Glued to the newsfeeds. Thinking in horror of the lives cut short, women throwing babies from the ninth floor. The courage of the firefighters, the desperation, the professionalism of the emergency staff, the NHS.
Thinking of how burning down a city for fun and profit is nothing new. There’s a book we should all read, by some epidemiologists (I think Chomsky put me onto it) called
A Plague on Your Houses: How New York Was Burned Down and National Public Health Crumbled
Thinking how this is becoming a lightning rod, the visible manifestation of the years of austerity, just another name for class and race war against the most vulnerable people in society.
There is a growing sense of anger and frustration among the crowds gathered under the Westway flyover where volunteers are sorting and boxing donations.
One volunteer, Sinead O’Hare, said the fire and loss of life had tapped into a deeper sense of resentment and alienation.
“People are angry about years of Tory policy of cutting corners and costs, and refusing to take responsibility. The interests of the Tory party are closely allied to the interests of business and private landlords,” she said. SOURCE
I lived in a tower block for two years. Doesn’t count, because I felt totally safe because it was owned by University of Salford, and they took safety seriously.
And I think of how long and hard the Grenfell Action Group fought. And how they got fobbed off, threatened, ignored. Condescended to. I have some inkling of what it is like to go up against an incompetent and dismissive bureaucracy, a bunch of smug sneering wastes of space.
And I hear the usual cries of “never again.”
And I have simple questions for the left. Do we believe these claims? Do we remember how they were made before? And are we willing and able to think about how WE, as citizens, together, have to make sure that this is indeed the last time that children, old people, frail people, ANY people die like this?
And do we know how to do it? Because marches and demonstrations and appeals to the great and the good will not do this. Getting a new government will help, sure, but how many disasters have happened under allegedly progressive/”left” governments? How much of the insolence and arrogance and venality and inertia is baked in?
Do we understand that getting the right policy, by forcing elected politicians to make that policy, is the BEGINNING of the battle, not the end? That implementation is often where it all falls down?
Are we willing to develop the capacity to fight back against bureaucratic inertia?
(I genuinely believe that bureaucrats take the attitude “well, if we give in on this, where would it all end? We’d have to do x, and then y, and then z. Far easier to block block block until this lot give up and piss off. The next lot will come at this with zero experience, and can be blocked and fobbed off. We need to lower expectations and keep them low.”
If we ARE, then we need to (and I am about to shout) CHANGE THE WAY WE HOLD MEETINGS AND THE WAY WE TRY TO BRING IN NEW PEOPLE AND NEW IDEAS.
Or we can stick to our same old round of smugosphere and middleclass delusional emotacycles, and watch as more working class people and people of colour and vulnerable people die. What kind of ally is that?
“The horror, the horror” said Kurtz. He may have been talking about this film, which as a horror movie is a horror.
