Last Thursday was the last time I'll be clapping. What started in good faith has now become a footnote in history that will, in the austerity 2.0 to come, be forgotten. For a time people came out, spontaneously (sort of) and clapped. It felt genuine.
But it ran its course. A risk of being taken for granted. Co opted by arseholes like Mark Francois, vigorously, slapping his meaty hands together like banging a steak, on social media. Exhorting us all to join in something that wasn't his purview nor privilege. Time to get out.
Last Thursday there were only four of us clapping. It was considerably colder. The neighbour with her tambourine cut a lonely if sympathetic figure. I think we're done. Like so much of this recent period what promised potential, mutual aid and genuine recognition of the reality we only have our class, has been threatened by normality.
Except it won't be normality. The shadow of covid will be omnipresent as we move forward: the daily death rate will also become a footnote, read in the news. Soon even wearing a mask, though so few do anyway, will be forgotten. People crave normality, I don't know what's so great about it. The daily travail of ordinary people against a backdrop of callous and mindless state oppression.
But possibly some things may have changed. The elasticity of tolerance, which runs with Stretch Armstrong levels of give in pliant Britain, seems to be threatening to snap. Such was ably demonstrated by the heroes in nearby Bristol, tearing down a statue dedicated to a man who sold humans into slavery and dunking it in the river. Long may it stay, along with his filthy and deserved reputation as a racist scumbag. Drowning in a dirty river. Too good for the likes of him.
Meanwhile the reactionary contingent, ringing out across social media like a peal of bigot bells, are clutching pearls so tightly they threaten to grind them into dust. This is a wonderful action that's happened for many reasons. Visually it's arresting: we normally associate the pulling down of statues with violent liberation of Arab countries. Not dear civilised old Blighty. So that's a wonderful shot in the arm and it shows what people can do if they are so minded to take back their power.
Take it from home? The arseholes in government with their predictable tedious outrage. They deisng to allow us the right to protest. Well, rights are taken they are never given, and tnhy only exist as long as we fight for them. That's what happened here. Our rights shouldn't be the purview of rich capitalists who abuse their privilege.
Perhaps most depressing of all though is the response of Marvin Rees, the black mayor of Bristol. He's been a dismal failure (he's Labour ffs, but you wouldn't know to listen to him as a willing agent o fausterity since 2016). In an interview he said that, while he found the statue an affront (correctly), he couldn't condone vandalism. That's the sound of acquiescence. What's more important, your career or the dignity of people of colour, such as yourself?
There's only one right answer, and it's not the one he gave.
Class War
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