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The Road Bloc Collective are a group of artists and activists who explore how power inscribes itself in urban space through architecture and images.
As parts of Bahrain transform into territories of dissent, where roundabouts become ‘squares’ and spaces for political speech and action, graffiti is visible like never before and road blocks and marches are part of everyday life – the scenography and spectacle of revolution.
Featuring photography, sound works and installation, Road Block enacts the ongoing battle for space and claims for ‘the right to the city’, that provoke and challenge us to reconsider the relationship that we have to space and power.
When: 9 July – 1 August, daily 10am to 11pm.
Where: Rich Mix, 35-47 Bethnal Green Rd, London, E1 6LA (Map/directions)
Tickets: Free
Presented in partnership with the Road Bloc Collective as part of Shubbak Festival
Far-right group the English Defence League march (Photo: Gavin Lynn/Flickr/Creative Commons)
It is probably a sign of the success of our society that people like me spend so much of our time defending the rights of jerks.
Racists, misogynists, Christian fundamentalists, jihadists, wannabe jihadists, counter-jihadists, homophobes, trolls, Top Gear presenters, True Torah Jews, Nazis; cretins of all colours and creeds. In modern, liberal Europe, these are the people who tend to get in trouble over free speech. In the past, they were the ones in charge.
That is not to say everyone else is entirely free from censorship; and of course, the reason we defend free expression as a good in itself is because we understand that the powers used to silence the craven can also be used to silence the virtuous, but by and large, it’s the oddballs who tend to get into trouble. Them and journalists.
And so we turn our attention, wearily but determinedly, to the case of the “anti-Jewification” protest which was due to take place in London’s Golders Green on 4 July. As others have pointed out, anyone hoping to prevent the “Jewification” of Golders Green is, frankly, a bit late. But then, we know full well that Judenfrei policies have experienced some success in the past.
The stationary protest will now not take place in Golders Green, but instead in central London – Whitehall to be precise, away from Golders Green’s Jewish community. Ironically, many Jews are now planning to make their way to Westminster to stage a counter-demonstration.
As Richard Ferrer, editor of Jewish News, noted: “Saturday’s rally is fast turning into the social event of the season for the capital’s Jewish community. When it was originally announced, synagogues braced themselves for their lowest Shabbat attendance figures in years. I had a family lunch booked, but had to make sure it didn’t clash with the scheduled Holocaust denial and book burning.”
It does all sound rather fun, but the moving of the Nazi demonstration does raise questions about the nature of protest and how it is policed.
A demonstration must be disruptive, by its very nature. So there’s a dilemma raised by the moving of a protest from the scene of its target, in this case the Jewish community, does it become effectively meaningless? What happens if a swastika waves in a side street in Whitehall, with no one there to fear it? Does it still resound?
The police decision to move the demonstration, in spite of earlier claims that they were powerless to do so, has effectively neutered it. It’s meaningless.
Now here’s the question: should the police have a right to neuter protest in that manner? Or does the fact that the neo-Nazis are allowed stand in the street and make their little speeches, even if it’s not the street they wanted to stand in, mean that their free speech has been fully protected? I’m not entirely sure we’ve thought about this fully. But I do recall past campaigns against “designated protest zones”, for example during the Beijing Olympics in 2008.
I don’t really know what the answer is here: I guess the simple point is that one should be free to protest outside institutions but not outside people’s homes. But then what about the UK Uncut protesters who staged a “street party” outside then-Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg’s home?
This case of the relocated anti-Semites is interesting exactly because it has not turned out to be Britain’s Skokie case. To briefly recap, Skokie was an Illinois town where many Holocaust survivors had settled.
In 1977, the National Socialist Party of America proposed a march there. They were opposed. The case eventually ended up in the Supreme Court. The ACLU backed the Nazis’ right to march. Eventually, the court upheld the Nazis’ right to march. But they never actually did. [For more on this case, read Index on Censorship magazine, Vol 37, Number 3, 2008].
In 2015 in north London we have a similar but different case. There are some Nazis wanting to march in a Jewish neighbourhood, there are some people who object. But there is no great call to principle, no great desire to take up the cause seemingly on either side. It’s hard to even get anyone on the Nazi side to own up to who exactly is in charge. Joshua Bonehill, the Somerset Stormtrooper and all round troll, is widely believed to be responsible. He was arrested early this week on suspicion of incitement to racial hatred. No one seemed that bothered.
This is the British way of free expression; a matter of practicality rather than principle, a pliable concept, one that can almost always be tempered by appeals to taste: it is simply distasteful for Nazis to demonstrate in Golders Green; just not done to burn a poppy.
By and large, taste wins out in these compromises. Remember that the Chatterley ban only came to an end because it was deemed that the book was of high enough literary quality, not because adults have the right to read what they damned well please.
Tastefulness being the characteristic the British most pride themselves upon means it’s rare that anyone will argue against it. It’s a soft tyranny most people seem happy to live with.
This article was posted on 2 July 2015 at indexoncensorship.org
This article was posted on 8 Dec 2014 at indexoncensorship.org
Nine human rights organisations called on the British government on Friday to speak out publicly in the case of activists currently being detained in Bahrain. Prominent human rights defenders Nabeel Rajab, Zainab Al-Khawaja and Ghada Jamsheer have all been arrested and face lengthy prison sentences in Bahrain for cases of peaceful expression.
This echoes the message from Maryam Al-Khawaja, a prominent Bahraini activist and co-director of the Gulf Centre for Human Rights, earlier this week.
You can imprison a human rights defender, but you can’t stop the human rights cause, Al-Khawaja told a packed press conference in London on Wednesday, organised by Index on Censorship and the Bahrain Institute for Rights and Democracy (BIRD).
She urged UK authorities to speak out about rights abuses in her country, which she said is being run like a business by the ruling Al-Khalifa family. This comes after the arrest of her colleague, 2012 Index advocacy award-winner Bahrain Centre for Human Rights (BCHR) president Nabeel Rajab. He is facing charges of insulting government institutions on Twitter. His trail opens on 19 October.
Also on Wednesday, her sister Zainab Al-Khawaja, who is 8 months pregnant, was sentenced to seven days’ detention for publicly insulting King Hamad bin Isa Al-Khalifa by ripping up a picture of him in court. She was in court over charges connected to her previous human rights campaigning.
Al-Khawaja, a dual Danish and Bahraini citizen, was herself recently released on bail after being arrested at Bahrain International Airport when trying to enter the country to see her father. She said: “I was stopped at the airport where I was told falsely that my citizenship had been revoked.”
She was then assaulted by police at the airport, and is still recovering from a torn muscle in her shoulder as a result. The police officer who assaulted her later filled charges against Al-Khawaja, presenting a scratched finger as medical evidence.
Al-Khawaja spoke of her time in Isa Town women’s prison, where she spent 19 days; she described poor sanitation and said there were no nurses or doctors available at night and it took 45 minutes for ambulances to reach the facility.
Al-Khawaja’s father, Abdulhadi Al-Khawaja, the founder of 2012 Index award winner BCHR, is serving a life sentence after playing a prominent role in the country’s 2011 pro-democracy protests.
Al Khawaja described how changes could be implemented in Bahrain, saying there is a need for pressure from countries such as the UK and US, who have the capability to make sure the government respect human rights.
“Reform can be implemented and enforced by accountability,” she said.
Nominations are now open for the Index Freedom of Expression Awards 2015. Put forward your free expression heroes here.
Please ask your MP to support the campaign by writing to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. (This web app will take you to the website of the Bahrain Institute of Rights and Democracy)
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