Why Ian Tomlinson died?

"Why Ian Tomlinson died?" is asking Indymedia 5/04/09.
It was before the second postmortem examination revealed there was no heart attack - Read Times Online 18/04/09: Beaten G20 man Ian Tomlinson died of 'internal bleeding'. Not mentioning the police in the headline is at that point some kind of light - but still disgraceful - bias.

Internal bleeding, heart attack, etc. are not the first cause of death.
First cause is being beaten by the police.

Why Ian Tomlinson died?

Certainly not because his heart was fragile.
Certainly not because of bad luck.

Ian Tomlinson died because he was not wearing a banker suit.

Jean-Charles de Menezes died because he was neither white nor blond.
Looking like an Arab - strange idea in a context of global war on terror.

Moral of these unfortunately true stories:

Being an Arab (= terrorist), an Asian, a Black person
or/and
A working-class person, black, white, red, blue or whatever
Can dangerously increase your chances as an innocent person to be killed by the Metropolitan police in London.



DEATHS AT THE HANDS OF THE POLICE
by Charlotte Middlehurst and Dominic Sullivan
New Statesman 16/04/09

15 June 1974
Kevin Gately, 20, died when demonstrators from Liberation and the National Front clashed with police in central London. The cause of death, alleged to be a blow to the head from a police truncheon, was never proved.

23 April 1979
Blair Peach, a schoolteacher from New Zealand, died at an anti-National Front demonstration. Eyewitnesses reported that he was hit over the head by a policeman, but no inquiry took place.

5 October 1985
Cynthia Jarrett’s death from a heart attack, as police searched her north London home, caused outrage and sparked the Broadwater Farm Riots.

28 July 1993
Joy Gardner, an illegal immigrant, died of a brain haemorrhage during a raid on her flat. Three policemen were tried for her manslaughter, but were later acquitted.

16 December 1994
Shiji Lapite asphyxiated in a police van in east London. The inquest recorded a verdict of unlawful killing. No charges were brought.

8 May 1995
Brian Douglas died after police fractured his skull with a baton while arresting him in south London. A verdict of death by misadventure was recorded.

5 December 1995
Wayne Douglas died in police custody after his arrest. A ruling of accidental death sparked riots in Brixton, but a fresh inquest was ruled out in 1998.

16 March 1996
Ibrahima Sey, an asylum-seeker, asphyxiated in custody. An inquest returned a verdict of unlawful killing. Those involved were neither disciplined nor prosecuted.

21 August 2008
Sean Rigg collapsed in custody at Brixton Police Station and died two hours later. His case raised questions about police treatment of the mentally ill. The investigation is still open.

22 March 2005
The charity worker Simon Murden was shot dead driving the wrong way up a dual carriageway. An inquest ruled officers were justified in firing at him.

22 July 2005
Jean Charles de Menezes was shot eight times in the head at Stockwell Tube station. The inquest reached an open verdict and no officer has been charged.

1 April 2009
Ian Tomlinson died of a heart attack during the G20 protests. Initially the police reported no contact with Tomlinson; video footage later showed he had been pushed to the ground by police in riot gear.

"Seize the moment" - Ford Visteon Occupation

Source: Socialist Worker

A Ford Visteon workers support group is helping to coordinate support by sustaining the pickets and publicising the Ford Visteon workers struggle for justice. By agreement with the pickets, Haringey Solidarity Group will channel financial support to the pickets through their bank account. Cheques made out to 'Haringey Solidarity Group' or 'HSG' may be sent to HSG, PO Box 2474, London N8 0HW (write Ford Visteon on the back). Next support group meeting Thursday 16th, 7.30pm, Millennium Centre, 386 West Green Rd, N15 3QL.

Jean Charles de Menezes, Ian Tomlinson, who's next?

"The man who died during last week's G20 protests was 'assaulted' by riot police shortly before he suffered a heart attack, according to witness statements received by the Independent Police Complaints Commission.
Investigators are examining a series of corroborative accounts that allege Ian Tomlinson, 47, was a victim of police violence in the moments before he collapsed near the Bank of England in the City of London last Wednesday evening. Three witnesses have told the Observer that Mr Tomlinson was attacked violently as he made his way home from work at a nearby newsagents. One claims he was struck on the head with a baton." (Guardian 5/4/9)

"Exclusive footage [here] obtained by the Guardian shows Ian Tomlinson, who died during G20 protests in London, was attacked from behind by baton–wielding police officer." (Guardian 7/4/9)

"In the statement after his death, policemen initially said protestors impeded medics from treating Tomlinson." (Guardian 7/4/9)

G20 Coverage by Dissident Island Radio

Download Part One here

"Protesters focused the Royal Bank of Scotland because it was bailed out by the British government after a series of disastrous deals brought it to the brink of bankruptcy. Still, its former chief executive Fred Goodwin — aged just 50 — managed to walk off with a tidy annual pension of 703,000 pounds ($1.2 million) — just as unemployment in Britain is at 2 million and rising."

CBS/AP

"Stockhausen Serves Imperialism" - Cornelius Cardew

A really exciting biography of Cornelius Cardew has been recently published in paperback by Copula (Matchless Recordings). It is entitled: Cornelius Cardew, A Life Unfinished. Written by the pianist John Tilbury - a close friend - , this complete account (1069 pages) offers a sincere, vibrant and truly touching portrait of one of the most remarkable British musician. It is just quite regrettable that no disc is added as a useful supplement to the book - so the reader would be able to turn words into sounds - and vice versa.

The dialogue Cardew set up between marxism and contemporary music reveals indeed more than a theoretical interest. It's useless - and in some extent dishonest - refusing the fact that a creative process always carries social consequences - for the creative process itself necessarily taking root somewhere, in a particular social context. 

Cardew's work and reflections simply undermine this illusion and redefine the subversive potential of music: 'Music is a vagrant; it has no fixed abode. It's a menace to society. It needs cleaning up. The impossibility of abolishing music. Its omnipresence. Its uncatchability. Perhaps after all we have to step down and let music pursue its own course.' (Diary entry, 25 February 1965).

When I heard about Cardew for the first time it was through his articles - even though he is not (alas) well recognized in France. Had until then a really nice professor of philosophy, Monsieur Dubois, who unfortunately for his marxist students devoted himself both to Heidegger and Stockhausen. Meeting Cornelius Cardew at that point was saving!
A powerful and exhilarating antidote to what Theodor Adorno called The Jargon of Authenticity, this sort of coded language filled with esoterism and hieratic pretension, turning ordinary concepts in more - allegedly - profound sense.

Adorno demythologized the world of philosophy and it's quite probable that Cardew did exactly the same in the world of experimental music.
That's why his sounds, writings and thoughts deserve to be remembered.

In that respect, Tilbury's book is essential.

A comprehensive review is available in the London Review of Books (12/03/2009)

Yes, but no, but YES : A display of class contempt

There is at least one English word you cannot translate in another language. It is "Chav".

A German friend recently asked me about it and I felt a bit depressed. For whatever you say to explain, at the end, "Chav" is simply how the nice and neat middle-class nicely and neatly despise the working-class. By laughing, of course. Indeed, it is only humor!
Poor, tasteless, uneducated and ridiculous - that's how the average bourgeois perceives the "Chav". Middle-class people actually distinguish themselves from the others by sharing a common intelligence of the social spectrum - which implies a common object of mockery and rejection.

But the irony of this class contempt is that what they mock is actually not so far from what they are.

Read this article in the Guardian entitled "Balm for the soul" (27/02/09). The writer Linda Grant is explaining in a truly touching - but disturbing - way how her very old mother used to enjoy shopping when she was too old and too sick to appreciate any other pleasure. At that point, you have to admit - as apparently "Chavs" and some Guardian writers do - that shopping is all about pleasure.

The Guardian's writer shopping references are Macy's and Selfridges. Those of "Chavs", Adidas and Burberry. Different attributes but same substance!

What is actually criticized as being the "Chav style" is simply a caricature of the middle-class, that reveals the true face of the latter: greed, ostentation and bad taste. All wrapped in a fake moderation. But the middle-class apparently does not like to be caricatured: its sense of humor is not unlimited. You are allowed to laugh at Vicky Pollard only - and, by extension, at any working-class offspring who is not hugging the walls, consumed by the shame of being poor.

Even if I have no special interest in the economy of big brands counterfeiting, can't help delighting of Burberry's embarrassment. "Burberry admits chav effect checked sales over Christmas": that was what you could read in the Telegraph in 2005, apparently very preoccupied by l'image de marque de la marque. Hopefully, as the Daily Mail put it, everything is now back to normal and "Burberry's shaken off its chav image to become the fashionistas' favourite once more". That was a close shave!

Even though, it sounds really stupid to be proud of being a Chav. But Julie Burchill is, according to what she wrote in the Times.
She simply neglected one detail: that she is actually NOT a Chav... Hello girl, your articles are published in the Times! That's why she could afford the luxury of being proud, no one would actually discriminate her as a Chav.

This notion of "Chav pride" is particularly pernicious because it keeps the real so-called "Chavs" away from political emancipation and consciousness. A minimum of dignity is required at that point - especially if you truly feel a part of the working-class because of your family background, personal history, political choices, etc.

And that sense of dignity first implies to deconstruct and undermine the "Chav" category which is nothing more than a display of class contempt disguised in harmless jokes.

Shops of Brixton

Even if the classical tune Four Seasons was transmitted inside Brixton tube station, the violins of Vivaldi’s spring seem already a far-off memory as one reaches the market. But showers apparently do not discourage local shoppers. Fish and avocados, cheap watches and unblocked mobiles, spoons and pop-corn, beef and apples, spice buns and Nigerian films, Jamaican crackers and Chinese healing herbs, Mecca rose incense and Haile Selassie posters, plantain bananas and halal sweets. All you need - and more - is in Brixton market, in the south London borough of Lambeth. 

Las Americas Cafeteria, for example, is a small flavourful piece of Colombia. The restaurant, immediately adjacent to a butcher’s shop, houses a video-club plus a bakery. It is possible to order typical Colombian (and Brazilian) food in Spanish. Not many options left for vegetarians though customers can try the corn cakes and ‘bunuelos’, sort of light doughnuts filled with sweetened cheese.

In the back of the restaurant, chatty women are preparing bread for ‘empenadas’, pastries filled with beef and onions. A tiny crucifix is fixed on the fridge, front of the weird head of a plastic horse. The room’s agency and decor, made with bits and pieces of strange objects, may sound kitsch. It actually reflects the nostalgia of a people attempting to preserve what has been left behind. It creates as well a strong social link between shoppers. Las Americas is to anybody a propitious place for passionate talks or silent reveries. A free Spanish newspaper, Latino Times, is available in the market. The current issue deals with how Hugo Chavez, Evo Morales and other South American leaders are facing the financial crisis. It also focuses on the community life in London. The market is very much like an agora, a common space where different people with different stories can not only shop but meet and converse.

Aisha and Muhammad run a small business called Dunya. Muhammad is Jamaican and converted to Islam since 1990. He remembers the Brixton riots in April 1981, provoked by the death of a young Black man first stabbed in the street, and then questioned by the police instead of being taken to the hospital. He says “it was inevitable and there is a lot of tension right now”. According to him, racism is still present even if the words “young groups” replaced the expression “Blacks and Asians”. It is, he adds, “in your face policy. Actually, there are no more silver vans of mobile police as soon as you cross the bridge.”
Despite the pressure due to both social and racial discrimination, relations between the people here are warm-hearted. Aisha, originally from Barbados, explains that “Brixton is made of all different cultures; there is an Islamic shop here, a Rastafarian there, etc.”

The general context, which is to gentrification of the area, does not spare the market though. Aisha and Muhammad have already planned to move their shop in anticipation of a private company buy out. “They want to turn this market into a mall”. A new Westfield might be at stake. But this “new shopping experience”, as advertising agencies call it, would certainly not save the most precious experience of Brixton: stories of its diverse communities. One of those has been told by Paul Simonon’s bass guitar in a famous punk song, and is still clashing like a warning: “You can crush us, You can bruise us, But you’ll have to answer to.”

A version of this feature was first published in City Online Magazine

Photo by Claire Barthelemy