This is a chapter in a book published in 2009 which chronicles the so-called riots in Britain, usually led by black youth, since 1975. Although there are politicos who love the term ‘riot’, and admire the illustrious history of the so-called ‘mob’ in European history, this chapter argues that, sociologically, these events should be understood as ‘violent urban protest’ (rather than insurrections or uprisings, as I argued in the Big Flame journal Revolutionary Socialism in 1982). The events of the summer of 2011, despite their dubbing by my guru Zygmunt Bauman as the actions of ‘defective consumers’, still seem to me to fit within the concept of violent urban protest. The key question, I guess, is just what kind of a protest were they? This chapter might be useful background in the further analysis of the ‘riots’ of 2011.
Going to the cinema
Attack the Block (dir Joe Cornish 2011) was utterly wonderful – funny, touching and, apart from the man-eating, pheronome-seeking Cooky Monsters from outer space, completely believable. (TV download, 4th November)
Tyrannosaur (dir Paddy Considine, 2011) was MUCH better than the trailer suggested. Not at all the ’kind middle class lady reforms brutal working class man’ that I’d feared. Both are as fucked up as each other; both equally capable of change. I think. (3rd November, Cubby Broccoli, National Media Museum, Bradford)
We Need to Talk About Kevin (dir Lynne Ramsay, 2011) cuts back on the novel’s frighteningly intelligent dialogue between Kevin and his mother (brilliantly played here by Tilda Swinton) but powerfully illustrates Lionel Shriver’s excellent conceit: there is no certain explanation of why Kevin should decide to massacre his father, sister and class-mates. You can make some intelligent guesses, but as Kevin says in the closing frame: “When I did it, I thought I knew why. Now I’m not so sure.” (20th October, Hyde Park Picture House
Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy (dir Thomas Alfredson, 2011) is the most masculine film I’ve seen for a long time. The one woman with more than two lines (but not many more) gets summarily executed: perhaps she stands for all the women in John le Carré’s world of intrigue? Worth seeing for the furnishings, the halting homosexuality and the steady mounting of tension. (5th October, Hyde Park Picture House, Leeds)
Ben Wheatley’s Kill List (2011) starts well, moves into the killings quite promisingly, and then descends into Dennis Wheatley’s absurd satanic not very shock-horror. (21st September 2011, Hyde Park Picture House, Leeds)
Current political/community activities
I’m a somnolent member of Advisory Board of Red Pepper http://www.redpepper.org.uk/ magazine, which, along with the journal Soundings http://www.lwbooks.co.uk/journals/soundings/reviews.html pretty well expresses where I stand. I continue to support local, radical campaigns when they emerge, and I am on the committee which organises the Taking Soundings discussion group in Leeds http://takingsoundingsleeds.blogspot.com/. I have been active in campaign to build a memorial to David Oluwale, commemorating his tragic death, thinking about those who are still condemned to destitution in Leeds, and searching for social justice in this cities which seems to shine until you scratch beneath its surface. Watch out for a new educational charity we are currently forming called The David Oluwale Memorial Association. I work with Together for Peace in Leeds (See http://www.t4p.org.uk/ ) and I am one of its Trustees. I support the Abraham Path Initiative in the Middle East (See http://www.abrahampath.org/about ) and I am a Trustee and Board member of the UK Friends of Abraham’s Path (Masar).
Public sociology
I support Michael Burawoy’s advocacy of ‘public sociology’ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_sociology In this spirit, I have helped organise events and conferences on the theme of new migrants, refugees and asylum in the UK. Proceedings of two of the conferences I co-organised can be downloaded here:
Can there be such a thing as a good asylum system?
Refugees Migrants Conference Proceedings
Big Flame
I joined the revolutionary socialist organisation Big Flame in 1975 and left around 1983-4, figuring the Thatcher had eliminated the space for the kind of libertarian, autonomous, social movement-oriented organisation I had put so much into, and learned so much from. Many of us left Big Flame at that time and the organisation ceased to function around 1985. I played a small part in writing the account produced by the Big Flame National Committee which appeared in Socialist Register in 1981. The article is available here.
‘Big Flame: Resituating Socialist Strategy and Organisation’ by John Howell
Download as .pdf file
The Socialist Register article underplays the distinctively libertarian elements in Big Flame and says even less about its links with the autonomist sections of the Italian far left in the 1970s. My article in Edinburgh Review (1989) on the Leeds Libertarian movement, from which the Leeds branch of Big Flame emerged, explains where my solidarity lies: with the anti-authoritarian, autonomous social movements .
The Libertarian Movements of the 1970s – What can we learn? By Max Farrar
Big Flame archive
My collection of Big Flame journals, pamphlets and internal discussion documents are deposited with the University of Leeds’ Brotherton library, in their special collections. To view these (and my other political documents of the 1970s, 80s and 90s) contact the Brotherton library at http://www.leeds.ac.uk/library/spcoll/.