Anthologise this!

Someone did:

My bit is Chapter 27: "2016, 2022, 2030, Go! Sustainability and Arabian Gulf Sporting Megaprojects",
pp. 269-276 of Jill Savery and Keith Gilbert (eds.) Sustainability and Sport (Common Ground Publishing).

Secular atrium

I don't think I'm airing too much dirty laundry in public to say that an email with the above subject line was circulated at my work today, inviting over 30 replies and touching on a number of the issues that correspond to the labels used for my current blog entry. (If this all sounds a bit cryptic, it's because of some of the emails propose a follow-up public event that should be more useful than (yet more) off-the-cuff blog remarks from me: that's what Twitter is for.)

That said, I was struck by the fact it was a long time before anyone even mentioned the suspension of one of our own by the University after he spoke to the media regarding the upcoming G20 protests. Priorities, people.

Cock tales

ITEM: All the sex on the beach jokes have been done to death. Not much to add, on threat of deportation. Except to note that the Daily Mail, which has published front pages on the threat of Shariah law coming to Britain, seems to quite like it applied the glitz and golf of Dubai. Oh, and the idea of an ITP employee “bringing the company into disrepute”. Gate, horse, bolted.

ITEM: “Waltham Forest Council announced last week that it is waging war on the effects of excessive fast food in the borough … a borough that was should be synonymous with change, progress and achievement – not grease, fast food and litter.” So said the Council’s 24 March newsletter. Nearly four months on, and local residents are being kept in the dark. How long is the war expected to last? What are the predicted casualty rates? Is there a plan for withdrawal? The public must be told.

“What did you do in the war on the effects of excessive fast food, daddy?” “Had two pieces of Perfect Fried with chips, Alex. Twice in one week.”

Slightly surrealism

From time to time I have been known to write about social realism in literature and the visual arts.* That said, it was still strange last week to see a superabundance of the genre used to decorate the National Military Museum in Cairo. All of it manufactured in North Korea, no less. I can think of a website or two that would have a field day with this information, although the authors are unlikely to visit Cairo anytime soon.

As a motion pictures complement to all this belligerent socialist realism, required viewing was political thriller Al Rahina (2006). I won't spoil the ending for you; cynics might say that the filmmakers manage this all by themselves.

(*See my respective chapters in M.E.Sharpe Library of Franklin D.Roosevelt Studies: Franklin D.Roosevelt and the Shaping of American Political Culture v. 1. and Propaganda: Political Rhetoric and Identity, 1300-2000 (Themes in History).)

Gambling on Theocracy

So the success of the Manchester super-casino bid was a bit unexpected. At least I'll be near a micro-casino if I fancy a night out, in "Stratford City, West Ham United FC or the Docklands' ExCel Centre" (none of which are really "on Waltham Forest's doorstop", incidentally). (Read on at "Casino causing concerns", Waltham Forest Independent, 2 February 2007).

I was interested to note the opposition to the proposed casino(s) coming from the al-Tawhid mosque in Leyton High Road. According to Imam Dr Usama Hasan, "Gambling is prohibited in the Koran. I don't think our congregation will like the casino being built at all." I disagree, but at least the first half of the argument is consistent with his religious beliefs. As an extra justification, Dr Hasan adds "Gambling causes a lot of problems, people who run up debt may turn to crime - it is all related." If gambling is absolutely forbidden on religious grounds, then the extra - often dubious - speculation about the social consequences is unnecessary. Some fundamentalist; the local Imam relies on secular arguments to make his case. (James L. Nolan has already skewered the US religious right for having the same relativist logic in its own self-justifications in his book The Therapeutic State: Justifying Government at Century's End).

I could come up with a cheap shot at critics of an "Islamo-fascist left alliance" who also have the same line on casinos as Dr. Hasan, but the odds on that happening make it too predictable.

Back to Bradford

Half a lifetime ago, between the publication of my 16+ and 'A' level results, I was hovering about whether to go into social work. In those days the procedure was a three-year sociology degree followed by a year's training for a certificate (the CQSW). My reserve choice of university was Bradford. Wisely I declined and chose a different career (although whether my subsequent career choice was wise is open to debate).

All this came back to me when I watched Edge of the City last night. Not the excellent social noir by Martin Ritt with John Cassavetes, but a documentary about a year in the life of Bradford social services. Originally scheduled for broadcast in May, the show was pulled when it became apparent that the British National Party intended to use it as a party political broadcast. The issue, taking up about 1/4 of the actual documentary, was the portrayal of Asian men 'grooming' white teenagers for sex. Strikingly when there was a conviction at the end of the film, it was of an individual not on a mother's hit list of suspects and not affiliated to either of the gangs cited.

The rest of the piece, apart from a dignified old man trying to maintain his independence at the age of 82, was typical 'spot the chav' pornography, a chance to see how the other half lives. Omar the social worker in training seemed at the end of his tether; no wonder when the camera crew hadn't got the gumption to remind young offender Matthew when he was out late being filmed in breach of his curfew time.

It's a different Bradford to the one I was investigating in the mid-1990s, both with my colleague Sally Millard and with the broadcaster Kenan Malik. At the time we found that Asian youth were organising patrols to run curb crawlers out of town. This led to conflict with the West Yorkshire constabulary, but it was reported as a generation gap where the elders were failing to control the youth. Have the uptight moralists I rowed with a decade ago turned into 21st century pimps? Or did Edge of the City find an angle for publicizing its lurid exposé that money couldn't buy?