Letter to Sustrans

I wrote the following letter last week. More details, plus a response from Sustrans can be found in this IndyMedia article.

Hi Sustrans,

I'm one of your supporters (can't remember my number just now). I ride past College Green, Bristol, every day - I believe that's where your offices are. Today as I rode past traffic was banked up because a cyclist was lying in the road injured. I don't know what happened - she was surrounded by people so I didn't involve myself...

I'm writing because this incident focussed my mind on something that has been concerning me for a long time. Bristol is supposed to be a cycling city. There is - apparently - a huge pot of money available to improve cycling in Bristol. But, it seems to me, nothing has happened! I ride my bike to work every day, plus on week-ends. It is my primary mode of transport. NOTHING has improved for me since this money came through. I know that there have been improvements around St Werburgh's - a footpath was widened into a cycle path. This is the only development I'm aware of.

So why am I writing to you?? Because, as I understand it, you are involved in deciding how this money is spent. And because you are the good guys! I'm sure if you had your way the centre of Bristol would be closed to traffic, and we'd have cycle heaven. How I long for the day! I don't doubt that the problem in all this is the council who, so far as I can tell, hate bikes with a passion. Or, at least, they love cars a hell of a lot more than they love bikes.

I wish you the very best of luck in advocating for cyclists in the negotiations that go on with the council as to how this money is spent. But I need you to know that right now, things are just getting worse. And I'm afraid that the council are using this "Bike City" nonsense as a way of green washing the issue away. They're letting the Bike City label excuse them from making any material changes on behalf of cyclists.

At some point some one is going to have to decide that life is made more difficult for motorists. If this decision is not taken then there is no avoiding the fact that cycling in Bristol is on an inevitable downward spiral. Cars are far and away a cyclist's biggest problem, as I'm sure you're aware. I would NOT encourage commuting to work by bike in Bristol to anyone new to cycling. It is very dangerous. (Two of my friends are disabled because of bike accidents in Bristol.)

I would like you to seriously consider your role in the Bristol Bike City program. I am very much afraid that, by trying to work from the inside, you are inadvertently letting the council get away with murder. You need to consider the possibility of withdrawing from this program so that you can publicly state that "this council is not helping cyclists". Because it's true, isn't it?

I'd be very interested to hear your thoughts.

Refugee voucher exchange in Bristol

Yesterday the Bristol Refugee Rights (BRR) and Bristol Defend the Asylum Seekers Campaign (BDASC) held a stall outside Tesco Metro in Broadmead. I went down to see them, as I'd heard about a voucher exchange that they were running.

A member of BRR explained to me that people who arrive in this country and apply for asylum are split (by the authorities) into two categories. Those whose cases are pending receive a small amount of money, on which they have to try and live; they're the (relatively) lucky ones. The other group are those whose cases are rejected, but who remain in this country (there are a number of recognised reasons as to why people do this, e.g. there is a war and no rule of law, or perhaps their cases are under appeal). This group of people are given no money; instead each week they receive £35 worth of supermarket vouchers. They must live entirely from Tesco or Asda or Sainsbury.

What makes this system completely intolerable is that both groups of people, although they have legitimate reasons to stay in the country, are not allowed to work. This system is wrong on every level:

• it denies people the right to work; a right which is fundamental and vital for dignity and self-esteem.
  
• support is minimal in any case, but asking people to live entirely from corporate supermarkets is outrageous.
  

To counter this shite situation, BRR have started a voucher exchange: so, today I went down to their stall and gave them £20 which they will pass on to an asylum seeker. In return I got £20 worth of the asylum seeker's supermarket vouchers. Shopping at Tesco's is not my idea of a good time, but at least I have the option of going elsewhere, so I was glad to help.

This exchange needs to expand - there are a lot of asylum seekers who'd love to swap their vouchers for some real money. If you'd like to help contact Bristol Refugee Rights: dropin@hotmail.co.uk or 0117 9080844. Alternatively drop in to their centre, on Newton Road near Easton Leisure Centre. They're there on Wednesday mornings or all-day Thursday.

The nice lady from BRR said they really need people to send them cheques. They can then send back vouchers, and start expanding the exchange operation.

Two postscripts:

1. The BRR woman also mentioned the case of Abraham Ghebre Michael. He fled Eritrea after being mistreated and hospitalized for refusing to go into military service due to his religious beliefes. In 2003 he sought aslyum in Britain. The Home Office have turned down his claim and now Abraham is homeless, destitute and without a solicitor. Amnesty have tried to tell the Home Office how dangerous it is to go back to Eritrea but no one listens. How can we call ourselves a civilised country, when this is how we treat people who ask for our help?
   
   
2. As I've said already, this voucher scheme stinks on a number of levels. The fact that the government won't give money out to people whose applications are rejected put me in mind of George Bernard Shaw's Pygmalion. What's wrong with people being given money, and the freedom to choose what they spend it on? Why have we become so keen on voucher systems, and the like? People will answer that it's in the name of accountability: "we don't know what they'll spend it on". It's the same reason people won't give money to beggars.
   
   Bollox to that, I say. And George Bernard Shaw agrees: how dare we swan around imposing our middle-class morality on those that we think are in need of it? Mr Doolittle sums it up:
   
   
   

   I'm one of the undeserving poor: that's what I am. Think of what that means to a man. It means that he's up agen middle class morality all the time. If there's anything going, and I put in for a bit of it, it's always the same story: "You're undeserving; so you can't have it." But my needs is as great as the most deserving widow's that ever got money out of six different charities in one week for the death of the same husband. I don't need less than a deserving man: I need more. I don't eat less hearty than him; and I drink a lot more. I want a bit of amusement, cause I'm a thinking man. I want cheerfulness and a song and a band when I feel low. Well, they charge me just the same for everything as they charge the deserving. What is middle class morality? Just an excuse for never giving me anything. Therefore, I ask you, as two gentlemen, not to play that game on me. I'm playing straight with you. I aint pretending to be deserving. I'm undeserving; and I mean to go on being undeserving. I like it; and thats the truth.

   
   

Angela Davis and Barack Obama

Last night I had the privilege of listening to Angela Davis, a woman I have admired since I first heard of her, and her activism. She was speaking to a philosophy conference so this was not the occasion to spit fire; nonetheless, though her delivery was restrained, the content of her words was as uncompromising as I expected.

What was most interesting to me was that she spent some time reflecting on the election of Barack Obama to the US presidency. This has been an event to which I have felt a strange, and unsettling ambivalence. On the one hand I am supremely glad that the Republican beast is dead (as Bill Hicks put it); and that the beast has been killed by a black man is so much more magnificent. On the other hand I am not a believer in substantial change from above; I do not look towards US Presidents for hope, for in my lifetime all I have ever seen from that quarter is war and malignant oppression.

Angela Davis articulated this dual response very well. On the one hand she was prepared to honour the moment in which the US, a country so riven by the colour line (c.f. W.E.B. Dubois), has elected a black man to the presidency. She felt the joy of the moment, and marvelled at the joy which was being expressed by millions of people across the US, and across the globe. She called this an aesthetic response which I think describes the moment splendidly. My understanding of this phrase is this: that the President is a black man is important primarily (exclusively?) because it is a post of such symbolism; finally America has a black face, if you like. Black America has been given a part to play in the aesthetics of the nation, in the way that the nation describes itself, and is described by others. For black Americans this is hugely significant, and hugely affirming: aesthetics are important.

But now contrast this with Angela Davis' description of her own activism: she has not spent a lifetime fighting for black liberation so that blacks can be included in the oppressive structure of modern America. No, she has been fighting for a new social structure in which all people, black and white, can play their part. When she was on the run in the 1960's, her dream was not of a black president but of no president and, instead, a society of fairness, and of justice. A neat way to represent this is her affirmation of the term black liberation, which was the term she and her peers used to describe what they were fighting for. It is a term that contrasts sharply with the idea of a struggle for civil rights; this latter suggests a struggle to be included in American society, whilst black liberation suggests a more militant idea, that of being free from American society in its current manifestation.

Thus, for Angela Davis, the aesthetics, and the substance of this week's vote are somewhat at odds with each other. It is this tension which I have also felt, and which explains my ambivalence very well. There is an imperative, then, to "continue to be radical", as she put it. While editorials may opine that this week's vote draws a line under America's racism, and marks the final victory for the civil rights movement, we should bear in mind that life for an American black man or woman remains fraught. They remain over-represented in the prisons, as victims of crime, as the poor. Their health is poorer than the average American, but they are under-represented in hospitals because of a lack of universal health care. The list goes on.

I will end this piece with some quotes from Howard Zinn's A People's History of the United States". It seems appropriate that, in a week which many are calling historic, we remind ourselves of some of the harsh realities of America's history. It is a history that has been transformed for the better by the struggle of ordinary people; that struggle goes on.

Quoting Sojourner Truth, legendary ex-slave, black activist and fighter for women's rights in the 1800s:

That man over there says that woman needs to be helped into carriages and lifted over ditches.... Nobody ever helps me into carriages, or over mud-upddles or gives me any best place. And a'nt I a woman?
Look at my arm! I have ploughed, and planted, and gathered into barns, and no man could head me! And a'nt I a woman?
I could work as much and eat as much as a man, when i could get it, and bear the lash as well. And a'nt I a woman?
I have borne thirteen children and seen em most all sold off to slavery, and when I cried out with my mother's grief, none but Jesus heard me! And a'nt I a woman?(p.122 More on this speech)

Quoting Frederick Douglass, escaped slave and celebrated writer:

What to the American slave is your Fourth of July? I answer, a day that revelas to him more than all other days of the year, the gross injustice and cruelty to which he is the constant victim. To him your celebration is a vanity; your sounds of rejoicing are empty and heartless; your denunciation of tyrants, brass-fronted impudence; your shouts of liberty and equality, hollow mockery; your prayers and hymns, your sermons and thanksgivings, with all your religious parade and solemnity, are to him mere bombast, fraud, deception, impiety, and hypocrisy - a thin veil to cover up crimes which would disgrace a nation of savages. There is not a nation of the earth guilty of practices more shocking and bloody than are the people of these United States at this very hour. (p.178)

Frederick Douglass again:

Let me give you a word of the philosophy of reforms. The whole history of the progress of human liberty shows that all concessions yet made to her august claims have been born of struggle.... If there is no struggle there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom and yet deprecate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground. They want rain without thunder and lightning. They want the ocean without the awful roar of its many waters. The struggle may be a moral one; or it may be a physical one; or it may be both moral and physical, but it must be a struggle. Power concedds nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will... (p.179)

Quoting Chief Black Hawk in 1832:

I fought hard. But your guns were well aimed. The bullets flew like birds in the air, and whizzed by our ears like the wind through the trees in the winter. My warriors fell around me... The sun rose dim on us in the morning, and at night it sunk in a dark cloud, and looked like a ball of fire. That was the last sun that shone on Black Hawk... He is now a prisoner to the white men... He has done nothing for which an Indian ought to be ashamed. He has fought for his countrymen, the squaws and papooses, against white men, who came, year after year, to cheat them and take away their lands. You know the cause of our making war. It is known to all white men. They ought to be ashamed of it. The white men despise the Indians, and drive them from their homes. But the Indians are not deceitful. The white men speak bad of the Indian, and took at him spitefully. But the Indian does not tell lies; Indians do not steal.

An Indian who is as bad as the white men, could not live in our nation; he would be put to death, and eaen up by the wolves. The white men are bad school-masters; they carry false looks, and deal in false actions; they smile in the face of the poor Indian to cheat him; they shake them by the hand to gain their confidence, to make them drunk, to deceive them, and ruin our wives. We told them to let us alone; but they followed on and beset our paths, and they coiled themselves among us like the snake. They poisoned us by their touch. We were not safe. We lived in danger. We were becoming like them, hypocrites and liars, adulterers, lazy drones, all talkers, and no workers...

The white men do not scalp the head; but they do worse-they poison the heart... Farewell, my nation!... Farewell to Black Hawk. (p.130, full text)

On the American war of independence and still true today:

Here was the traditional device by which those in charge of any social order mobilize and discipline a recalcitrant population - offering the adventure and rewards of military service to get poor people to fight for a cause that they may not see clearly as their own. (p.77)

On farmers in the 1700s crippled by debt in an unjust economic system:

The crowd went back to the square, broke open the county jail, and set free the debtors. The chief justice, a country doctor, said: "I have never heard anybody point out a better way to have their grievances redressed than the people have taken." (p.92)

Quoting Edmund Wilson on World War II:

We have seen, in our most recent wars, how a divided and arguing public opinion may be converted overnight into a national near-unanimity, an obedient flood of energy which will carry the young to destruction and overpower any effort to stem it. The unanimity of men at was is like that of a school of fish, which will swere, simultaneously and apparently without leadership, when the shadow of an enemy appears, or like a sky-darkening flight of grasshoppers, which, also all compelled by one impulse, will descend to consume the crops. (p.233)

Aldermaston Big Blockade

I'm helping out with press work for the Aldermaston Big Blockade, which is happening today. The first press release can be viewed here.

Police manhandling protesters at one of the entrances to the Atomic Weapons Establishment

And while I'm discussing inspiring protests against weapons manufacturers, a group of Bristolians recently took the fight to Raytheon, manufacturer of parts for bunker busters and cluster bombs. Two of the protesters camped on Raytheon's roof for 38 hours. Read about it!

We go by night

Leaving the city, I travel quickly
To move slowly
And see the sunset spreading rubies across yellow gorse.
I say to myself, "this is living deeply."
But the blind man!

Leaving the office bustle, I dash between traffic
To tread softly
On lawn clippings, to hear birds clawing through twig piles for their nest's next layer.
I say to myself, "these are simple pleasures."
But the deaf girl!

Leaving week-day madness, I drive through suburbs
To step head-bowed
Under consecrated arches, through filtered light and careful stillness.
I say to myself, "here is holiness."
But the outcast!

Staying put, I live dangerously,
Moving painfully
Through hungry cities, bloody villages, lonely crossroads.
My companions are the blind man, the deaf girl, the outcast.
It is the darkness that speaks to me. It is the agony night which whispers truth.

I wrote this back in 2001. I think of it as a poetic restatement of an earlier post about retreat versus engagement.

Maternity services review

Since 2006 there has been an ongoing review of services for birth and the newborn across Bristol, North Somerset and South Gloucestershire. The review is currently asking for feed-back from the general public. We have until 17th October to express our opinion on this issue.

In the next week or so I expect to become a Dad for the first time. Pretty bloody exciting. The process of preparing for parenthood has been a really interesting and satisfying one; my partner and I have received a lot of support from different people, including professionals. Generally speaking, I would say that professionals in this area do an excellent job.

There are of course exceptions to this though. And, for me, these exceptions generally revolve around the system's desire to manage all the people (mother, partner, child) involved in the birth. There are a lot of rules and guidelines in place that prescribe what happens to the people involved at various stages of pregnancy and birth. A lot of the time these are really helpful but not always.

For instance there is a strict rule at Southmead Hospital that there will be no partners on maternity wards after 8pm. The maternity ward is where the mother and baby go after they have given birth (the birthing wards are open to partners for the entire birth process). So, if my child is born in the afternoon, then I will be able to spend very little time with him or her, before being forcibly ejected from the premises. My partner will then have to cope on her own with our newborn child until I am allowed on the ward again at 10am the next morning.

Rules like this can be incredibly damaging I believe. If a mother wants to avail herself of the professional support available on the maternity ward, then her partner is disqualified from enjoying those precious early hours with his/her child. It is a real shame.

I intend to contribute to the on-going review of maternity services, to suggest that this rule be changed. I encourage others to also participate - especially those who have had experience of maternity services in this area. It is a great chance for changes to be made, especially as the people conducting the review seem to be recognising this tendency for the birth experience to be "over-managed". The review has highlighted the increasing occurence of Caesarean sections as a cause for concern; more generally, births tend to involve more intervention and to be "more medical" than they used to be. This review may be a chance to curb these trends.

Changes suggested by the review

1. More promotion of the importance of care before becoming pregnant.
   
2. Direct access to a midwife without having to see a GP first.
   
3. Targeting some resources to those with the highest need, for example by improving translation and interpretation services and access to English classes.
   
4. Employing specialist midwives to work with vulnerable women such as teenagers, drug users, etc.
   
5. A wider choice of antenatal classes.
   
6. More choice of where to give birth.
   
7. More women to have a home birth or a birth in a more home-like environment.
   
8. Women to have one-to-one care from a midwife during labour.
   
9. Women will be able to choose to have postnatal care, individually or in groups at their local health centre rather than at home.
   
10. Improvements to services for women with mental health problems.
    
11. More training for midwives, e.g. to help parents following the death or illness of their baby.
    

The review has also suggested that women see the same midwife throughout their pregnancy, and during the birth. In the current system women have often never met the midwife who attends to them during their labour; this can be just one more stress in an already stressful time.

How to participate in the review

• Website: more information about the review is available here.
  
• Email: bhsp[at]bristolpct[dot]nhs[dot]uk
  
• Postal address: Bristol Health Services Plan, Freepost BS1 O78, King Square House, King Square, Bristol, BS2 8EE.
  
• Telephone, free phone number: 0800 015 5127
  
• Minicom: 0117 9002675
  
• Finally, there are a series of public meetings that people can attend
  Bristol
  
  Monday 6 October, 6.30-8pm
  The Hall
  Broadmead Baptist Church
  Broadmead
  Bristol
  BS1 3HY
  
  South Gloucestershire
  
  Monday 22 September, 10-11.30am
  Oak Hall
  Jubilee Centre
  Savages Wood Road
  Bradley Stoke
  BS32 8HL
  
  North Somerset
  
  Thursday 2 September, 6.30 -8pm
  Main Hall
  Folk Hall
  High Street
  Portishead
  BS20 6PR
  
  Thursday 18 September, 6.30-8pm
  St James Church Hall
  Woodborough Road
  Winscombe
  BS25 1AQ
  
  Tuesday 7 October, 10.30am-12pm
  The Campus
  Highlands Lane
  Worle
  Weston-super-mare
  BS24 7DX
  

Speaking with children

The genesis of this piece was the discussion on Bristol IndyMedia newswire about attacks on the cycle path in Easton. What particularly struck me about these attacks was that people referred to the attackers as `groups of kids'. Why would children do this? Well I've got no answers but this piece outlines the trail that my thoughts have taken in the weeks since reading the discussion...

In just over a month's time I expect to become a dad for the first time. That admission should tell you all you need to know about my interest in the question of parenting... and about my current ignorance of the subject.

Not long since I was talking to a young relative of mine (let's call him Ben) who had got himself in a lot of trouble with his family, due to misbehaviour at school. He'd been excluded for a couple of days over an incident - the first time that (to his family's knowledge) he'd been in any serious trouble at school.

What struck me, when I spoke to him about it, was how little his voice had been heard by the rest of his family. A version of events had come forth from teachers at the school and this had been immediately received as the whole story, with Ben cast as the villain of the piece. Undoubtedly Ben had been pretty naughty, but when I talked to him it was also clear that some of the teachers had probably got the wrong end of the stick.

In the family's eyes though, the most important thing was for Ben to understand the importance of submitting to authority. They were concerned that he learned to `behave' for his teachers, and to do as he was told, for fear that his behaviour would spiral out of control and he'd ruin his chance for a decent education. Their concerns were well-intentioned and, to some degree, well-founded. My reservation is that we can become so focussed on getting a particular message across that we lost sight of the `truth' within a situation.

It was an issue I came across when I worked in homeless hostels in Bristol. Residents would often come to staff members griping about any number of issues; a lot of the time it was simply a way of venting their frustration at the daily difficulties of their existence and all I needed to do was be sympathetic, and help them to calm down a little. Sometimes though their complaints were related to serious issues relating to how the hostel was run, or the behaviour of other residents, and the `calm down' response was not appropriate; just diffusing the complaint was missing the point. The problem was that I (and my fellow workers) were just seeing the person doing the complaining as the problem and, again, not sighting the `truth' within the situation.

Another example: the government's message about drugs. This is another example of how just focusing on a `message' that we want to communicate can fall down if it doesn't tally with the truth. The government and their clients, the mainstream media, are so obsessed with demonising drugs and drug-takers, supposedly with a view to putting kids off taking drugs (although a discussion of the real motivation could take a while), that their portrayal of the issue is entirely skewed. It is impossible to have a serious debate about drugs because everyone involved is so focussed on `getting the message across'.

The problem with all this, well-intentioned as it may be, is that people - children, in particular - can see through it. They know when people's response to a situation is skewed or, in their words, `unfair'. Such a perception results in a number of negative phenomena.

Firstly the message that people are trying to communicate, legitimate as it might be, gets lost. In the case of Ben, his family wanted him to understand the value of getting a good education, and the foolishness of ruining his opportunity with bad behaviour. It's a good message and it's a real shame if it gets lost amidst his frustration that everyone is taking sides against him. A similar principal applies in the case of drugs: god forbid that anyone should find out that you can have brilliant times on drugs. And why should this (obvious) admission detract from a serious underlying message: that drugs can fuck you up?

The second consequence of this sort of propogandising is that it diminishes respect for the `truth'. I won't go into a long and involved philosophical debate about the absoluteness or otherwise, of `truth'; what I'm referring to is not a philosophical concept but the idea that people should speak with integrity. That we should speak with children (or homeless people, or anyone) with candour and with respect for them and their capacity to understand the world around them. This also admits the legitimacy of the other party taking a different view on things. Being open to this possibility can be draining, and takes a lot of patience, but I believe it is worth it.

I want to give one more example of the conflict between `the message' and `the truth'. Too often families take the opposite approach to Ben's family, and the the effects are just as damaging. Namely they defend their child's actions to the hilt and refuse to admit (outside the family sphere at least) that criticism of their child is legitimate. This can build an unhealthy sense of invincibility, a sense in the child that they have carte blanche to be as obnoxious as they like. Once more the message has become warped because it did not tally with the truth.

Needless to say I have no idea whether any of these reflections are directly relevant to the kids who were beating people up on the cycle track. Relevant or not though, they have crystallized a determination in my mind, a determination to speak the truth, as best I can, with my own child. Let's see now if I can live up to my good intentions...