From nooks beneath Mount Qasioun to a cityscape sky pierced by the Fernsehturm

‘Multikulti’ is the German neologism that contracts the extended English term ‘multicultural’ (German ‘multikulturell’), which is just one adjective that could be used to describe the city of Berlin. The city’s eccentric, accepting nature and intricate cross-weave of cultures is present and quite palpable in many aspects of city living.

Berlin’s multiculturalism can be measured by whispers of conversation in various languages that enter your ear as other city-dwellers pass you by on the street, or in the swathes of high-quality Döner/Turkish cuisine outlets that leave German Currywurst eateries in the culinary dust, or by counting the number of public notices and placards written in German and then in Arabic or Turkish in certain areas of Kreuzberg and Neukölln.

In my opinion, the perfect example of multiculturalism in this culturally romping metropolis is undoubtedly Sonnenallee in Neukölln.

The South-Berlin ‘Bezirk’ (‘district’) has retained a strong local culture despite aggressive gentrification and is home to the largest Palestinian diaspora community in Europe (nearly 100,000 Palestinians). The area is also one of the most sought-after property hotspots in the city, where the words hipster and hijabi seem to rhyme.

Some of the graffitified conversations between inhabitants and agitators brings global politics into local dimensions.

Rojava is an autonomous area in north-eastern Syria that has been of global interest in recent times due to Turkey’s barraging of the region and its Kurdish population. In a letter to the Guardian in 2019, a writer described Rojova as such: “Kurds, Arabs, Assyrians, Turkmen, Yazidis and others – have built the autonomous region of Rojava, demonstrating how a multi-ethnic society can respectfully coexist beyond the constraints of nation state, patriarchy and capitalism”. To some extent, I think this is what Neukölln and other parts of Berlin at their rawest represent to many.

A Syrian-owned grocery store in Neukölln, whose name takes the adjective form of the Syrian capital. Price tags are written in German and Arabic.

This street, which needles its way through the northern extremities of the ‘Bezirk’, is often referred to by locals as ‘The Street of the Arabs’, or ‘شارع العرب’.

Here can be found a multitude of Arabic supermarkets, halal butchers, shisha shops and of course baklava confectionery shops.

Neukölln has been known as home to immigrant communities for a number of years, but it is only recently that it has come to be known as a ‘cool’ place to live in Berlin. Gentrification seems to have taken a different kind of foothold here – the steady flow of new, more-moneyed ‘Zugezogene’ (people who have moved to Berlin) is not ceasing, but it doesn’t seem as if Neukölln is losing a huge portion of the cultural influences that give it its name and reputation.

Following the introduction of Germany’s 'Gastarbeiterprogramm’ (guest-worker programme) between the 1950s and 1970s, which saw roughly 14 million people arrive to Germany in search of work, culturally diverse communities began to form across the country throughout the decades. These communities became more consolidated intergenerationally, meaning these areas are now famously known for having multicultural populations and being home to third or fourth generation children of families from across the world. As the most densely-populated ‘Ortsteil’ (area of a city) in the capital and having been described as ‘a shining example of integration’ in many media profiles, Neukölln is home to a localised cultural harmony that feels very unique.

When exploring the area with a number of Syrian football team t-shirts underarm (‘Al-Ittihad’, ‘Al-Karama’ and ‘Nosour Qasioun’ – Syria National Football Team, kindly donated by Subside Sports), I entered one Syrian ‘Konditorei’ (confectionery shop) to ask the guys working there about Syrian football culture, and also to buy some Kunefe and Baklava.

After being warmly welcomed-in from a drearily rainy Berlin afternoon and exchanging pleasantries in Arabic, I was asked inquisitively about why I study the language. Conversation pertaining to football ensued thereafter.

One man, Amin Al-Shebli, was working in the shop and proudly proclaimed that he had actually played for ‘Al-Karama’, one of the teams whose emblem was on the t-shirts. He invited me a week later to a training session in Baumschulenweg, south Neukölln. I had never been to the area and I am not very good at football, yet I awaited the day with excitement.

Amin Al-Shebli, football player and refugee

The football team that he plays for, ‘الكوثر’ (Al-Kowthar, which the name of a river in islamic paradise (جنة)) is only made up of Arabic nationals or descendants. This was a dream for me, as the only modes of communication available were either German or Arabic. Although being a bit put out by my utter lack of football skills and after being shouted at aggressively a few times in Arabic, I really began to feel settled among the players. I loved the electric dynamic between them, conducted by the cold Berlin air and beaming floodlights.

Alaa, another player from the team, holding the Al-ittihad t-shirt

Players give Salah (islamic prayer) at the side of the pitch before practice

Below is the transcript of my first ever interview conducted in Arabic:

Amin Al-Shebli

G: Hi Amin, could you please first start off by telling me how old you are, where you are from and how long you have lived in Germany? 

A: My full name is Amin Al-Shebli, I come from Homs in Western Syria, I am 27 years old and have lived in Germany for one year now.

G: And what is your relationship with football like here in Germany, in comparison to when you were living in your homeland, Syria?

A: It is completely different. In Germany it is hard for me. I practice football here with my team as a hobby, for fun…

...in Syria it was my job. Among the team that I play for now, we enjoy a kick-about and a game on the weekends, but we do not play professionally. We do not earn money from it, there are no professional advantages, we are merely a collection of friends from similar heritages.

G: So tell me about the respect in which you played football in Syria?

A: I was a well-known player in Syria. I played professionally and had a contract with the team (Al-Karama).

G: Would you want to play again professionally here in Germany? To play football as a job I mean.

A: I am currently seeking to develop myself in order to play again professionally, but that is proving to be very difficult. I am studying German here in Berlin as I want to learn more about the culture here. It is hard to find time for it. This feeling is bothering me, but it is only a feeling of the present. It shall pass. When I was in Syria, everything in my life was about football, but now the situation is different. It is 90% life (and 10% football). My wife is pregnant and I have to support her, so if that means sacrificing something I love, I must.

G: How is the culture of football continuing in your country, following the war?

A: I was in my country, continuously involved in football during this time, which was difficult but it was even more difficult for anyone to leave my homeland. The circumstances we left under were obviously induced by the war, but there was also the risk of conscription into the army depending on what age you were. This could have meant that you would be pulled into the conflict. I am just overjoyed to be away from there for now and thankful to God for my safe arrival in Germany.

G: Alhamdullilah (Thanks be to God), thank you for your time.” 

When asking other members of the team about their opinions on the team t-shirts that I had, they seemed somewhat unsupportive. Many of the guys spoke more highly of English teams or other European teams, preferring to support them instead of the teams from their own country.

Below players share baklava and socialise following practice:

I wrote this blog post on behalf of a Devon/Berlin-based football/sports apparel company called Subside Sports. You can browse their collection and page here:

Germany: https://www.subsidesports.de/de/

UK: https://www.subsidesports.com/uk/berlin_shop

AMID RIVERS OF PISS AND BELLIGERENT LIES, UNDER STONE ISLAND GARMENTS NEATLY GUISED

June 2020 saw the first occasion in the history of Parliament Square upon which its statues were covered up to prevent further vandalism after Churchill’s bronze likeness had ‘was a racist’ spray-painted on its plinth during BLM protests. In response to this, the right mobilised for its biyearly parliamentary piss-up and a violent expression of how much the immortalised personalities of Westminster, and indeed Britain, meant to them. Safe to say attendees got a tad caught up indulging in their pride, as some patriots forgot which statues they were supposed to protect and not piss on.

Poster boy Stephen Yaxley-Lennon put out on social media the night before the protests “we don’t want to see any clashes on the streets”, instructing his followers that the protection of the capital’s monuments could be achieved peacefully. Westminster Council had of course already made sure of this by cladding them in bolstered sheets of thick metal.

I was unsure of whether the event was due to proceed, as it wasn’t hugely publicised on Facebook, but I went anyway to see how many people would turn up. On the train to Blackfriars from Brighton, I observed gaggles of geezers already putting away the tinnies on their journey in anticipation of what was to be the nationalist event of the year. I was on the right track. In hindsight of what I later observed, I can definitely imagine that many who came to London that day for the demonstration saw it as an opportunity to respond to the BLM protests that lasted around 3 weeks at the start of June.

I emerged from Westminster Station under the behemoth shadow cast by a scaffolded Big Ben, the sun was beaming over the Houses of Parliament, warming the rolling Thames and slowly singeing the trimmed lawn of Parliament Square (it may as well have been renamed Parliament Pitch for this day). Moving in front of the house, I began to circumnavigate the small group that was present, which was already chanting ‘Rule Britannia’. Fags and booze were not in short supply and groups continued arrived from all sides with bags of cans in-fist. After chatting with other photographers milling around and asking if anything had already happened, one said that his advice to anyone with a highly smashable camera (all cameras basically) was to keep an arms length. I took this into consideration.

Just after I arrived into Westminster, a man was being soothed by gentle pats from his fellow patriots, following a fracas with another individual. A man stands with a sign reading ‘Anti-Antifa: hands off our history’ in the background.

By around 10:30am, a sizeable group had formed and discarded bottles were beginning to accumulate. Twenty minutes later, a commotion began to stir after a number of veterans had begun marching towards the Cenotaph from Great George Street. Cries of “Go on, lads!” and “Good on you, boys!” were being projected across the square. The veterans and trailing protestors then turned left down Parliament Street and streamed past tags on the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport building reading ‘BLM’ from earlier turnouts.

It was at 11:00AM that the tumult really turned into a crescendo. The police promptly kettled the guardians of the cenotaph away from the rest of the group, who had begun bellowing England football chants. Using considerable force, flanks of police attempted to shift the frontline of protestors back towards the square – beer bottles and cans quickly fledged into worthy projectiles and took flight. The tertiary sound of glass shattering into smithereens could be heard beneath the loud shrills of police commans and the even louder united angry gargle of the aggregation.

Over the next few hours, irate processions of ‘proud’ sons, dads and granddads alike ran from one police blockade to another, dragging their knuckles to scream and stomp at the riot cops until everyone got a bit bored, all the while pissing up (and all over) the streets of Westminster. There was a broad span of ages in attendance: from young lads clad in C.P. Company t-shirts, balaclavas and Stone Island jackets lumbering along in Adidas Gazelles, to freshly-shaven codgers with walking sticks whose thick fingers engulfed thicker rings and whose arms were emblazoned with the union jack and names of football teams.

One young lad I met was called Dan who was by himself and felt quite frustrated at the national furore over the statues. This is what he said to me as we sat opposite the Churchill statue:

However, I must admit that not all of the people in attendance were racist, or quite as racist as the next.

One lad that I met was called Dan, who’d broken his wrist a few days prior by standing on the handlebars of his bike while going down a hill. He was by himself and felt quite frustrated at the whole national furore about the statues. This is what he said to me as we sat opposite the Churchill statue:

I went to the last black Lives Matter march and I was in support of the Edward Colston situation, until they touched the Winston Churchill statue, that was when I’d had enough of it. Colston was a slave trader. Take it down, I completely agree with that. Everyone is saying Winston Churchill was a racist, but then everyone was a racist! It was the norm, if you’re a racist now and they made a statue of you then that would be different.

It makes me feel a little bit sick to the stomach that, you know, he saved us from the Nazis and from SS officers and swastikas being on every street corner – they really need to understand (BLM) what he did for us. I’ve tried to stay in the middle of it… yes, I support the BLM but…

Me: But do you agree with what’s happening here? Are you in support of Britain First and what these people are here for?

To be honest, I saw Paul Golding and I don’t like him. I’m from his area and I think he’s a tosser. Each one to their own for their opinion, as I think that it’s a matter of free speech. You could call me a patriotic person as I support this, but as soon as it turns violent again then I think it’s too much. I think your community is as bad as the people you are fighting against, as soon as you start attacking people.

[firecrackers are set off on the road by protestors]

I heard this morning that the reason they blocked up Mandela’s statue was because they were gonna put a rope around his neck and take him down in retaliation. It shouldn’t be about one side against the other though, it should be about preserving history but also about respecting our culture.

These people have travelled far and wide from across the country because they respect that man there and what he did for us. I think the fact that these people (BLM) can come along and deface his statue, just for their agenda… what happened to George Floyd is awful and it shouldn’t happen to anyone. But when the looting starts and the police are attacked…

I reject the notion that there is systemic racism within our police. Everyone who goes through the police academy doesn’t get handed a racism badge, you know, my sister is a policewoman. She lives in Essex but if she got attacked because of what someone did in America, I would be distraught. The racism within the police is on an individual basis.

I think things like ACAB (All Cops Are Bastards) and saying all UK police are racist, no they’re not! The police here today are the reason that there has been like two fights maximum; if they weren’t here, there would’ve been hundreds.

It’s a difficult one, you have to find the balance between what’s right and what’s wrong. In BLM and this there a few rotten apples that ruin the whole crate. You get the occasional one who wants to start a fight

I found his idea of respecting our culture interesting. A definition of culture is ‘the ideas, customs and social behaviour of a particular people or society.’ If our British culture today is dependent on and was founded upon the extortion and extraction from colonial powers until less than one hundred years ago, and remains reliant on global influences (the popularity of curry, chinese food, reggae music), then who are we as English people? Are we just forever to be remembered as the power that ruled over 80% of the world at one point? This irony was deepened by the fact that most protestors were drinking cheap Polish beer.

Another unimpressed individual I met was Mark, or as everyone apparently knows him ‘Skin’:

‘Skinheads way of life’

‘Keep St. George, keep me English’

They’re a load of right-wing, football hooligans, beer-drinking animals.

What’s the reason you came here today?

Because All Lives Matter, mate. Black, white, whatever – it don’t matter where you’re from…

This way (points to his skinhead t-shirt) is not about extremism or racism. When we were first skinheads, for me it was about Harry J and the All Stars, Liquidator, Long Shot (kick de bucket). Not all Skinheads are racist. We got banned from Facebook on Tuesday, a lot of the skinheads all over, all of our accounts taken down.

I put on there ‘Boots and braces don’t make you racist!’

What’s your opinion about the Churchill statue?

That’s got to stay. I fought for this country, so I know the hardship.

It is notable and pertinent for Skin to have told me this. A defining group of the ska/skinhead era were the Specials, a multi-instrumental band comprised of Jamaican, Cuban and English members – a direct contradiction of any racist agenda. But one man that I noticed and photographed on the 13th had a number of Specials tattoos, but was cowled in a Britain First flag. He even had a skinhead phone case.

Britain First made a large appearance, with flags and t-shirts on show; their leader Paul Golding could also been seen amid the crowds bowing his head as the Last Post was played. His pudgy entourage cushioned the embrace of his loyal supporters.

As is visible here, he was wearing a ‘White Lives Matter’ t-shirt.

In the pictures below a cyclist attempted to pass peacefully through the crowds with a ‘Black Lives Matter’ sign across his rucksack, to which he was met with confrontation and a soaking of beer. He just managed to scarper before a huge amount of protestors noticed him.

Following that flurry of excitement, the crowd kept moving and groaning like zombies towards the last source of stimulation. I assumed a sideline position but continued with the flow, until a young photographer grabbed my arm and said “not a good idea, mate.” We both turned around to observe a photographer (who I later found out was Italian and named Corrado Amitrano) bleeding profusely from a gash on the bridge of his nose. He had been submerged in the slurry and had snapped a series of images, drawing the body of his camera away from his face to be met with a firm fist planted between his eyes.

As he was assisted by police medics behind the gates of Westminster to receive first aid, the onslaught screeched “RAT!”

An attack on an impartial observer perturbed me, I remember feeling the blood in my body pumping as if bullet trains were driving through my veins. As I stood in awe, another protestor said “keep your distance or you’ll be next mate.”

What was the wherewithal for these people to come together? Many travelled nearly 300 miles from Sunderland just to make an appearance. Was it truly to show that they are uncomfortable with the state of racial relations in this country? To make a real stand against the suppression of our imperial and dominant political influence of the past? Or to just get absolutely steaming, punch members of the media in the face, smash back a few bags of coke (I noticed many people sniffing up) and forget which statue it was they were protecting.

It seemed as if many didn’t at all know why they were there or what they were doing, as the black power salute was given in large quantity and many suspicious-looking flat hands out in the air (Nazi salutes) were gracing the air surrounding a leader whose ferocity against the Nazis is what defined him.

In my personal opinion, many of the individuals present this day are stains on British society. I find it much to my consternation that people of such hateful designation can exist comfortably and unnoticed in the same society as me. I think it’s important to ask ourselves how it is that hatred and racism can be bred behind the cross-section of red, white and blue which symbolises the multi-cultural mosaic that we live within.

Doing balloons next to the statue of Jan Christian Smuts.

The man in white kept telling his very inebriated friend “get your head back in the game!”

The ubiquity of football team tattoos on the legs, arms and even the backs of some men suggested to me something more deeply burrowed into English society. It made me question why football and its intrinsic culture are so imbued with hate and streaks of racism. These men would return home that night, to get in to bed with their wives, to kiss their childrens’ heads in the morning and to greet 90-year-old Mrs. Davis next door as if they hadn’t atavistically reverted to slobbering, racist animals over the weekend. They would comfortably slot back into the framework of their communities.

Find here a series of images, not only of football tattoos, but of many patriotic/English themes:

The pervasive reverence for veterans, soldiers and military men was very clear. In this picture above, a young man grabs the arm of a veteran who served abroad. Before this moment, he had kissed the top of the man’s hand while his carrier-bag of beers dangled below their interlocked fingers.

There was a constant presence on the square, but excited rushes towards the police would intermittently break out. As the sky slowly became insipid and drizzle began to precipitate, the crowds became scarce and the police opened one kettle blockade at a time to allow hungry (and thirsty) attendees to decamp from the square. Tesco also stopped served alcohol at midday after realising that it makes people with racist tendencies considerably more outspoken, excitable and racist.

Near my departure, I came across this gentleman who wouldn’t tell me his name or allow me to take a picture of him (I did secretly). As we conversed and I naturally queried why he still had a drip hanging from his arm, he told me that he wanted to make a statement. Emphatically, he wanted to show that things that become so out of hand in regard to disrespecting history, that he was willing to walk out of hospital just to make an appearance.

Before I decided to leave the scattered remainder, I chatted to this man, Sid from Stoke. I was originally just going to ask to take a picture of him, but as I was approaching him I changed my tactic entirely and enquired about the red hands on his polo shirt and head.

Excuse me mate, I’ve seen this hand repeated on so many t-shirts and flags today, what does it mean?

Well, the hand is the red hand of Ulster. In 1654 there were three kings, brothers and they were racing to the shores of Ireland to conquer and invade it [lore contains different versions of the story, some say the kings were Spanish with Celtic roots, others say they were Vikings] and the land was promised to the first one of them to touch the soil of the land. As they were rowing to the beach, one of them cut his hand off and threw it onto the beach. Of course it was all covered in blood and it landed on the beaches of Ulster, which now forms Northern Ireland.

The red hand means the red hand loyalists, who are loyal to their country and that. I’ll tell you what, you will never get anybody more loyal than the loyalists in Belfast. They stand there at 12 O’clock every night to sing God Save the Queen.

Then you get these cunts here, coming and defacing the statues. I’m a veteran, as I was in the RAF and that’s why I’m here. I’m here to protect the statues today. We had permission from the government to go down there [pointing in the direction of the cenotaph] and stand until 5 O’clock, then the police come and by 12 O’clock they all showed up and took the piss. They were trying to incite trouble, the police today.

How do you feel about people throwing bottles and things like that?

Fucking stupid, in’t it. It’s daft.

The police who are down there, when we were down there singing by the monument and then the police came along. If they’d have just left them alone, and let them carry on singing their songs like God Save the Queen it would’ve been alright. They weren’t doing anything other than singing. The police then started pushing and pushing and pushing, and so we pushed back. We’re fed up of being pushed around by people like that. That’s why we’re here today.

I mean, when there are people going on about Black Lives Matter and about slaves and that, when the biggest slave traders were the blacks. Around from now back to the 15th century that’s how it was. You see, people don’t know their history. This is where people are getting it all wrong. Like these Antifa people, they don’t know their history. They haven’t gone and thought about it. You can’t protest if you don’t know your history. A lot of them will have mums and dads, who look after them, give them a cuddle and that, let them do what they want. But let me tell you what, if my mother or my father, god rest their souls they’re both dead, saw me defacing Churchill’s monument, spraying it, I’d have got whacked in. And I mean a good hiding, me mam would have given me. No problems.

If the fucking police were down here like they were last week, in short-sleeves, no jackets on, just a truncheon, and they say come on come down, would it have turned out like it did today? They’d have been throwing tear gas and that at people. What did they expect? They brought it on themselves.

How did you feel when you’d heard that the monument had been defaced?

I was pissed off, when I saw it on the telly and that.

Now… I’ve got loads of black mates, me. But you see that middle column over there is Nelson Mandela, and they’ve covered it over, know what I mean?

Is that because Antifa wanted to pull it down or did the people here want to deface it?

No one here wanted to deface it! Nobody here today wanted to deface it. Antifa wanted to pull statues down all over the place, calling different people racist. Why’re they racist? It doesn’t mean Mandela was a racist because his great great great grandpa was a slave trader, that doesn’t make that man a racist. I mean you could be a racist, that doesn’t make me a racist. Does it?

What did you think of the Edward Colston statue being taken down? And the fact that he was a slave trader?

I don’t believe in it. It’s like how the Mayor of London wants to change all the names of the streets after all this. What the fucking hell’s that about? The streets of Great Britain have had their names for hundreds of years so why should we change it now?

I mean I know you’re probably with them [meaning I am a left-wing/not right-wing journalist], but at the end of the day mate, the British people have now had enough. You can push and push and push, and you wouldn’t push the British far over. We don’t fucking budge. That’s why we won the wars. I mean, if you took a look at our history, we once owned 80% of the world, Great Britain did. Because we’re fighters, we don’t give up. The only reason we gave it back was because of what’s going on. We gave a bit of this here and a bit of that there. Biggest thing we did was getting out of fucking Europe.

Worst thing we ever did was going in Europe, sixty billion pound a year we were paying. That should be NHS and pensioner’s money, they’re taking the piss out of them.

It’s easy to forget that we’re in the midst of this virus isn’t it? It doesn’t seem like lockdown at all.

Yeah it is. But I mean, to be truthful, if I told you that you had to kneel down at 6 O’clock on Wednesday night would you kneel down?

Nobody tells me what I’ve got to do, nobody. I’m me own person. I am 65 year old male, so why should I listen to some man saying you’ve got to kneel down. It’s not just Black Lives Matter, it’s All Lives Matter. Chinese, Blacks, Asians, everyone, British, French.

We are a multicultural country now, aren’t we?

I mean, we are now. This government has ruined us. The police are being told what to do. My friend is an inspector in Staffordshire and he’s told by the government if the muslims start having a go at anybody and the whites retaliate, you should arrest the whites. You can’t trust them.

He told me about the tattoo on his back, which is of a skinhead getting arresting by a policeman from the 70s and he told me that he had skinhead across his stomach, but he didn’t want to show me either of them. He said that his mate had started it, and they had discussed finishing it after he had got back from a holiday in Benidorm. But unfortunately his friend passed away, so he now won’t have it finished as that is a memory of him. “He was one of my best mates.”

Why is it that skinheadism and racism seem to be linked by today’s standards?

I am a 1969 original skinhead, me and I don’t understand it. How can a skinhead be racist when the basis of the movement was on reggae music, ska.

But people think you’re a thug mate, that’s why it is. You’ve got big boots on and you look intimidating. In the 80s, when the skinhead look came back into fashion, it tweaked a bit. It became part-punk and then the NF came in. The skinheads got a bad name through the NF. I’ve still got my badge today though, that says ‘whites against racism.’ And that’s how it is pal…

I was out every night clapping for the NHS, as my wife is a care worker. Every Thursday night, banging the pots, cheering and that. Two weeks ago it stopped, look what’s happened in the last two weeks. It split because someone 4000 miles away got killed by a copper, what the fuck has it got to do with Great Britain? That happened over there.

When Lee Rigby got killed by them two black men, everything was brushed under the carpet. Didn’t see any riots over that. When the policeman got killed in the race riots, nothing. When that policewoman got killed, nothing. Why aren’t they rioting for them. They still deserve to get thought about don’t they?

In my eyes mate, everything is this world is based on respect. If you respect me, then I’ll respect you. If you don’t respect me, then you’ve got a fucking problem.

That’s how I was brought up.

The UDA and UFF acronyms can be seen on this man’s leg. A kneeling prisoner with a bag over his head can also be seen.

I later learnt that the red hand of Ulster is the symbol that the Ulster Defence Force/Ulster Freedom Fighters adopted. They were/are a paramilitary group formed to protect Belfast, who were responsible for over 400 deaths during the Troubles in Northern Ireland. They were known to target pubs that were identified as places frequented by catholics; on one occasion a pub in Greysteel, County Londonderry was sprayed with gunfire, killing 8 people and wounding 19.

The UDA/UFF have both been branded as terrorist organisations.

I thought it was interesting to notice people who aligned with an organisation of this sort mixing with football lads, whose racist agenda seemed more primal than that of an actual militant group.

This recent cause célèbre of what statues embody has been a real sign of the times. Considering our inhabitance among burgeoning waves of often excessive political correctness and demands to alter things in the name of being universally accepting, I can say that to some extent I agree with points highlighted at this protest. I think to remove vestiges of our past and of significant figures could be argued against, as they are traces of the journey that we have travelled to surmount times of inequity, discrimination and intolerance. Whether they propagate all values and virtues of the person forever frozen, elevated above their observers, is perhaps irrelevant. I do think that a man like Edward Colston did not deserve to have his occupation or actions materialised in Bristol Harbour, but I think to forget about him is wrong.

I, as a member of the unaffected, have the opportunity to be blind to the effects of racism, because I am not directly under their duress; nonetheless my eyes have been opened in recent times. However, would allowing Churchill’s statue to remain in situ mean we are remaining blind? A man of his demeanour leading the country now would not be what was needed and his rhetoric and persuasion would not fit with modern standards: Britain is no longer the Britain of my grandma’s time. What would taking down his statue have accomplished anyway? The collective memory of WWII cannot be owed purely to Churchill.

I CAN’T BREATHE

Against the sickly backdrop of coronavirus and after seriously considering the ethicality and health risks involved in being surrounded by so many people, I decided early on the grey morning of Wednesday the 3rd of June to go to the BLM march in London. On an eerily empty train to Victoria, my reasoning and impetus for attending were mulling each other over among other swimming thoughts in my head. The sheer guilt of being in a tactile environment while the virus was still alive and well was the first difficulty. Yet regardless of that, I knew I was compelled photographically and journalistically to go, to see what people were saying about George Floyd’s death and how it related to the justice system/police authority in the UK.

A question I wanted an answer to in particular was why people thought the UK is ‘not innocent’. I took with me only my camera, had no sign or placard and bore no deep intention of truly becoming physically or verbally involved in what was taking place. I only wanted to see it for myself, to hear what protestors had to say and to capture it in photographs.

I had seen jostling protestors in videos of other recent demonstrations in London condemning the UK as guilty and ‘to blame’, which I found abstruse as surely the British police had nothing to do with the jurisdiction and operation of the police in America and therefore nothing to do with the death of George Floyd. I didn’t see reason in the animosity shown towards the British police. Seeing as they don’t carry weapons and only use guns when critically required to, it is blatant that the fabric of the British political and social government is cut from a very different cultural cloth to that of our cousins over the pond, where not only minorities must fear for their lives when they go out in public.

I also found it hard to understand the contention over black arrest and imprisonment rates being higher than that of white people in the UK (“black people were over 3 times as likely to be arrested as white people in 2017/18 – there were 35 arrests for every 1,000 black people, and 10 arrests for every 1,000 white people” [gov.uk]). Is the reason for inequality in arrest statistics just because of racism? Or could it possibly be due to an increased inclination for individuals among certain ethnic groups to turn to crime due to respective variations of socioeconomic stabilities and situations? By this I mean are black people more likely to commit a crime, and therefore be arrested, because of the situations they are birthed into as opposed to sheer racism?

I sought answers through observation on that day, and through subsequent research online.

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I arrived at Marble Arch Station for just after 13:00PM and was met with a hubbub bubbling from cheery throngs of people that became thicker, louder and less socially-distanced towards the fields of Hyde Park. Police riot vans and vehicles punctuated the forecourt of the station and groups of officers were patrolling the perimeter of protesting groups everywhere.

There was huge police attendance, I think they were preparing for the worst (considering the impact of the Tottenham 2011 riots, which began after a police car was smashed, the bristling presence was not surprising).

The macabre procession of bodies adorned with black and red slowly began throbbing intimately around Hyde Park and then through the scanty streets of London like a funeral march, conveying with their colours and chants the blood and blackness of Floyd’s death and treatment. Calls and refrains of “I can’t breathe”, “The UK is not innocent” and “say his name” were shouted so loudly and fervently throughout the day as to throw them up and imprint them into the sombre canopy of clouds covering London, in unanimity with groups meeting around the world. On multiple occasions the rhetoric and uplifting lexis of the speakers made my hair stand up on end and of course made my finger clamp down on the shutter button of my camera to capture the emotions tangible there.

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Pictures of the crowds:

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As I began to walk around, flags of innumerable nations atop slick black poles billowed above me as I stood behind the gaggle of police cars, soft music crept into my ear and was cast over the crowds by a guitarist at the entrance to the park. I felt an immediate sense of solidarity, unity and togetherness as he played the black spiritual “When The Saints Go Marching In.” Cheeks dimpled on masked faces, people drew closer together and the assembly began to grow.

I meandered around Marble Arch and talked to a few people but quickly made my way to the main congregation, where ushers and volunteers instructed the excitable collection of protesters to simmer down and be seated.

The group remained at Hyde Park for a few hours while John Boyega, Star Wars star who was born in Peckham, among others delivered inspired messages of hope. Boyega orchestrated the morale of the masses while giving an impassioned speech which asked what George Floyd could have achieved if he hadn’t died. His speech demanded what a world without racism would look like, if all were born with equal opportunity to achieve and there were no prerogatives, only equality. He also addressed black men, describing them as the pillars, the buttresses of their families. He identified that if real change is going to be inspired, then the family is where the first step must be taken, by young black men in particular.

I interpreted this as an encouragement to the next generation, to the young and zealous, to create equal opportunities for all.

The moments in history showing disparities in the values that are now upheld, are often looked back upon in anger. For we wish that we could have been there to make a change, in the 1960s in Birmingham, Alabama for example, to stop events from happening and to redirect the course of justice. Shaun King highlighted in a recent post that we are in fact living in those moments right now. The future activists and orators will refer back to these times; at the protests I felt a consensus in making this generation one that is identified as inspiring change.

Once again I milled around the group, speaking to individuals and conferring ideas until I was caught up under a canopy of trees as this woman began to attract a crowd of listeners. At first she began proclaiming beautiful rhetoric to the extent her own voice would permit. A man with a megaphone swiftly appeared and she used it to throw out a stirring soliloquy to the masses.

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“You went to America… you stole! You went to Australia… you stole! You went to Africa… you stole! You stole from the three A’s of the world!”

“Come on!”

“NO! Because I’ve had enough of thieves, yeah? I’ve had enough of liars! The most vile… vile people you could ever nominate in the world, THEY are our leaders now. So it is really time for us to rise up, and do something…”

“Not in the name of colour, but in the name of humanity.”

“You need to find your humanity and breathe, yeah?”

“Breathe for George.”

“Breathe for him.”

[passersby and crowd erupts in applause]

“Whether you are a policeman… whether you are a road sweeper… find your breath and use it, to tell the truth, yeah?”

“Because the truth counts for everything. It counts for tomorrow, it counts for why you are going out and working. But if all you are working for is the sake of vanity, then my friend give up your job today.”

“Because everything you have materialistically, is perishable.”

“Everything you have will be thrown away. You can lose it at any point.”

“This coronavirus, should be showing all of us right now that the price, the quality of human life is so important.”

“I never spoke to my neighbour before but I do now. Everyday I say “how are you? You okay? You feeling a temperature? You breathing? You got your breath? You need anything?””

“Bring forth your humanity, it is your weapon and the biggest weapon in the world today is the power of love, the power of love, the power of love, the power of love…"

“We didn’t come here today to just be counted and then go back to our houses. We came here to make those changes officially.”

“We want to see that change.”

“So let’s find Boris Johnson. Let’s bring it to him and do it decently. Let’s fill out a petition and sign our names, our addresses and tell them where they can find us.

They can bug us up all day long.

Because they are not doing anything for our people.”

“OUR PEOPLE, YEAH?”

“Our people, who came here from the Commonwealth from the 50’s and even before that, on royal invitation. ON ROYAL INVITATION!”

“And then they say “who told you, you could come here?””

“ELIZABETH! MY QUEEN!

“SHE INVITED US HERE.”

“We work in your NHS, yeah? We clean your streets, we feed you, we look after your elderly.”

“Let there be no colour today, other than love. You are not black, you are not white, you are the colour of love.”

“NUMBER ONE! LONDON!”

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Following a series of speeches and announcements, the group marched towards Downing Street. On the way, multiple junctions were held up by the steady flow of protestors, along which motorists and passengers beeped their horns and raised their clench fists in support.

Eventually flooding towards the Prime Minister’s residence, individuals began screaming in anguish at Number 10 and into the faces of the police. I could hear the sound of the bones in their wrists dully smacking against the metal fencing as they gesticulated. The officers and their eyes however, remained solemn and inscrutable.

I felt chills across my body and was very moved by some of the indictments drilled into the unsmiling, monochromatic countenance of the law, calling for change and for officers involved in unlawful murder to be brought to justice. Yet I cringed at some fatuous comments bawled out by younger protestors, who I don’t think were certain what they were saying and kept screaming “look at me in the eyes! You can’t because you’re guilty.” The entire group was so diverse and ranged from punters like this, to middle-class uni students, to low-jeaned groups of sly-looking teenagers, to transgender activists, to entire families nursing babies to gaggles of amateur photographers. Nonetheless, it was beautiful and encouraging to see such a displayed array of cultural backgrounds.

Though one strange sight that I saw on repeat was young men and women alike changing pose, pouting or finding their best angle while proudly holding up their Black Lives Matter signs as their friends took multiple pictures. Although it is not my place at all to judge another’s reason for attending, it was peculiar to see the permeation of social media influence into the actions of protestors. It physically brought the question of what the real face of activism today is into my head.

Is standing up to racism by posting a black square and picture of you at a protest on Instagram enough to qualify you as not racist today? I felt that some of the reposting was almost obsequious of individuals, giving in to social pressure – as if by not posting one, you would be denounced a racist.

It is clear that during the lockdown the consumption of online content has understandably risen; for many, there hasn’t been much else to do at home other than watch TV and scroll. Due to this increase in media and news intake, could it mean that more attention has been focussed on world events (and thereby the BLM movement) than if we had been living outside of this aberration, without corona? I have been considering this and the question has been raised on social media as to whether this ‘trend’ in racial issues will continue once #BLM stops trending online. Regardless of this, the support that Black Lives Matter has garnered and the conversations that have been initiated are so important in understanding how we are policed as a collective society.

I decided to look at some statistics after absorbing so much information that day. According to a BBC article by the ‘Reality Check Team’, 163 people have died while reprimanded in police custody over the last 10 years which equates to 8% of the total number of deaths (this is equally proportionate to the percentage of the British population who are black). From this we can ascertain that if all of those who had died while in police custody represented a model of British society, then the entire black population would have been killed. This statistic is beyond alarming. Figures in another article that I read quoted the UK research charity Inquest equally unnerved me:

“To date there have been 1741 deaths in police custody or otherwise following contact with the police in England & Wales since 1990.”

Although this number addresses mortality rates with much wider breadth, and takes into consideration not only 20 more years, but also variant modes through which people have died following interactions with the police, an unnerving key point is highlighted. Ostensibly “not a single police officer has been convicted in connection to these deaths.”

This is true injustice.

Before this day, I was uneducated on the injustices experienced by many black individuals in our country, where the police have acted presumptuously and without consideration. I am now familiar with the stories of Mark Duggan, Christopher Alder, Sean Rigg and Cynthia Jarrett to name a few. If you haven’t familiarised yourself with these names or any of these:

Mark Duggan, Sheki Bayoh, Smiley Culture (David Emmanuel), Jimmy Mubenga, Eric Reason, Michael Powell, Leon Briggs, Nicholas Walker, Benny Branch, Ricky Bishop, Brian Douglas, Joy Gardner, Sean Rigg, Leon Patterson, Cynthia Jarrett, Cherry Groce, Derek Bennett, Kingsley Burrell, Sarah Reed, Roger Sylvester, Azelle Rodney, Habib Ullah, Faruk Ali, Adrian Thompson, Jean Charles de Menezes, Demetre Fraser, Aston McLean, Seni Lewis, Anthony Grainger, Rocky Bennett, Alton Manning or Mark Nunes…

I suggest you do.

My only perspective has been from a privileged position, where I can count my number of interactions with UK police on one hand. I feel as if any past police collusion or other organisational attempt to lie and warp the truth is something that has gone over my head and the impunity that police have operated under was unbeknownst to me also. These things have gone over the heads of many of my peers too, because we have not been directly affected. We will not experience what it is like to be more likely to face the brunt of police brutality, to be paid less than other minorities or to be stopped and searched multiple times.

This is also the reason why I struggled to understand why people wanted to tear down the statue of Winston Churchill. I grew up with his imposing great lug of a figure embodying the might that won the war and personifying reason that we aren’t all speaking German now. When I discussed this with my friend Adam Abdalla recently (you can read his most recent article on institutional complicity with Israeli Apartheid here), he asked me to consider why it is that we are all speaking English. Why is the English language and culture prevalent and arguably endemic across the world? What difference would it make if that language was German? I had never thought of my own language and culture in that way before. From my perspective it had subconsciously been the default mode of communication, comprehension and connection in my western existence. I feel thankful as the resurgence of the fact that racism exists within the immediate framework of society has changed my perspective and caused me to ask questions that I hadn’t before considered.

With acknowledgment of the damage caused by years of colonialism and slavery, I felt self-educated enough before the BLM protest to reckon that the footprint left behind by Britain’s darkest years was significantly shallower than that of the US. I am stating this despite British imperial involvement in selling and transporting the slaves to the Americas and also in spite of our archaic inclination to sail to far away lands such as New Zealand (among many others), to rip customs, language and practice away from autochthonous inhabitants, replacing them with our more ‘noble’ ones. The cultural and racial welts left behind by the British Empire, Colonialism and the more modern immigration policies and initiatives (such as the Windrush Scandal) will forever characterise and continue to mould race relations in the UK, but I did still think life here for anyone is a blind sight better than it is for many in America.

For a country that obsessed for so long over the influence of land, in terms of controlling imperial tentacles stretching across vast continents, it is interesting to observe how subordination and inequality has trickled down into being visible among demographics living in direct juxtaposition to the rich (the Grenfell disaster is an example of this: after three years, the cladding that claimed the lives of 77 people still has not been removed on many tower blocks in the UK). It is clear the racism individuals from the BAME community are presented with in the UK are much more nuanced and indirect, in comparison the blatant rearing of racism’s ugly head in the US.

When it comes to understanding the British police’s brutality and propensity to stop and search young black men however, we apply judgment in terms of austere immediate racism. I don’t think we should look at it in this way. I think it should be approached as a result of historically evolving relationships between white and black people. Instead of thinking the entire police force exhorts its officers to apply more force on black people, or to pick BAME individuals from the bunch as being more likely to carry an illicit item, we should question the internal cultural programming that some may have. This issue is of a similar nature to a young woman feeling more cautious as she walks past a group of BAME men, than if she was walking past a group of white men late at night. Why is it that there is an installed predisposition to jump the gun and immediately judge black people? I think it is the result of assumed profiling of black people, which harks back to the times when black men were demonised as sexually voracious and predatory in American literature and entertainment (The Birth of a Nation for example). This unbridled judgment spread fanatical fiction about the true nature of black people. Now that slavery is not a part of society, why is it that black people are still more quickly judged by police?

How will we solve this problem? To ensure people of power and in police positions form informed decisions about why someone may be carrying a knife, for example, is an incredibly difficult task…

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One individual who inspired me to educate myself more on the issue of racism in the UK was Size, who I met serendipitously on the day (pictured):

The tattoos in Arabic read from left-right, top-bottom as ‘الحب = Love’, ‘الحياة = Life’ and ‘الشجاعة = Courage.’

I had approached him and his friend as they stood next to a large glass depiction of the Queen’s head (top picture) and requested that they pose while making the Black Power salute. He kindly agreed after jovially asking how much I was going to pay him and we got talking. The conversation was only brief and general, but after contacting him again via email, I learnt that he is the cousin of Mark Duggan. His cousin was killed on the 4th of August, 2011 during a hard stop manoeuvre by Trident (an erstwhile unit of the Metropolitan Police Force, solely tasked with tackling gun crime); this event became the crux that tempted violence into play, thus provoking the ignition of the Tottenham riots. Over the following days, the upheaval then spread to multiple boroughs in London and six other cities across the UK. Duggan’s death exhumed old tensions between black communities in London and the police force, highlighting unfair treatment (Duggan’s family were not contacted to be informed that he had died until a day and a half after his death) and structural racism. To this day, the reason for Duggan’s death remains disputed and the question of whether he was carrying a gun or not has been scrupulously examined through forensic architectural analysis (DEFINITELY LOOK AT THIS LINK).

After watching a documentary (the Hard Stop) about the death of Duggan and the subsequent shockwaves that it sent through family, friends and the community of Tottenham, I can now more easily understand around which issues the contentious dichotomy between the police and the subordinated orbits. Duggan’s case is one of many where families are still waiting for justice to be served, the guilty to be arraigned for and closure to be reached. It seems that the police have historically been loth to be in-touch and responsive to the families of those who have died within police custody. Why?

Does this corroborate institutional racism within the UK or does this mean the police want to hide away all officers who act unlawfully, regardless of the skin colour of the men they have killed?

Taking this into consideration, I now find it quite telling to look at the faces of the protestors in my pictures, to see clenched fists and screaming faces contorted with anger at the people controlling administration, resources and power.

To conclude, I feel as if the protest presented the heart of a very London issue. It made clear the frustration of many factions with the police. The city most definitely drew back its jowl to slightly reveal its fangs, but unlike the Tottenham riots, remained in peaceful contemplation and the boundaries of the law. My experience was imbued with a feeling of frustrated hunger, for a different system and a deeper acknowledgment of the past. I now feel frustration at our generation not being taught about far flung possessive colonial compulsions in school, more so because we are not encouraged to consider racial motivation in our actions, or even to question the jurisdiction of the police outside of our own ethnicity.

As a son of this country, I think we must challenge the perspective that we have on the world and the system which we live in. Forcing conversation about this is what will incur systematic change.

“Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing himself.”

LEO TOLSTOY

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My day of shooting reached its denouement at Trafalgar Square, where protestors assembled for the last time on the steps up to the National Gallery. I left London feeling depleted, but enlightened.

One of the last scenes I observed however saddened me, and palely reflected the reality some people face in this country. This woman was inert and expressionless, surrounded by her belongings and ignored by her surroundings. I wonder what she felt about her state of living and whether she believed the protests sought to actively change her position.

Abandoned Faro

*Apologies for any incorrect German, I recorded some of a conversation but my comprehension and grammar may be wrong*

Yesterday I met an incredibly interesting hermit called Tom.

As we drove into town, we passed fields beset at the sides by bushes and olive trees through which I often saw dark-skinned men riding slick horses at high speeds in the dry air.

After finalising the painting of my uncle’s house yesterday morning, he drove me to Faro, which hangs at the deep south of the Algarve. I think there are quite a few Romani gypsy communities surrounding Faro and in the Algarve; it would be a very interesting project to speak to them and enquire about their lives.

I was dropped off among a tawdry collection of Sky Sports bars and restaurants offering full English breakfasts, but meandered without direction other than of my camera’s magnetism to compelling subjects and scenes. There were locals playing card games and couples entwined on park benches across the square by the marina.

Eventually a large carpark presented itself, there were orange leaves from the trees covering every inch of car and tarmac. A quiet queue of traffic hummed across the stretch of rusted and matte-finished cars alike, underlining the deep blue horizon of the sea from my perspective. I continued walking, reasonably uninspired and still searching. I knew that I had to come to Faro for some reason. As I continued walking, a series of brick orbs rose in the distance, they looked like huge sprouting caterpillars, but were in fact a part of an architectural feature. An anarchy tag drew me to them though.

I’ve been finding that I am taking many more pictures of architecture, graffiti and people in juxtaposition to their surroundings, as opposed to just portraits. I find portraits the most exciting and intimate kind of photography, but a story can be more understandable when the relationships between subjects and surroundings are presented.

After snapping this picture I continued to a frail wire fence behind a row of huge date palm trees that cordoned off the train-track, along which a heavily graffitied carriage grumbled momentarily after. I noticed a break in the fence and so climbed through and hopped over the tracks to a neat bay complete with a forsaken boat at the side, which pointed down the shore towards a series of dilapidated buildings embellished with large graffiti tags (‘Peixe’ which means fish). I also noticed a few emaciated horses loosely tied to shrubs, they were so calm and still in the heat.

I looked into the buildings (which were actually dry, spacious halls built of stone walls) for other people; I initially thought there would be gypsies near to the tied-up animals, but I couldn’t find anyone. However, I did notice a large collection of bottles, tiles, dried palm tree branches and other trinkets inside one of the halls and heard scuttled movements from inside.

The daylight was so intense, I couldn’t see into the shadows of the open space, but walked away to respect the dweller’s privacy.

I continued inspecting the area and ventured inside one small dark hole at the foot of what was once a doorway, but is now tagged and blocked up. Inside were holes in the floor, giving way to lapping dirty seawater that licked the crumbling rocks and tiles. There was a bed in the corner of the room and a skeleton of a wooden mezzanine, that appeared to be have been there for years.

Upon exiting the opaque space, I observed a bearded man walking towards the horses across the dusty opening between the buildings. Staggering and emerging, I called out to him asking if he knew the owner of the horses. He shook his head and in little English explained his surprise at them being there. I detected a slight German twinge to his accent and asked if he spoke the language, to which he fantastically burst into fluency and articulation. I can remember the gist of a lot of what he was saying but can only distinctly recall a few phrases; they are in bold.

He first explained to me that he was from Switzerland and that civilisation had started to bore him. He vaguely told me after a history of bad experiences, he had decided to leave the “Quatschen” (chatter) of society and live a life how he wanted to live it. The conversation was then interrupted by an inescapable and overwhelming surge of air and noise as a large Ryanair flight descended upon Faro airport. I joked of the masses of rowdy English tourists arriving, and we agreed there were too many people in Faro. Tom said the only reasons he goes into town now are for tobacco or supplies.

“Geld kauft kein Glück”/”Money cannot buy happiness”

It was so good to talk in German again, I truly have missed the challenge of understanding meanings to words that are not easily translatable into English. It astonishes me to think that there are and were thousands of current, ancient and forgotten languages in which untranslatable or incomprehensible situations were spoken of, understood and documented. Now all people want to do is look at their phones. Tom and I spoke about this as well:

“Es gibt nicht nur eine Abhängingkeit von Drogen, aber der bei deiner Handy auch”

Following some conversation, he moved towards the horses and mentioned their scarred and torn underbellies, some wounds seemed infected. As seen in some of the pictures, he held the horse’s head in thin hands and began whispering German words into its ear. It was such a beautiful moment – he closed his eyes and the horse seemed to do the same, in perfect understanding. We then took the tight ropes from the necks of two mares and two foals. They sat eating next to us under the pulsating sun next to dried salt pools, until full of fresh grass and then galloped into neighbouring fields.

“Leute studieren Fächer wie Philosophie an der Uni, aber meiner Meinung nach bietet das Leben genug herauszufinden”/”People study subjects like philosophy at university, but in my opinion, life offers enough to find out”

Tom then showed me his house of sorts, which was immaculately organised and presented. We smoked dog ends rolled in strips of old brown paper and talked about how chemicals are put into the food of modern society and how that changes the chemistry of our brains and imbalances our hormones.

I then left him with two euros and wished him the best with his life and journey, to which he said “Viel Glück”/”good luck”.

Albacore Tuna

Amid the bustling heat of Auckland’s Viaduct quarter, I walked excitedly towards the towering masts of luxury catamarans and millionaire’s yachts which of course gave direction to the harbour’s edge. From afar I stalked the ‘black paint and round-windows’ described by my new skipper, and sure enough the rusted Kingfisher floated stoically, while gently nudging the concrete pilings of the wharf. This was to be my first week spent on a fishing boat, after a forgettable stint on the other end of New Zealand where I spent most of the day redecorating the deck of a cod-potting vessel with my breakfast.

Once aboard the old-timer (built in the 1960s), I began my shift by accidentally dropping a stack of corrugated metal sheeting on the first-mate’s head. “Fuckin’ idiot” I muttered to myself scathingly, after apologising a hundred times.

After loading the boat up with ice, and picking up enough beers to last us the next couple days, we left for Cape Reinga ready to make some bucks.

Unfortunately, the GPS stopped working somewhere around Mangawhai and so we had to wait for spare parts for two days. We needed more beers.

First night on the boat in Whangarei harbour

Waiting for spare parts

Snapper bait at Spirit’s Bay

Caught the wrong bloody fish (kingfisher)

School sharks scared the snapper away

Ice room

Going over the bar into Onehunga

Other-worldly settings on a boat help you to forget daily worries

Eventually we got back out to open waters after an agonising wait for a part to be delivered, but over the entire course of a week, we caught barely over a tonne of Tuna. This meant that we didn’t even make enough to cover the trip costs (food, fuel and ice), so none of us made any money.

Having a Hāngi with the Mongrel Mob

Last weekend, I was invited to Hastings with the South Island Fatherland chapter of the Mongrel Mob to take pictures of their 1st anniversary event. The trip would be my first time in North Island, and so I was very interested to see what it was like in comparison to the South. We drove up from Invercargill, which is pretty much at the bottom of the country; the journey took around 20 hours.

Travelling with the mob

North Island window views

The day after we arrived, a load of new members were patched up. Every time a member was called up to collect their patch, they would drink from a motorcycle boot filled with beer and would then bark out to their brothers like a dog.

A member lets out an uncannily dog-like bark

A patching day is a very special occasion for the mob and their Whanau, and on this day the Hastings chapter cooked up a Hangi for everyone. A Hangi is a traditional Maori way of cooking food, where a cage of meat and veg is placed atop heated rocks and then cooked in the earth underground while covered with wet cloths and soil.

A member poses next to the fire pit

Putting the Hangi down

Unfortunately I didn’t get to stay to try the Hangi for myself, as when I was shooting outside the pad, a member got out his taser and started zapping it next to my leg. After some consideration, I thought it might be time to leave.

Other than that last time, the Mongrel Mob did really make me feel very welcome. I went into a number of members’ personal homes and was always made to feel at ease, despite being surrounded by ‘vicious dogs’ as one member put it.

Thank you to the mob for a great experience.