Soleil Ȏ
“Memory and its temporalities remark upon other moments in time and, in doing so, invite correspondences and comparative study between formations-cultural and otherwise. Of no less importance is memory’s account of collective trauma and its truth-making utility. Against received and fixed notions, this dynamic conception of memory engages across time, place and circumstances in the human affairs of historical activity.” Michael T Martin – Situating the June Givanni PanAfrican Cinema Archive in the Play of Memory
On
Saturday 20 May 2023 I was part of a
full house screening for Ousmane Sembene’s
The Camp at Thiaroye. Retracing the
epic journey of Senegalese soldiers ‘returning home’ after fighting in the
French army in WWII, this first Pan-African film produced without Western
technical or co-financing assistance left me perplexed on my Eastern London bus
journey back home. A humorous yet terrifying tale of oppression and massacre in a camp
that I had no idea White French men committed!
My
first years on this land that we all call Earth were spent in local markets
with Caribbean or West African women selling their spices, avocados, papayas or
peanuts in Johnny Walker’s bottles. Suddenly, with no warning, I ended up in a freezing
shopping mall full of Fathers Christmas wanting me to sit on their laps! A far
too hard-core exotic experience to my young taste. As soon as I could spell
out, my choice of reading were stories of slavery. Though I believed these
disturbing accounts of truth, I never could understand on which criteria some privileged
white skin men decided from around 1500 that some men and women were inferiors.
Within that frame of thinking, the wealthy White men built doors of No-Return
in many West Africa ports and deported the local population to the Western
world where human beings dehumanised human beings. The ones who were left in
their lands had their territories colonised while the self crowned superior
beings appropriated what their soils offered, depriving its population off
their craft and belief. Bringing their spouses and daughters, the White men
imposed their way of life, their rules, the Bible. Indigenous communities
became their subjects.
I was born on a land full of Pine trees by the Rhine River, right across a land where White men deported and exploited and burnt human beings after they stayed in camps, some six years before Angola gained its independence from Portugal. Portuguese born artist Paula Rego left her native land in 1951 aged 16 for London. She was born on a soil filthy with totalitarianism. In between her arrival in a free world and Angola’s Independence, parts of the planet were dancing to Elvis Presley, moving to the sounds of hypnotic waves as well as witnessing the emergence of “African born” cinéma-vérité whose creator is mainly Jean Rouch. In 1961, Rouch and Edgar Morin chronicled the Parisian population by questioning their happiness in Chronique d'un été while Amnesty International (AI) was founded in London following some un-traceable event of injustice in Portugal. Upon creating AI, English barrister Peter Benenson published in The Observer The Forgotten Prisoners in May 1961 “Open your newspaper any day of the week and you will find a story from somewhere of someone being imprisoned, tortured or executed because his opinions or religion are unacceptable to his government... The newspaper reader feels a sickening sense of impotence. Yet if these feelings of disgust could be united into common action, something effective could be done.” Then, The Beatles walked on a zebra crossing leading the way to Glam Rock, gender freedom and they then all stood still, holding their breath, at the doorsteps of fast-approaching Punk era. The Angolan people finally gained independence most certainly oblivious of what their earthling counterparts was dancing to, emancipating into from Kabul to Lima.
Determined
and curious to dig what treasures June
Givanni had amassed painstakingly, I returned
many times to Raven Row following
the Ousmane Sembene’s The Camp at Thiaroye’s screening.
Guyanese-born London-based film curator Givanni
started her Pan African cinema connected with Black British film and culture’s
collection in the 80’s. A time when being non-White British was of extreme
challenge as chronicled in Horace Ové’s
Pressure in 1976. The New Cross House Fire aka New
Cross Massacre
/ 13 Dead in 1981 culminated in the
Brixton Riot and other uprisings across the UK in the following years. These oppressive
periods of discrimination on the UK soil saw an emergence of world music labels
being created: Sterns (African and
Brazilian music specialists since 1983); World
Circuit (Cuban and West African recording artists in the mid-1980s); Tumi Music (Latin American - mainly
Cuban, Peruvian music, and pan pipe music founded in 1983); Nation Records (British-Asian acts in
mid 80’s); WOMAD (a music festival
dedicated to world music since 1982) and its record label Real World Records (1989); Charlie
Gillett had already started in the music world with Oval Music from the 70’s. As June
Givanni explains in her brochure, some film events at the NFT
(now BFI Southbank) or TV producers and GLC had a budget dedicated to promote
Black British film makers / art exhibitions. Female film director Jane Howell shot a brutally excruciating social and economic instability story R.H.I.N.O. Really Here in Name Only in 1983… another lost in
ether film by a female director. Later in that decade a magazine emerged Straight No Chaser covering various
forms of black music and electronic music while Mr Bongo opened a record shop in Soho focused on Black and Latin
music of any kind.
Among Givanni’s collection and sitting through the film screenings, two documentaries got me to think deeply about territories; how a piece of land triggers greed and domination; who rules and how! How history repeats itself in minuscule formats. How sexual oppression, race, class, gender issues, age, disabilities are all so inter-connected, part of a same structural power within a geographic appendix. One is Mário Bastos’ Independência, the other is Raoul Peck’s Lumumba: Death of a prophet. Raquel Gerber’s Orí, another painful wonder is about a search on personal and community – displaced roots.
Mário Bastos crafts scrupulously a 13
years memory of lucha started in 1961
that encompasses many generations of ordinary Angolan people who finally gain their
independence from Portugal in 1974: “When
you are suffering, you can’t see, you must feel. Whereas when others are
suffering, we can see and we feel things so much more”. Portugal called its
colonies “overseas provinces”. It was a system based on race: In Angola, White
people were civilised and citizens when Black and mixed race people had to
comply with a series of requirement in order to obtain the same rights… few
obtained any rights at all as the colonial regime ruled by dictator António de Oliveira Salazar used forced labour, paid
or unpaid! Comparatively, Haiti began its decolonisation process in 1791.
However, its actual misery and poverty is a French blackmail
calling for a never ending ransom.
Haitian
director Raoul Peck covers the death
of Patrice Lumumba, the first prime
minister of Zaire, now the Democratic Republic of the Congo, in Lumumba: Death of a prophet. Peck faces an intimate but haunted journey
restoring pieces of memory like a puzzle when absence imprints the geographic
and poetic tale. No traces of body or land where it rests but a spectral respectability
of Mobutu sadly lies in dignity...
Each
time I left Raven Row and its Per Ankh The June Givanni PanAfrican Cinema
Archive (JGPACA)’s exhibition, I
was both angry and relieved. Angry for realising how little I knew about past injustice.
Angry because history is not thoroughly covered at school: whether you are a
child born on a tyrannical soil or one born in a man-made submissive soil. History
erases the negative part of collective trauma... collective trauma that eventually
spread in all territories including the tyrannical soil as shame is not fully and
potentially expressed because of its hidden track. As Karen
Alexander writes in Black by
Popular Demand “The JGPACA offers us missing chapters in
film histories. We need these films to remind us how far we have come and how
much there is still to do. Perhaps identifying the shifts and changes will help
improve access and inclusion to the creative arts for the UK’s Black
communities – you can’t plan for the
future if you don’t know the past”. Relieved because through these
horrifying stories, somehow it articulated and resonating into my own story or
stories of oppressions. It made sense. It clicked.
In August 2020, in between Corona Virus lockdowns I joined a community garden that is located a few steps away from my East London flat. I was not too sure how I wanted to kill myself because I was already so dead inside, so I entered a hunger strike. The Council was giving me a hard time as they backed up my flat agent and landlord... my bathtub had a giant crack in its width since 2015;
my electric
shower box leaked since 2016; heater in bathroom didn’t work; heaters in living
room and bedroom had never fully worked since entering the flat in 2013; oven
broke in 2019. Hundred of emails but they didn’t repair anything. I washed by
the sink in a cold flat. I started menauposing in 2015 and was fully menopaused
in 2019.
In
the community garden, I was welcomed by a friendly mixed race gardener who
happened to be French Martinican by her mother. There was a lot of weeding to
do and I threw myself into pulling out every single weed in its depth. She said
she had just recovered from a breast cancer period and I told her how I was still
a victim of sexual oppression from White male French journalists I worked
with... some 30 years ago and how they prevented me from being a music –
culture journalist. The lady from Ireland (aka garden manager) was in charge of
the garden. Sadly still is!
I
am a French White female, fluent in Spanish, unemployed journalist-photographer
wearing hearing-aids.
Weeks
later, we gathered around a female gardener who gave a lecture on pruning. I
took photos of the session while noticing the lady from Ireland being pretty
rude to the British Martinican gardener. Eventually, I had to leave the group
of volunteers to get some water from the tiny storage room. Within minutes a
retired man got in. I breathed slowly, convincing myself I was paranoid, it was
just a coincidence, the old man didn’t mean anything. When I turned over, he
had his head at my bottom’s level looking for something in his bag... At the
end of that session, I told the Martinican-British gardener about the incident.
She revealed that other female volunteers had been subjected to his sexual
misconducts and left the community garden. I tried to find solutions but the
old man was a very good friend of the lady from Ireland! Also, as a recovering breast
cancer patient who still had to undergo check-ups and had just managed to avoid
homelessness, she needed the money from the garden to get by and had to take a
lot of abusive comments from that lady from Ireland to keep the job...
Weeks later, on a rainy Sunday afternoon of Autumn 2020, a man in camouflage with a professional camera took pictures of us as a group instead of taking pictures of the garden. Hours later, my French Paris-based aggressor twitted “Dimanche jardinage.” (Sunday gardening).
I emailed the lady from Ireland to let her know that it can’t be a coincidence. This is her reply “Thanks for sharing this with me Sybille. It's important to be able to talk to each other. Like i said i don't know any more about the photographer but lets hope it was just an unusual event.” By then, I had told her my aggressors had created fake Twitter accounts under my name that they filled with lies and defamation, that I was receiving anonymous threats and insults online, via emails or snail mail; I was being stalked online and in the street! Her casual and dismissive reply had such a devastating effect on me! How can someone, moreover a woman, being responsible of a land that is not hers for women potentially victims of sexual oppression be so ignorant of the pain. We were three years into #MeToo: this is totally unacceptable! At the time, we were about 10 to 15 women attending the community garden on a regular basis, so all of us had been subjected to some form of sexual violence in their life time and up to four women would have been a victim of rape! The women I spoke to over the course of three years have mentioned going to the garden for healing purposes. I clearly told the lady from Ireland that it helped my mental health issues as the New York Times or The Guardian stipulate in their articles but as an ongoing victim I needed support, I needed someone who had some training in listening. By listening, I absolutely don’t mean her being a therapist, rather being understanding and cautious in her approach! Statistically, she is a victim, but she is potentially in denial, not sorted, not apt to run a space full of victims unless it is her pleasure and life goal to hurt those who suffer!
Why
didn’t I leave the garden? Because it is not for me to leave! Far too many
volunteers have left and the problem of a space being ruled by some narcissist
person is a never-ending problem since nobody complains: you work for free, you
come and go as you please without ever reporting anything, all good news for an
aspiring dictator...
Anyway,
soon after being spied on by a stalking camouflaged detective-photographer, three Black
people and a woman from Eastern Asia descent came at different times on a same
day of Autumn. The man was told to sieve compost in a lorry wheel, then two
Black women joined him; the English speaking woman of East Asia descent asked
me if she could help me picking up leaves for composting. I told her I would be
happy to be helped but fearing trouble from the lady from Ireland, I told her
to better ask her. She was sent in a no-growing space, alone / isolated (we were
still suffering from lockdown effects) having to pick up I-don’t-know-what! I
had to throw the autumn leaves in a compost near her and asked her casually how
she was... she made a furtive funny face as if displeased. I asked her if she
was ok, she said she didn’t know why she was doing what she was doing; I asked
the three Black people if they knew each other, they didn’t. They never came
back to the garden! The garden is located in a multicultural space where
White people mainly volunteer... Over the years, Black women have asked me if the
community garden was nice and if we sold what we grew. I replied that we shared
and ate what we grew and I invited them to join, they never did! Only now in
2023, do I realise that there is a ‘hunter’ who comes to the garden when nobody
is in, helps himself in quantity of what we grow and sell to restaurants and
pubs nearby. He is a very good friend of the lady from Ireland and had made a
name for himself in various English newspapers. This is a guy who is proud to
have casual sex with many women, especially lesbians (don’t ask, but I know two
of them) and has been condemned, I guess, as the mother of his children left
the area for North of England with their children, took him to court and he hasn’t
seen his kids in years! I have tried to ask him over the years what she blamed
him for, the only answer I get is, how surprising, she is nut or crazy.
By
Spring 2021, the lady from Ireland had referred various times to my deafness or
worse she had mimicked speaking to me and in total panic, not being able to
hear her while my hearing aids were on full volume, I came to realise she was
only moving her lips broadcasting no sound. By Spring then, the Martinican-British
gardener left and many volunteers refused to go back to the garden.
By
Autumn 2021, a retired White man joined the garden as the gardener. I have three
versions on how he became gardener for the community garden: he was cycling by
in an area he doesn’t know and stopped by and asked the Lady from Ireland if
she needed a gardener; he was cycling by as usual since he lives around and
asked the Lady from Ireland if she needed a gardener; a social worker working
with autistic adults saw him playing with Jewish children and told the Lady
from Ireland he would be good for the garden. This third version is from the
Lady from Ireland that was confirmed to me by the social worker.
Sian Cain, Deputy culture editor @guardianaus & creepy psychologist:
“... this person is clearly very mentally ill and in distress...”
[I have been banned from Mailchimp!]
My aggressor revealed my eviction notice six months before I knew about it...
For
now, I spare some details but I’ll come back to them at some point, especially
that a menopaused woman from the Elbe River born in West Germany insisted on
coming with me to Margate and ended up being pretty rude as I showed her
around. Is she a very good friend with the lady of Ireland and the retired man
who sniffs women bottoms? Spoiler: YES!
In January 2022, my flat was visited once again in my absence (we have more CCTVs around our flats than the SIS Building aka MI6 Building at Vauxhall Cross). No breaking-in. The only ones who have the keys are the White male flat agent and the landlord. My Paris-based aggressors kept going on social network how my flat was messy and dirty (sale) and full of bottles of wine (alcoolique) etc.
Late January 2022, my flat
was visited and weirdly I felt that on that occasion they took pictures of some
skulls I have (as a pagan I celebrate Samhain; I don’t kill humans nor do I kill animals).
Also, I had reported a leak on many occasions which was by chance fixed in my
absence. So, my aggressors linked me to Satan
as well as mocking me for being mentally ill, psychopath etc. (they had done so before in one of
their fake Twitter account). The following Sunday, the Lady from Ireland called
me and showed a random bodiless fox skull she had just found under a heavy
giant bag of compost leaves... I told her it was weird! I placed the skull in a
safe place. Days later, on 1 February 2022 I visited it as it was Imbolc, it
had disappeared. When I questioned its whereabouts via emails, I was served with silence.
I stopped going to the garden. I was going down so badly.
Early February 2022, I emailed a volunteer
asking her to send me a picture of skull
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On
2 April 2022, former colleague at Les
Inrocks and supporter of my aggressor, then London-based JD Beauvallet mentions my flat agent surname as well as the beautiful month of May (Month of first Court Hearing of my eviction) // (https://risingvoicesbehingwalls.blogspot.com/2023/03/agent-landlord-plumber.html)
7
April 2022, I receive four anonymous phone calls on my mobile at 7PM; at 8PM Paris
based and former colleague at Les Inrocks Emmanuel
Tellier (supported by JD Beauvallet & Christophe Conte)
was in London.
17
April 2022, I return to the Community garden.
28 April 2022, former colleague at Les Inrocks and supporter of my aggressor, Paris based Christophe Conte is in London near the hospital I had to attend the following day.
On 3 May 2022, I attended my first eviction court case hearing. Returning home at 5PM, I had emails from my aggressors and an email from a hospital who tried to section me.
After months of harassment via email by that hospital, a francophone psychologist joined the garden and another one has just joined weeks ago (and the chair is a therapist who calls me paranoid). The Lady from Ireland made vicious comments on and on and the gardener is just a smooth operator as if out from a Sade’s song!
In Summer 2022, after
walking on my growing vegetables which destroyed them, the male gardener threw
embers in the compost. I asked him if he meant to set up a fire as I saw smoke.
By the time I told a volunteer to run the hose, flames were reaching a tree
branch above the compost pit. Potentially, the tree would have been on fire
reaching the tree across the road as their branches were interwoven. And since
the tree across the road touched many flats in the building next to it, there
could have been some serious danger! I learnt months later that I’m intolerant
to mistakes (from the chair and therapist)...
In August 2022, on a Tuesday session, the Lady from Ireland and the Lady for the Elbe River came and we tightened some tomato plants. At some point, the Lady from Ireland talked to me but I couldn’t hear. We were close to each other and my volume was full on. Eventually she advised to clean my hearing aids as she claimed they were dirty. She went on and on and on. I let her vomit her abuse until the Lady from the Elbe told her that I had just collected my brand new hearing aids!
Days later, I had a massive argument with a volunteer because she was taking huge amount of food, yet she hardly participated to growing and looking after the garden (it has a padlock which we had the code) – I went twice a day to water: the morning at 5 or 6AM and in the evening. It turned out that the Lady from Ireland and the lady from the Elbe River kept telling her that she could help herself as much as she wanted! Then, I received some very concerned emails from the Lady from Ireland saying I was a menace... The news spread and I felt very isolated. We were in a harvesting time, plenty of vegetable I needed because it helped saving money on shopping.
11 September 2022, a new couple came to volunteer. The garden usually closes at 4PM but we were so busy that I left after 5PM leaving lots of food on the table: it was a very good harvesting day. I had started to grow broccolis back in March, put them on a bed around July. Male gardener told me that ‘my’ seven plants won’t grow. They grew very well and were good to pick but I decided to wait until the following week as we had plenty of food on that Sunday. The following Sunday would be less productive. I came to the garden on Monday 12 September, the broccolis had gone. This is what I wrote to him “...I'm just back from [community] Garden... and I've noticed all medium broccolis (about 7 of them) have been cut. There were there when I left yesterday (just a few newish people were still present) and I was wondering if you knew what happened to the BROCC? I'm attaching pictures I took last week.”
Broccolis on 4 September 2022
The gardener and garden manager knew
this was my project: I bought the seeds, planted
them, looked after them for months. This is both
therapeutic and then joyful to share with volunteers...
But the gardener destroyed my project
and gave the broccolis to total strangers
Tuesday,
13 September 2022 at 16:22:53 BST, gardener wrote playing the good innocent guy
in charge of a land, dismissing my work and my mental health: “... I thought the broccoli could
do with picking as it was ready and this will encourage new growth. I gave it
to the family who had stayed to help tidy up.
If you have a particular fruit that
you are working with and wish to see through to harvest, that is fine, but you
must let me and others know, and perhaps label it clearly. Unfortunately though
this will always be a risk in an open community garden. You may consider
applying for an allotment (some sites offer smaller plots, or you can share) if
you wish to have more control over your growing.
Thank you for sharing your anxieties
about sharing the garden space. Discrimination or harassment have no place
there. If anyone's behaviour makes you feel uncomfortable or unsafe, please let
[garden manager] or myself know as soon as possible.” The gardener is simply playing a
psychological game regarding anxiety, harassment, feeling uncomfortable, just
why? He had to admit he cut the broccolis as Monday mornings there was a lady
who used the garden with children...
16 October 2022, the Chair of the garden ‘organised’ a meeting: no advance warning; I met her twice before unaware she was the community garden chair. Worse of it all, she is a therapist, but I’ll come back to her ‘warm wishes’. At that unplanned meeting, I complained about working on a broccoli project that was destroyed. Gardener said the new couple wanted the broccolis and he is a generous man, so he couldn’t say ‘no’ to them!
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In
January 2023, they changed the padlock code, I’m not allowed to have it, and
volunteers get invited to some gardening lectures which I’m excluded to attend...
After many emails to garden manager complaining about her behaviour and her
use of a land that is not hers (even if hers, her use of land is totally
unacceptable), I formally complained to Chair about the abuse happening on a
peaceful land:
Pictures attached as proof:
Growing from kitchen
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Digging for seaweed
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soil in wheelbarrows
From kitchen to garden (not all were mine) in May 2022
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Damaging new bin I brought
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Kids using tools from Storage room
and damaging soil 11 September 2022
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Chair
never replied! Then, I was given some guidelines to follow in order to have the
padlock code but was told eventually I won’t get the code. None of the notes
from meeting and guidelines stipulate that garden manager and gardener have a duty to respect / protect volunteers. They seem to be the guardians of a land
but are dismissed from caring for volunteers!
March
2023: Garden manager told me to sit with gardener and volunteers which I
refused (I haven’t spoken to gardener since the broccolis’ crime). She insisted
as we were deciding which vegetables to grow on which beds. I sat next to the
lady from The Elbe River, the psychologist was on my other side checking seeds,
gardener and garden manager were sitting opposite us. We talked growing fewer
vegetables than last year but more of one kind in higher quantity: courgette,
peas, cucumbers, tomatoes and maybe carrots. Feeling trouble, I started
gardening in another community garden in the week at a few bus stops away from
my flat.
Mid April, gardener gave francophone psychologist some carrot, calabrese and radish seeds. I joined her and we follow instructions he gave her. I had doubts about row seeds in between burgeoning nasturtiums, but when we had to perform same act in artichokes bed, I told psychologists artichoke leaves will be tall in no time, therefore shadowing the new crops. She told gardener who didn’t seem to think it would damage new growth:
Mid April 2023 planting in burgeoning artichokes;
22 April 2023, first meeting with my Ward Labour Councillor:
Late May 2023: artichoke leaves have taken over,
carrots, calabrese and radish died!
They all died on invasive Nasturtium!
How are we supposed to feel good, heal?
Giving an idea from May 2022 and May 2023:
Mid
May 2023 I complained seriously to the Borough representative that we were not
growing anything or rather, surprisingly all crops died! I heard from garden
manager that gardener was bringing his own plants from another garden he works
for... I asked if we, women are crap at growing so he comes as a saviour? HE is
the one feeding us and we have to be grateful to our GURU! I was the only woman
refusing to plant HIS crops in beds... Why are women submissive? Do they
realise how obedient they are?
In
June 2023, volunteers were invited to some lectures on bees and wildlife, I was
excluded!
Early
July 2023, Chair emailed saying community garden would be closed until 23 July
and sent me ‘warm wishes’.
9 July attendance and duty (dying /unhealthy crops):
In
August 2023, the lady from the Elbe River told me community garden will no
longer serve as an allotment but as a wildlife space. All women I have met are
not happy about it. The lady from the Elbe River has her own garden, so she
doesn’t mind. Usually, a Moroccan lady comes with her three young boys in
harvesting time. She doesn’t do much but her boys are very helpful. I sat a few
times and talked to her. Though I don’t have a specific training in deciphering
helping call, I am guessing that the lady from Morocco needs a bit of freedom
from spending 24h/7 with her boys; she doesn’t work; maybe has not time for
herself and needs a break. I’m not big on kids but our community garden should
provide that kind of help: we, as women / volunteers could look after the kids
while a mother can wander around, be on her own, breath. Instead... she was
told off on a few occasions by garden manager: when the White kids can help
themselves with whatever in storage room and damage the land, her kids are not
allowed in and she has to supervise them at all time! I am happy, as a
volunteer to give permission or supervise kids if they need something from
storage room. I am not happy to witness humiliation to a woman who might be in
distress! If not being told off by female garden manager, a mansplainer and loud
sneezing laughing macho volunteer is giving her kids some hard time as well!
10
September 2023, a visiting foreign lady came to me asking for a plastic bag, I
directed her to the gardener; next thing I saw was him next to her by the Bramley
apple tree; next thing I saw was her leaving with a bucket full of apples; next
thing I heard was some random female voice screaming insanely; next thing I saw
was a distorted red faced woman outside the garden gates screaming at the woman
with bucket then screaming at me. I recognised the garden manager eventually
and directed her to the gardener. The female new volunteer who was with garden
manager informed me than the visitor asked garden manager if she could pick one
apple... What a creepy scene! What’s the need to scream insanely in a silent
afternoon... The visitor left the bucket in the street and walked off. Garden
manager took the bucket and left a not by the gate ‘please
help yourself’. Abject!
The summer is coming to an end and we have nothing to eat, the place is a total mess and they want to cut down the Pine tree! Worse: volunteers have no issue having the padlock code when I don’t have it... they are complicit to discrimination and despotism!
Despite my various and formal complaints that would include my Ward Labour Councillor, nothing seems to have been done: this is a revolting situation. The way, some volunteers are treated in a piece of land where we should all have a say, being respected, feeling safe and feeling the healing process... instead I’m a voyeur of an old generation that doesn’t want to help the younger generation to talk freely. Why should growing vegetable be incompatible with wildlife? Why can’t the community decide? We are going through recession, food is extremely expensive in supermarkets, growing our food is such a money-saving matter!
Following
Lucy Letby’ crimes on babies,
psychologist Jessica Taylor wrote on The Independent on why some people support abusers “Letby doesn’t fit the criteria of the
stereotype we’ve been fed in 18-rated slasher or serial killer movies for
decades.” Also in my opinion, Black people in movies have had for decades
decadent roles in movies, more than the White ones. Taylor also says “I see this combination of biases and social
narratives play out all the time. One of the most powerful is the false
portrayal of criminals as “monsters”, “weirdos”, “social rejects”, grotesque
“thugs”, “antisocial loners” and “violent psychopaths”. But this is not always
the case”
In
A
WORLD IN COMMON: CONTEMPORARY AFRICAN PHOTOGRAPHY at Tate Modern, “The exhibition
follows artists across the many landscapes, borders and time zones of Africa to
reveal how photography allows the past and the future to co-exist in powerful
and transformative ways.” Hopefully bridging a future and where all on this
Earth have a space to power our own existence.
A
few days ago, 23 August marked International Day for the Remembrance of the Slave
Trade and its Abolition. “The Day is intended to
inscribe the horrors of the slave trade into collective memory, encourage
reflection, and offer an opportunity to examine the complex interactions that
unfolded between Africa, Europe, the Americas, and the Caribbean as a result of
human slavery.”
I
hope one day I / we can all visit The
Ark of Return designed by Rodney
Leon, an American architect of Haitian descent which honours the memories
of the estimated 15 million men, women and children who were victims of the
largest forced migration in history.
20 September 2023, Ward Labour Councillor invites me to their surgery on 23 September 2023:
[My French aggressor (who advertised me [as mentally disturbed] in Community Garden in Autumn 2020 as seen above) wins his Court Case against Le Monde Group as advertised in French news on 28 November 2023]
The Community Garden was open once a month until 3 December 2023 (which might have been officially closed to volunteers on that day: after Garden Manager abused of her power, on 4 December 2023, I contacted my Ward Labour Councillor, The Labour Mayor, Labour Charity Councillor and Labour Diversity Councillor (that's how upset I was):
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6 December 2023, my Ward Labour Councillor wondered if I want to sit down and discuss with abuser... I just want to scream at that thought... How can they be so out of touch!
Between 10 December and 29 December 2023, nothing was taken seriously:
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On 9 January 2024 in the morning, I contacted all Labour Councillors again + Hate Crime Officer for the Borough:
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In the evening, the Chair Abigail Hopkins accused me of using abusive language when I used Freedom Of Speech, as well as describing me as displaying unpredictable behaviour: I am banned from going back to the community garden!
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10 January 2024, I emailed Labour Councillors asking if they backed Abigail Hopkins up... They didn't reply
21 January 2024, Ward Labour Councillor (who happens to be a lawyer) informs me that the Community Garden is financially funded by the Council and thinks I should be re-integrated in the garden... Are they serious? The staff and Trustees should be dismissed for racism, discrimination, mis-using garden (and funding?) Nobody in their email has replied:
But all good, my borough proliferate these boards:
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