Bristol TUC motion on the Bristol protests

March 30th 2021

Forwarded to NV by Dave Chapple

This Council strongly oppose the ill-conceived and dangerous Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill being proposed by the Home Secretary. To push through repressive legislation under the cover of the pandemic is awful politics and will make dreadful law. As it stands, the Bill seeks to:

· Erode fundamental rights of protest including vital trade union actions and activities that support working people

·

Draw false links between violence and the Black Lives Matter and Extinction Rebellion protests

·

Attack those marginalised from society, such as traveller communities and other minority groups

·

Create a fake ‘culture war’ where moves to establish a more tolerant and diverse society is somehow destroying our history.

We are saddened by the violent scenes in our city. As a trade union movement, we believe in the right for workers to be able to protest without police harassment or violence. We condemn the police violence towards peaceful demonstrators and members of the press. Furthermore, we note with concern the reports of police intimidation towards journalists as they are trying to carry out their job, as well as preventing independent media coverage. These incidents need to be fully independently investigated and those responsible held to account.

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‘Last Friday's behaviour by Police [in Bristol] was the most violent I have ever seen'

by KILL THE BILL PROTESTER, Wednesday Mar 31, 2021

I’ve been working in various roles in the community, youth and social sectors for around a decade, including the last four years in Bristol.

I have worked with some of the most disproportionately criminalised and marginalised communities including addicts, the homeless and vulnerably homed, refugees, travellers, juvenile detainees, mental health patients, young people in care, deprived/low-income neighbourhoods and BAME young people.

Although on occasion the police, as the only system we have, have supported me in these roles, they are often at best incompetent or ineffective and at worst actively harmful and violent.

I have seen how the defunding of youth and social sectors (who work at the roots of these issues) leads to an increase in crime and social issues, and believe that reallocating these funds away from the police would begin to effect long term positive change in our communities, rather than perpetuating crime and incarcerating people away from society.

As a queer person, and as a Jewish person, my identity intersects across two communities with a history of persecution at the hands of the state. I, like many other queer people, know the violence that the LGBT+ community has faced at the hands of the state and how riots such as Stonewall have been integral to our freedom and human rights. As a Jewish person, I can understand, from a specific perspective, the very real fear that people feel when the state begins to use police power to persecute minorities and ethnic groups.

So these, among other reasons, are my personal and professional reasons for opposing the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill and criticising the police.

You can read sources from much more knowledgeable people about the rights this bill would infringe, not just in terms of protesting but to the cultural rights and rituals of some of the UK’s most marginalised communities.

I attended the initial march on Sunday. Contrary to statements from the mayor and the “Bristol city leaders group” (many of whom are ironically not based in Bristol themselves) that the protest was made up of violent hooligans from outside the city, I’ve seen a much larger demographic.

I’ve met doctors, nurses, paramedics, youth workers, community leaders and teachers at the protests, all who are important parts of Bristol’s infrastructure and all of whom oppose the bill and remain critical of the actions of the police. People have been administering first aid and acting as legal observers – both essential for monitoring people’s safety, documenting injuries and unlawful behaviour and noting the actions of the police.

Despite being law abiding members of the public and essentially neutral bystanders at the protests, many of these people have been assaulted by police and remain in fear that they will be targeted or criminalised simply for monitoring legalities or tending to injuries (some very serious) inflicted by the police.

I had to work through part of the initial Sunday riots, but caught the end of the violence outside Bridewell. Contrary to the (now retracted) reports of police injuries, medics have confirmed multiple serious injuries inflicted by police on protestors that night, many of which are soon to be reported in an official capacity.

I had to leave again on Tuesday’s College Green occupation, but was surprised and disgusted to hear that the conscientious and peaceful, mainly sitting, protesters I had left had been assaulted once again.

Last Friday’s behaviour from the police was the most violent I have ever seen. I followed the back of the police line from a distance, checking behind them for fallen and injured protesters.

Countless people lay on the floor injured, ranging from concussions and bruises to serious head wounds, dog bites and pepper spray-induced temporary blindness. There were many more injuries I didn’t witness directly but most of us will have seen the many videos documenting these.

On one occasion I sat with an autistic man who had been trying to reason with the police and calm the crowd behind him. He had been hit in the chest with a shield, then hit again as he tried to stand up and get out of the way. He’d then fallen back and hit his head and arm on the ground. He was in a state of shock, with a possible serious head injury.

As I was administering first aid we were shouted at and threatened by police (who at this point were waiting idly by as the main group of protesters were in the distance). One police officer smirked when I asked him what he thought of the injured protestor on the floor as he walked past. I’m only speaking from my own experience and what I saw, but there is evidence mounting that suggests this was not an isolated incident.

As we move forward, we have now seen the police change tactics. They have realised (and proved) that without heavy police presence, and weaponised riot officers, protests remain largely peaceful.

This should not be misconstrued as an apology though – they haven’t apologised or acknowledged the violence caused on Friday, and will now be using their lack of action at Tuesday’s protest to uphold their claims that they are enforcers of peace and justice, not perpetrators of violence and institutional injustice.

Remain cynical, and stay wary on Saturday’s march.

This account comes from a Kill the Bill protester and first aider who wishes to stay anonymous.

After statutes, is it book burning next?

Statue of Edward Colston Toppled by Protestors in Bristol

I well understand why some people in Bristol wanted to pull down the statue of the Tory slave trader, Edward Colston, and I won't lose any sleep over that . But where does the toppling of statues lead to?  Certainly, it will lead to counter protests from the far right defending the statues, and the far right demanding the removal of monuments connected with the left, such as that of Karl Marx, in Highgate Cemetery.  I believe it already gets regularly vandalised.

And are we going to have ritual book burnings next, of books that contain racist, sexist, imperialist, colonialist, transphobic, homophobic, themes?  If we do, authors like Dickens, Trollope, Orwell, Conrad, and Waugh, had better watch out.

This trying to turn the clock back in order to transplant modern views onto the past to rewrite history, can set a dangerous precedent.  Are we trying to bury the past, hide it, and sanitize it?   It's not just the English imperialist Cecil Rhodes that they want to remove after taking his scholarships for donkeys years, but there is also a campaign by feminists to remove a bust of Arthur Koestler, from Edinburgh University, because they've accused him of being a 'rapist'.  I gather that vegans and vegetarians are also trying  to get a statue of 'Cow Pie' Desperate Dan, removed in Dundee.

There are also demands to remove a statue of the journalist, explorer, Henry Morton Stanley, (real name John Rowlands), which was unveiled in Denbigh in March 2011. Robert Aldrich, his biographer, says Stanley's birth certificate describes him as a 'bastard' who was abandoned by his mother and family and dumped in the St Asaph Union Workhouse, for ten years from the aged of six to sixteen.  He emigrated to the US in 1859 aged 18, arriving in New Orleans, and after working in various jobs and having fought in the civil war, he became a journalist working for the New York Herald.

I watched the unveiling of his statue on youtube, and there was a delegation of black people from the Congo.  One of them said that they realised that the name of Stanley was controversial (he was accused of being a slave trader and of using indiscriminate cruelty against Africans, including shooting them, which is all true), but they came and spoke at the unveiling ceremony.  I also know that William Morris and members of the Socialist League wrote pamphlets against Stanley and demonstrated at meetings.

Stanley is best known for finding Dr Livingstone and the source of the Nile.  But he also worked as an agent for King Leopold II of Belgium.  It was the Afro-Arab slave trader Tippu Tip, that helped Stanley to find Livingstone.  It is said that on one occasion, Tippu Tip, raided 118 villages, killed 4,000 Africans, and had 2,300 slaves, mostly women and children, bound in chains and transported to the markets of Zanzibar.

As regards the question of slavery, it's not just whites like Colston who were slave traders.  We must not forget the Muslim Barbary pirates who abducted people to sell them in slave markets all the time and who felt it was their religious duty to do this to the infidel.  This went on for centuries and in 1631, they abducted 107 people from the little village of Baltimore, in West Cork, Ireland, for a life of slavery in Algiers.  Today, this is known as the 'Sack of Baltimore'.

And should we start a campaign to remove the plaque in Ashton to the famous travel writer, H.V. Morton, who was born in the town?  It is alleged that he was a Nazi sympathizer and an antisemite.  In a diary entry from February 1941, he confessed:

'I must say Nazi-ism has some fine qualities', and, 'I am appalled to discover how many of Hitler's theories appeal to me.'  Another diary entry describes the US as 'that craven nation of Jews and foreigners.'

Let me know what you think.

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When Edward Colston Plaque was ammended

THE Daily Telegraph reported on the 25 March 2019 that a plaque paying homage to the reputation of the 17th century merchant and Member of Parliament Edward Colston, under what was then his statue in Bristol has been scrapped after the Mayor complained it watered down his links to slavery.

In February, 2019 Bristol City Council agreed to affix a new plaque under the statue of the controversial figure, to inform visitors of the slave trafficking he was involved in.

The current plaque was made when the statue was erected in 1895.  It makes no mention of the slave trade and reads:  'Erected by citizens of Bristol as a memorial of one of the most virtuous and wise sons of their city'.
A new plaque was commissioned and made after debate.  Bristol historian Francis Greenacre, on behalf of the Merchant Venturers, the organisation Colston belonged to, made changes to it before it was sent to be cast.

For example, rather than writing that he 'trafficked' slaves, the proposed plaque read that he 'transported' them.

The inscription read:  
'He supported and endowed schools, almshouses, hospitals and churches in Bristol, London and elsewhere. Many of his charitable foundations continue. This statue was erected in 1895 to commemorate his philanthropy.
'A significant proportion of Colston’s wealth came from investments in slave trading, sugar and other slave-produced goods.

'As an official of the Royal African Company from 1680 to 1692, he was also involved in the transportation of approximately 84,000 enslaved African men, women and young children, of whom 19,000 died on voyages from West Africa to the Caribbean and the Americas.'

At that time the Mayor Marvin Rees deemed this 'unacceptable', and his office said in a statement:
'It was extremely naive of the Merchant Venturers to believe they should have the final say on the words for a new plaque for the statue of Edward Colston without reference to the communities of descendants of those Africans who were enslaved and treated as commodities by merchants like Colston.
'It’s an oversight to put it mildly not to even have had a conversation with Mayor Marvin Rees, Europe’s first mayor of African heritage and the mayor of a city whose wealth has been inseparable from slavery and plantations and who is himself the descendant of enslaved Africans.
'The proposed words are unacceptable. We will pick this back up as part of our wider work on improving our cultural offer around the transatlantic slave trade.'

Today however, following the dismantling of the Colston statue yesterday, the same Bristol Mayor Marvin Rees, while refusing to act as 'cheer leader' for the police inquiry into possible criminal damage over the dunking of the Colston statute in the Bristol Harbour, he did admit that he was not sorry to see the monument to Edward Colston was no longer in situ.  

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Bye bye Edward Colston!

Subject: BRISTOL COLSTON STATUE PULLED DOWN 

Momentum Bristol

@MomentumBristol

Bye bye Edward Colston! If anyone misses this statue they need to have a long hard think about their priorities. Slave traders are not heroes! #BlackLivesMatter

#BLMbristol #Bristol

Click on live link below to see video:

https://twitter.com/i/status/1269634408069435392

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Bristol Radical History Group

Two important events coming up....

Pauper Graves Memorial Unveiling - Avonview Cemetery, St George
Date: Wednesday 8th May, 2019
Time: 1.00pm
Location: Avonview Cemetery, Beaufort Road, St. George, Bristol, BS5 8EN
In 1972 the Eastville workhouse buildings (an elderly peoples home) at 100 Fishponds Road were demolished. Our research has shown that there was a crude disinterment of the workhouse burial ground during the demolition, with 167 boxes of large bones moved to unmarked common graves at Avonview Cemetery, St George. Thanks to donations from the Eastville Workhouse Memorial Group, the Church of England dioceses of Gloucester and Bristol and Bristol City Council a gravestone has been designed, carved and installed by local mason Matthew Billington. This will be a fitting end to a project which has both researched and memorialised the 4,084 inmates of Eastville workhouse who were hitherto forgotten. All welcome. More details here.

Book launch: Behind the Myth of Peter the Painter 
Date: Monday 3rd June, 2019
Time: 8.00pm
Venue: The Cube, Dove Street South, [off top-left of King Square], Kingsdown, Bristol BS2 8JD
Price: £5/£4, booking here
Bristol Radical History Group is excited to host the UK book launch of A Towering Flame: The Life and Times of the Elusive Latvian Anarchist Peter the Painter (published by Breviary Stuff Publications). The Houndsditch murders of three City of London policemen, and the ensuing “Siege of Sidney Street” on 3 January 1911, in which Latvian anarchists took on Winston Churchill and the British Army, have entered into East London folklore. But no one ever accounted for the mysterious Peter the Painter, the leader of the gang. This book has finally solved the mystery. Here for the first time is proof of the real identity of Peter the Painter; the amazing story of his life and revolutionary career; and of the hitherto unknown history of Latvian anarchism. The author, historian Philip Ruff, will present and talk about his book. There will then be a Q&A and discussion. More details here.

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Commemoration, Conflict & Conscience festival

THE full programme of events for the national Commemoration, Conflict & Conscience festival at M Shed (Saturday 27th - Sunday 28th April) and other venues in Bristol has been announced and can be viewed here. Highlights include Cyril Pearce, one of the foremost researchers into WW1 conscientious objectors, Janet Booth who has campaigned to clear the name of her grandfather who was shot for desertion, Piet Chielens of the 'In Flanders Field' museum and many others. On the evening of Saturday 27 April at the Southbank Club, Paul McGann will be in conversation about his appearance in the classic BBC TV series 'The Monocled Mutineer'. Two events happening over the next few days as part of the festival are:

Play: This Evil Thing 
Date: Sunday 21st April, 2019
Time: Performances, 3.30pm and 7.30pm
Venue: Crypt at St John the Baptist Church, Broad St, Bristol BS1 2EZ
Price: £11/£9, but need to book here. Note: spaces are left for the evening performance.
With: Michael Mears
This acclaimed solo play tells the compelling and inspiring story of Britain’s WW1 conscientious objectors. January 1916: Bert Brocklesby is a schoolteacher and preacher at his Methodist chapel; Bertrand Russell is one of the greatest philosophers of his time. With the advent of military conscription their worlds are about to be turned upside down. More details here.

Film showings: These Dangerous Women: Women who stood up for peace during and after the First World War
Date: Tuesday 23rd April, 2019
Time: 8.00pm
Venue: The Cube, Dove Street South, [off top-left of King Square], Kingsdown, Bristol BS2 8JD
Price: £5/£4, booking here
With: Michele Ryan, June Hannam
Thursday’s Child: Best remembered as a suffragette, Sylvia Pankhurst was also a passionate supporter of the Russian revolution, a founder of the British Communist Party and a talented visual artist. Narrated by Marxist historian Gwyn Williams.
These Dangerous Women: A drama-documentary on the women who tried to stop WW1. In 1915, 1,300 women from 12 warring and neutral nations got together in the Hague to find a way towards peace. More details here.

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Death of Anna Campbell of Bristol IWW

 NORTHERN VOICES wishes to note the tragic death of the Bristol IWW member Anna Campbell,  a 26 year-old plumber formerly from Lewes, East Sussex, who was killed by a Turkish air strike along with 100 other Y.P.J. volunteers on the 15th March.

We publish below the statement from her Bristol Branch

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IWW BRISTOL BRANCH STATEMENT:

It is with great sadness that we learn of the passing of Fellow Worker Anna Campbell, killed by Turkish forces while fighting alongside Kurdish Women’s Protection Units (YPJ) in the defence of Afrin.
 
Anna was a dedicated feminist, social justice and environmental campaigner known to members for her activism around the student occupation movement, ecological and community outreach projects in Bristol and Sheffield.  She was a key organiser in the IWW’s IWOC group, also being involved with the Empty Cages Collective, Smash IPP and Bristol ABC.

Anna travelled to Syria last May to participate in the grassroots feminist and socialist revolution that continues to grow in Rojava (the autonomous Kurdish region of northern Syria). Anna spent her first months in the country fighting in Deir ez-Zor, Isis’s last major stronghold. However when Turkey launched an assault on the city of Afrin in late January. Anna insisted that she be redeployed there. She gave her commanders an ultimatum, ‘Either I will go home and abandon the life as a revolutionary or you send me to Afrin. But I would never leave the revolution, so I will go to Afrin’.

A spokesperson from the YPJ said of Anna (who took the nom de guerre ‘Helîn’ in Rojava): “comrade Helîn will always be a symbol as a pioneering internationalist woman.  We will live up to her hope and beliefs. We will forever pursue her aim to struggle for women, for oppressed communities.”

Our thoughts and condolences are with Anna’s family, friends and comrades at this time.
Rest in Power Fellow Worker.

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Homeless Squat Eviction in Bristol

by Kevin 'B'

AT 2.30pm today (Friday 11th, August 2017),. I was on my way to Bristol Central Library and noticed a large crowd of people watching an Eviction.

The Police where there in Riot  Gear and lots of private Bailiffs with battering rams, night goggles to examine dark areas of the building etc..

'The Music Shop' on College Green closed a good while ago and has been discretely squatted.

The crowd which was mainly young students did not protest they just passively watched from the other side of the road.

I said to one group of students that don't you think its wrong to treat evicting homeless people as a public spectacle?

Homelessness is getting worse in Bristol because accommodation is expensive to rent. Social Housing is scarce.

Its not unusual for me to see 3 or 4 people sleeping on College Green during the daytime as its safer for them to do so. Safer than rough sleeping at night. 

Zero Tolerance and Simon Danczuk

By Les May

SIMON Danczuk’s remarks about beggars in Rochdale town centre, or as he would have it 'aggressive’ beggars, has predictably provoked quite a lot of moral outrage.

But to what extent can they be regarded merely as ‘alternative facts’?  Fortunately we don’t have to look far to get a picture of the reality of life for those who drink and/or beg in our streets.  And who better to provide it for us than Simon himself? 

Simon sees himself as something of an ‘expert’, because he was involved in research which was published by the homelessness charity ‘Crisis’ in 2000.  Now I have read his research, and I don’t think his recent comments can be said to follow from the data he collected.

In particular he seems to be promoting a ‘zero tolerance’ approach to begging, to be downplaying the lack of both overnight accommodation and the support needed to get people off the streets, and overemphasising the role of drug addiction. A dangerous ploy for someone who has admitted to the use of Ecstasy and Cannabis, and seems to have significant knowledge of the effects of alcohol.   

A memorandum submitted to the Home Affairs Committee by ‘Crisis’ in 2005 said:

‘Begging and street homelessness constitute two overlapping parts of a broader homelessness problem, "research from across England—including Manchester, Brighton, Leeds, Blackpool, Bristol, Chester, Leicester, Westminster, Woolwich and Luton has consistently found that the vast majority people begging are homeless".'

So what did Crisis have to say about Simon’s report?

This:

'It is the contention of the report that reliance upon police enforcement policies such as zero tolerance schemes are an inappropriate response to a complex problem' and 'Of all those surveyed, just over half had slept rough the previous night and four in five where vulnerably housed.'

Do I detect a shift to the right?  Or is it just that Simon’s own addiction is to self publicity?

You can find both the original report and the summary at the links below:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alternative_facts

http://www.crisis.org.uk/data/files/publications/Walk%20on%20By%20%28summary%29.pdf 

http://www.crisis.org.uk/data/files/document_library/research/walkonby_full.pdf 

http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200405/cmselect/cmhaff/80ii/80we15.htm

Bristol Radical History Group: Deserters!

Deserters, Conchies and Mutineers

Date: Saturday 15^th October, 2016

Time: 2:30pm to 5:30pm

Venue: Central Friends Meeting House, Champion Square, St Judes, Bristol BS2 9DB

Price: Donation

With: Julian Putkowski, Lois Bibbings and People’s Histreh
The Remembering the Real World War One Group have issued a programme of their events for Oct-Dec 2016. Entitled Resisting the War, the full programme with a downloadable guide is here.

 

THE stereotype of World War 1 soldiers dutifully marching to their deaths was always a conservative mirage. Only a handful of books have drawn attention to the hundreds of thousands of British soldiers and military auxiliaries who rebelled, mutinied and challenged their commanders and political masters during the war. Among the most notable historians of soldiers' opposition to the war is Julian Putkowski, author of several works including British Army Mutineers 1914-1922 (1998). Julian will consider the ringleaders and ‘reds in khaki’ who organised these revolts inviting debate about the social interpretation, political significance and leadership of these mutinous outbreaks. Resistance was also very much evident on the home front. Professor Lois Bibbings will talk about her long-standing work on conscientious objectors (Telling Tales About Men: Conceptions of Conscientious Objectors to Military Service During the First World War (2009)), focusing on the different motivations of COs and on the legal-military machine which they opposed. Returning to mutiny, the Nottingham based People’s Histreh group will present their research into members of the Sherwood Foresters regiment who were sentenced to death or charged with mutiny. Come along and hear stories you won't hear in the official WW1 commemorations.

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Gentrification in Bristol & Beyond

1.Gentrification in Bristol.

Working class people in Bristol are being marginalised.

What were predominantly working class suburban areas are being gentrified by the influx of white middle class professional people. An average Victorian bay front terraced house is about £280k.

2. Arts Trails.

How many teachers , architects, estate agents, solicitors and accountants can a City sustain?

We have more Arts Trails than I have had hot dinners in the last few months.

St Werburghs Arts Trail, Windmill Hill Arts Trail, North Bristol Arts Trail etc..

How many artists, sculptors , potters and the like can a City sustain? 

In Bristol an Arts Trail is where you wander into peoples terraced houses and have a good nosey at what they make.

3. Festivals.

How many Festivals does a City need?

Festival of the Mind, Docks Heritage Weekend, Love Saves the Day, Black History Month, etc etc.

I even helped at the Celebration of Age Festival.

4. How many Posh Restaurants & Posh Coffee Shops does a City need?

We have more diverse restaurants selling fancy food at extortionate prices than we need. 

Coffee Shops selling Coffee at arm and a leg prices.

What wrong with pie and chips? Have a drink of coffee before you go out.

5. How many Student flats can a City sustain?

Purpose built & office conversions to student flats are a growth industry in Bristol. The bank of Mum & Dad probably pay the £125-£150 a week plus.

The flats are being built in the Centre of Bristol which means the City Centre area is becoming dominated by 18-24 year olds.

Kevin Brenan ( mainly joking of course)

The Value of Eye-Witness Accounts

By Brian Bamford CENTRAL to Colin Ward's critique of anarchist analysis and practice in the 1960s, was his belief that it was too obsessed with history and historical accounts.  That is too focused on the historical narrative of what had transpired in earlier times, and lacking an awareness of the here and now, and what people like me who have been brought up in anthropological study or ethnomethodology may call 'the missing what-ness'.  In May 2011, I gave paper at the Bristol Anarchist Bookfair entitled:  'Pro. Preston and George Orwell: The varieties of historical investigation and experience'.  It was an attempt to access the qualitative value differing accounts such as that of the academic historian Professor Paul Preston and George Orwell's more ethnographic eye-witness studies and descriptions.  At that event a young lad asked me to define the meaning of 'ethnography' and, as I recall, at the time I fancy I gave a rather poor and unsatisfactory description. The cultural anthropologist, ethnographer, and author Brian A. Hoey has defined the term thus: 'The term ethnography has come to be equated with virtually any qualitative research project where the intent is to provide a detailed, in-depth description of everyday life and practice. This is sometimes referred to as “thick description” — a term attributed to the anthropologist Clifford Geertz writing on the idea of an interpretive theory of culture in the early 1970s (e.g., see The Interpretation of Cultures, first published as a collection in 1973). The use of the term “qualitative” is meant to distinguish this kind of social science research from more “quantitative” or statistically oriented research.'  That quote represents a rather overly technical explanation for what I wanted to deal with at my talk at the Bristol Anarchist Bookfair in 2011.  What I was asking was more straight forward: 'Is a modern history, written in a library by a professional historian such as that of Professor Preston's, to be preferred to a first-hand account of the conflict written almost in the heat of battle, or shortly afterwards? Will not the professional historian and scholar's account be more objective than that written by the former combatant and novelist? Is not the one clearly superior to the other? If not, how do we judge and value these differing contributions? '  These questions are important and not just to anarchists.  Pro. Preston himself has openly attempted to rubbish the work of George Orwell when some years ago at a gathering of the International Brigade Memorial Trust he declared George Orwell's  'Homage to Catalonia' , and said: 'It is not a bad book but the trouble is, it is the only book many people read on the Spanish Civil War' or words to that effect. Pro. Preston suggested that 'Homage to Catalonia' was a book written about the Spanish War from the narrow perspective of someone who had only spent six or seven months involved in the conflict on a quiet front in the North of Spain - Aragon & Catalonia - and, that it left out much which the professional historian could now encompass supported, as he is, by the enriched 'body of scholarship which has been published in Spanish, Catalan, English ... since 1996' (see Preface to Preston's ‘The Spanish Civil War’ [2006]).  Can the professional historian have a better insight into the nature of a conflict like the Spanish Civil War than a combatant who was actually there like George Orwell?  In one of his 'As I please' essays Orwell comments on Sir Walter Raleigh:  'who when he was imprisoned in the Tower of London, occupied himself with writing a history of the world. He had finished the first volume and was at work on the second when there was a scuffle between some workmen beneath the window of his cell, and one of the men was killed. In spite of diligent enquiries, and in spite of the fact that he had actually seen the thing happen, Sir Walter was never able to discover what the quarrel was about; whereupon, so it is said -- and if the story is not true it certainly ought to be -- he burned what he had written and abandoned his project.'   Orwell took the view that Sir Walter Raleigh was wrong to abandon the project.  I think that the two approaches to historical analysis are best described by Pro. Hoey below.  Pro. Hoey distinguishes the two approaches:  'Ethnographers generate understandings of culture through representation of what we call an emic perspective, or what might be described as the “‘insider’s point of view.” The emphasis in this representation is thus on allowing critical categories and meanings to emerge from the ethnographic encounter rather than imposing these from existing models. An etic perspective, by contrast, refers to a more distant, analytical orientation to experience.' and he continues:  'While an ethnographic approach to social research is no longer purely that of the cultural anthropologist, a more precise definition must be rooted in ethnography’s disciplinary home of anthropology. Thus, ethnography may be defined as both a qualitative research process or method (one conducts an ethnography) and product (the outcome of this process is an ethnography) whose aim is cultural interpretation. The ethnographer goes beyond reporting events and details of experience. Specifically, he or she attempts to explain how these represent what we might call “webs of meaning” (Geertz again), the cultural constructions, in which we live.'  Following another talk commemoration the anniversary of the Spanish Civil War, that I and the Anarchist Federation comrade Luis Mates gave in Newcastle at an event organised by Dave Douglass together with the International Brigade Memorial Trust up there, also in 2011,  one questioner pointed out that he had been to the spot in Barcelona where George Orwell had been confronted with the street fighting in Barcelona, and this questioner claimed that Orwell, from where he was standing, was not in a position to witness the events as he had claimed to do.  This represents another problem.  What can the eye-witness actually see?  Is the witness on the spot claiming too much in his account?  A recent example of this would seem to be Mr. Jason Holdway's comment on the post 'PENSIONER ATTACKED at ANARCHIST HQ!':  'I was there and frankly Brian's behavior was bizarre and completely counter productive. He caused his injuries when he tried to shoulder barge his way back in to the building, rebounding off someone half his age and fell sprawling onto the pebbled floor. I can only conclude that Brian's provocative behaviour was precisely designed to create a situation where he could make some claim to victimhood. on PENSIONER ATTACKED at ANARCHIST HQ!'  This above  is an eye-witness account of the events in Angel Alley on the 22nd, June this year.  Jason Holdway was indeed there in Angel Alley at the time, as he had been nominated for a place on the Friends of Freedom Press by the Secretary Steve Sorba, who was himself at the time of the attack on me presiding over the Annual General Meeting of the Friends of Freedom Press in an upstairs room at 84B, Whitechapel High Street.  Mr. Holdway makes some preliminary observations about my behaviour before going on to claim ' He caused his injuries when he tried to shoulder barge his way back in to the building, rebounding off someone half his age and fell sprawling onto the pebbled floor'.   How can he know that?  Did he see the blood begin to flow at that moment?  Perhaps he saw a fountain of blood smeared across the 'pebbled floor' in Angel Alley?  I have been witness to number of these kind of events - in sit-in strikes and sit-downs - and afterwards it is not so easy for the actual participant or 'victim' to say precisely when the damage occurred.  But Mr Holdway goes further to make an even more remarkable conclusion:  'I can only conclude that Brian's provocative behaviour was precisely designed to create a situation where he could make some claim to victimhood.'  What Mr. Holdway is doing here is claiming to have solved 'the problem of other minds'!   He is claiming effectively not only that the injuries were self-inflicted because of my 'behaviour [which] was bizarre',  but also that he has the insight to know my full intentions or what the solicitor's call the mens rea.  The notion of mens rea or intention is a problem for lawyers and the courts, but it is also a problem for social scientists.  Clearly the ethnographer has many problems no less than the professional historian, and slipshod treatment of the subject can always occur in our accounts.  But as has been pointed out it is probable that an ethnographic eye-witness account such as that of George Orwell's 'Homage to Catalonia' will probably survive better that many of the histories of the Spanish Civil War that are currently being written.  In short it possesses the 'missing what-ness'!

Bristol History Group & War Resisters

Discovering British War Resisters 1914-1918 Hoped-for outcomes and challenging surprises
Date: Monday 20th June, 2016
Time: 7:30 pm
Venue: Friends Meeting House, Champion Square, Bristol BS2 9DB
Price: Donation
With: Cyril Pearce

Cyril Pearce is Britain’s foremost researcher into World War 1 conscientious objectors (COs) and war resisters. His book ‘Comrades in Conscience‘ looked at the anti-war movement in Huddersfield. Since then, Cyril has extended his work to look for other ‘Huddersfields’ and has created a database of British COs – the Pearce Register of British Conscientious Objectors The database currently contains details of almost 20,000 men who refused to fight in the war and is an invaluable tool for any local research. The 350 names we have published for Bristol are extracted from Cyril’s database.
The database has enabled the creation of maps of all the British counties plotting numbers and densities of COs and identifying anti-war ‘hot spots’. This research process has exposed hitherto hidden aspects of the anti-war phenomenon among them an underground network of safe houses and hiding places and, with the collaboration of Irish rebels, an escape route to North America.
Come and hear Cyril talk about his research, including stories of Bristol people who opposed the war.
Cyril Pearce is an Honorary Research Fellow at University of Leeds, School of History.
For more information email rememberingrealww1@gmail.com

Bristol Radical History

THE 'Remembering the Real World War One history group' have announced a talk, a historical recreation, a film and a walk for their 'Summer 1916' events in Bristol:

The scale of Britain’s involvement in World War 1 changed in 1916. Any initial enthusiasm for the war was wearing off. Early recruits had been trained and sent to the front. There was no sign of imminent victory. Volunteer numbers were drying up. Those who had opposed the war in 1914 were joined by opponents of conscription when it was introduced in January 1916. After almost two years of sporadic fighting, July 1916 saw the start of the Battle Of The Somme.

Over the next two months we are putting on a number of events marking the centenary of this new stage in the war.

Monday June 20^th
‘Discovering British 1914-1918 War Resisters – hoped for outcomes and challenging surprises‘ – hear Cyril Pearce, Britain’s foremost researcher into World War 1 conscientious objectors and war resisters, talk about his research, including stories of Bristol people who opposed the war. Full details here.

Sunday June 26^th
‘Slaughter No Remedy’ – a re-enactment of Walter Ayles’ appearance before a Military Service Tribunal, exactly one hundred years after it happened, in the same room it took place. 1916 dress optional! Full details here. This will be a popular event – you need to book (free) via the link provided.

Sunday July 3^rd
‘Battle Of The Somme’ – a showing of the historic propaganda film with live piano accompaniment and panel discussion. Full details here. Note special price for Remembering The Real World War 1 supporters

Sunday July 10^th
'Smoke, Gas, Strikes, Metal And Slums’ – an historical walk through St Philips and The Dings remembering Alfred Jefferies, Bristol’s Deserter and Bristol in the early 1900s. Full details here.

For more information email rememberingrealww1@gmail.com

Jack Sheppard Bristol Event

Escape was on Everyone's Mind: The Tale of Jack Sheppard

Paper theatre by Otherstory

Sat 14th May 2.30 pm at Southbank, Dean Lane, Bristol BS3 1DB

Post show discussion led by Roger Ball of Bristol Radical History Group

SEE how an ordinary apprentice carpenter became the legendary jail breaker and hero of the people. Witness his daring and miraculous escapes! Watch him outwit judges, jailers and the Thief-taker General – until the hangman’s noose beckons and it’s now or never, neck or nothing…

18th Century London, its rebellious mobs, rapacious merchants and well-fed judges, are brought to vivid life on a table. The use of simple cut-out puppets and zigzagging set leads the audience through unexpected turns among the characters, institutions, and dodgy deals of a time of upheaval: a time with parallels to our own.

"Beautiful sets accompany a funny but searing critique of mercantile London in the 18th Century via the hidden history of the peoples' hero Jack Sheppard" - Roger Ball, BRH

"Intimate, intricate and insurrectionary...set in a Hogarth-like landscape of love, intrigue and revolution" - Hilary Ramsden, George Ewart Evans Storytelling Centre

£8 or £5 concessions (but no-one turned away for lack of funds). Show is for adults and older children.

Show lasts 70 minutes - plus post show discussion

To book tickets, and to view trailer, go to https://otherstory.org/

Note: this event is not organised by BRHG

_______________________________________________ Brhmob mailing list Brhmob@brh.org.uk http://www.brh.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/brhmob

Ireland, Spain & Tolstoyan Anarchism

Captain Jack White DSO, from Imperialism to Anarchism
  Meeting  Date: Tue 10th May, 2016
Time: 8:00 pm
Venue: The Hydra Bookshop, BS2 0EZ
Price: Donation
With: Leo Keohane, Kevin Boylan

Captain Jack White DSO attracted adjectives like jam does wasps – flamboyant, gallant, romantic, handsome, idiosyncratic, incorrigible – and every one of them was appropriate.  He was a Presbyterian from the northern part of Ireland who fought in the Boer War, became the first commander of the Irish Citizen Army in the 1913 Dublin Lockout, was arrested for sedition during WW1, fell foul of all the police/paramilitary/governmental authorities in Ireland between 1913 and 1936, and participated in the Spanish Civil War.  As well as travelling the world, Jack also participated in the Tolstoyan Whiteway Colony in Gloucestershire.

Leo Keohane, author of Captain Jack White: Imperialism, Anarchism and the Irish Citizen Army (Merrion Press, 2014) is a lecturer in Critical Theory at the Centre for Irish Studies, NUI Galway, Ireland.

More details about this event here.

_______________________________________________ Brhmob mailing list Brhmob@brh.org.uk  http://www.brh.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/brhmob

Poaching in the South West: The Berkeley Case

    Date: Thursday 28th January, 2016
Time: 7:00 pm
Venue: The Hydra Bookshop, 34 Old Market St, Bristol, BS2 0EZ
Price: Donation
With: Steve Mills

Steve Mills will give a talk on the contents of his recent BRHG pamphlet 'Poaching in the South West' which considers the poaching wars in rural areas in the 18th and 19th Centuries and the arms race conducted between the poaching gangs, landowners and game keepers. He will also look at the development of the 'poaching' laws in the period and the famous Berkeley Case.

More information here.

Syria, The Kurds, ISIS and the West: Revolution in Rojava: Strengths and Challenges

Date: Tuesday 9th February, 2016
Time: 7:30-9:30 pm
Venue: The Conference Room, Hamilton House, 80 Stokes Croft, BS1 3QY
Price: Donation
With: Dr. Jeff Miley (Dept. of Sociology, Uni. Of Cambridge)

Since the descent into civil war in Syria, revolutionary forces have seized control of the Kurdish region of Rojava.  This talk aims to assess the strengths, challenges and vulnerabilities of the revolutionary project under way there. In terms of strengths, I will focus principally on four:
(1) revolutionary discipline and the power of ideology
(2) consciousness-raising, collective mobilization, and assembly democracy
(3) gender emancipation
(4) attempts to accommodate ethnic and religious diversity
In terms of challenges and vulnerabilities, I will focus on questions of isolation and embargo, the alliance with the U.S., and especially the threat from Turkey.



_______________________________________________ Brhmob mailing list Brhmob@brh.org.uk http://www.brh.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/brhmob

Bristol Radical History Meetings

TWO public meetings coming up....

Pauper deaths and burials in Victorian England

Date: Thursday 15th October, 2015Time: 6:00pm-7.30pmVenue: Studio 1 & 2, First Floor, MSHED, Princes Wharf, Wapping Road, Bristol BS1 4RN
Map: http://www.bristolmuseums.org.uk/m-shed/getting-here/
Speaker: Roger Ball (BRHG and Eastville Workhouse Memorial Group)
Price: FreeFuneral ceremonies were very important to middle class Victorians, with detailed and often elaborate rituals to mark the passing of cherished family members. But for paupers who died in the workhouses, things were very different. Building on continuing research into the unmarked graves at the site of Eastville workhouse, Bristol, this talk exposes the contrast in treatment between rich and poor in death.
This meeting is organised by UWE Regional History Centre as part of its M Shed Seminar Programme, 2015-16.
Black Flags and Windmills: Creating power from below

Date: Thursday 22nd October, 2015Time: 7.30-9.30pmVenue: Hydra Bookshop, 34 Old Market St, Bristol, BS2 0EZ
Speaker: scott crow
Price: Donation
When both levees and governments failed in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina in 2005, the anarchist-inspired Common Ground Collective was created to fill the void. With the motto of 'Solidarity Not Charity', they worked to create power from below; building autonomous projects, programs, and spaces of self-sufficiency like health clinics and neighborhood assemblies, while also supporting communities defending themselves from white militias and police brutality, illegal home demolitions and evictions.
U.S. activist, scott crow, a co-founder of Common Ground, is the author of Black Flags and Windmills - in equal parts memoir, history and organizing philosophy - which vividly intertwines his experiences and ideas with Katrina’s reality, illustrating how people can build local grassroots power for collective liberation. It is a story of resisting indifference, rebuilding hope amid collapse and struggling against the grain to create better worlds.

Legal Action Over Political 'Smear' in Rochdale

LAST night on BBC's North West Tonight, Simon Danczuk denied there was any 'wrongdoing' by himself or his office in relation to allegations that his office had  been responsible for an e-mail that may well have 'smeared' Colin Lambert, a Rochdale Labour councillor, and former leader of the Labour Group on Rochdale Council. 
On Twitter, Mr. Danczuk said last night:  'There is no case to answer - legal action would be a waste of money.'
On September 21st, the Rochdale online website published the following report about Danczuk's former aide Matthew Baker, who now works in Bristol:
'Matt Baker, the former spin doctor of Rochdale MP Simon Danczuk, has been accused of a "vile attack" and "smear campaign" after he was revealed as the author of an email that makes very serious and highly damaging allegations about former Rochdale Council leader, Colin Lambert and a former Mayor of Rochdale, Robin Parker - allegations which they say are completely without foundation and "libellous".'
Since then Mr. Baker has said, he had:
'no recollection or record of sending this email (smearing Colin Lambert).'

Both Colin Lambert, a councillor and a former leader of Rochdale Council, and Robin Parker, say the allegations in the e-mail are completely without foundation and 'libellous'.
Colin Lambert last night was reported to be starting a legal action in defamation next week.
This morning, the BRISTOLIAN Blog is reporting that 'Baker has now claimed to a BBC reporter that his email account must have been “hacked”!'
And to think there was a time when Danczuk and Baker, were once seen as a dynamic duo up here.