currently going. One step in the direction of such an engagement would be to organise a public meeting on the issue [30]. 6. Here’s another: I will soon be setting up a CCTV wiki to build up information and photos on CCTV, and anyone who wants to add to this is most welcome. 7. There is a protest organised by No Borders Network in January [31].
1. Liberty (undated) “Closed Circuit Television – CCTV”, http://www.liberty-human-rights.org.uk/issues/3-privacy/32-cctv/index.shtml
2. Paul Lewis (2009) “Every step you take”, The Guardian, 2 March 2009, http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2009/mar/02/westminster-cctv-system-privacy
3. Sky News (2009) “‘Big Brother’ Councils Treble CCTV Cameras”, Sky News, 18 December 2009, http://uk.news.yahoo.com/5/20091218/tuk-big-brother-councils-treble-cctv-cam-45dbed5.html
4. Big Brother Watch (2009) Big Brother Is Watching: The first comprehensive analysis of the number of CCTV cameras controlled by local authorities in Britain in 2009, http://www.bigbrotherwatch.org.uk/cctvreport.pdf, page 1
5. Big Brother Watch, Big Brother Is Watching, page 1
6. Tom Reeve (2009) “The real cost – and value – of CCTV”, The Guardian, 22 December 2009, http://www.channel4.com/news/articles/society/factcheck+how+many+cctv+cameras/2291167
7. Channel 4 News (2008) “FactCheck: how many CCTV cameras?”, http://www.channel4.com/news/articles/society/factcheck+how+many+cctv+cameras/2291167
8. David Aaronovitch (2009) “The strange case of the surveillance cameras”, The Times, March 3 2009, http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/david_aaronovitch/article5834725.ece
9. Paul Lewis, Every step you take
10. Jennifer Carlile (2004) “In Britain, somebody is watching you”, 14 September 2004, http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5942513
11. R. Armitage (2002) To CCTV or not to CCTV? National Association for the Care and Resettlemnt of Offenders (NACRO), May 2002, page 6
12. Gill and Spriggs (2005) Assessing the Impact of CCTV London: Home Office Research, Development and Statistics Directorate, cited in Big Brother Watch, Big Brother Is Watching, page 4
13. Surveillance Studies Network (2006) A Report on the Surveillance Society, http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/shared/bsp/hi/pdfs/02_11_06_surveillance.pdf, page 24
14. Mail Online (2008) “Graffiti artist Banksy pulls off most audacious stunt to date – despite being watched by CCTV”, The Daily Mail, 14 April 2008, http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-559547/Graffiti-artist-Banksy-pulls-audacious-stunt-date--despite-watched-CCTV.html
15. BBC News (2006) “Peeping Tom CCTV Workers Jailed”, Friday 13 January 2006, http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/merseyside/4609746.stm
16. Big Brother Watch (2009) “Are you being watched?”, 16 Dec 09, http://www.bigbrotherwatch.org.uk/home/2009/12/are-you-being-watched.html
17. Big Brother Watch, Big Brother Is Watching, pages 8-9
18. Big Brother Watch (2009) “Another example of CCTV abuse”, 18 Dec 09, http://www.bigbrotherwatch.org.uk/home/2009/12/another-example-of-cctv-abuse.html
19. Michel Foucault (1979) Discipline and Punish: the birth of the prison, trans. Alan Sheridan, Harmondsworth: Penguin Books
20. Gilles Deleuze (1990) “Postscript on the Society of Control”, October 59, Winter 1992, MIT Press, Cambridge, pages 3-7, http://www.n5m.org/n5m2/media/texts/deleuze.htm
21. Olga P Massanet (2009) “How do we move beyond ‘I’m being watched’?”, Mute Magazine, January 2009, http://thisisnotagateway.squarespace.com/storage/How%20Do%20We%20Move%20Beyond%20I%20Am%20Being%20Watched.pdf, pages 1-2
22. See the Information Commissioner’s Office website, http://www.ico.gov.uk/
23. Camera Watch (2008) “February 2008 Forum – Minutes Extract: CCTV Compliance – Legal Perspective”, http://www.camerawatch.org.uk/media/2163/cctv-legal-perspective.pdf
24. Liberty (undated) “Targeted Surveillance”, http://www.liberty-human-rights.org.uk/issues/3-privacy/targeted-surveillance/index.shtml
25. Schnews (undated) “Guide to Closed Circuit Television (CCTV) destruction”, http://www.schnews.org.uk/diyguide/guidetoclosedcircuittelevisioncctvdestruction.htm
26. Mike Davis (2007) “‘Resisting, Subverting and Destroying the Apparatus of Surveillance and Control’: An Interview with Mike Davis”, Voices of Resistance from Occupied London, March 2007, pages 16-19, http://zinelibrary.info/files/4138-resisting_subverting_and_destroying_0.pdf
27. Christopher Werth (2008) “To Watch The Watchers”, Newsweek, 10 October 2008, http://www.newsweek.com/id/163113/output/print
28. Ambient Information Systems (undated) “DIY tool kit”, http://www.ambienttv.net/content/?q=node/389
29. Surveillance Camera Players (2008) “Someone to watch over me”, Youtube video uploaded 5 June 2008, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pkjuy6WVYD0
30. Olga P Massanet, “How do we move beyond ‘I’m being watched’?”
31. See No Borders website, http://london.noborders.org.uk/lifestooshort
Wednesday 14 October 2009
Nostalgia
Approaching my office along a 5th floor SOAS corridor, I paused outside the door because I could hear someone playing a stringed instrument and singing in a room nearby. This wasn't a surprise; SOAS's 5th floor houses both anthropologists and ethnomusicologists. But it reminded me forcefully of when I was 15 and a small group of guitarists at my school would sneak into the school music practice rooms to play and teach each other songs and riffs on rainy lunchtimes. We sneaked because we believed (correctly or incorrectly) that we were not entitled to use those practice rooms as they were reserved for use by 'musos', students who wanted to seriously practice classical music, and we were trying to play songs by Nirvana, The Offspring, Green Day, Radiohead. In our hunt for rooms to sneak into we would pause outside each practice room door for a few seconds to try to figure out if a muso student and/or a music teacher was inside. Sometimes we opened the door to find that we had misinterpreted silence and then we would apologise and move on; other times we opened the door immediately, having heard the sound of energetically strummed powerchords from way down the corridor and knowing that it could only be one or more of our little group that has always been and always will until the end.
Turning this into a brief post and trying to think of an appropriate title for it led me back to Milan Kundera's novel Ignorance (2003), to which I was exposed when a literature PhD student presented a paper on it in 2005 or 6. Kundera reminds us that nostalgia is really a kind of pain in response to knowing two things at once: that there is something or somewhere to which you would like to return, and that return to that thing or place is impossible. I doubt that at the time I read Ignorance I had ever really felt that pain as I do now, or understood that - as Kundera notes - the return is impossible precisely because the thing or place is no longer as you remember it to have been, and in fact to some extent it was never as you now remember it.
Turning this into a brief post and trying to think of an appropriate title for it led me back to Milan Kundera's novel Ignorance (2003), to which I was exposed when a literature PhD student presented a paper on it in 2005 or 6. Kundera reminds us that nostalgia is really a kind of pain in response to knowing two things at once: that there is something or somewhere to which you would like to return, and that return to that thing or place is impossible. I doubt that at the time I read Ignorance I had ever really felt that pain as I do now, or understood that - as Kundera notes - the return is impossible precisely because the thing or place is no longer as you remember it to have been, and in fact to some extent it was never as you now remember it.
Monday 21 September 2009
When was the last time you wore one of these?
Today, Monday, I boarded an overground train heading into central London at noon. At that time on a weekday, bicycles are permitted on these trains as far as Finsbury Park. I had mine with me, so I stood near the doors with it rather than sit down on a seat. Looking around, my eyes settled on a tall seated black man. He had a big beard and a flat cap on. He caught my eye and I looked away.
A few stations later he came and stood next to me. I became aware of his outfit. He wore a knee-length black coat with large lapels, a white linen shirt, dark trousers and pointy leather boots that looked like they had walked many miles. I stared at them. Then I noticed he was carrying a thick wooden staff with two short, celtic-like curls of silvery metal wrapped round it, one at knee-height and one at the top, just above waist-height.
My eyes were dragged up to meet his when he asked, "When was the last time you wore one of these?" In his hand he was holding a tie. "A while," I said. "What's your profession?" he asked. "I'm a professional student," I said. "And when you finish that, will you go into a profession which requires you to wear a tie?" I answered that I wasn't sure but it was a definite possibility. "I may have to shave off my beard too," I added. He suggested that a tie is so-called because it ties you to your desk, to the supermarket you visit after work, and then to your home, and then back to your desk again in the morning. I replied that a tie isn't a tie, it's a noose. He smiled at that. "What's your profession?" I asked. "I'm a designer," he said. "I don't wear ties. I just found this one." I asked him the last time he wore a tie. "A while," he said.
"Do you read books?" he asked suddenly. I said yes. "Go into Waterstones and have a look at the Koran sometime," he said. "See what all the fuss is about. Don't rely on what the people tell you."
It suddenly occurred to me that when he looked at me he wasn't seeing a fellow member of a counterculture. He was looking at a white youth who he had caught in the act of staring, and had assumed, correctly, that the thought "black, bearded, possibly muslim...terrorist?" had gone through the mind of that youth.
The next station was mine. I got off the train. "Go safely," he said.
A few stations later he came and stood next to me. I became aware of his outfit. He wore a knee-length black coat with large lapels, a white linen shirt, dark trousers and pointy leather boots that looked like they had walked many miles. I stared at them. Then I noticed he was carrying a thick wooden staff with two short, celtic-like curls of silvery metal wrapped round it, one at knee-height and one at the top, just above waist-height.
My eyes were dragged up to meet his when he asked, "When was the last time you wore one of these?" In his hand he was holding a tie. "A while," I said. "What's your profession?" he asked. "I'm a professional student," I said. "And when you finish that, will you go into a profession which requires you to wear a tie?" I answered that I wasn't sure but it was a definite possibility. "I may have to shave off my beard too," I added. He suggested that a tie is so-called because it ties you to your desk, to the supermarket you visit after work, and then to your home, and then back to your desk again in the morning. I replied that a tie isn't a tie, it's a noose. He smiled at that. "What's your profession?" I asked. "I'm a designer," he said. "I don't wear ties. I just found this one." I asked him the last time he wore a tie. "A while," he said.
"Do you read books?" he asked suddenly. I said yes. "Go into Waterstones and have a look at the Koran sometime," he said. "See what all the fuss is about. Don't rely on what the people tell you."
It suddenly occurred to me that when he looked at me he wasn't seeing a fellow member of a counterculture. He was looking at a white youth who he had caught in the act of staring, and had assumed, correctly, that the thought "black, bearded, possibly muslim...terrorist?" had gone through the mind of that youth.
The next station was mine. I got off the train. "Go safely," he said.
Tuesday 4 August 2009
The Visitor
Another rainy day KPA coffee. This time accompanied by The Times. One article on changing immigration policy (1) prompted me to write this blog entry. Thomas McCarthy's film The Visitor (2007) was also an inspiration. I think anyone who has ever commented on immigration policy should watch this film.
The last time I flew from Stansted was with my university windsurfing club at the end of the hot summer of 2004. We were off to Vassiliki on the Greek island of Lekada for a week of sleeping-in, afternoon windsurfing, and nights of ouzo-fuelled dancing. I reached the airport late at night before the trains stopped running, and then snoozed on the floor and chatted vaguely about alcohol and existentialism with the other windsurfers until check-in opened for our early morning flight.
It is presumably for the benefit of the large numbers of travellers taking cheap early morning flights that Stansted dims the lights at night. Yet even though I realised this as I flew into Stansted at midnight a few days ago, I still felt uneasy about the semi-darkness surrounding my fellow passengers and I as we waited to get through immigration. Although we were organised into queues, looking around it was hard to see gaps between the queues, giving the impression of a vast and chaotic crowd of mostly silent and half-asleep people. Ahead of us were the immigration desks, each of them eerily lit by a single white light that focused on the place where a passport would be examined, leaving the immigration officer and the immigrant in semi-darkness. Above us, a vast sign: UK Border. I had a sudden sense that although my feet were on the ground, I was not in Britain yet; I was still outside.
When I reached the immigration desk, the officer scanned my passport and asked, "Where are you travelling from?" I had slept on the flight, and was not fully awake. I opened my mouth but my brain did not immediately engage. Eventually I was able to blurt out "Berlin". The officer smiled sympathetically. "It's that time of night, isn't it." She returned my passport and I crossed the border.
Thinking back to this moment, I recall an article in The Guardian a couple of months ago that described the working life of an immigration officer at Heathrow (2). What had particularly struck me about the article was the description of the psychology involved in 'trying to weed out suspicious passengers'. I wonder how much difference it would make if I was not a white man with a British passport unable to answer the question "Where are you travelling from?" but was instead an Asian woman with a non-British passport. Would I find myself faced with further questions, for example the question "Are you coming into the UK to marry an English man?" which a Korean friend on a student visa faced recently.
I stumbled out of the airport and found the bus that would take me to the car park where my car was parked. On the bus I overheard an irritated English man comparing what he had just experienced with the UK Border Agency with what he had experienced at his holiday destination. "In Rome they just looked at the passport and waved us through. Why do they need to ask us here where we're coming from? When they scan the passport they'll know, won't they?"
I think I need to educate myself further about the new UK Border Agency, formed in April 2008 (3). The UK border is changing rapidly; the border is not only becoming harder to cross but - as today's Times article suggests - is imposing new and vague restrictions on those who do cross it. In the process, we are further institutionalising a divide in society between citizens with full rights and those who have far fewer rights because they are not citizens. We may disagree about whether this division is just, and if it is just, then how it should be managed. One - of many - groups that has strong views and a lot of information on these questions is No Borders (4). Maybe some of us would take different positions on these questions if we knew more about what is going on at our borders today, and if we were able to see that those who are trying to enter our country are humans, just like us. Thomas McCarthy's film is powerful precisely because it reminds us of this.
References:
1. Ford, Richard (2009) "Anti-war migrants could damage citizenship hopes", The Times, August 4, 2009 http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/politics/article6737429.ece
2. Snowdon, Graham (2009) "Stamp Duty", The Guardian, June 27, 2009 http://www.guardian.co.uk/money/2009/jun/27/immigration-officer-heathrow
3. UK Border Agency website, http://www.bia.homeoffice.gov.uk/aboutus/
4. No Borders website, http://www.noborders.org.uk/
The last time I flew from Stansted was with my university windsurfing club at the end of the hot summer of 2004. We were off to Vassiliki on the Greek island of Lekada for a week of sleeping-in, afternoon windsurfing, and nights of ouzo-fuelled dancing. I reached the airport late at night before the trains stopped running, and then snoozed on the floor and chatted vaguely about alcohol and existentialism with the other windsurfers until check-in opened for our early morning flight.
It is presumably for the benefit of the large numbers of travellers taking cheap early morning flights that Stansted dims the lights at night. Yet even though I realised this as I flew into Stansted at midnight a few days ago, I still felt uneasy about the semi-darkness surrounding my fellow passengers and I as we waited to get through immigration. Although we were organised into queues, looking around it was hard to see gaps between the queues, giving the impression of a vast and chaotic crowd of mostly silent and half-asleep people. Ahead of us were the immigration desks, each of them eerily lit by a single white light that focused on the place where a passport would be examined, leaving the immigration officer and the immigrant in semi-darkness. Above us, a vast sign: UK Border. I had a sudden sense that although my feet were on the ground, I was not in Britain yet; I was still outside.
When I reached the immigration desk, the officer scanned my passport and asked, "Where are you travelling from?" I had slept on the flight, and was not fully awake. I opened my mouth but my brain did not immediately engage. Eventually I was able to blurt out "Berlin". The officer smiled sympathetically. "It's that time of night, isn't it." She returned my passport and I crossed the border.
Thinking back to this moment, I recall an article in The Guardian a couple of months ago that described the working life of an immigration officer at Heathrow (2). What had particularly struck me about the article was the description of the psychology involved in 'trying to weed out suspicious passengers'. I wonder how much difference it would make if I was not a white man with a British passport unable to answer the question "Where are you travelling from?" but was instead an Asian woman with a non-British passport. Would I find myself faced with further questions, for example the question "Are you coming into the UK to marry an English man?" which a Korean friend on a student visa faced recently.
I stumbled out of the airport and found the bus that would take me to the car park where my car was parked. On the bus I overheard an irritated English man comparing what he had just experienced with the UK Border Agency with what he had experienced at his holiday destination. "In Rome they just looked at the passport and waved us through. Why do they need to ask us here where we're coming from? When they scan the passport they'll know, won't they?"
I think I need to educate myself further about the new UK Border Agency, formed in April 2008 (3). The UK border is changing rapidly; the border is not only becoming harder to cross but - as today's Times article suggests - is imposing new and vague restrictions on those who do cross it. In the process, we are further institutionalising a divide in society between citizens with full rights and those who have far fewer rights because they are not citizens. We may disagree about whether this division is just, and if it is just, then how it should be managed. One - of many - groups that has strong views and a lot of information on these questions is No Borders (4). Maybe some of us would take different positions on these questions if we knew more about what is going on at our borders today, and if we were able to see that those who are trying to enter our country are humans, just like us. Thomas McCarthy's film is powerful precisely because it reminds us of this.
References:
1. Ford, Richard (2009) "Anti-war migrants could damage citizenship hopes", The Times, August 4, 2009 http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/politics/article6737429.ece
2. Snowdon, Graham (2009) "Stamp Duty", The Guardian, June 27, 2009 http://www.guardian.co.uk/money/2009/jun/27/immigration-officer-heathrow
3. UK Border Agency website, http://www.bia.homeoffice.gov.uk/aboutus/
4. No Borders website, http://www.noborders.org.uk/
Monday 20 July 2009
CCR vs. CSS?
This is a tough one. Who wins? Depends on context, I reckon. In Bert's car with the speakers cranked up to some level below maximum, it's got to be CCR, and preferably Suzie Q at that. Standing at the bus stop opposite the KPA (1) waiting for the nightbus and listening to the music from the union with my arms round my girlfriend and a silly hat on - it's going to be CSS every time. Let's make love and listen death from above.
So really it depends on your mode of transportation. Soon I will become owner of my mum's car (2). Then I'll presumably need to find a new acronym.
References:
1. Mambotango (2009) "I read the news today...", a blog entry in the Never Settle blog, http://mambotangoneversettle.blogspot.com/2009/06/i-read-news-todaykpa-expose.html
2. Mambotango (2009) "The market for lemons", a blog entry in the Never Settle blog,
http://mambotangoneversettle.blogspot.com/2009/06/market-for-lemons.html
So really it depends on your mode of transportation. Soon I will become owner of my mum's car (2). Then I'll presumably need to find a new acronym.
References:
1. Mambotango (2009) "I read the news today...", a blog entry in the Never Settle blog, http://mambotangoneversettle.blogspot.com/2009/06/i-read-news-todaykpa-expose.html
2. Mambotango (2009) "The market for lemons", a blog entry in the Never Settle blog,
http://mambotangoneversettle.blogspot.com/2009/06/market-for-lemons.html
Wednesday 8 July 2009
shuffle
This post is about being my own boss.
I have good days and bad days, good weeks and bad weeks. Last week was good, very productive, very focused, ordered, structured, etc. But I kept working at that demonic pace until Sunday night and then cracked; lost the rhythm, the beat of the work and, as a result, self-confidence. Since then I've been struggling to get back into that beat or to find a new one. Yesterday I thought I might be finding a new one but this morning it was gone again and I struggled to get out of the house and onto my bike. When I finally did, my MP3 player assisted with the final, Sisyphean hill one has to go up before Keele (the one where people at the top throw rocks down on you as you climb (1)). Shuffle: Jeff Buckley "Everybody Here Wants You", Sublime "KRS-One", Son House "Grinning In Your Face", Gym Class Heroes "7 Weeks". So good I had to blog it. Now I have to try to crack the whip over my own head; but at least I have my teachers (the first three of these tracks) to give me some perspective on what I'm doing, and my fieldwork assistant/soundtrack ("7 Weeks") as a reminder of exactly why we did it to begin with.
References:
1. Dick, Philip K. (1982) Blade Runner: Do androids dream of electric sheep? New York: Ballantine
I have good days and bad days, good weeks and bad weeks. Last week was good, very productive, very focused, ordered, structured, etc. But I kept working at that demonic pace until Sunday night and then cracked; lost the rhythm, the beat of the work and, as a result, self-confidence. Since then I've been struggling to get back into that beat or to find a new one. Yesterday I thought I might be finding a new one but this morning it was gone again and I struggled to get out of the house and onto my bike. When I finally did, my MP3 player assisted with the final, Sisyphean hill one has to go up before Keele (the one where people at the top throw rocks down on you as you climb (1)). Shuffle: Jeff Buckley "Everybody Here Wants You", Sublime "KRS-One", Son House "Grinning In Your Face", Gym Class Heroes "7 Weeks". So good I had to blog it. Now I have to try to crack the whip over my own head; but at least I have my teachers (the first three of these tracks) to give me some perspective on what I'm doing, and my fieldwork assistant/soundtrack ("7 Weeks") as a reminder of exactly why we did it to begin with.
References:
1. Dick, Philip K. (1982) Blade Runner: Do androids dream of electric sheep? New York: Ballantine
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