Certainly madam, if you’d just like to first smile for the video camera…
“Hell is where the cooks are German, the lovers Swiss, the mechanics French, the organizers Italian, and it’s all policed by the British” (1)
I’ve uploaded a few dozen images to my flickr account that I took at a couple of recent London events, the Peace in Gaza rally at Hyde Park in January and yesterday’s Mass Picture Taking Rally at New Scotland Yard, organized by the NUJ.
I had quite ambivalent feelings about the Hyde Park rally. Marching alongside people supporting an organization that strives for the development of a religion governed state and one that encourages suicide bombings, among other horrors, is not usually my idea of a good fun, worthy day out. My concerns were purely humanitarian. I’ve heard the arguments from both parties in the conflict, reiterated many times over the years and nothing changes my view that it is unconscionable for a powerful, high-tech military controlled by a post-industrial state, to be pumping artillery shells into and dropping bombs onto what is in effect a giant refugee camp. The relative numbers killed and maimed by Hamas’ rockets and by the IDF’s strikes tell their own story. If you want to argue that Israel’s response has been proportional, please don’t do it here. Frankly, I’m sick of hearing it.
Back to domestic matters, I attended the NUJ protest outside New Scotland Yard yesterday despite not being a member of the union and despite not working within the media. I went along to register my support for the aims of the event and to express my outrage at the nature of the relevant articles within the Amendments to the Counter Terrorism Act, which came into force yesterday. I’ve posted the images I took to my flickr account. It felt quite presumptuous, this amateurish amateur taking pictures of some the UK’s most experienced photojournalists. I hope no one looking at my pics assumes that I’m claiming to be a pro-photographer. That “Pro” flickr account label implies only that I’ve paid for the unlimited (well, less limited) flickr service. It does not imply that I regard myself as an accomplished photographer! (Something that will anyway be obvious to anyone viewing the images).
The NUJ members who attended the event were a great bunch of people. Welcoming, witty, pragmatic and mischievous. The police can have few complaints about the behaviour of the several hundred who turned up, it was all constructive and good natured. I was however a little disappointed at the narrow focus on the rights of professional photographers at the expense of ordinary, camera-wielding members of the public. The focus of the event may not have been surprising given its organiser, but I feel that the amendments to the act at issue are equally relevant to all citizens, regardless of their occupation. It’s hard to see how democracy and accountability would be better served if the only citizens allowed to photograph our police and security services were paid up members of the NUJ. Still, not wishing be unduly critical. The NUJ is taking a stand against bad, authoritarian laws, which is more than most UK organisations are doing.
UPDATES:
Lawrence Lessig predicting that the US government will use the pretext of an “Internet 9/11” to clamp down on the freedom of the network (the following is my own incomplete transcript):
“I had dinner once with with Richard [?] … and I said to him, is there an equivalent, is there a ‘Patriot Act’ or an ‘i-Patriot Act’ just sitting waiting for some substantial event that will become an excuse for radically changing the way the Internet works? And he said, ‘Of course there is!’ and I swear that this is what he said, and I quote, ‘And Vint Cerf is not going to like it very much’. So this is the big terror, right? They’re just sitting waiting for the invevitable to happen, and then SLAM!”
It’s even more alarming given the information in the first half of the clip about how the Patriot Act was conceived and introduced. This is Lawrence Lessig, a Professor of Law at Harvard, not some hysterical conspiracy nut. We’ve been warned people!