Anti-Islamophobia: Beware the Cynical Bandwagon

This article originally appeared in The Huffington Post

Bandwagons are infuriating, especially those that offer a claim to some sort of victimhood. Last week saw a long overdue rally against Islamophobia, after journalistic luminary Mehdi Hasan wrote a brave piece detailing his experiences at the hands of racist trolls. When he asked ‘who’s with me?’, Jonathan Freedland and Owen Jones emphatically answered his call as did numerous others on Twitter. Yet all that some right-wing commentators could manage was a shrugging ‘join the club’.

In what must have been an attempt at progressing the conversation, Daniel Hannan introduced a retrograde idea: that there is no such thing as a ‘hierarchy of hatreds’ and that ‘abuse is abuse’. By substituting the word ‘tory’ for ‘Muslim’ in a string of offensive comments, Hannan tried to highlight just how bad Tories ‘got it’ too. But substitute ‘tory’ with ‘torturer’ or ‘trafficker’ and this neat little trick quickly fails. Hannan’s argument – that hate is hate is hate – fares little better under scrutiny. A conversation about prejudice always carries the risk of being co-opted by people insisting ‘my abuse is just as bad as yours’. In this instance, that cannot be allowed to happen.

To equate tory baiting to the bigotry Muslims face is to fail to recognise that different forms of abuse have different consequences. Hasan’s most basic point was that Muslims are a marginalised minority.Despite being Britain’s largest religious minority group, they are grossly under-represented in the mainstream. Hasan is one of a few Muslim public figures and one of only two mainstream Muslim commentators. Without having others ‘with’ him to combat Islamophobia, the largely voiceless moderate Muslim community face being pushed further towards the fringes.

Hasan and Hannan are also talking about two very different kinds of ‘progressive’s prejudice’. The concept of ‘progressive’s prejudice’ has been criticised but what Hasan was referring to was the willingness of some liberal critics to allow abuses, like those carried out in Iran or by the Taliban, to tarnish the reputation of Islam. More than a billion people are adherents to the faith, not every one of them calls for the stoning of adulterers. It is this that makes the liberal dismissal of Islam as an intolerant ideology different, in kind and in substance, to a placard clutching leftie in an ‘I hate Thatcher’ t-shirt. Hasan’s aim was to warn us about the increasingly acceptable face Islamophobia has acquired and to lazily compare racism, even in its covert form, to tory bashing is to precipitate this change.

But Hannan’s argument has an even more problematic aspect. The corollary of his no-hierarchy-of-hatreds contention is that all haters are equal. No matter how abusive or who you abuse, everyone – from the EDL stalwart to the strident feminist – is an abuser. This argument is patently wrong and on two levels.

Firstly, to dismiss everyone as hater is to fail to identify legitimate domains of criticism. Hasan confesses to indulging in the occasional ad hominem attack and acknowledges his faith is not beyond question. Hannan, on the other hand, pedantically dismisses the idea that there is a difference between attacking a person and their politics as ‘sophistry’. But this difference is often obvious and always crucial. To use Hannan’s own example: viciously criticising James Delingpole’s body of work is fine, to say the same about his parenting or his children is not.

Secondly, and most gravely, by failing to single out the most egregious abuse and instead tarring everyone with the same broad brush, all Hannan does is deprive the most offensive offences of their offensiveness.

Hannan is, at other points, an odd idealist. It’s ‘unusual’ to him that ‘lefties’ don’t ‘regret’ hatred and he condemns the ‘liberal’ claim that ‘some hatreds are unconscionable [whilst] others [are] laudable’. But this is plainly wrong and by simply asking ‘is it wrong to hate Hitler?’ we collapse Hannan’s position. There is an unbridgeable gap between hating hatefulness and being hateful, the former is justifiable and the latter is not.

Hatred is not inherently wrongful. Putting word games (is intolerance of intolerance intolerant?) and intellectual cowardice (this is all just a can of worms waiting to explode) aside, the point really is a simple one: to object to bigotry is not to become bigoted yourself. Hasan’s article was as much about the way people expressed their suspicions of Islam at it was about those suspicions existing at all. There is an absolute difference between criticism and racism – in objecting to something and in being objectionable.

In the hierarchy of hatreds Islamophobia sits near the very top, alongside every other form of prejudice that attacks a person for things over which they have no control. If anti-tory sentiment features at all, it languishes near the bottom. Politics is a legitimate target for criticism and vicious criticism is all part of the dialectic. To claim to be a victim for challenges to your opinion is, frankly, shameful.

Christopher Hitchens – What Should His Legacy Be?

It’s almost tragicomic that only death brings people the recognition they deserved whilst alive. This is true for Christopher Hitchens who, though increasingly famous in his last days, will only now have his vast catalogue read by the many it should already have reached. As eulogies mount, praising a distinguished writer’s wit and wisdom, one can’t help but wonder what Hitchens would have made of them all.

Before the charge is made, let me declare now that sycophancy is as disrespectful to the memory of the dead as indifference. Death demands honesty and people must be remembered for who they were, not for who we would have liked them to be. Hitchens himself would have wanted no more and no less.

Grief can gild memories with generosity and Hitchens has, in some obituaries, been likened to Voltaire and Orwell. But these comparisons are unsustainable and on two levels.

Firstly, there’s the banal fact that history has yet to certify Hitchens’ work. Even so, Hitchens was many things but philosopher and social commentator he was not. Despite his self-assurance “Hitch” was a humble man and after being flattered by these comparisons he would have swiftly dismissed them. Voltaire, Orwell and Wilson were his inspirations, not his equals and Hitchens said as much in his most recent published exchange.

Secondly, “intellectual” seems an oddly ill-fitting “job title” for someone whose aim it was to provoke us into discussion. It wasn’t Hitchens’ stated aim to enlighten, elucidate or educate. He didn’t cultivate knowledge for the sake of being knowledgeable and Hitchens is better understood as an intellectual pragmatist. The understanding that knowledge should be used not stored is characteristic of Hitchens’ work. What we got when we read or heard from Hitchens was Hitchens. Quotes, facts and arguments were all deployed to inform, test and express his opinions. Erudition was simply a by-product of this reflection.

Notwithstanding the claim that Hitchens doesn’t belong to the esteemed group of enlightenment figures he so admired, we must not diminish his accomplishments as a commentator in an era increasingly defined by sound bites and twitter.

For aspiring writers Hitchens is a role model. To present journalists he should serve as an example. In both capacities what Hitchens represents is the pursuit of perfecting the writer’s craft. During his career, his writing was criticised for at times being boring and at others being overstated. Nevertheless this process of refinement was as important a message for Hitchens as the indictment of religion or the dismissal of despots. It is for this reason that poor journalism has never been more intolerable than when lazy hands wrote lazy obituaries for a man whose ability as a writer deserved better.

It’s offensive to the rigour of his work to describe him as having “scribbled” articles. To do so is to practice the poor journalism that Hitchens’ prolific and incisive work cast a deep and dark shadow over. And to describe Hitchens as a “devout atheist” is to use the sort of obvious and inaccurate oxymoron that would have triggered his irascible rage. But the BBC we were worse, facilely describing Hitchens as “controversial”. “Controversial”, through overuse, is at risk of becoming meaningless. It’s an adjective fit for “X Factor scandals”, scandal being another overused hyperbole. Of course the context in which words are used is important but Hitchens was masterful enough to appreciate that connotations are crucial too. “Controversial” both misstates and understates what Hitchens achieved. More than controversial, Hitchens was an iconoclast. He didn’t merely provoke disagreement; he shook complacently held assumptions at their very foundations. Hitchens deserves respect for relying on reason, not rhetoric and it is for this reason that in a debate Martin Amis said he would back Hitchens over Cicero. If I were on my bottom dollar, I’d do the same.

Between his politics and his prose we must not overlook his personality. Lynn Barber described him as “one of the greatest conversationalists of our age”. He could also, with what Ian Parker at the New Yorker called “the sudden, cutthroat withdrawal of charm”, wound deeply. Youtube is full of videos of “Hitch-slaps”, capturing instances where Hitchens deployed both wisdom and wit to strike down opponents.

What of his legacy? Jason Cowley in the New Statesman predicted that Hitchens would be remembered for his prodigious output, his swaggering, rhetorical style and his lifestyle. I’m inclined to be less pessimistic. Peter Hitchens said that courage is the quality that best defined his brother. To that I would add clarity. Combined, Hitchens’ legacy is obvious and simple but powerful.

Throughout, he urged us to be courageous: to test our beliefs and to voice our convictions. Equally he encouraged us to be clear, not merely when expressing our courage, but when deciding to what our courage should relate. I’ll explain. That Hitchens knew himself is obvious to anyone who begins to read his work. If Hitchens served as an example for anything, it would be introspection. What might seem like hubris in his writing is instead an acute self-awarness, the kind of unapologetic commitment to one’s views that results from having defined oneself. When reading or listening to Hitchens’, this clarity has the effect of a mirror, forcing us to reflect ourselves on our views. It is this that gives value to his courage and it is this that should be Hitchens’ legacy.

Ram Mashru

My Tram Experience: Time To Be Constructive

Viral videos of racist public outbursts should prompt us to reflect on how best to tackle pernicious social problems.

It’s frustrating how short the lifespans of viral videos are. It’s only been five days since the ubiquitous video hit youtube and the novelty has already been exhausted. Internet trolls have trolled, news reporters reported and commentators commented on a story that’s beginning to feel out of date.

But the conversation has been so predictable, so uninspiring. The tram rant served as a nationwide reminder that unprovoked, unashamed racism still exists. Emboldened by this jolt to the national memory, bloggers hurl themselves at their keys and recount their stories, complete with racist slurs, childhood identity crises and adult self-affirmation. Articles abundant in rhetorical questions invite readers to share their own troubled pasts in violent detail.

This mass catharsis, heart-rending as it may be, is just so…fruitless and it’s a distraction. Instances like Emma West’s outburst are rare opportunities for us to be constructive. By being offended ethnic minorities achieve nothing, but by posing questions the conversation can progress.

Sunny Hundal’s terrific piece in The Guardian marks a start. He notes that the law can be the worst possible way of dealing with situations like these and skips through the obvious reasons why: the law is often ineffective, legislation can be a blunt tool, laws can discriminate against minorities and arrest will only stifle racism, not eliminate it. He oversimplifies the case, but with his last point he hits the proverbial nail on the proverbial head.

I don’t accept th the law has no role to play and we must be careful not to elide crucial legal distinctions. She was arrested for racial harassment and no one can argue that there are no laudable reasons for criminalising hateful conduct. If Emma West’s rant were ageist, sexist or homophobic the legal response should be the shame. Law has a role in regulating our conduct, in clarifying society’s accepted morals, in sending a message and the message being sent is simply this: you cannot harass others. But complacent observers are not sensitive to this distinction and so it’s Hundal’s last point that needs to be explored.

Emma West is ignorant and historically wrong but she’s not an anomaly. The deterrent effect of an arrest will only drive those like her behind walls. The corollary of this self-censorship is that it makes her a rallying point, a martyr to the self-declared warriors fighting the immigration invasion.

We need to understand that it’s only once bigots raise their heads above the parapet that they can be counted and only then can they can be asked to explain their prejudice. It’s a truth universally acknowledged, that liberal societies protect themselves from the threat posed by extremism by exposing it. The tram experience should encourage us all to foster an open environment in which more people like Emma West air their grievances, so that more people like Emma West can be held to account.

One of the first commenters on Hundal’s article simply says that Emma West shouldn’t be given ‘the oxygen of publicity’. To ignore racism is to neglect it, and allow it to fester. It’s inherently counter-productive.

Had Hundal been on the tram, he’d have let her know that he was English and then gone back to pretending not to care. I object to this defiant apathy. Racists need to be engaged; Emma West must be criticised and there is nothing more shameful than public condemnation. There is no greater mirror forcing you to reflect, than national criticism. There is no better way to learn the extremity of your views than to be drowned out by a tidal wave of liberal, tolerant disapproval.

Ram Mashru

Should the legal U-turn restore our faith in London’s major institutions? No yet.

As St. Paul’s and the Corporation of London suspend action to legally evict the protesters, Occupy London have little cause to celebrate. The Corporation has declared a mere ceasefire, not an end to hostilities. And the overtures emanating from the cloisters of St. Paul’s must be taken with a pinch of salt.

Humility is the buzzword of the day. The Chapter of St. Paul’s ‘unanimously’ committed themselves to ‘[setting] out on another path’. But, as Raziat Butt explains, this alternative ‘path’ is not a new one. The new initiative to reconnect the financial with the ethical was something already being undertaken by the St. Paul’s Institute.

This change of tone will, I’m sure, have come about in good faith. But it is difficult to remain entirely un-sceptical. The reputation of the Cathedral was in crisis following the events of the past week. The Cathedral had all but lost a credible voice and indeed it was the Cathedral’s untenable actions that forced a third resignation.

The suppression of a report, compiled by the St. Paul’s Institute which investigates the ethics of City pay, is another miscalculation on the Church’s part, a ‘cover-up’ that has fuelled accusations that the Cathedral are in collusion with Mammon.

The Archbishop of Canterbury’s silence, until now, has spoken more loudly than he would have liked and more shamefully than he could have hoped. His passing reference to the ‘larger issues’ is formulated to avoid association with the occupation. Even with this U-turn, the Church is at pains to not be seen to side with the protesters. The Reverend Michael Colclough, speaking on behalf of St. Paul’s said plainly that ‘we would not want to be on sides’ and insisted that the Church now hoped to be a ‘bridge-builder’ between ‘the camp and the City’.

We must remember that Richard Chartres, who now claims credit for spearheading the Cathedral’s U-turn,only days earlier said that legal action to evict the occupiers was ‘sensible’. His justification, that the camp might be taken over by people ‘very different’ to the present peaceful protesters betrayed his cynical view of the occupation.

The Corporation’s news release also offers the protesters scant relief. The Corporation have merely paused, not suspended, their plans to take legal action. The pause is one that will last ‘days not weeks’ and the Corporation are adamant that they will not ‘[back] away’ from their ‘responsibilities as Highway Authorities’. Stuart Fraser, the Corporation’s Policy Chairman, makes clear that the pause has been made to ‘support the Cathedral’. So for those that hoped that the Corporation had changed their mind, the press release will be yet another disappointment. The prospect of a legal, perhaps forcible, eviction remains as real as ever.

If legal action were to be pursued, a case would be decided on the balance between the rights of expression and assembly and any public nuisance caused by the camp. The legal argument will be predictably semantic. By evicting the protesters, the rights to freedom of expression and assembly will not be denied, merely curtailed. As lawyers so often do, the form-substance distinction will be hidden behind to produce a technically sound decision, invulnerable to challenge, regardless of unsound consequences.

George Monboit’s expose sheds light on the anachronism that is the Corporation of London. Inscrutable, invisible, intransigent, The Corporation of London has revealed itself to be a public authority turning against a public protest.

Ultimately, the political waters remain hostile for the protesters. The Conservatives seem capable of nothing other than contempt. Senior officials in the Mayor’s office have suggested ‘high powered sprinklers‘ be used to prevent ‘shanty towns’ being formed in public spaces and Boris Johnson complacently called for the protesters to ‘move on’, having already ‘made their complaint‘. Cameron’s latest words on the matter are also cause for great concern. The inference from his failure to understand ‘why the freedom to demonstrate has to include the freedom to pitch a tent almost anywhere in London’ is that he proposes to clamp down further on the right to protest. But even more troubling is the inference that he plans to take away the public nature of public protest. To say that there is a right to protest, but not a right to protest ‘here’ is to open the way to hide public protests altogether. Out of sight, out of mind. As Madeleine Bunting persuasively argues, the occupation is camped outside St. Paul’s not simply to be seen. The location is a ‘key symbolic space – this is the politics of geography – in a city designed to facilitate only three activities – working, transport and shopping’.

It is an inadvertent success of the Occupation that deep flaws in London’s major institutions have been exposed. 14 days, it would seem, is the most the City of London is prepared to tolerate a protest that is both an embodiment of and advocate for a national frustration. In deciding to pursue legal action the Cathedral and the Corporation have shown a lack of foresight. Recourse to the courts has always and will only exacerbate the problem, an injunction will not end a movement determined to stay it will merely displace it. And the shadow of police violence remains a fear. Violence has shocking precedent in such occupations. If the eviction were violent, it would also beg the question: What faith can be had in peaceful protest and civil disobedience if it is only to be crushed by police brutality? All we can hope is that the promises made today, of reaching a measured solution, hold true. Only then can our faith be restored.

Ram Mashru

Occupy London – A Sympathiser’s Critique

Protests have two aims: to garner publicity and air a grievance. The OLSX movement has succeeded with the former but not the latter. It’s the failure to substantiate a coherent complaint that is the movement’s weakness. ‘The 99%’ is the only enduring idea and ‘anti-capitalism’ is the movement’s sound bite mantra. These ideas may be compelling but they lack substance.

Criticisms that the Occupy protests fail to offer a viable alternative to the political and economic status quo miss the point. It’s only once people start complaining that we can ask them why. But with Occupy London the question that remains unanswered is, what are they complaining about?

The official line is that the occupation provides the space and time for the occupiers to distil their complaint. But with the novelty of the occupation wearing thin and the prospect of an eviction looming, the movement is at of risk losing all political momentum.

The vague initial statement, the closest Occupy London has come to clarifying its position, was dismissed by almost all the occupiers I interviewed as the lowest common denominator. When I asked occupiers what they would change about the statement I was told repeatedly that there were too many causes and that none could be prioritised.

‘This movement is about peace and harmony over fear and greed’ is what one occupier insisted whilst Luka, the occupier I first met, aimed to awaken the human consciousness. What will this awakening achieve? ‘An evolution’. How can you tell if and when evolution has taken place? ‘The human consciousness will be awoken’. It is this sort of rudimentary circularity in the reasoning and the arguments of most protesters that is precisely the problem. A lack of a coherent strategy risks rendering the occupation a mere visual reminder of some grievance, seeking some change in some way.

The failure of the movement to articulate its basic terms is compounded first by the effort to avoid stigma, second by a lack of strategic direction and third by over-generous sympathisers.

The effort to avoid stigma is a major strategic flaw. Many of the occupiers I met were reluctant to define their positions. I offered some deliberately provocative suggestions and started with the biggie ‘anti-capitalist?’. Few rose to the bait and occupiers were similarly unresponsive to ‘anti establishment’ and ‘contrarian’. ‘I’m not anti-anything, I’m free’ is the type of vacuous answer I most often got.

The effort to avoid stigma also manifests in a reluctance to declare an agenda. Protesters scoffed at the idea of reform but bristled at the suggestion of revolution. ‘No one here has answers’ Luka admits, the protests are an attempt at ‘engaging in dialogue’. The occupation provides the forum in which that conversation can be had, I’m told. Understandably, the occupiers don’t wish to appear as political activists with an axe to grind. But the movement now finds itself in limbo between making a stand and talking things out.

The absence of any strategic direction also deprives the occupation of all political clout. ‘Politics is a smokescreen’ is what I’m told when I question an occupier on the counter-intuition of a political movement refusing to engage with politicians. For many occupiers the fact of protest is enough. Patrick Kingsley explains that the camp is both a demand and a solution, that by the non-hierarchical structure and the participatory democracy, the protesters are leading by example.

The lack of direction is one compensated for by optimism. The movement is ‘what change looks like’ and ‘this is the start of something big’ are captions almost everyone repeats. Despite the sincerity, I can’t help but be cynical. The reality is that peaceful protest needs to be large in scale if it is to succeed. Occupy London has attracted more sympathy than is has support and in international terms, the occupations are too politically and geographically disparate to mark the beginning of a shift. If anything, Occupy London is part of a movement of movements.

The occupation’s complacent supporters must also bear some of the blame. The expectations are too low and the approval too generous. Observers are satisfied by the fact that the occupiers are there, that they could be bothered, that they’re ‘at least doing something’. But these supporters fail to recognise the apathy inherent to their ‘something is better than nothing’ attitude. This lazy admiration needs to solidify into active agreement if the movement hopes to effect a change.

For those of us politically sympathetic to the Occupy movement, the desperate lack of substance is deeply disheartening. Simon Jenkins’ dismissal of the Occupation as ‘mere scenery’ has some force. The movement risks ‘[sinking] into the urban background’ because of its failure to identify in sufficient detail why it exists. Protest is necessary but it is not sufficient; it can be a means and an end but with Occupy London, this end is in desperate need of definition.

Ram Mashru

Originally featured here in The Huffington Post

The Protestival – Occupy London [updated]

The first thing I think when approaching the tents is that if you were to occupy any part of London, St. Paul’s might just be the best place to do it. Evening is falling and the Cathedral is lit up, the scene is breath-taking. Oddly, the sprawling tents and the crowd milling on the Cathedral steps complement the scene. The piazza outside St. Paul’s was designed to be occupied and the congregation listening to a song, introduced as ‘one for the bankers’, seem perfectly fitting.

The mood is light and the atmosphere surprisingly purposeless. I don’t find the synchronised frenzy of an organised protest and I feel as if I’ve arrived at the end of the day’s trade.The night is yet to reach its coldest and darkest point, yet among tents I see blanketed people sitting in neat circles sharing roll-ups. Two people having a conversation are happy for me to join them. I describe the atmosphere as unexpected, more like a festival than a protest. Luka, a friendly, seasoned occupier agrees,  ‘it’s a protestival’.

The awakening of human consciousness is what brings him here. When I press him on what this means, there’s little substance. Another occupier is similarly all-encompassing, ‘this movement is about peace and harmony over fear and greed’. ‘No one here has answers’ Luka admits, ‘we’re here to engage in discussion’.

The convictions are strong and sometimes the sanctimony is palpable. Luka repeats several times that ‘silence is [often] guilt’ and the insidious force of corporate power is explained to me several times. ‘Politics is a smokescreen’ is what I’m told when I question an occupier on the counter-intuition of a political movement refusing to engage with politicians.

Most of the people I meet are sincere, their motivations laudable and the occupation is earnest. There is also a great deal of optimism. People lack ideas about the direction of the movement or the measure of the movement’s success. But they’re confident the movement is the start of a cultural, if not political, shift. ‘This is what change looks like’ is a caption almost everyone repeats. ‘Yes we can’ seems to be the only slogan the occupiers are yet to claim.

I often found it difficult to distinguish occupiers from passers-by and the diversity of the occupiers is heartening. The more experienced protesters in rain coats sit alongside students and hipsters and there’s a strong contingent of bearded, cane carrying, top hat wearing street intellectuals with missing teeth.

Luka points me to one such garishly dressed guy and describes him as having ‘interesting views on the common law’. When I introduce myself as a freelance journalist he’s welcoming, ‘this movement was designed to attract the likes of you’. I ask about his interesting views on the common law and I’m immediately corrected. ‘They’re not views, they’re facts’. ‘I’m in and out of a court-room like a yo-yo’ is his most memorable claim. He immediately volunteers legal advice. I’m told my knowledge of my date of birth doesn’t qualify as admissible evidence in court and the etymology of the word ‘register’ is explained at length.

Any hopes of a substantive conversation are quickly dashed. Despite his initial welcome, he didn’t seem interested in the conversation I wanted to have. A lot of the conversation involves him exhibiting his knowledge and all the people I meet whilst with him are intent on doing the same. At times, this borders on childish pontificating. One occupier asks, ‘it’s all in your head, but what is it?’ before joining the food queue. When I press my newfound legal advisor for more concrete answers I’m warned about being ‘boxed in’ or ‘tied down’ by labels. Another occupier chimes in, ‘placing labels tells me more about you than it does about me’.  They deflate when I remind them that my question asked them for their descriptions.

To my surprise, I encounter a definite effort to avoid stigma. Luka is quick to correct my question when I ask him if he feels the movement is being listened to. The occupiers are not here to be heard, he explains, they’re here to discuss. He also insists that Occupy London isn’t a platform but a forum. Others are reluctant to define their positions. I offer some provocative suggestions and start with the biggie, ‘anti-capitalist?’ Few rise to the bait so I suggest ‘anti-establishment’. ‘Contrarian?’ gets me a few laughs but I suspect they were at my expense. ‘I’m not anti-anything, I’m free’ is the type of vacuous answer I most often get.

The occupation is a physical as well as a political struggle. The fact that people are prepared to endure the bitter cold and sleep on cobblestones makes clear the level of commitment. ‘The discomfort is worth it because the people are so great’ is a widely held sentiment.

What my visit makes clear is that the protest is more a community than a movement and the occupation is more a commune than an encampment. A commune complete with a library, university and coffee tent. Zoe Williams describes the occupation as sustainable, but a more accurate description would be self-sufficient. Whether the movement is politically sustainable is something I grow more and more sceptical about the more time I spend speaking to occupiers.

The diverse group is held together by like-mindedness and part of this collective morality is non-discrimination. Here, an instant sense of belonging is gained simply by wanting something to change. Some of the people I spoke to were homeless or estranged from families and the unquestioning openness of the movement was a big draw. Equality is the defining element. Luka describes the encampment as a place where ‘everyone is allowed to be expressive, allowed to be human’. For him, the occupation is a new home. I ask him what he means by home and his answer is telling. ‘Home is the place where the people you love are’.

I visited to address the criticism that the weakness of the occupation is the inability to articulate a coherent complaint and I leave with this criticism reinforced. The occupation, despite its initial fervour, is one that can easily be trivialised as quaint or kitsch and this is confirmed when I see tourists taking pictures of the ‘Capitalism is crisis’ sign, pitched unstably above the tent city with St Paul’s dominating the background. The banner has so quickly become iconic and yet it’s the kind of thing that’d one day be better recognised as an album cover. It’s a bold image but it’s one I’m not convinced the people behind it fully understand.

Ram Mashru

[Guest contribution] Occupy Wall Street and the Left: a cautious embrace

In the shadow of what should have been the World Trade Centre, anarchists, punks, the unsatisfied and the disenfranchised gathered on September 17^th to protest against the disproportionate power of the US corporate elite. One month on, the Occupy Wall Street movement has its own Wikipedia page. But political parties have failed to realise the potential currency and potential implications of these protests; this is an opportunity to gain traction with voters at a time of widespread political malaise.

Hari Simran, a protester in Washington interviewed for Time magazine, put his finger on it; ‘the exact concrete solutions may not have materialised yet, but the wonderful thing about it is [that] we’re open to change and ready for some paradigm shift’. In fact, the greatest strength of the movement will be its ability to unite those who never imagined they’d be in agreement. Its capacity to pull in those who have a feeling of social disenfranchisement, those who can’t quite articulate exactly what’s wrong, and don’t profess to know the answers, means that the influence of the protests will be far deeper than its physical size suggests.

The unifying idea is bold and simple without being precise. How can the recent Tory conference tagline ‘Leadership for a Better Future’ hope to stand up against ‘Occupy Everything’? The movement undermined its critics when banners began to appear explaining ‘we are not disorganised, America just has too many issues’. Similarly, the London branch of the protests has seen participation by traveller groups, young intellectuals and old hand social activists. The combination of its inability to be pinned to any one group or issue means the protests’ appeal remains open to all. We only need look at the fact that since mid-September sign-ups for the Occupy Facebook page have doubled every three days to see the movement is rapidly growing .

This type of movement is not unprecedented. The Tea party movement began life on Twitter, and before long Ed Goeas, later a consultant for Michelle Bachman, was advising clients to avoid taking ownership of the message and instead to exploit the ‘consensus’. From gatherings of 120 people in Seattle, in 2010 the Tea Party was instrumental in delivering Republicans control of Congress. And, of course, the Arab Spring sentiment was broad enough to cover the political discontents of populations from Casablanca to Cairo. Without predicting the future of the movement, its predecessors suggest big things.

It’s high time the political Left learnt to use this type of protest to its advantage, embracing the fact that its traditional voting base has come out in droves in support of the Occupy Wall Street movement. A big advantage for the Left is the fact that the political Right are alienated by events like this. They marginalise their own core voters by supporting something which looks too close to anarchism for comfort, and appear out of touch if they don’t acknowledge its significance. What is David Cameron to do when his own political jingo of the ‘Big Society’ is repackaged and sent back with teeth? Labour need to jump on the bandwagon just as the Democrats have been with Obama admitting ‘we got sold out’. Just as Obama won in 2008 by picking up the ideological strands of young undecided voters and weaving them back into Democrat support, the liberal Left have an opportunity to reinvigorate their message with recent events.

The issues and opinions illustrated in Ed Milliband’s speech to the Labour Party conference are not out of tune with those expressed by the protesters. Whilst some have argued that his liberal stance left the party unelectable, the Occupy protests have proven them wrong. There are evident areas of overlap, and Labour should identify and build on these.

The methods, however, are key. Labour needs to show support for the movement and its sentiments, without promising to be the political solution to their grievances. To align too closely is dangerous; no-one knows the direction the protests will take. Moreover, there is a large majority in Britain for whom the protests are the summer riots by another name. Simon Jenkins has even written in The Guardian that the protests need ‘the threat of violence’ to be effective. Ed Milliband cannot afford to alienate those within the party positioned closer to the centre-ground. But these are reasons to be cautious, not to ignore the political potential of such a connection altogether.

A potentially troublesome issue could be the reluctance of the protesters to accept political ties. Many within the movement are stridently anti-establishment. However, one way to counter those who suggest that the protests have no answers would be for the leaders of the Occupy campaign to engage in policy discussions. To assuage any concerns about allying with a particular partisan agenda, the Left should get involved simply to set up a dialogue. No hard and fast link, but a strong message that if there is to be a political solution, the Labour party should be facilitating it. There are advantages for the protesters too in legitimising their cause.

This is a golden opportunity and one which Labour strategists need urgently to grab hold of. Ed’s message will be infinitely stronger if he can match his rhetoric to real activism. After all, which political party wouldn’t want to have the support of the strongest political protest movement in years, the 99%?

Katie Young is an undergraduate in History at Cambridge University. She writes on issues including American and UK politics and East Asian affairs.

Responding to the riots: actions don’t always speak louder than words

Since the riots the focus has turned to sentencing and questions about the purpose of criminal justice and the severity of punishments dominate. But as legal processes and political strategies come under scrutiny, what is obscured is the language.

Cameron’s out of touch rhetoric has gone unnoticed among promises of policy reform. His references to a ‘broken society’ are not only repetitive but damaging and Cameron’s talk of society’s ‘moral collapse’ as a problem that needs to be ‘defeated’ betrays his flawed approach: problems are solved not conquered. This combative attitude pervades the government’s response. Threats of welfare cuts and evictions from council houses are not only bad policies but policies that seem motivated by a knee jerk populist reaction.

Whilst promises of a ‘social’ and ‘security fight back’ satiate the public appetite for punishment and enhance the tough image the Tories so keenly seek, such language can only make matters worse. The rhetoric fails to instil faith in the disaffected that politicians will address pressing social needs and the disaffection is reinforced when politicians dismiss these social needs as a societal malaise. The effect is to compound the sentiment that catalysed some of the disenfranchised into mass criminality.

Cameron’s response to the riots has also exposed him as out of touch in a second sense. He has been accused in the past of ‘middle-classism’, of propagating a social model composed of a nuclear family with 1.9 children, a pet dog and, it would seem, an innate understanding of what it means to be upstanding citizens. Cameron may not have used these words but he has resurrected the old demons that threaten this ideal. Fatherless homes, gangs and gang culture, lack of discipline and the loss of a sense of community have all been cited to substantiate clichés about society’s moral decay.

Most disconcerting is the increasingly moralistic parlance of the cabinet’s responses. The problem with this moralism is its hypocrisy and its naivety.

Firstly, there seems to be a cognitive dissonance in Westminster between what politicians have done and what they condemn. I don’t think that someone living on benefits can easily be persuaded that the ‘middle class looting’ of the bankers or the ‘official looting’ of the expenses scandal is something entirely different to the looting carried out during the riots. The looting can be distinguished strongly on the basis of property damage but less so with theft.

The political class can’t escape the opportunistic example they set as much as they can’t blame the disenfranchised for having little faith in them. A recent study by Essex and Royal Holloway universities suggests that ‘lack of trust in politicians’ was a key factor in making ‘a significant minority…available for participation in acts of mass illegality’. The legacy of the expenses scandal is a deep-rooted mistrust of politicians. This being so, the government’s language should avoid the hypocrisy of pointing the moral finger and placing moral blame on the rioters. A way to regain the loss of trust might be an acknowledgement that politicians were also involved, regardless of the extent, in society’s sudden moral collapse.

Secondly, Cameron demonstrates staggering naivety with regard to the government’s influence if he believes that he can mend society’s broken moral compass by his programme of ‘tough love’. Morals are something society, and the government by extension, can demand and enforce but never instil. As interviews of rioters reveal, the problem is not the inability to distinguish between right and wrong but indifference. The problem is not one of understanding or of awareness but of attitude. If this attitude is to be challenged, instinctively, would honey not be more effective than vinegar?

Those who say that it is naïve to argue that more moderate and constructive language was called for after the riots need only look to Tariq Jahan, who’s stoic appeal for calm and for unity, after his son’s death, prevented violence flaring again in the streets of Birmingham.

It seems that the old adage that actions speak louder than words has held true and led the cabinet to act before they listened. In an effort to be seen to have responded swiftly and forcefully to the riots, the cabinet’s language was reckless. As facts emerged about the demographic of the rioters, it became clear that they belonged to no particular class or culture. Ken Clarke’s description of a ‘feral underclass’ was therefore inaccurate. And Theresa May’s back tracking, particularly in relation to the causes of the riots and the involvement of gangs, during her select committee questioning serves as another example of the way in which the government drew conclusions before gathering information.

On election, Cameron assured us that he would not respond to every crisis with ‘headline grabbing programmes’. He has either forgotten or deliberately scrapped that commitment. Instead, Cameron and his cabinet could learn that measured and proportionate language is perfectly consistent with taking a tough stance and this approach, rather than tabloid friendly talk of war or morality, might be a way in which they could begin to overcome the ‘them against us’ mentality that at present they seem to be entrenching.

Ram Mashru

Related articles

• We must talk to the rioters, not turn our backs on them | Martin Kettle (guardian.co.uk)
• Cameron rejects claim politicians’ behaviour was to blame for riots (independent.co.uk)
• Riots stoked by mistrust of politicians, says report (independent.co.uk)
• London Riots 2011: David Cameron Wants Reverse In UK’s ‘Slow-Motion Moral Collapse’ (huffingtonpost.com)