Mick Hartley

Brother Piers

The Corbyn brothers, it seems, can't catch a break right now. After poor misunderstood Jeremy was forced to resign as Labour leader and accused of allowing a culture of antisemitism to grow in the party rank and file, it's the turn of brother Piers: 

Piers Corbyn said he has been slapped with a £10,000 fine under newly-introduced coronavirus laws for organising an anti-lockdown protest in central London.

The brother of former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn was among those to attend the "Unite for Freedom" protest on Saturday, which was held in Trafalgar Square.

The 73-year-old, a climate change denier who set up controversial weather forecasting business Weather Action, said on Twitter he had been handed the fixed penalty fine as "organiser".

In the tweet to his more than 31,000 followers, he called the demonstration an "epic success".

Under new changes to regulations, those attending a gathering of more than 30 people may be committing a criminal offence.

Hundreds of protesters, some of whom displayed anti-mask and anti-vaccination placards, gathered in Trafalgar Square on Saturday afternoon.

Officers from the Metropolitan Police handed out letters explaining the newly-introduced legislation to demonstrators as they marched down Whitehall.

It might just about be possible to have some sympathy if this was indeed merely an "anti-lockdown protest". It was worse than that, though. A lot worse. Look who's speaking here - with Corbyn behind:

From the JC:

The antisemitic conspiracy theorist David Icke was loudly cheered as he addressed more than 10,000 people at an anti-lockdown demonstration in central London on Saturday, at which far-right placards and flags were openly displayed.

The former sports presenter - who has previously spoken of  "global conspiracy Rothschild-Zionism" - was joined on stage by Jeremy Corbyn's brother Piers and other leading coronavirus-deniers  at the “Unite For Freedom” protest in Trafalgar Square.

One protester was photographed at Saturday's gathering holding a flag displaying the symbol of Oswald Mosley's British Union of Fascists.

Several other attendees held placards promoting the antisemitic QAnon conspiracy theory which revolves around the idea of an all-powerful, world-ruling cabal controlling the world.

One of the rally's organisers, who introduced themselves from the stage as a leading figure in the Save Our Rights UK organisation, was applauded for a speech in which she claimed George Soros was responsible for the funding of abortion as well as the Black Lives Matters movement.

Other pictures from the demonstration showed Trafalgar Square almost full of protesters , none of whom were wearing protective masks, holding signs that branded the pandemic as a “hoax”. [...]

Mr Icke has in the past accused Jews of helping to plan the coronavirus outbreak and of secretly being behind antisemitic attacks on their own communities.  He has also suggested that Adolf Hitler was Jewish and an agent of Zionism – both in books sold on Amazon and most recently in a video uploaded to YouTube in March of this year. 

In April he suggested Israel was using the pandemic to "test its technology". Following the controversial broadcast by London Live, YouTube and Facebook removed the video from their platform. 

A similar demo took place in Berlin, Germany, at  which far-right extremists attempted to storm the Reichstag parliament building and other protestors again held QAnon banners.

So no, not so much an "anti-lockdown protest", more a far-right conspiracists' jamboree.

They do both have an unfortunate tendency to share a platform with noted antisemites, these Corbyn brothers.

God loves you

In Stroud Green:

Not, I'm guessing, a Banksy.

A rich Englishman using a foreign boat to deposit migrants in Italy

Some problems with Banksy's rescue boat, as the complex reality threatens to swamp the parading of virtue:

The street artist Banksy has divided opinion in Italy after a rescue vessel he is funding in the Mediterranean became overloaded with migrants.

The Italian coastguard came to the aid of MV Louise Michel after it said it was unable to manouevre safely. It was towing migrants in a liferaft, along with the body of a dead companion.

The 31m ship, a former French customs patrol boat, offloaded 49 of the most vulnerable on to the coastguard ship and a further 180 to Sea-Watch 4, a larger German charity vessel.

Banksy’s decision to buy and operate the vessel has put him at the heart of Italy’s migrant crisis. The passengers taken off Louise Michel were transported to the Italian island of Lampedusa, where their presence heightened ill feeling. The island is struggling to cope with more than 1,500 migrants, with 450 arriving this weekend in a large wooden fishing boat. [...]

Banksy is popular in Italy but the response to his initiative underlines how polarised the nation has become on the subject of immigration. The conservative newspaper Il Giornale accused the artist of “speaking in slogans” and failing to understand the complexity of migration.

Louise Michel, named after a 19th century French anarchist, began its first mission from the Spanish port of Burriana on August 18. Sprayed bright pink with a fire extinguisher by Banksy and featuring the image of a small girl in a lifevest holding a heart-shaped life ring, its operators have taken an aggressive approach to what they see as the culpable negligence of the EU. “The people have sat in a mix of salt water and fuel for days. It is night and European states are not doing their f***ing job,” said Lea Reisner, head of operations at an early phase of the voyage. The boat was bought with the proceeds of the sale of art and is crewed by a rescue professionals from across Europe. “She runs on a flat hierarchy and a vegan diet,” the operators said.

The artist presented the venture in a video, with images cutting from huge pleasure yachts to migrants foundering in water. “Like most people who make it in the art world, I bought a yacht to cruise the Med,” the accompanying captions say. “It’s a French Navy vessel we converted into a lifeboat because the EU authorities deliberately ignore distress calls from ‘non-Europeans’ .” The video ends with the slogan: “All Black Lives Matter.”

Claire Faggianelli, of the collective responsible for transforming the boat, said Banksy had emailed to congratulate them on the rescues.

Giovanni Orsina, professor of contemporary history at LUISS University, Rome, said he thought Banksy’s initiative would push people from Italy’s non-ideological centre towards the anti-immigrant League of Matteo Salvini. “A rich Englishman is using a foreign boat to deposit migrants in Italy. It seems perfectly calculated to deepen the gulf between rich progressives and those who suffer the consequences of their policies.”

A reader of the Giornale di Sicilia said: “It would be much better if he managed to take all the immigrants directly to England, a very civilised country with much better employment prospects.”

It's almost beyond parody: the "“All Black Lives Matter” slogan, the vegan diet and "flat hierarchy", the ship named after an obscure 19th century French anarchist, and the man himself, with a smug proclamation of his status as the uniquely moral artist - "Like most people who make it in the art world, I bought a yacht to cruise the Med". 

As a Times commenter says: "Oh no Banksy, looks like you’ve started believing your own hype mate, classic mistake . . You do graffiti not politics remember !"

I wonder why he didn't go for helping migrants crossing the English Channel. Not as dramatic or indeed as sunny as the Med, but the problem's basically the same, if on a smaller scale. And it's closer to home. Perhaps he knew what the reaction would be here....

Red Apple March

An official video released by the Turkish Ministry of Communication:

The term "Islamofascism" was developed as a description of the likes of ISIS - ie extreme authoritarian Islam. Islam, you might say, with a touch of fascism. Not, in retrospect, a particularly accurate term. This is different. This really is Islamic fascism: or, to be more precise, Turkish fascism. Fascism with a touch of Islam.

Some helpful analysis from MEMRI:

On August 24, 2020, in honor of the 949th anniversary on August 26 of the 1071 Battle of Manzikert, Turkey’s Ministry of Communication released a music video titled the "Red Apple March." Seeking to present the modern Turkish military as the heir to the militaries of Turkish states stretching back 1,000 years, including the Ottoman empire and the Seljuks, the clip cuts between images of the Turkish military, including special forces, tanks, fighter jets, attack helicopters, rockets, naval vessels, and images of men in Ottoman and Seljuk military garb. The video also shows the Turkish drillships Fatih and Oruç Reis, which have recently been drilling and searching for natural gas in the Mediterranean Sea and the Black Sea.

One section of the video features Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan walking past a row of soldiers cut with an actor portraying an Ottoman sultan doing the same. As an Ottoman military band plays outside, the actor, along with others portraying Sultan Alparslan, who led the Seljuk army to victory at the Battle of Manzikert, Osman I, founder of the Ottoman Empire, and a child soldier from the Battle of Gallipoli, enter the Hagia Sophia Mosque and pray as audio of President Erdoğan reciting the opening verses of Surah Al-Fath ("Conquest") plays in the background. The video shows Islamic structures including the Kaaba in Mecca, and closes showing the Al-Aqsa mosque and the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem.

The music features the zurna, a wind instrument central in the traditional Ottoman military band, giving the music a distinctly "Ottoman" sound. The lyrics mix religious and nationalistic imagery and refer to the Kızıl Elma ("Red Apple"), a concept from Turkish mythology that has sometimes has been used to refer to world domination and at other times has referred to a particular military goal by a Turkish state and, once that goal has been achieved, some other goal becomes the "Red Apple," making it ever-elusive. Upon the release of the video, Communications Minister Fahrettin Altun tweeted: "For us, the Red Apple is a great and powerful Turkey. It is the blessed march of our nation, which has written legends from Manzikert to July 15, [2016, i.e., the attempted coup in Turkey]. The Red Apple is the great sycamore tree in the shade of which many oppressed cool themselves. It is what all people from Gibraltar to the Hijaz, from the Balkans to Asia, await wishfully."

Red coat

At the Markfield skatepark, South Tottenham:

Progressive misogyny

Suzanne Moore, the Guardian columnist who only seems to write what she really thinks - at least on certain sensitive subjects - away from the suffocating confines of Kings Place, has a piece today in the Spectator on How progressive misogyny works:

Some of us panic because we take nothing for granted. We were not born to power, we clawed our way in and we see what is to be lost. Those incredible images of women in short skirts in Afghanistan in the 1970s? I have one on my wall. Progress is not linear.

Think feminism - or gay rights - made advances here that can't be reversed? Think again.

Why then is there all this denial of biology, a deep disgust at women’s bodies? Why are gender-critical feminists subject to violent threats? Why is being a woman now seen as being somehow privileged when every marker of equality (domestic violence, access to childcare, rape convictions, the pay gap) is showing we, as a sex class, are less privileged than ever?

Progressive misogyny, you see, doesn’t recognise women as a class at all; a class whose employment rights need protection. [...]

You can say the word ‘-intersectionality’ as much as you like but, if you do, then defend Raquel Rosario Sánchez, the 29-year-old doing a PhD at Bristol on men paying for sex, who has been bullied for two years because she attends Woman’s Place meetings. Disciplinary hearings were closed down when balaclava-wearing trans activists appeared. Students yelled verbal attacks at ‘Terfs’, chanting: ‘SCUM! SCUM! SCUM!’

This kind of intimidation stops women from speaking and teaching on our campuses. Rebecca Solnit, a writer I admire, wrote an excruciatingly vanilla essay on why San Francisco is cool and why cis women should not fear trans women. We don’t. We fear what we have always feared: male violence, in whatever cosplay it chooses. We fear losing our incomes. We fear that womanhood is such a scary place that some young women will be medicated out of it.

Why all this now? Perhaps because the left, having lost its big battles, is keen on some expulsions and re-education. The Labour party would rather be pure than in power. It’s deeply peculiar.

Gay men I know are rightly worried about the homophobia inherent in some trans activism. Wouldn’t you rather have a daughter than a gay son? Look at Turkey or Iran if you dare. We now have Stonewall supporting the right for trans women to bust the skulls of natal women playing rugby.

We stand back and watch this insanity. How is this progress?

Sapeurs

I featured British photographer Tariq Zaidi last year, with his portraits of Congo dandies. Then he was one of the finalists in the Lens Culture Portrait Awards 2019. He's now one of their Critics’ Choice Award Winners for 2020, giving me a chance to post more of his portraits of these wonderful sapeurs, who follow La Sape, the Societe des Ambianceurs et des Personnes Elegantes (the Society of Tastemakers and Elegant People), and defy - I'm tempted to say transcend - the grim urban surroundings with their style and good humour. They're based mostly in Brazzaville and Kinshasa, on the opposite sides of the Congo river.

Serge, 39-year-old businessman and sapeur for 20 years, Brazzaville © Tariq Zaidi

Perrou, 36-year-old manicurist and sapeur for 10 years, in Brazzaville © Tariq Zaidi

Edo, 35-year-old businessman and sapeur for 15 years, in Kinshasa © Tariq Zaidi

Firmin, 56-year-old hotel worker and sapeur for 39 years, in Brazzaville © Tariq Zaidi

Six, 28-year-old model and sapeur for 20 years, in Kinshasa © Tariq Zaidi

Arle, 33-year-old driver and sapeur for 8 years, in Brazzaville © Tariq Zaidi

Nzonzi, 40-year-old businessman and sapeur for 10 years, in Kinshasa © Tariq Zaidi

Michele, 48-year-old mechanic and sapeur for 33 years, in Brazzaville © Tariq Zaidi

Perreira, 37-year-old computer consultant and sapeur for 28 years, in Brazzaville © Tariq Zaidi

Celestin, 48-year-old technician and sapeur for 25 years, in Brazzaville © Tariq Zaidi

The ultimate parasite

An informative post at Quillette on The Fall of Beirut, from Art Keller - looking at the country's dysfunctional politics, and, in particular, at Hezbollah and its stranglehold over Lebanese life:

Hezbollah gets away with murder, both literally and metaphorically, without having to ensure Lebanon has effective governance. To the extent it has acknowledged any responsibility, it was to provide social services to its largely Shia constituency, which put a sheen of legitimacy on top of its terror, drug/gun running, money laundering, and corruption. Somewhere along the path to expansion, Hezbollah became a victim of its own success at accumulating power. It metastasized into the ultimate parasite, so fat on the blood it has sucked out of its host it can barely act, while the body politic it has drained is likewise paralyzed into immobility.

But just because Hezbollah won’t allow real government reform doesn’t mean the stasis and dysfunction it has created can be maintained.

And Nasrallah may not be the only person in Lebanon pondering the “good old days.” As filmmaker David Lewis, whose documentary on Hezbollah aired on PBS’s Frontline, said in a phone interview: “I’ve heard from a Lebanese friend, a former militia fighter, that some of the old-style militias from the civil war are beginning to form again. Which is scary. He said ‘It feels like it did before the civil war. Tribes, sects, are arming themselves again, because the state couldn’t protect them.’”

The Beirut explosion has just exposed what was already obvious: Lebanon is now a failed state. 

Following the dictates of her own conscience

The latest JK Rowling saga:

JK Rowling has returned a human rights award given to her by the family of Robert Kennedy after they denounced her stance on women’s rights as transphobic.

The author of the Harry Potter books gave back the award, which she was given at a lavish ceremony in New York in December, after she was criticised by Kerry Kennedy, the late senator’s daughter and president of the humanitarian organisation set up in his name.

Ms Kennedy, 60, wrote on the organisation’s website earlier this month that she had spoken to the author “to express my profound disappointment that she has chosen to use her remarkable gifts to create a narrative that diminishes the identity of trans and non-binary people”.

She added that the transgender community “disproportionately suffers from violence, discrimination, harassment, and exclusion” leading to suicide and mental and bodily harm.

“From her own words, I take Rowling’s position to be that the sex one is assigned at birth is the primary and determinative factor of one’s gender, regardless of one’s gender identity — a position that I categorically reject,” she wrote.

Ms Kennedy jumping on the trans bandwagon here, with a nauseating display of virtue signalling. One’s gender identity??

Rowling's dignified response:

“RFKHR has stated that there is no conflict between the current radical trans rights movement and the rights of women.

“The thousands of women who’ve got in touch with me disagree, and, like me, believe this clash of rights can only be resolved if more nuance is permitted in the debate.

“In solidarity with those who have contacted me but who are struggling to make their voices heard, and because of the very serious conflict of views between myself and RFKHR, I feel I have no option but to return the Ripple of Hope Award bestowed upon me last year.

“I am deeply saddened that RFKHR has felt compelled to adopt this stance, but no award or honour, no matter my admiration for the person for whom it was named, means so much to me that I would forfeit the right to follow the dictates of my own conscience.”

It's noteworthy that, as far as I can see, every single comment on the Times report - of which there are currently nearly 600 - is entirely and enthusiastically on Rowling's side here.

Meanwhile the trans activist charity Mermaids have taken the opportunity, in a particularly vile and sanctimonious screed, to accuse Rowling of causing children's suicide attempts:

Today, J.K.Rowling re-stated her position on transgender lives. We have previously reached out to her both publicly and privately, offering a calm conversation around the issues she has raised and today, we sent a further email to her team, renewing that offer. We are yet to receive a response.

As part of that email, we have disclosed something we hoped never to say. We say it now with permission from those involved. Without giving personal detail, without betraying confidences, we must represent the seriousness of the situation. We are aware through our work with families that there have been cases of self-harm and even attempted suicide following J.K.Rowling’s statements and the public response on social media and in the press. Surely this must cause us all to pause and question the way young trans lives are being debated in public...

They have no shame. Really.

More on this at B & W.

Portrait of Britain

Some of the winners from this year's Portrait of Britain:

© Julia Fullerton-Batten

© Byron Hamzah

© Paul Craig

© Sam Gregg

© Raphaël Neal

© Hugh Fox

© William Michell

© Thomas Griffiths

The Portrait of Britain exhibition will launch on 1 September, displaying the 100 winning images throughout the month in rail stations and shopping centres, on high streets and bus shelter screens across the UK. 

The 200 shortlisted images will be published in Portrait of Britain Vol. 3, from Hoxton Mini Press.