Banksy hits up Turnpike Lane

The mysterious graffiti artist Banksy visited Whymark Avenue, a quiet street near Turnpike Lane Station in north London to make a point about child labour and the Queen’s Jubilee.

He painted his latest work on the side of the local Poundland, a popular discount store chain in the UK that got bad press in the past for buying its products from suppliers that use child labour in Asia. Banksy painted a kid hunched over a sewing machine, making bunting with the Union Jack on it just in time for the Queen’s Jubilee coming up next month.

People walking past the most famous graffiti in London

The bunting was attached to the wall and is the exact type sold by Poundland, so although the corporation has made anti-child labour part of its social accountability policy, Banksy must be skeptical. The work is trademark of Banksy in its critique of capitalism, middle class society, and how the Jubilee is celebrated on the backs of people making almost nothing in developing countries.

When I dropped by the graffiti had already been covered  with a plastic screen so no one could ruin or alter it. There were people all around taking pictures and talking about Banksy and Poundland, which was unusual in a city where strangers never talk to each other. People joked about Banksy’s anonymity – no one knows what he looks like – and the fact that anyone standing there could have been him, listening to them talk about his work.

People also don’t know why he chose this very average part of London to be the scene for his latest work, but everyone is glad he did. It’s got neighbours talking and brought attention to a very important topic.

Circus at the Circus

London’s Piccadilly Circus is the location of the city’s most well-known corporate landmark, the big flashing illuminated advertisements you see as soon as you get up to street level. Those signs played backdrop to a very non-corporate gathering recently, a protest against restriction of migration by a group known as No Borders.

No Borders believes government laws controlling how people    can travel is a violation of human rights.

There is nothing specific in the United Nations Declaration
of Human Rights that guarantees free travel between countries, probably because I doubt many politicians would want just anyone having the right to settle in their country as they pleased.

Article 13 of the Declaration states everyone has the
power to move freely within their own state and leave
their state with the option to return again.

Then comes Article 14, which states people have the
right to seek asylum from persecution in other countries.
Persecution implies facing death or torture in the country
from which you came.

If you’re not facing death or torture, you have the human right to travel within your country, and leave that country to be welcomed back again. That’s all. There is nothing in the Declaration forcing a country to take anyone in, anytime, under any circumstances. No Borders advocates would like to change this.

I’m not sure how well the protesters got their No Borders message across to the curious shoppers and tourists who normally stroll through that area, but they chose a very fitting place to make their stand, for two reasons. They stood on a monument known as the Statue of Eros, which has become a symbol of this city, and appears on the masthead of the London Evening Standard, a paper that loves to “take the piss” out of radical groups such as No Borders and the ideologically-related Occupy movement.

The second reason they chose the perfect spot was that they named the event “Occupy your Hearts”, and scheduled it for a few days after Valentine’s Day. Eros was the Roman version of the Greek god Cupid, who we all know as the god of love.

The protesters stand at the base of London’s Statue of Eros

The protest seemed more like a gathering of Hare-Krishna-like New Agers than anything as serious and political as a rally against border control. There was a drum circle and a bubble machine, hula-hoopers and bizarre headgear.

The eccentricity may have taken the spotlight off the politics, but won more positive attention and less police hostility than an angry sounding kid with a bull horn and a bandanna across his face would have done. Most people seemed amused by the spectacle during their Saturday afternoon shopping, and some even stopped to join in. Freddy Mercury, however, remained stone faced nearby, not feeling the Bohemian rhapsody unfolding beneath him.

Last days of St. Paul’s Occupy Protest Camp

I finally took some photos of the Occupy protest camp in front of St. Paul’s Cathedral last week, completely unaware that in a few days it would be torn down by bailiffs after losing the court battle to keep the camp alive. Some protesters have moved on to another camp at nearby Finsbury Park, while others continue to stand where the camp once stood, as the only thing made ‘illegal’ about their occupation were the tents they used for shelter.

Tent City University, HQ of the former St. Paul's protest camp

I work in Holborn, only a five-minute walk away from St. Paul’s Cathedral, and passed by the camp a few times in the past. The ragged tents appeared so surreal amid bank headquarters, up-scale sandwich shops and, of course that staple of the British middle class, Sainsbury’s grocery store, “just around the corner.”

Sign facing the St. Paul's protest camp

The protesters at St. Paul’s were a motley group of hardcore political activists, disenfranchised hippies, the down-and-out homeless, and general non-conformists who salivate at chances to parade in front of the “suited and booted” London bourgeoisie and show them that not everyone in this city wants to be on the FTSE 100.

One of the many interesting people who hung around the camp

The camper I spoke to outside St. Paul’s on that rainy afternoon was a middle-aged guy with tattoos. He sat outside his tent, watching tourists snap photos of the historic building beside him. The camp had been there so long it had become part of the background, non-news that stopped achieving its goal of highlighting government corruption and corporate greed long ago.

Hopefully the protesters can continue the spirit that was born last year on Wall Street and spread across the Atlantic to the financial capital of Europe. Hopefully they can once again grab the headlines through non-violent action, inspiring us to think critically about the people who sell us products and collect our taxes.

I’m just glad I got a chance to get some photos and talk to the people before the St. Paul’s tent city became history.

EDL March in London

Protesters representing the English Defense League gathered in London’s East End on Saturday and were cordoned off by police to prevent violence with counter-protesters who gathered nearby.

I grabbed my camera and caught the tube to see for myself how an anti-Islamic, anti-immigration rally was going to play out in one of the most ethnically-diverse neighbourhoods of London.

The first signs of trouble were police, police, police everywhere. They were dressed in full riot gear, not taking any chances after the infamous London riots of a month before when the London Metropolitan Police (Met) were criticized for being caught flatfooted.

Police and even horses were in full riot gear

Police kept everyone away from the English Defense League, a citizen’s movement
that claims to welcome all races and genders in its fight against Islamic
fundamentalism, though I saw very few EDL members who weren’t white males.

I was able to get close enough to speak to an EDL member who hadn’t joined the
main demonstration. He said he was a veteran of the Falkland’s War and joined the
EDL because he felt his country was no longer British. The middle-aged man saidhe
came from the north of England to protest in East London, the heartland of
multi-culturalism in this country.

 

 

 

Counter protesters down the street from the EDL

On the opposite side, the counter protesters had gathered to wave banners and
shout anti-fascist slogans, though the police kept them too far away for the EDL to
hear.

Many were Middle Eastern but there were lots of Europeans as well, and
from the shirts they wore and the signs they waved they appeared to be a mix of
left-wing activists, anarchists, and normal East Londoners opposed to the EDL
using their community to gain national attention.

 

 

 

The EDL were given a few hours to demonstrate before being herded back to their buses, most of them being from outside the city. I was right along the route and caught a few photos of them as they marched.

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It took 3,000 police to keep this demonstration from turning violent and must have cost taxpayers millions of pounds. Seems like a high price to pay to give a extremist group their day in the spotlight.

One of 3,000 police officers keeping the peace that day

Indignant at the Spanish Embassy

Laura Martin, middle, speaks to her fellow Indignant Ones in front of the Spanish Embassy in London

Her national flag flapped lazily in the cool London breeze as Laura Martin stood across the street from the Spanish embassy on May 28th. With tarps covering sleeping bags and bottled water stacked high, she and her fellow protesters were prepared to stay outside until someone paid attention to their demands.

She is a part of Real Democracy Now, a Spanish protest movement that began demonstrating in Spain and across Europe two weeks ago. They oppose the corruption and cronyism they believe is systemic in Spanish government. Also known as #spanishrevolution, the Twitter hashtag they use to deliver their message, Real Democracy Now is fuelled by frustration and powerlessness young Spaniards feel as unemployment soars in their country.

But last weekend their determination was been overshadowed by the biggest football game of the year, the Champions League final between Manchester United and Barcelona FC at London’s Wembley Stadium.

“

FC Barcelona VS Manchester United overshadowed events in Spain and London

Football is one of those tools they use to keep people happy and sleepy,” said Martin. “Everyone is talking about football.”
And football was the justification given by Spanish police for the most violent crackdown on the movement so far. The day before the game authorities cleared the tent camp in Barcelona’s Placa Catalunya, claiming that it was a sanitation issue and the space was needed for the next day’s football celebrations. Hundreds were injured in the clashes and Youtube videos show police beating demonstrators with clubs as they sat on the ground.

The protesters are known as “Los Indignados”, the Indignant Ones, and Martin’s indignation overflowed when she saw the images from Barcelona, pointing to the police’s actions as proof that real democracy does not exist in Spain.

“The politicians should just come down and talk to the people,” she says. “They don’t want to understand. They’re not going to stop it with violence. It just showed us we have to fight for a long time if we want some change.”

Many of the people camped outside the Spanish embassy are young people who have come to the UK to find jobs. One in five Spaniards under 30 are still looking for their first job, and youth unemployment hovers around 45 per cent nationwide. Martin came to London six years ago to find work and would like to return to her country one day, but the chances of her finding a job in her field are low.

Esther, who doesn’t want to disclose her last name, is the London chapter’s unofficial communications person. She came to London two weeks ago to find work as a language teacher. The 25-year-old from Santander has seen her country go from an overall unemployment rate of eight per cent in 2007 to 20 per cent in 2010 despite the government spending $15 billion to prop up the economy, driving the deficit from 3.8 per cent of GDP in 2008 to 9.7 per cent in 2010.

Spanish protesters in London prepared to camp overnight

The Indignant Ones support neither the left-wing Spanish Socialist Workers’ Party nor the conservative People’s Party. Politicians of both parties have failed to guide Spain out of recession, according to the demonstrators, and have instead made Spain’s economy one the worst in Europe.
“It’s a people’s movement,” Esther said. “We want to say to the politicians and bankers that we are fed up with the situation. We want to take part in the political system. We want to be a part of the policies that affect us all.”

Real Democracy Now has used Twitter and Facebook to organize meetings and distribute information, creating a spontaneous and very grass roots movement that would have been impossible a decade ago. Meanwhile, they complain that mainstream media is ignoring their movement.

Protesters in London tried to take advantage of the media focus on the Champions League final. They unravelled a banner behind a Spanish television reporter live on air but the broadcast was cut. Supporters at Wembley brought a Real Democracy Now banner in hopes of getting it on air but it didn’t work.

“It’s been ridiculous,” says Ira De Gama, who is originally from Madrid. “There’s been no media attention whatsoever. Nobody’s talked about the human rights violations in Barcelona. It’s been very disappointing because I thought they’d care about the story.”

Barcelona beat Manchester United and secured its place as the best football club in Europe as The Indignant Ones of London sat outside the Spanish Embassy. Martin hopes that with the football season over, attention will shift to their cry for political change that transcends the left/right divide.

“For the first time in Spanish history, since I’ve been an adult, it’s not been left against right,” she says. “Now it’s the people against the state. We’re just looking for a fair system. It’s not about ideologies.”

Photos from the Royal Wedding

Hello. I went down to Green Park today to see the Royal Wedding on a big screen. The place was so packed it was hard to get a great view of the screen. People bought cardboard periscopes to see above the crowd. Here’s some photos. Use photos only if you state the url they came from.

Sailing on The Matthew

My adventures continue … I was invited aboard the Matthew of Bristol last week along with a BBC film crew to document its voyage around the coast of England. Here are a few of my shots. All Rights Reserved

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From Tahrir to Trafalgar

Today I turned on the television to see hysterical Egyptians waving flags and chanting in Cairo’s Tahrir Square. The scene then cut to London’s Trafalgar Square were expat Egyptians were just as excited about the success of the White Revolution in putting an end to Hosni MuBarek’s rule. I grabbed my camera and got the tube down to central London.

When I arrived I saw a sea of celebration dotted with red, white, and black Egyptian flags, as you can see:

Women were a strong faction in the protests that toppled Mubarek’s government, and many women came out to wave flags beside the men.

Celebrations seem premature when no one knows what sort of regime will rise up in the power vacuum caused by the fall of Mubarek. History shows that many revolutions begin with idealism, but end with bloody conflict to gain or hold on to power. Let’s hope the new government is a friend of stability in one of the world’s most volatile regions.

It’s an exciting time in the Middle East, and although I was nowhere near Cairo, it was thrilling to feel the collective energy coming from a revolution thousands of miles away.

From Newfoundland to Ghana

One Canadian musician has used his talents to raise money and set up a school building in sub-Saharan Africa. Last fall I visited the village to see how music has made it possible for more children to escape poverty.

September, 2010

I sat eating my food while watching two women pound cassava beans into a fine pulp. One turned the white lump over just before the other woman brought down a wooden pole with a force that could easily break fingers. They worked with perfect rhythm, the woman’s hand pulling back just before the pole comes down.

This was my first meal in the Volta Region of Ghana, a land of grassy savannah transforming into dense tropical forest, beautiful sandy beaches, and tiny villages. I’ve taken a mini bus here to stay in one of them, Dzogadze, a settlement of about 1,000 people north of the main road between Ghana’s capital, Accra, and the neighboring country of Togo.

The roads here are unpaved and recent rains have turned the red earth into a soup streaked with tire ruts and dotted with pot holes. In this mess the fastest way to reach the village is by motorcycle, and it’s on a motorcycle that my contact in Dzogadze, Ledzi Agudzemegah, arrived to take me there. 

Rhythm is a part of life in this place known for its strong tradition of music and dancing. It’s that tradition that brought Newfoundlander Curtis Andrews here for the first time in 1999, and it’s because of his work that I’m here now: to see what the efforts of Newfoundlanders have done for this tiny village in Sub-Saharan Africa.

Ledzi is an old friend of Curtis Andrews. The two met during Andrews’ first visit to Dzogadze and they quickly became buddies thanks to their common interest in drumming and dance.

With a kick to the starter we took off down the dirt path spraying red mud behind us. As the motorcycle rumbles along I see over Ledzi’s shoulder women walking with vases of water on their heads, men plowing soil and children playing in the grass. Everyone is surprised to see  a white man burn past them down the road, but they smile and wave as we near Dzogadze.

The village is a collection of red clay huts with thatched roofs interspersed with more modern concrete structures roofed with corrugated metal. There is no real plan to the layout of this place, but it’s centred on the soccer field and Dzogadze Basic School Complex, my first stop in the village.

A typical red clay house

The school

 

Class was over when I arrived and the teachers were sitting around a table under the shade of a huge tree. Ledzi introduced me and, as is tradition in the area, I shook hands with each person, moving in a counter clockwise direction.

I explained what brought me to Dzogadze and our conversation turned to Curtis Andrews. When I asked junior high school teacher Jacob Lekpor to show me what the donations from Newfoundland and Labrador have accomplished, he pointed across the soccer field to a yellow building.

“That’s where our beloved brother Curtis Andrews has put up a school for our children,” he said to me.

 

 

 

 

 

Jacob Lekpor teach's at the school in Dzogadze

 

Lekpor came to Dzogadze four years ago when there was no kindergarten classroom. The young children were forced to learn under a tree and write in the sand. Class was cancelled when it rained and the wind blew away their writing. Then in 2008 they completed the Curtis Kordzo Andrews Block, a concrete building that now gives the kindergarteners a sheltered place to learn. Kordzo is the name traditionally given to male babies born on a Monday, and was Curtis’ nickname in the village.

“It was like a part of us,” said Ledzi, who has lived in Dzogadze all his life. “We were not used to writing and sitting in the classroom. We didn’t know it is done better; not until we saw other schools in the big towns writing in books. Then we realized what we were lacking.”

We left the teachers and I dropped my backpack off at Ledzi’s place where I’d be staying the night. It was a simple two bedroom place with a bathroom outside around the corner.

After a brief nap to recover from my long journey we went off to meet Treve Dorvlo, an elder of the village and head of the PTA. He and another older man were sitting in a cramped hut and we had to crouch just to get inside. Ledzi said a few words in Ewe, the local language, introducing me and explaining what I was doing there.

“After the building of the classroom for the small ones, the number of children has increased, almost doubled,” Treve said with Ledzi acting as translator. “The support of the Canadians has improved our reputation and is bringing others in.”

Dzogadze Basic School Complex encompasses kindergarten, primary, and junior high school levels. Treve explained that the influx of money the school has been able to attract more dedicated teachers, resulting in better grades for the children and a higher pass rate.

Before the Canadian aid conditions at the school were so poor that almost none of the children graduated to the senior high school level. Now they have a graduation rate of 60 per cent.

Our interview was interrupted by a ring on Treve’s cell phone indicating he got a text message. He fiddled with the keys in a way that made it obvious he hadn’t owned it for long. Ledzi explained that Curtis gave the phone to Treve in the spring; one of the many artifacts left by Canadians in Dzogadze.

The African sun was strong to the eyes as we left Treve’s hut and walked to the soccer field. Ledzi wanted me to see Dzogadze’s teenage team, the pride of this community in soccer-mad Ghana.

The team had just started their drills when we arrived. They were wearing red and white uniforms that had Ottawa International Soccer Club written across the front. The team badly needed uniforms and Curtis managed to hook them up with Robert Tarrant, a teacher in All Hallows Elementary in North River. He raised 350 to cover the cost of the new threads and other expenses.

 

 

Dzogadze's football team at practice

 

Ledzi helps coach the team and hopes that one of them might one day become a professional. He said talent scouts don’t visit the Volta Region because it’s a less populated place than the rest of Ghana. He wants to get scouts paying more attention to  Dzogadze and has spent hundreds of his own cedis (the Ghanaian currency) to cover the team’s transportation to and from matches.

“We wanted to help the youth,” he said. “You can always help somebody improve his own skill. There are lots of them in the villages who can play good football, but they’re not known by the Ghana Football Association.”

Food was waiting for me when we returned to Ledzi’s home. Banku is the staple dish there; it’s mashed cassava and maise, eaten by hand and dipped in soup or stew. It’s a heavy meal and I quickly fell asleep, only to be woken an hour later by torrential rain that sounded like it was soon going to collapse the thin metal roof. The next day was going to be an important one and somehow I slept through the noise only to find a giant spider looking at me in my bed.  

With the sight of the spider came the smell of porridge and the sound of school bells. Class had already begun and we ate breakfast quickly so we could catch the the first period of the day.

The junior high school classrooms are part of a compound that includes the library and computer clinic. The students were out for recess so Ledzi, Jacob and I visited the computer lab where some students were practicing their typing.

The lab built by donations from Newfoundland and Labrador includes two desktop and two laptop computers. They’re older models but it’s enough to teach students the skills they need to pass their information technology course, a mandatory part of Ghana’s public school curriculum.

“It will enable the children to have access to information,” Jacob told me. “The country is developing, and information technology is very important. I’m happy that even at this age they will be able to improve their computer skills.”

We left the computer lab to see the library, a building that was originally built by a charitable group from the United States, but Canadian donations filled the room and it wasn’t hard to figure out where the items came from. Classic Canadian novels like Anne of Green Gables filled the library shelves and a map of Canada hung on the wall next to a chart of the different fish species of Newfoundland and Labrador.

 

 

 

 

 

The deputy head master points to Newfoundland and Labrador, where the fundraising began

 

The kindergarten block was our next stop and the children greeted me warmly like they do all visitors from away with drumming and a traditional dance routine. When I pulled out my camera they crowded in front of the building fighting to be in the front row. A digital camera was a strange thing in this village that only got electricity in 2009 and everyone wanted the rare luxury of being in a photograph.

The number of kindergarteners has ballooned since the block opened in 2009, partly because of the new building, but also just because foreigners have shown interest in the children of Dzogadze and emphasized the importance of education.

“Some parents didn’t even think of sending their children to school, now they do because someone else has expressed this care in the education of their children,” Ledzi said. “It’s changed our own perception of our culture [as well]. At first we thought it as archaic, old news. but now people are once again backing our culture. They’re proud about their culture. More united.”

“[Curtis'] presence has helped a lot of children,” Lekpor added. “Those that did not know the importance of education, they are now getting it.”

With photos taken and interviews completed we left the kindergarten block to meet Treve, who wanted me to taste something before I left. We met him at a tiny stand that served as the village’s only pub and the bartender poured me a shot of akpeteshie, the local name for strong homemade liquor. It smelled like gasoline and tasted like it smelled.

Treve wished me a safe trip home and I thanked him for having me in his village. The sun was going down and I wanted to reach Accra before nightfall. Ledzi studies in Accra so we boarded the same minibus bound for the big city. With an orange sky shining through the big windshield I asked him how people inherit land in Dzogadze.

He said that the father’s land is divided up among his surviving children. Each generation receives a smaller portion of land than the one before it, until the children barely have enough farmland to survive.

“You have to divide everything among your children,” he told me. “People have to become teachers, bankers, lawyers. Then the amount of people on the farm will be small and the land will be adequate. That’s why we need education.”

Tropical forest transformed back into dusty savannah outside my window as the minibus sped westward. The akpeteshie made my trip back to Accra seem like a hazy dream now, but I remember thinking what an experience it had been, to see a village changing, improving, moving forward from a future condemned to poverty to one filled with the chance of something better.

 

 

 

 

 

The ride home

 

 

A month later

Curtis’ voice came and went over my shaky African internet connection. I was at an internet cafe with fans whirring around me, trying to hear his words about the town I had visited one month before.

He told me how he discovered Dzogadze. Curtis had met a Ghanaian musician named Frederick Kwasi Dumo at the Sound Symposium in St. John’s and that was where he got the idea to study music and dance in Ghana. Frederick had family in Dzogadze and invited Curtis to visit in 1999.

Curtis returned in 2002 and spent two months in the village where he stayed with Ledzi and they became good friends.

“People interact with each other differently,” Curtis said in his thick Carbonear accent. “The environment, people, food, drink, music, it all made me want to stay there for awhile.”

He returned to Newfoundland with the idea of building a kindergarten block for the children. Through a series of concerts and other fundraising he was able to raise $12,000 for the school.

Ledzi has an essential part of the project, acting as Curtis’ man on the ground in Ghana while he was in Canada raising money.

“Without him none of this would have happened,” he told me. “He’s honest and transparent, does more than he needs to do, spends his own money to get things going. It’s only through him that the money doesn’t get spent in the wrong way. He’s the only reason that this could happen effectively.”

Dzogadze is still no paradise. The water pump fails often and the villagers have to fetch buckets water from a stagnant pond every day. Many children can’t afford to buy school uniforms. The medical clinic hasn’t had a nurse in two years and an elder says at least two people have died in the village because they couldn’t get to the nearest hospital in time.

Life is hard in Dzogadze. Curtis compared it to Newfoundland and Labrador 60 years ago. People raise their own chickens, grow their own crops and catch their own fish. Most young people leave Dzogadze to work in the larger cities.

Like Newfoundland and Labrador, however, many of the children return during Christmas to visit their families.

There is no snow and there are no Christmas trees during the holiday season, but people eat lots of food and have drinks. Christianity is widespread in the region and even some of those who follow native religion go to church on Christmas Eve.

Curtis will miss Christmas in Dzogadze, but he’ll return to the village in the spring with a group of students from Canada as part of an annual study trip he organizes.

“A lot of people have life changing experiences,” I heard him murmur via our weak Skype connection. “For a lot of them it’s their first experience with the Third World, Africa, or a rural village. It gives them more humility and respect for what they have.”  

Andrews drumming in Ghana