You're the sun and as you shine on me I feel free...

A commentator on my previous post noted, fairly, that London has always had its ghettos and, by implication, that’s not a reason in itself to lose interest in taking pictures of the city.

He’s completely correct.

Besides, if squalor and social exclusion were, as I believe, on the rise that would be a powerful reason to take even more photographs.

The problem is I can’t. I can’t because an increasing number of people have something to hide, because many people suspect my motives and because my government doesn’t want me to.

I find it painfully ironic that in an age when every street, every building interior, every scrap of open space is covered by CCTV cameras operated largely by private companies that people are so jittery about someone with a camera. Point your camera in the direction of people and you’re a sex pervert. Aim it at a building and you’re planning a terrorist attack. The fact that these fears are almost entirely, arguably entirely, without foundation is forgotten.

Could Bill Brandt’s famous ‘Lambeth Walk’ picture of kids dancing in the street that I’ve mentioned in an earlier post be taken today?

Nope.

It seems that those who rule can get away with absolutely anything they want these days, provided they can get people scared enough beforehand. And the mainstream media plays along like the whore it is.

And, yes, people have always been manipulated through fear but this is different, certainly for the UK at least. It’s different in terms of the scale of the fear and the way it has come to permeate almost every aspect of our daily lives. The Britain I grew up in would have stuck its fingers up and said bollocks to the characters who are perverting our society in the name of protecting our safety and freedoms. The Britain I live in right now is bending over and taking it like a bitch.

I would be the first admit that I am more sensitive to these issues than other people. I have time on my hands, I grew up in London and enjoy(ed) taking pictures on its streets. But the honest truth is that the prospect of me being scooped up by the police going about my lawful business and having my entire life given a ‘good seeing to’ has passed from being an improbability to a possibility in a handful of years. At the current rate of change, it could even become a probability in a matter of a year or two.

Too paranoid? Try reading this account of a journalist arrested by the police for acting suspiciously at Southwark Underground station…

Suspicious Behaviour on the Tube

All I would have to do is pull a camera out in the wrong place or say a word out of turn in public or in something like, err, a blog...

I grew up two minutes walk from Southwark Station my family still run a business nearby. I regularly carry a backpack laden with all sorts of photographic and electrical equipment and because I’m me my flat is absolutely packed full of material that would look interesting laid out on a table in a police station. A few GPS units, some pocket knives, ‘military style’ outdoor equipment, soldering irons, annotated maps of city centres, all sorts of contentious books, a crappy old air pistol with a gimmicky ‘laser’ sight. The list is worryingly large.

Actually, the police wouldn’t even need any of that stuff to make a case to justify banging me up without charge or trial or sticking me and everyone I know on a watch list. I remember reading this blinding comment in a news article shortly after the July bombings…

Police officials say privately that they believe the men's penchant for exercise was part of a training regimen meant to keep them in top physical shape for their mission, which could have been in the planning stages for months, if not years. Keeping fit is also a tenet of devout Muslims.

Yes, being a member of a gym is a valid cause for suspicion. I’ll let you into a secret. Absolutely any form of behaviour is grounds for suspicion if you flip it right. Why not make it a game next time you have friends round for dinner? You play the part of the suspicious character and they get to ransack your home in search of compelling evidence of a terrorist conspiracy – videos of your visit to Disneyland, smelly socks, half-eaten food, bottles of perfume, whatever they can come up with. It’ll be a blast and good practice for life in the twenty-first century.

Right now, the emphasis is on Muslims but the beast is hungry and gradually widening its net to include any groups of people who don’t conform to ‘normal’ standards of behaviour. 'Normal' being sitting indoors and watching reality TV, getting pissed four times a week and not giving a fuck about the rest of the world. Protestors, photographers, even trainspotters, are beginning to fall foul of anti-terror legislation. I’m a White Christian and if I feel this nervous Christ knows how Muslims must be feeling right now

And does anyone think any of this is going to fucking stop, or is even intended to stop, terrorists? Behave.

(category: political stuff)