Rodney Needham

Rodney Needham was Professor of Anthro at Oxford and died on December 4th, aged 83. He was the person who first invited me to pommie land, claiming Oxford was the place for me. Turned out that part was not true, but I did like much of his work. The obituary in the Guardian explains that when Levi-Strauss repudiated some obscure point about kinship that Needham had defended, the portrait of the great structuralist that hung in Needham's office was turned to face the wall. I love that. May his old curmudgeon bones rest in peace.

Read his book 'Against the Tranquillity of Axioms'.

'television from Harlem' and the 'anti-Hoon laws'

Its not all that often that I get really homesick, but this item twanged a few lumpen-nostalgia chords. The article contains some choice quotes. Councillor Roz Blades in particular seems the most stupid with her 'television from Harlem' quip, and the very idea that there are 'anti-hoon laws' makes me not at all surprised that 'flares were thrown' and 'police were pelted with bottles'. I do want to know how this is related to the Cronulla beach race trouble of a little over a year ago? So, is there a racial element to this? I mean beside Councillor Blades' racist analogy? From afar it seems like normal Dandy friday night entertainment - people brought their sofas out to sit and watch the burn-outs in style. I suppose they trashed the DVD store because it did not have enough rental copies of the video of the hoon event...

This is from Melbourne's newspaper The Age:

Burn-out crowd goes on the rampage

This Blockbuster Video store was trashed and looted by a mob of youths early on Saturday.
Photo: Justin McManus

Chantal Rumble
January 14, 2007

Six men face charges after a crowd turned on police during an illegal burn-out gathering in Melbourne's south-east early yesterday.

More than 1000 people, including women and children, congregated at the corner of the Princes Highway and Elonera Road, Noble Park, on Friday night for a regular illegal burn-out session, but police cordoned off the intersection soon after 1am yesterday and the crowd became violent.

A DVD store was trashed and looted, and police were pelted with bottles.

A pizza shop and an electrical goods store were also damaged, two bus stops were smashed, bins were set alight and road signs destroyed. Witnesses reported seeing flares thrown.

"My reaction is complete and absolute horror," said Roz Blades, councillor and former mayor of the City of Greater Dandenong. "In 30 years in this area, I have never seen anything like it. It looks more like something you'd see on television from Harlem."

Fifty extra police and the dog squad were called in to control the situation. Six men, aged between 18 and 32, were arrested and released but are expected to be charged with traffic and criminal offences.

Police seized five cars, some under new anti-hoon laws.

The busy corner, with a 24-hour McDonald's restaurant on one corner, has been a favourite Friday night hang-out for hoons and their fans for decades.

Cr Alan Gordon, chairman of Dandenong Council's community roads reference group, said the site's popularity had been growing, attracting some 2000 people last weekend, many bringing couches from which to watch the illegal burn-outs.

The trend attracted extensive talkback radio coverage last week, which witnesses said added to the hype and the push towards violence, similar to the build-up to the Cronulla riots in December 2005.

"They are just Aussie kids going out for a Friday night," Cr Gordon said.

"It just amazes me that they are so organised: the radio, SMS, their website. They are just so well equipped. I would never have thought we'd have this sort of thing in Melbourne, but now we do. It's a bit of a shame."

He said the police and council had worked closely last week to prevent violence at the burn-out events, but to no avail. "A lot of the residents around here have been here for many, many years and I don't think they are going to take things into their own hands, but I think they expect both the council and police to work together to fix the problem," Cr Gordon said.

"Police and the council have been working together this week and look what we've got to show for it." He described the police response of about 50 officers and a dog squad as inadequate. "I would have thought you would have had more police. Fifty or 70 cops, compared to over 1000 youths, isn't enough."

Victoria Police acting Assistant Commissioner Gavin Barry said although extra traffic units were in the area on Friday night, "we had no way of knowing that the gathering would become so hostile and threatening towards police".

Police Association secretary Paul Mullett said officers were "hopelessly outnumbered" and called on Chief Commissioner Christine Nixon to urgently audit police resources."

Kufiya-spotting

This great post and meme by Ted Swedenburg deserves your attention. I used to play this game but never thought to collect - this is trinketization as well after all. One of my favourites was the news reporter on Japanese television when I worked in Nagoya, who presented all his Baghdad reports during 2003 wearing a Kufiya. Some people have mistaken Jade Goody's pirate scarf on Big Brother as one as well, but I think we can let that pass - great as Jade is, her support for Pirates will do. Aki Nawaz of course is a prominent UK wearer, among millions in the UK, but though my own is now a bit tatty as its one of my oldest items of clothing, it does come out often. I got it from Palestine Solidarity in Melbourne in 1986 - we ran ads for their campaign group in the journal I edited, Criticism, Heresy and Interpretation. Anyway, this is Ted's latest addition, gently mocking 'Urban Outfitters', but it’s worth pursuing the other posts as this one is number 12 in his series.

"Kufiyaspotting #12: Urban Outfitters Markets Kufiya as "Anti-War Woven Scarf"

Urban Outfitters' "early spring" catalogue is now online, and the featured item in Men's Accessories is the (Palestinian) kufiya, marketed as an "anti-war woven scarf" (thanks, Hisham).

If you click on the photo of the male model, you will find the kufiya (only $20), in the classic mode, checkered black-and-white, but also available in red, turqoise (my fave), and brown.

It's remarkable that "anti-war" is now so mainstream that Urban Outfitters feels comfortable using it as a marketing tool. By contrast, back in the late '80s, the Banana Republic catalogue carried an item called the "Israeli Paratroopers Bag." It's also remarkable that despite even though the Palestinians, since the onset of the al-Aqsa Intifada, have been indelibly re-associated with terrorism and suicide bombings, the Palestinian kufiya remains so deeply rooted in hipster clothing style and the outfits of oppositional movements that it remains hip/commercial/"resistive" symbol. Something on the order of Che Guevara t-shirts, full of contradictions, capable of making money, yet still giving off the whiff of danger. Probably it's the hint of danger and the exoticism that, combined, (still) makes the kufiya marketable.

I'd hate, of course, to see wearing the "anti-war scarf" as accessory substitute for actual activism against the war/occupation. (And my friend Joel Gordon reminds me: the kufiya "originally" symbolizes resistance, and in fact, armed resistance (the Palestinian revolt of 1936-39, the fedayeen of the sixties and seventies), not "anti-war."

No doubt this is also related to the "hipness" of things Islamic today; an article by Jill Hamburg Caplan will soon appear in New York magazine, and I'll comment on it when it comes out.

I wrote an article on the kufiya as style back in 1992, in an article in Michigan Quarterly Revies, and I discuss its uses, in Palestine and the US, in my book, Memories of Revolt. I've also been attempting to document various "sitings" of the kufiya in this blog".



Great stuff as ever Ted - hence reposted in full (of awe).

Mrazek - framing exotica - are you sitting comfortably?

Gotta take risks to get the image you need:

There's a revealing warning reported in what is a really excellent book by Rudolph Mrazek (from 2002, called Engineers of Happy Land: Technology and Nationalism in a Colony (Princeton, Princeton University Press, on P. 108) where the author relates the story of a colonial era photographer of Indonesia who advises caution when necessarily using quite large 'doses' of flash powdor in the dark 'easily inflammable' native huts of the dyak people. In addition, he noted that insects, bacteria, sweat and "primitive people not accustomed to sitting still" are also difficulties for the colonial photographer. Awww.
.

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Kennington and Oval

Today, avoiding real work that is piled up on my desk, and waiting on the gas inspector to check my pipes and tell me what I already know - ie that my listed Edwarding building is not allowed to have a gas boiler outlet sticking out where it does - for shame... well, I thought a leap into local history would redeem my (actually my landlord's) crimes against heritage listings... so I have been reading about the neighbourhood. Strange stuff, for example, I live on Kennington Park Road just down from the Oval - site of the first Ashes test (heh, cricket eh?) - where the following wartime incident from the VauxhallandKennington site amuses:

"The Oval Airman

There was an interesting incident near the Oval. The largest and last of the daylight raids on London took place on 15 September 1940. Over 180 German planes were shot down and a German airman, Robert Zehbe, baled out of his stricken Dornier bomber and landed in front of Alverstone House in Harleyford Road. Pieces of his plane came down elsewhere in central London, including in the forecourt of Victoria Station. Zehbe was attacked by a mob of furious women but was rescued by the police and driven across the Oval's turf and Vauxhall Bridge to the Millbank military hospital, where he died next day. There was a suggestion that he had been seriously injured by the Oval mob, but it is equally likely that he was badly injured before he landed.

Information about this incident was provided by historian Martin Smart. ... Pieces of the bomber are now in the RAF Museum, Hendon."

Its not all stirring battle of Britain/mob of furious women stuff though, reminding me that Kennington park is a site of all manner of horrors - used for hangings as well as political meetings, charged down by the police and corn law incidents, the Chartists, and, if you follow up the article I cite from here, you can find out all you need to know about Kennington:

"Fascinating information and stunning revelations including Public Executions,A Radical Black Methodist, The World's First National Labour Movement - The Chartists * the Significance of 10th April 1848 * The World's First Photograph of a Crowd * the Occupation of Our Common by the Royal Park * The Horns Tavern and Charlie Chaplin * The Princess of Wales Theatre * The Scandal of the Unmarked War Grave * The Squatters * 'Red Ted' * The Return of the Commons Spirit" - From Working Press: Kennington Park - birthplace of British democracy

and - pushing the political meetings theme a little:

"'Red Ted' Knight’s socialist council started the annual fireworks displays in the Park. By 1984 the park was again being used for political gatherings. The demonstrators on the Anti Apartheid Rally of that year used the park as an assembly point. In subsequent years the park has hosted many important political gatherings including; Gay Pride (starting 1986), National Union of Students (1986), Irish Solidarity Movement (1986), Vietnamese Community event (1989), Anti Poll Tax March (1990), Kurdistan Rally (1991), Integration Alliance (1993), TUC (1993), Nigerian Rallies (1993), Campaign Against Militarism (1993) and Reclaim the Streets (1997). These events often reflect key moments in the political history of the time and are an important part of the democratic process". From: Kennington Park - birthplace of British democracy

... well, there's lots more to write on this. For now I will just also go back to note that theunmarked war grave is now marked, however minimally. So minimally that I did not know that the south field of the park, where in summer people laze about not going to demos and where there is often a 'funfair', was also tragically the site of the largest single bomb loss of life in the Blitz when an air raid shelter was hit on 15 October 1940 (again from VauxallandKennington):

"The shelter was large enough to accomodate hundreds, and maybe thousands, of people, and it filled the whole of the south field in Kennington Park - the field opposite what is now the cafe. The outline of the buildings can still be seen from the air, especially when the ground is very dry - see the photo. But the shelter was an unpleasant place, and people only went there because the government stopped them going down into the nearby underground stations. One witness reported that “The public shelter was horrible, smelly. It had a mouldy slab of concrete for a roof. But you couldn’t go anywhere else - the Oval Station was full of barbed wire … they wouldn’t let you near it.”"

I've included the picture and you can indeed see the evidence - the ill-defined area to the south of the trench pattern shows where the bomb hit. There's more on the bombing here (a pdf file). More to read... And with this I give notice of the start of a thread, sort of, on wartime stories that I'll come back to soon so as to relate the adventures of grandfather Thomas Mouat Tate... Stay tuned...

Spectrum - I'll Be Gone (1971)