We Dare To Defend Our Rights
Riots are often sparked off by some deep seated social injustice. The Toxteth riots of 1981 emerged during a recession with high unemployment and deep rooted tensions between the local population and the police.
The Merseyside police force at the time had a particularly bad reputation in the area for stopping and searching black youths under the hated ‘sus’ laws. Chief constable Ken Oxford led a police force that regularly arrested and harassed black youth in Toxteth. His astonishing rants at the time speak volumes about the racism that permeated the police force then: “Policemen in general and detectives in particular, are not racialist, despite what many Black groups believe. … Yet they are the first to define the problem of half-castes in Liverpool. Many are the products of liaisons between black seamen and white prostitutes in Liverpool 8, the red-light district. Naturally, they do not grow up with any kind of recognizable home life. Worse still, after they have done the round of homes and institutions, they gradually realize they are nothing.”
The main image in the work below was built around a photograph I took of a demonstration calling for the resignation of the then Chief Constable Ken Oxford. Standing beneath the banner of the ‘Liverpool 8 Defence Committee’ the boy with the placard ‘We dare to defend our rights’ stared dirtectly into the camera. The police behind him were taken from a number of images from a demonstration I covered in 1985 organised by the Newham 7 campaign in East London.
Shortly after the above was photo was taken the police, carrying riot shields, swept the park and expelled everyone. I used one of the images taken shortly after this one for the police behind the boy.
This work will feature in ‘The Art Of Resistance’ summer show (details to follow).
World Streets (11)
World Streets (10)
Walking under the bridge in Brick Lane
I photographed the woman featured in the work below twice as she wandered slowly under the bridge in Brick Lane in 1983. I’ve returned to the two photographs a number of times to make a number of mixed media works. She strikes me as a woman who has experienced a great deal in her life and has many tales to to tell.
Not My King
I was born in 1953 the year of the coronation of the late Queen Elizabeth. As a child I was taught history that was awash with kings, queens and rich people. It was an entirely skewed and perverse form of history given the fact the majority of people who’ve inhabited the planet were none of the above. I was also brought up with the idea that ‘Brittania’ ruled or owned most of the world. We were brainwashed to believe the British ruled everywhere, invented most things and were generally superior to everyone else. It didn’t take long for me to realise that this was all bullshit.
In 1910 Irish freedom fighter and republican James Connolly in response to a visit of of King George V described the British monarchy in the following terms:
“All political and social positions should be open to all men and women. What is monarchy? From whence does it derive its sanction? What has been its gift to humanity? Monarchy is a survival of the tyranny imposed by the hand of greed and treachery upon the human race in the darkest and most ignorant days of our history. It derives its only sanction from the sword of the marauder, and the helplessness of the producer, and its gifts to humanity are unknown, save as they can be measured in the pernicious examples of triumphant and shameless iniquities.
Every class in society save royalty, and especially British royalty, has through some of its members contributed something to the elevation of the race. But neither in science, nor in art, nor in literature, nor in exploration, nor in mechanical invention, nor in humanising of laws, nor in any sphere of human activity has a representative of British royalty helped forward the moral, intellectual or material improvement of mankind. But that royal family has opposed every forward move, fought every reform, persecuted every patriot, and intrigued against every good cause. Slandering every friend of the people, it has befriended every oppressor. Eulogised today by misguided clerics, it has been notorious in history for the revolting nature of its crimes. Murder, treachery, adultery, incest, theft, perjury – every crime known to man has been committed by some one or other of the race of monarchs from whom King George is proud to trace his descent.”
The idea of an unelected head of state is ludicrous and the toxic sycophancy of the mainstream media around the coronation of King Charles demonstrates that democracy is not alive and well in the UK in 2023. The arrest of over 60 demonstrators illustrates the governments intention to suppress the right to protest with new powers to clamp down on peaceful demonstrations.
The coronation was a convenient diversion for the Tory government at a time when millions in the UK are suffering from poverty caused by a failing economic system that puts the pursuit of profit before the needs of society.
The site of an unelected head of state trundling through the streets of London in a gold coach with his unelected queen when homeless people are dying on the streets is surely a metaphor for the state of the UK today.
The photomontage below is my contribution to ‘The Big Help Out’. Vive la republique!
