Search

Not such tolerant times

The asylum and immigration bill introduced towards the end of 1995 is but one indication that the 'british' are far from overcoming their 'fear of being swamped by people with a different culture'.5 in addition, a closer examination of the current trend amongst political leaders of promoting asian values and customs' (once seen as incompatible with a british national identity) as desirable national traits reveals how britain's politicians have, as kenan malik has suggested, appropriated 'antiracist themes for chauvinist ends'.6 behind the lingo of multiculturalism and antiracism the current generation of south asian youth have grown up in a period where it is increasingly commonplace to hear of britain's good record on race relations, better than any other in europe. In addition, the image of the successful asian entrepreneur remains far removed from the everyday realities of the vast majority of south asian youth, in particular those of pakistani and bangladeshi background who (along with those of african caribbean descent) experience higher rates of unemployment than any other ethnic group.2 for many young south asians, perhaps as frustrating as john major's reductive construction of a british south asian experience topping the charts in education, employment and family values, is the absence of any effective alternative from the other two leading parties.

RIOT ACTS - The Politics of Despair

although as recent results in some inner city areas have shown, electoral support for labour by black voters can no longer be taken for granted, the party is attracting greater numbers of black activists, and there have been important increases in the number of black labour councillors. Brixton police claimed good relations with the mainly middle aged and middle class black people who sat on the consultative committee, but the youth have little respect for the people the police want to treat as their leaders, and since the riots will have even less.

WRITING ON THE WALL FOR THE GLC

In a struggle to preserve the democratic rights of londoners the glc is fighting the post-political age with the politics of the poster. from late february this year londoners have witnessed the most carefully planned and researched political advertising campaign since the selling of the tories in 1979. For two white colouring of the posters, which days at the end of may these sites had the unlike the majority of other glc adverts, simple black on white message imagine did not have the logo keep the glc what london would be like run from working for london.

The Role of the NUM in South Africa

The num in south africa soundings issue 7 autumn 1997 the role of the num in south africa ii james motlasi this is the presidential address by james motlasi, president of the south african national union of mineworkers, at their ninth national congress. when our last congress met in march 1994 the country was preparing for the first democratic general election in the history of south africa. moreover, in their campaigns to recruit whites from the developed countries to work in south african mines they do not offer third world terms of employment but salaries and conditions which are better than they 218  the num in south africa could get in their home countries.

The Wars of the Roses: Stratford upon Avon 1963

her progress from the virginally simple princess of henry vi, to the fierce warrior queen of edward iv, to the cursing wraith of richard iii, it seemed almost in another era, certainly weeks ago, that one had fought through the campaign unkempt, drab robes showing traces of last night’s and last month’s dinner, hands clawing at the in france, edward iv showed us the troubled and tor- granite walls of her palace/prison like some de- tured realm some twenty years later. Plainness of speech, the fierceness of statement which these qualities can liberate, which, since 1956, has been characteristic of all the youngerbritish dramatists —osborne, wesker, pinter, mortimer, arden et al. —the galvanising force which joan littlewood has released from stratford east and the towering influence of bertholt brecht, have all been digested and absorbed in the service of our greatest dramatist, and from this fruitful combination has merged the finest company of our time (and i say this after seeing hamlet at the national malignant majesty, the paranoiac glint and dazzle, mr. holm’s soliloquies, significantly enough, received the only applause of the cycle which interrupted the action, far the part, as i have suggested, is so shaped and constructed that ‘hell’s black intelli- gencer’ must justify his title with his turns and set-pieces ; let it be said that mr. holm knows as well as anyone how to deliver them.

THE END OF THE TEENAGE ERA Interview with Julien Temple

one of the main problems in translating the book into the film must have been that there are actually two books: there is the book about teenage and then, as the legend goes, maclnnes was in notting hill during the race riots of 1958 and that impelled him to write the latter part of the book very eloquently about race. but your film has not been trouble-free as a production? it's probably been one of the most difficult films in the history of the british cinema to make, largely because we were trying to do something that people didn't really want us to do, and all with a young producer, a cameraperson who had never done a major film, and unknown actors.

Refusing Holy Orders

and, argue gita sahgal and nira yuval-davis it is women who stand to lose the most t he 'salman rushdie affair' and the mass demonstrations of muslims in protest - not only against the satanic verses and its author but also at the ways the british state privileges christianity have put the issue of fundamentalism at the heart of the british political agenda. Black women countered, from the perspective of the anti-racist movement, that there was a need for asian (and sometimes afro-caribbean) women to have separate spaces to live with people who understood the pressures they felt, including dealing with racism.

Notes on Contributors

Editors advertisements stuart hall doreen massey michael rustin write fot information to soundings, c/o lawrence & wishart subscriptions poetry editor 1996 subscription rates are (for three issues): uk: institutions £70, individuals £35 rest of the world: institutions £80, individuals £45 carole satyamurti books for review art editors contact soundings books editor, c/o lawrence & wishart jan brown and tim davison collection as a whole © soundings 1996 individual articles the © authors 1996 editorial office lawrence & wishart 99a wallis road london e9 5ln marketing consultant no article may be reproduced or transmitted by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or any information storage and retrieval system, without the permission in writing of the publisher, editor or author mark perryman issn 1362 6620 isbn 0 85315 835 5 soundings is published three times a year, in autumn, spring and summer by: soundings ltd c/o lawrence & wishart 99a wallis road london e9 5ln text setting art services, norwich cover photograph: © freddie contreras from the installation stud 1996 shoes supplied by vivienne westwood printed in great britain by cambridge university press, cambridge  contents notes on contributors v editorial: beefing about the single currency doreen massey, michael rustin 7 the divorce anthony bamett 15 to stanworth and beyond: reflections on diy politics and the anti-roads movement mike write 27 what kind of new labour? david donnison 39 poems michael laskey, bernard o'donoghue, sheenagh pugh, phil cohen 55 refusing ethnic closure: a women's therapy centre in bosnia-hercegovina photo narrative by cynthia cockburn 62 a queer way of re-defining masculinity peter tatchell 79 californian sketches iain chambers 85 offside: contemporary artists and football ]ohn gill and nick hallam 94 going global 97 gilane tawadros psychoanalytic conversations: the writing of adam phillips angela mcrobbie j 03 mad consumers?

Arts

nightclubs and sophisticates race records and rack jobbers b. b. king is heir to a rich legacy of after american audiences discovered blues, b. b. king went on to enjoy a the blues tradition which began its success far beyond that achieved by history as recorded music in 1920. charles sawyer is currently working on a book on b. b. king to be published in the spring by november books ltd. — tentative title — the arrival of b. b. king.

Housewife's Choice

pressed sometimes against the weight in the past few months, i've become a while working from home as a writer, naomi wolf is haunted by the ghosts of the pre-feminist, middle-class american,housewives who went before her f rom the stereo, michelle shocked complains, 'i think i'm a housewife, i must be a housewife.' i am learning that to narrow a woman's focus and to make her faceless, as the fog does every day, turns her despite herself against the things she loves best.

Feminism and the Alternative Economic Strategy

If fewer than one in five male workers now conform to the traditional stereotype and growing numbers of women make a crucial contribution to family support, a complete reappraisal of the way in which jobs and income are allocated between men and women is needed, on grounds of family needs as well as equal opportunities.2 october 1981 25 unemployment on women is considerably less visible than its impact on men, not only because more women than men are discouraged from seeking work by the lack of job opportunities but also because many more women who are seeking work do not register as unemployed because they are not entitled to benefit. in 1980 women's hourly earnings were on average only 73.5% of men's.9 and this figure somewhat overstates women's actual relative pay since it excludes both overtime payments, which accrue to many more men than women, and part-time workers, mostly women, whose hourly earnings are less than full-time workers.

Notes on Contributors

No article may be reproduced or transmitted by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or any information storage and retrieval system, without the permission in writing of the publisher, editor or author issn 1362 6620 isbn 085315 886 x text setting art services, norwich cover photograph: © david a. bailey marketing consultant mark perryman soundings is published three times a year, in autumn, spring and summer by: soundings ltd c/o lawrence & wishart 99a wallis road london e9 5ln printed in great britain by cambridge university press, cambridge  contents notes on contributors v editorial: i'm not an economist but... doreen massey 7 tony blair and the jargon of modernisation alan finlayson 11 scenes 28 will forrest poems 36 michael laskey, dorothy nimmo, stephen wade, susan wicks imagination without power: contemporary social movements in italy mario pianta 40 political opposition in the ivory coast: problems and perspectives richard moncrieff 51 reviews 61 sean grey, aasiya lodhi, nadje s. al-ali obituary 76 part ii windrush echoes introduction gail lewis and lola young 78 multiculture', 'multiracisms' and young people: contradictory legacies of windrush anne phoenix 86 out of hand: a short story ]ackie kay 97 continued on next page  continued from previous page hidden struggles: black women's activism and black masculinity in 04 the shadow of the windrush julia sudbury nigeria-london connections: photoessay femi franklin, with an introduction by lola young 114 the racialisation of space in british cities david sibley 119 the hanging baskets of wood green: a short story mike phillips 128 the limits of inclusion: western political theory and immigration phil cole 134 a game of two halves: 'english' identity fifty years after the windrush bilkis malek 145 negotiated belongings: interview with simon hamilton-clarke gail lewis 157 hair: a photo essay sonia boyce i 70 all in the same boat? Wishart subscriptions guest editors gail lewis and lola young 1998/9 subscription rates are (for three issues): uk: institutions £70, individuals £35 rest of the world: institutions £80, individuals £45 poetry editor carole satyamurti collection as a whole © soundings 1998 individual articles © the authors 1998 reviews editors becky hall and susanna rustin art editor tim davison editorial office lawrence & wishart 99a wallis road london e9 5ln

Reviews

the collective struggle presupposes collective responsibility at the base and collegiate responsibility at the top... fanon’s analysis of world influences is fascinating: not only does america’s concern for the third world demonstrate “why the violence of the native is only hopeless if we compare it in the abstract to the military machine of the oppressor” (“ better decolonize in a friendly fashion” the u.s. advises europe—“persistant jacqueries and mau mau disturbances provide opportunities for socialist propa- to the slick clique of business racketeers, the cor- rupt civil servants, the professionals with inflated salaries and even more inflated egos, whom fanon calls the “native bourgeoisie,’ also belongs the urban working class which is as reluctant as the middle class to be swept away by a violent uprising of the masses to whom it does not belong. Secondly, by diffusing views no. 4  book reviews such norms among the political, commercial tration on latin and greek (of the thirty-five masters at eton in 1884, no less than twenty-eight were classics specialists) and the positive anti-intellectualism of the public school ethos, in mr. wilkinson’s and industrial elites—and particularly among the first— the public schools made these ruling groups more responsive and yielding to the changing consensus of political opinion.

From Tribalism to Pan-Africanism

Theyare referred to as views no. 3 the charter of the organisation of african 58 autumn/winter 1963 pactineasaaas gas, dagombas, ‘strangers’, and so forth, but that we should call ourselves ghanaians’’.2 ngubane maintains in his book “an african explains apartheid” that tribalism is fundamentally not different from racialism, and that it carries the  unity which has been already mentioned also contains the following declaration: “we are inspired by a common determination to strengthen understanding and co-operation among our states in response to the aspirations of our peopies for brotherhood and solidarity, in a larger unity transcending ethnic and national differences; able her pan-humanity established and maintained; african nationalism in its various phases covers the evo'ution of nationalism from the particular we are determined to safeguard and consolidate the hard-won independence as well as the sovereignty and terr‘torial integrity of our states, and to fight against neoco'onialism in all its forms .. .” south african nationalism the so-called lack of bantu interest in political activities is not supported by the fact that between march and september 1963 only two prosecutors handled between them 360 political trials—the great majority dealing with african acts of “sabo- to the rest of africa pan-africanism represents three main ideas.

State Of The Union

'link-up', and the other more tentative attempts to modernise the union depend on the union's ability to put resources where they have never been put before - primarily at the disposal of poor women - to abandon a costbenefit approach to recruitment, to sustain and nourish the membership by developing the union's infrastructure in a period of contraction, and finally to contemplate the transformation of the union's political and industrial objectives. infrastructure is inseparable from the birth of a new culture within the union to support the new membership, but also from the development of a much wider range of individual services for members - brit- 'it is returning to its roots and doing not only the necessary thing (if it is to recover from the membership haemorrhage of the last decade) but the honourable thing' ish trade unionism is massively present in society and yet massively absent from daily life.

A TRAIN STOPPED IN MOSCOW

Marxism today november 1982 3t9 a train stopped in moscow john birch while people in moscow wait for the succesan investigator arrives in a provincial sion to the leadership to be resolved, and town to determine the reasons for a train genuinely new policies to be implemented derailment in which the engine-driver was instead of the stop-gap food programme, a heroically killed trying to prevent the crash; new film has been showing at the capital's the local party already has plans underway largest and most prestigious cinema theatre, for a memorial to commemorate this town the rossiya on pushkin square. Finally he leaves, defeated by the and with such an excellent cast is being collusion of the local party and the press (the shown as a political act of some importance, journalist played by solonitsyn) who the georgian film swimmer (about repres- between them have built up the myth of the sion in the 30s) was recently released in a 'hero engine driver'.

LIFE

The children didn’t request it; and (rape apart) every parent of a school-age child in britain today could society, on the other hand, needs no protection from the consenting sexual activities of children, unless the children impinge on society by cluttering it with unprovided-for babies or infecting it with vd. Retaliation would arrive not with force sufficient to protect the tannoys and chalk but with force sufficent to uphold the majesty of the law; and precisely because the law has fewer scruples than the children’s angry brigade, its force would be exerted not on pupils’ property but on pupils.

Meetings Bloody Meetings

once we conceive of the market as a process in historical time, reflecting both the perceived past and the expected future, then pat's rigid distinction between static, allocative prices and dynamic 'market forces' cannot be sustained. Ommemt meetings bloody meetings in a feature article last month pat devine urged the left to look anew at the idea of economic planning.

RACISM AND EMPLOYMENT

Focus may 1984 marxism today 5 racism a n d employment it was with a certain smugness that the tory-dominated house of commons select committee on race relations reported, the last time it looked at employment issues, that not a single union in britain had ever introduced the demand for an anti-racist employment policy into negotiations with the employers. Anyone taking an employer to an industrial tribunal for racial discrimination will have their hand considerably strengthened since they will be able to argue that the failure of their employer to implement the code is itself evidence of the discrimination that they arealleging.

Special needs bullying - racism

the outcome of the meeting, requested specifically by myself to discuss the racism and the bullying perpetrated on her, was that the head decided to 'contact the school's educational psychologist ... and ask her to observe marianna in school to give an accurate picture of her social actions and also to do some testing so that an up to date picture of her cognitive functioning and reading ability could be obtained. 'i felt sick and i didn't do anything.' l eaving aside the technical implications of requesting 12 year old children with learning difficulties to undertake this task, it is possible to imagine that the deputy head was trying to help by showing the class what a baboon looks like ... except he then left the room, leaving marianna completely at the mercy of her class mates.

Special Needs • Bullying - Racism: The Last Taboo?

the outcome of the meeting, requested specifically by myself to discuss the racism and the bullying perpetrated on her, was that the head decided to 'contact the school's educational psychologist ... and ask her to observe marianna in school to give an accurate picture of her social actions and also to do some testing so that an up to date picture of her cognitive functioning and reading ability could be obtained. 'i felt sick and i didn't do anything.' l eaving aside the technical implications of requesting 12 year old children with learning difficulties to undertake this task, it is possible to imagine that the deputy head was trying to help by showing the class what a baboon looks like ... except he then left the room, leaving marianna completely at the mercy of her class mates.

Special Needs • Bullying - Racism: The Last Taboo?

the outcome of the meeting, requested specifically by myself to discuss the racism and the bullying perpetrated on her, was that the head decided to 'contact the school's educational psychologist ... and ask her to observe marianna in school to give an accurate picture of her social actions and also to do some testing so that an up to date picture of her cognitive functioning and reading ability could be obtained. 'i felt sick and i didn't do anything.' l eaving aside the technical implications of requesting 12 year old children with learning difficulties to undertake this task, it is possible to imagine that the deputy head was trying to help by showing the class what a baboon looks like ... except he then left the room, leaving marianna completely at the mercy of her class mates.

Heroes And Lovers

it is dangerous because, although like the 1940s tradition of film noir it plays with power and sexuality, the femme fatale of the 1940s (before women went soppy in the 1950s) has sidled into history, to be displaced not so much by femininity in another form, but by l'homme fatale. Oh, we whisper to ourselves, joy, a movie of our times - or at least a fantasy for our times - in which the da is a young, chic, tough, sexy person whose gender is consummate for women movie-goers.

Interview with Ronald Segal

Perhaps more important than any of these, there is the transcontinental advance of african nationalism which can no longer go un­ noticed - the union may be insulated by portuguese africa and southern rhodesia but the logic of the growing number of independent african states is inescapable: both at united ‘you know that the political correspondent of die burger has characterised the racial question as “basically one of national­ ities”, and that the ideology of separate development rests upon the crude antithesis of the afrikaner and bantu nations. consequently; at the very moment when frank cousins the new leader of the powerful transport union - as well as bevan’s own wife took up a violent position in favour of the renunciation by great britain of nuclear weapons; bevan preferred to pass with gaitskell a relatively honourable com­ promise; but which caused tremendous disappointment throughout the left in the party; demobilised the best militants; and provoked an estrangement between him and his most loyal friend, michael foot and “tribune”.

The death of multiculturalism

december saw the publication of the cantle report, titled community cohesion, which defines the government’s strategy for maintaining order in those towns.[2] at the same time, home secretary blunkett announced that the government was considering an oath of allegiance for immigrants and that english language tests would be introduced.[3] we were told that practices such as forced marriage and genital mutilation had been allowed to continue because of an over-emphasis on ‘cultural difference’ and ‘moral relativism’.[4] blunkett wanted a new framework of core values, which would set limits to the laissez-faire pluralism of the past. on a national level, a new community cohesion task force has been set up and blunkett has initiated a ‘national debate’, by suggesting that immigrants take an ‘oath of allegiance’ to the british state and adopt british norms.