At a time when it means so much to be proud of where you’re from, an offer comes fresh from the Middle East.
While the Chinese try to build pride on top of their forefathers’ dishonour–enriching the west and enslaving their children–we feel their pain as cameras, AI technology and pharma-terrorism hold them in perpetual bondage–fact.
The Caribs are now proud to be African just because their “all-knowing” ‘masser’ empire turned digital and confirmed it for them on National Geographic and 23andMe. Trust they will; as they proudly boast about their Ghanaian, Scottish, German and Jewish mix in dissymmetric portions, they care not for the hypocrite within. Continue reading →
Today, as I cross-examine my footprints in this puzzle they call life, I realise that problems are ‘one size fits all’ for the inhabitants of earth.
It seems that these problems are so accepted as ‘the way’ that they call it life. In the US we would explain away such complex astro-biophysical dilemmas with: shit happens. As perpetual pain is normalised until we expect nought else, I think worthy of question is that which some claim to exist: heaven, nirvana–paradise.
Being as vague as the Yeti, it laughs at man and his ongoing application for lifetime membership, rejected by his forever-acting brain as (for these banausic frames) it rides the waters of Loch Ness. As I knock on the door of (egoless) knowledge, I now see what the problem always was–it is the disconnection from source. For all the joy and pain I’ve seen, at this sensitive time underneath the cosmos, I have to insist that, my friends believe in God.
I should say ‘trust’ rather than ‘believe’ as it’s more explicit than today’s guilt-retentive, ‘Jesus campaign’ of the God salesman. But that model makes the sane depart, leaving only ‘believers’ who rarely come to ‘know’. Now, mention of such a beautiful word as God, serves the orator the same sentence as an AWOL physician who spoke against a copious pharmaceutical shield. Today, the deaf ears that this refinement falls upon can only be blamed upon the soteriological Bible seller that may not know God as well as she may think. In such cases, it’s like the bottom of the sea trying to describe the air to the land, and so the listener concludes the wind a fiction.
The truth stands as a lone pillar, as a minority in each community that it discovers. Bothered not by external support for verification, it is certainly the outcast that I choose to align with. In the words of Mark Bolton: ‘I’m Spartacus’ and it’s too late in this story to care if my ‘I’ will become a ‘we’. Seeing smoke coming from the engine, we endeavour to save the plane but being seconds from impact, all I can see is a parachute with my name on it, so maybe this scrawl is a ‘my condolences card’.
What if I told the believers that Jesus said, he ‘couldn’t make it and ordered that they go it alone’–would they blame me, trust him, or cease believing? Or would they finally become Christ the individual who, squared by just four, would change this world kerfuffle in a day? Can they not imagine a land of Christs–we can, hence our bold expression of God without apology?
Immediately my blasphemous spellchecker answers the question for them in red underlined binary, it refutes pluralisation of Christ–only ‘Godzzz’–the many god’s they utter.
But then there’s you–my friend–with your disbelief who the believers call a sinner–well isn’t that the kettle calling the pot white? You who accepts cookies from deceitful strangers, in your haste to consume with no care what, why or where, seeing no danger in the brain food that you scoff. Such worshipful, agnostic dissonance is only proof of the inner conflict from that ‘solar detachment’.
But amongst ‘they’ there are those that gno; and they know that both of these disjointed faces that claim to believe (or not) orphaned their hearts to foster the brain, this they have in common. And mid-verse, that sweet spot in-between is where God lives inside (not out). Although sometimes seen outside strolling hand in hand with in, the heart doesn’t give in to the silly suggestions of the floozy brain. So it reasons not with that which can never produce symbiotic flow and so, in the name of rhythm, man remains forever for her and her for he–and all debates on gender die right there in that sweet spot called flow.
But the disbeliever and the believer both share the same offbeat timing. They reason in the brain that society (that is now clearly mad) is part sane and so, in such a mind, a pet fish, a caged bird or a dog are not quite slaves. While they fight to free only their own kind, society it seems is sharing a brain in the name of diversity.
We know their external needs; it’s to fit in, to belong and to make right of wrong and while at it ‘wrong of right’ and if it means to be accepted as part of the bigger clan, who cares? We do, we care to remind you that Hitler only suggested the abuse, the ‘civilised’ community saw it as fit–69 million of them.
But the one who knows within is abstruse, walks alone and is odd to even those of the church that do not. She marries he who she innately loves, knowing the infinite joy of ‘pure’ love over the temporary pretence of companionship brought on by an earlier undiagnosed pain. No, she knows the discomfort of wearing two left shoes as much as she wish it be hale. She refrains from her mind presenting a sister as her mister, thoroughly induced by distain for her significant other. She also doubts she’ll make a protective mother because she couldn’t keep her own (inner) child safe from the blue monster that forced his male privilege.
Science says the abused will abuse again … some bring proof that it isn’t always so, while the knower completes the sentence for them … “even if it be thine own self that they abuse”. The knower says: those who love not themselves will ‘never’ love another and the bible: “… you pay for the sins of your fathers”. But they see not the remedy in the ‘whole vision’, just a bearable fragment that gives the blind a temporary fix, paroling the molester while enriching the surgeon’. They know the inane task of fitting the soldier’s foot in the stiletto and the mother’s foot in the steel toe; it’s her socks that are blue and not her testis. And such illusions will suffice until the truth hits harder still, maybe when one finally matures and thinks just one sovereign thought at home-alone-at night.
But those who know, live mostly in the heart and feel first before they become the victim and make those outer suggestion into an inner desire, engaging the overtaxed brain into action. The brain that takes on all forms of nonsense as true for lack of that sweet spot called ‘soul’. And all that need to placate ‘the majority’, for the lack of autonomy. And the numb (Homer Simpson) community advise her to abort ‘her’ milk supply and stick grafted pieces of skin to replicate a crane that will never fly, very much unlike one that only the supreme architect could design. But they say that ‘copying is the best form of flattery’, while replicating God’s design, who clearly does not exist. And in such absence of sensitivity, both the surgeon and the saved are paid on commission.
Meanwhile back in the hill, my aunty ‘Christ’ begs to pray for me, pray that I let Jesus save me with her holy words, barely moments after I gave the shoes off of my feet to a homeless stranger. My bare feet in the rain interpreted by her brain as ‘sinner’.
I also noticed that the very moment my goose bumps faded, after I gave the poor man my ‘lonely’ dollar, Seymour turned up to accuse my virtue.
I know that the very week that I had to bury my mother, Paul relapsed and blamed me for not supporting him in his struggle with drugs and not abandoning my own issues.
I know that minutes after my uncle’s diabetes was confirmed, Courtenay came with iced-donuts. And just as this live-thought landed on the page, Lee tempted me to come outside for a walk away from God.
Mostly these figures in their colourful all-sorts, being ‘lost at see’, miss God’s land on this defining day. To them, all is defined in the sensory where they find their reasoning, ignore signs, empathic feelings, impulses and the unseen subtleties that emphatically drive this whole damned fabric.
In a sense, it’s not their fault that they talk numbly of the paranormal and will never conceive the fact that: 99.999999 % of that which appears before them is held together by (what they would call) nothing–empty space. That sweet spot that we know too well is where they could find the harmony that they seek, if they could just slow down and listen. But they want more speed–7 G if possible.
As I maintain: I insist that my friends know God by experience and her timely perfection. If you want to know this mystery called God that evades even those who think they believe, at least first know the devil and his timing before a dissed believer gets you into another mess in the wrong place, at the wrong time. I imagine for the life of this post you may have ventured within for a brief moment but as you go back without, into the world of non-sense, maybe you’ll commit the thoughts to mind before you exit, as fade will these unverified, unpopular, yet true words.
At this precise moment I’m questioning my place on this selfish planet. After, once again, having my heart ripped out (almost) by the one woman I share my last waking moments with, I have to ask the question–where is my tribe; or is there even one on this condemned rock?
Frankie Bones & Lenny Dee’s, As long as I got you, is playing in the background on my room-filling Bose speaker. The classic house tones lead my thoughts into another lane.
It’s not that I’ve been completely divorced from those original thoughts of loneliness, it’s just that, if God is talking to me in 5d again, this time it seems to be an appeal to trust her ‘alone’.
My pending divorce from humans pauses in my mind. Maybe wanting God more means me ascending to dependence on none but her for my food, shelter and inspiration as well as entertainment.
But I know you humans too well: when I say her, you think of my female counterpart and not–her my God. Should I then say ‘he’ and exchange the furnishing essence of creation with masculinity, abiding tradition?
Should it be that I label God a coloniser, a conqueror with a desire to penetrate and control, rather than a concurer, a mother, a feeder, a bosom with a gentle hand that feeds the soil?
Yet today our mortal (she) man also says ‘he’ in reference to God, disrespecting of her own essence while also confirming of her amnesic mind.
Even those who did awake out from this matrix, only awoke to use ‘goddess’ instead of God, much in the same redundant way that others utter ‘black’ together with ‘man’, unwittingly offending their own intelligence.
And so, the cart leads the horse and oh, what a bumpy road it has been, without the guidance of the angel, elected to guide.
But for a moment, imagine being devoted to something that has no tangible features, a popular yet esoteric entity that you cannot actually see or identify as a single object but only multiple experiences within a typical day within a typical adventure on earth.
It seems like a cruel joke in some ways yet in another, a wondrous beauty of a connection with everything that resonates the entire astral plane. One must also imagine, at each point of domestic dissonance, feeling a deep loneliness that cannot disappear under any circumstances; one that abates only when the egoic eye is closed and the heart opens to seeing the many, many faces of God in each situation.
Her presence can be overwhelming, not blaming what is outside of self. All issues, laid down by you, for you, to you, because of you so ‘you’ can see and remember what you are being within the grip of pride; albeit beyond the pretense of Big Brother’s reasoning.
In some ways it’s conformation and an experiential understanding of the fact that: all these figures that we see: partners, parents, children, brothers, mothers sisters, assailants, lovers, governments and friends, are all just expressions of God within, acting without.
I guess the ultimate understanding is that nothing is real apart from that which the mind creates and attracts towards having the ultimate experience of glorifying itself.
We all want to be right and we all want to have an idea of what life is before the ultimate departure, yet chances are most will never quite reach or meet anybody that fully gets it–∂nyone that fully understands this ‘stage’ besides the universe’s studios in California.
And so we find ourselves eventually departing from the physical journey while blindly continuing the apical sojourn, reaching towards the heavens for timeless truth and, she being historically the ultimate pinnacle of understanding, gives us Pluto in Aquarius.
The, largely misrepresented heavens are tired from being prostituted by penal religions, yielding their swords at simple feathers in space that pose no threat but to maybe think a uniformed thought, absent of NASA’s imposture of innocent space in the name of exploration, all just to find justification to shag her leg, knowing there’s little chance of her inviting him in.
And so today these faint memories return, in super-OLED, back into the custody of ‘we’ the questioning, TV-less minority, with perfect timing as we witness France losing its shape once again. With America following, (comically as well as karmically), we observe the duas of crushed souls made by women and children as the pointless debris of corporate gain, resonating the heavens, appealing for urgent changes that point westward.
But I could also say that the various types of drugs, placed in society, aren’t bad at all but only reasonable steps towards ultimate realisation: yet the point is somewhat obscured. Addiction seems to be, the real problem of choice, playing the permanent tour guide until the journey’s end.
The one resonating theme is that the trippy addict each time, fails to leave cookies along their path–their temporary paradise, so that they can gain access later without the vice holding their hand.
And so, amnesia causes the vice to remain as tour guide offering a lifetime membership for a temporary service, knowing that the sojourner will not store the directions but return to dependency on he, rather than she.
On this journey, we find ourselves forever dependent on vices: cocaine, Doctor, iPhone, partner, pastor, politician, weed–any reason not to store the experience and finally learn but only discarding it on arrival, like a carpenter throwing away his plans after each job. He closes his right eye with regret and his left with an inkling as his own building crushes his skull now demanding his final breath.
To this we say (as the Christ must also have said), learn what’s possible through the experience, then discard the vehicle and walk there without props. You will build your own home with your bare hands, for you are of spirit not matter and as these tools disappear, be sure to remember how to navigate through memory–not messengers as there is none worthy but she that reminds you through whatever means.
But Christ knew it (as we do too), the addicts, rather than ascend, will continue seeking a saviour at every opportunity, never attempting the miracles that had been revealed, without focus on the messenger, who also had learned to depend only on ‘the vine’–God. This is evidenced today by a whopping 2.2 billion souls waiting on a christ before they can walk free.
As awaiting salvation, aliens, Trump, Gates a world government or a cure appear to capitalise, the addicts see not ‘her’ for she is without form and thus they reject the kind offer of a ‘crystallised body’, free for each person that sheds fear once and for all–I welcome Aquarius as I finally ‘kick that habit’ of fearful dependency.
The international property developer set to profit handsomely from the transformation of the Gas Works site in North Kensington / Kensal Green has abandoned its offer to meet with the resident organisations of Canalside House. The historic community building on Ladbroke Grove has been pulled into plans for the ‘Kensal Canalside Opportunity Area’ despite sitting outside the site, and will be demolished by Ballymore once they complete the purchase. Instead of meeting with the Canalside organisations together, Ballymore is now offering individual drop-ins. For their part, Kensington & Chelsea council is pretending these public drop-ins are “consultations” – reprising the tactics and vocabulary of the discredited, disgraced Rock Feilding-Mellen, former deputy leader of the council. Let’s not fall for it again.
Offer
There is reason to suspect that Ballymore is ignorant about the work done at Canalside House and keen to avoid gaining knowledge of the problems that will be caused by the demolition of one of North Kensington’s last remaining community assets. To date the developer has offered only vague platitudes regarding their intentions towards the resident organisations – “our proposals incorporate all the community-focused activities of Canalside house” – that have increased suspicion in a local community that has endured it all before, including six years of public relations spin from its council.
At a public meeting in March, Ballymore’s PR representatives from Comm Comm (Community Communications) offered to meet Canalside House residents at Canalside House so that they could express their concerns about Ballymore’s plans. But Ballymore has now jettisoned this proposal and the collective of charities, community groups, care agencies, housing co-ops and small businesses are expected to content themselves with attending Ballymore’s public exhibition and drop-in hub on Kensal Road. Comm Comm told Urban Dandy “We have already met some people from the buildings at our consultation hub and hope to meet others over the coming weeks.”
Using “buildings” instead of “building” suggests Ballymore considers Canalside House and neighbouring Canalside Activity Centre to be one and the same. Ballymore can then claim that whatever green space and sports activities are included on the new development represent the “community-focused activities” of Canalside House.
2016
In 2016, at the height of Feilding-Mellen’s aggressive asset strip, the organisations of Canalside House were invited to ‘consultations’ at the Town Hall. To their surprise, no other resident organisations were present, and they were informed they would be moved to a converted industrial site on Latimer Road. Half the size of Canalside, the hot desking space offered zero privacy and no storage. I pointed out to the council’s Head of Property, Social Investment & Property (not a typo, real job title) that it was not a consultation and asked if there would be a consultation. He was emphatic that there would not be, telling the residents “take it or leave it.” The same person remains in the role today.
Are Ballymore aware that they are aping the divide-and-rule approach of the most hated politicians in North Kensington?
Hiding
Comm Comm also told us: “We understand that all tenants of the buildings have been contacted by their landlords to be updated.”
Most, but not all, Canalside House tenants, have received letters from the council that offer little to no reassurance, but plenty of carefully-worded vagueness. The same message sent to Urban Dandy by the council’s PR department in response to our reporting on the planned sale has been sent to Canalside House residents, sometimes signed by Fielding-Mellen’s replacement Kim Taylor-Smith; sometimes by the Head of Property, Social Investment & Property. Minor edits have been made to provide a friendlier tone to some organisations, but it is mainly copied and pasted from the PR statement.
Ballymore is hiding behind the ragged notion that Canalside House’s resident organisations are happy to passively receive updates this way, from the same institution that has repeatedly sought to deprive them of their building, thereby jeopardising their ability to deliver vital services in one of the most economically depressed areas of the country.
Kensington & Chelsea council tells Canalside House residents: “We would only sell the building if Ballymore were able to meet our proposed terms, including the reprovision of community space.”
But this is disingenuous, and not just because of the council’s managed decline of the building and past attempts to sell it. Multiple sources from multiple meetings with Ballymore have said that the developer told them that Taylor-Smith and the council insisted that Ballymore take Canalside House off their hands, hinting that the deal is contingent on the purchase of the building.
Play off
Ballymore and Kensington & Chelsea are attempting to play us off against each other; hiding behind each other’s statements when it is convenient and claiming ignorance of their partner’s intentions when that suits their interests. If they succeed and Canalside House is demolished, we won’t be able to say we didn’t see it coming.
Former Mayor of Kensington & Chelsea, the councillor Gerard Hargreaves, has been questioned by the Charity Commission as part of its probe into apparent corruption at al-Manaar Muslim Cultural Heritage Centre in North Kensington. Councillor Hargreaves, who represents Chelsea Riverside ward, is accused of proposing that a long-standing debt of thousands of pounds owed to al-Manaar by a fellow trustee be written off. And Hargreaves is understood to be among a faction of trustees suspected of trying to force through the removal of the mosque’s CEO.
Cllr Hargreaves, left, with al-Manaar CEO Abdurahman Sayed
Charity Commission
We have seen the 15 questions sent by the Charity Commission to al-Manaar’s nine trustees, which reveal why the government department consider the concerns raised to be serious enough to meet the threshold for investigation. The alleged abuses at the mosque have dogged the charity for years and are suggestive of abject mismanagement and a culture of bullying.
With the Charity Commission involved, it seems unlikely that all the mosque’s trustees will survive in their positions unless they can offer evidence that they are taking steps to ensure the centre’s governance is fully transparent and compliant with Charity Commission guidelines. The circumstances could be serious enough for the Charity Commission to utilise sweeping powersto impose new systems and personnel on al-Manaar to help it move on from its internal strife and focus on its role as an integral and much-respected community hub and place of healing.
Questions
A source told Urban Dandy that much of the unrest at the mosque has been directly or indirectly connected to Dr Abdulkarim Khalil, a mainstay at al-Manaar from its foundation, when he led fundraising efforts. He has been al-Manaar’s CEO, Chair of Trustees (twice) and remains a trustee.
The debt that Councillor Hargreaves allegedly suggested be written off was rent arrears owed by Dr Khalil for use of al-Manaar’s two-bedroom flat. Trustees had set the rent at the local social housing rate of just under £9,000 a year in 2012.
With NATO having overthrown the government of Libya, Dr Khalil travelled to Tripoli in 2012 to work at what had been the Gaddafi International Charity and Development Foundation, essentially the Libyan state charity. This was salaried work, but al Manaar’s trustees apparently viewed it as a sabbatical and for six months kept Dr Khalil in receipt of his mosque salary.
It was during his period of working in Libya that Dr Khalil incurred his debt for non-payment of rent to the charity. Year after year, the figure was questioned as accountants prepared the charity’s annual accounts, until 2018 when trustees decided to write of the debt.
Minutes for the January 6th 2018 trustees meeting sent to Urban Dandy include two matters discussed without Dr Khalil, Chair of Trustees at the time, in the room. One was a request from Dr Khalil that al-Manaar contribute to his travel costs for flights to and from Libya. This request was deemed “inappropriate” by trustees as Dr Khalil was not travelling on al-Manaar business.
However, the second matter produced a better outcome for Dr Khalil as the trustees wrote off £8923 of rent arrears accrued between 2012 and 2015. The decision is justified in the minutes by “uncertainties that surrounded the unfolding situation in his home country (Libya) at the time;” that “while in the flat he attended to Muslim Cultural Heritage Centre matters on a daily basis” and the flat had been “long empty following the departure of the Care Taker.”
The minutes do not suggest that comments were made on the legality of the decision or its impact on other areas of al-Manaar’s work.
A source told us that it was Councillor Hargreaves who proposed writing off the debt, and that at the time, only months after the Grenfell tower fire, there was so much going on at al-Manaar that it was quite easy for such a decision to be taken without scrutiny.
The Charity Commission’s questions to the trustees, issued early this year, include the following:
“Why did you write off £9000? How did that serve the best interests of the charity?”
And the Charity Commission instructs the trustees to:
“Comment upon the Annual Accounts AC 18 and the reference to a party disclosure for £8923 to a trustee Dr Khalil which was written off.”
Trust
Another matter related to Dr Khalil that the Charity Commission questioned the trustees about was any relationship between trustees and Zubaidah Trust, a charity founded by Dr Khalil with virtually nothing to show in successive annual account submissions. “Trustees to comment if the charity has any relationship with Zubaidah Trust.”
The relevance of this Trust is not clear.
It was during the period of Dr Khalil’s work in Libya that al-Manaar appointed Abdurahman Sayed as CEO. Kensington & Chelsea Social Council oversaw the recruitment process, which, it is claimed by our source, took decision-making power away from those who had previously been able to steer the charity in directions of their choosing. As a result of Sayed’s appointment, various disgruntled staff and board members sought to make the CEO’s life uncomfortable and, early this year, managed to oust him from his role, albeit temporarily.
Suspension
According to our source, five trustees, including Councillor Hargreaves, took it upon themselves to suspend Abdurahman Sayed, without consulting the other four trustees or calling a trustees’ meeting, on 13th January. They had been apparently angered by the CEO’s firing of an Imam who Sayed claimed was receiving a full-time salary for working part-time.
Two trustees allegedly told al-Manaar staff “You are not allowed to communicate with Abdurahman” and a supporter of this faction addressed the congregation at the mosque, urging them to turn against the CEO. He was apparently ejected by people who had gone there to worship.
The other faction of the trustees, none of whom were in place at the time of the decision to write-off Dr Khalil’s arrears, urged the CEO to return to work and somebody reported events to the Charity Commission.
Our source told us that Councillor Hargreaves “does not behave like a trustee, he is completely untransparent.” They accuse Hargreaves of not following any procedures, including complaints procedures, and of participating in a culture in which disputes are treated as personal rather than professional issues.
Adding to this impression, our source told us that Hargreaves complained to council leader Elizabeth Campbell about the presence of a Labour councillor, nominated by the local authority, on the board of trustees.
We contacted Councillor Hargreaves requesting a comment on the allegations made against him and on the more general situation at al-Manaar, but he had not replied at the time of writing.
More Questions
In their letter to al-Manaar’s trustees, the Charity Commission asked:
“Who voted to get rid of the CEO?”
And instructed them to confirm:
“Which trustees voted for the suspension of the CEO and which voted against.”
The deadline for the trustees to respond was in late February, by which point Abdurahman Sayed had returned to work, his suspension having being shown to carry no legal weight.
Three trustees remain from the time of the apparent financial corruption in 2018. These are Esmail Jasat, who was Treasurer at the time and is now Chair; Dr Abdulkarim Khalil, the beneficiary of the decision, who was then Chair and remains a trustee; and Councillor Gerard Hargreaves, who was part of the council’s Cabinet at the time of the Grenfell Tower fire. The former Mayor remains a trustee at al Manaar and is Chairman of Kensington & Chelsea Council Council’s Audit and Transparency Committee.
‘A female-led mini-festival to highlight and celebrate the role women in the community played during and after the Grenfell Tower fire!’ As Tom, editor of Urban Dandy, had said: “they were the ones who stepped up and held the community together”.
Sitting in The Tabernacle, planning WeCoproduce’s project for a free gig as part of the “Trauma Matters” event, I remembered Dawn, a mother of three, born and bred in North Kensington.
As an upstanding member of her community, Dawn, among many other locals, quickly answered the immediate cries for help that government was ignorant of. Converting every available space into emergency refuges, donation points, improvised but functioning healing centres; in an outpouring of kindness and an overwhelming wave of support from residents abandoned by their council. North Kensington was standing tall.
Emotional and mental stress have been known to cause the heart to work harder. Dawn suddenly passed away less than two months after the fire, from a cardiac arrest.
Two years on and Kinetic Minds, a local collective led by the talented composer Andre Louis opened this eclectic female-fronted night, as a tribute to Andre’s late mother, Dawn.
The performances were by women who all live in two worlds, heads in the sky but feet on the ground; women who are outspoken and engaged in good causes, with a love of sharing knowledge and healing sounds; intelligent and creative in thoughts and actions.
From the grace and elegance of folk singer-songwriter Helen McCookerybook, to the captivating Desta Haile, a soul-jazz-reggae singer; North Kensington was standing tall.
From the conscious and atmospheric trip-hop artist Ishani, to the most urban classically trained “Avant-Gardist,” the Grime Violinist, North Kensington was standing tall.
From the uplifting and infectious Judi’s Rhythm of Jazz to the late vibrant jazz singer Yazzy, North Kensington was standing tall.
All different in styles, genres, origins, and ages but all the same in being empowering and strong role models who reminded us that everything we do just connects, whether it’s through music, words or actions.
by Woïnkpa
R.I.P. DAWN RENAULT 28/07/1967 – 08/08/2017
This article was first published by We Coproduce CIC
Use of the word ‘we’ does not constitute ‘My self’ in a manner that makes Me complicit in the issue/subject but is used only as a formality and effort not to violate writing tradition. Even though it may appear that my use of ‘we’ means ‘us’, I reference only My self as ‘we’ in respect of the overwhelming shared sentience of the masses, of which I am but am not of, in respect of My unfamiliar peers and their ignorant acts antonymous to My autonomous weighs. I, just as all corporations do, hold My self harmless from the collective wrong that society willingly partakes and I take personal responsibility for all things that I willingly, clearly and openly consent to by clear (non-tacit) agreement, without force, duress or coercion.
I Am.
It’s now 2023 and as we step into this great unknown, I must say that ‘ignorance’ is a choice.
As abstract as it seems, knowledge is not the property of schools of education but readily available for all who genuinely search for it–the reward of the seeker. It’s just that most would rather collect pointless data steered by either peer-esteem, likes or something of the egocentric nature. This is despite the fact that, over the decade, all that seems currently unknown was previously (widely and openly) available and easily accessible to all via online. That is at least before the colonisation of the Internet in 2012 (New Hampshire RSA 193-F:4.).
The result of this pathway to policing dialogue and searches, hiding behind cyber bullying, is comparable to a mass book burning and the resulting chaos. With today’s corporations learning algorithms, our search engines can guarantee failure as we try to stick the salvaged pages back together again. This colonising of websites and the heavy concentration on child censorship, made way for key information to be available only in select jurisdictions. Even though tangible location is somewhat of a fiction in the online world, we ignorantly opened the doors to communist ideals.
How to deal with an inflexible, disconnected, disgraced local authority that gets to mark its own homework on its supposed Changepolicy?SPID Theatreon Ladbroke Grove spun its web and caught some official flies with an up-close performance of The Story of Fires and Floods. It then headed to the V & A to perform the same show and screen its film The History of Neglect. The event was also used to announce that SPID and residents of Kensal House are taking legal action against the council for its neglect.
Three of the protagonists break down how this all came about….
Act One – Sophia
‘Social, Progressive, Interconnected, Diverse!’ we shout.
The audience at the Victoria and Albert Museum rises, celebrating with us Kensal House Estate’s heritage and breathing life into the museum. The place buzzes with community spirit – artistic activism in action. It’s empowering to meet the eye of so many press and SPID funders as I announce class action against our landlord, the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea (RBKC) for their negligence.Continue reading →
Colin Hall, the Marmite headteacher of Holland Park School will retire at the end of this academic year having led the school for 21 years, a third of its history. Outstanding Ofsteds and the best-paid head in the country, but Hall leaves with a tarnished legacy. Just down the road from the school is Kensington Town Hall, where those who have overseen the council’s deficient response to the Grenfell Tower fire are still comfortably in positions of power. Hall’s reckoning contrasts with RBKC’s Taylor-Smith, Campbell, and Quirk, who have sailed through on a wave of spin with no media pushback against their running of the richest, most unequal local authority in the country.
HPS
News of resignations and appointments at Holland Park have been arriving in parents’ inboxes. The big one was provided, using death announcement vocabulary, by newly installed chair of governors Jane Farrell on 29th September:
Among the other resignations was former head of Lehman Brothers and major donor to the Conservative party, Michael Tory. Nominative determinism now exhausted, it seems that HPS will embrace a more centrist liberal inclusive philosophy with Farrell as chair of governors and the new New Labour-supporting Bercows representing the parents. The major turning point for the HPS old guard was an article in The Guardian last month by Fiona Millar, wife of Alistair Campbell.
There are obvious dots to be joined but there might be nothing more to this new centrist liberal power theme at HPS than coincidence. After all, the articles in The Guardian and The Times were served up by a highly organised campaign by former pupils and staff determined to expose what they call a “culture of humiliation.”
Strange
Two investigations are underway at the school, one independent and one by RBKC. Expect much to be added to the list of alleged abuses brought to the public’s knowledge by the Former HPS collective.
Yelling at children through a megaphone is both strange and abusive, as is sending the naughty children to the adventure playground on Southern Row so the mock Ofsted inspectors didn’t have to see them, and so is putting up ‘Wanted’ posters of unknowing children for their ‘Grade Ds in all subjects’.
The audio of a teacher screaming at children, recorded this month, is grim, but apparently the norm, and when this is considered alongside Mr Hall’s propensity to deliver long assemblies on the subject of himself, even to sixth formers on their final day, it suggests not just an abuse of power, but also an understanding among pupils and staff the power being abused is absolute and unchallengeable. From a distance HPS is surreal and eccentric, but if you’re there every day it’s real and normalised.
Still, these revelations alone, if they had happened in a more ‘normal’ comprehensive not on inner London billionaires’ row, would not have been enough to arouse the interest of The Guardian. Mr Hall is a complex headteacher, and plenty of parents like him and his approach, the way he sets about instilling high standards (at least aesthetically) for students. Will The Guardian follow the story as it moves on?
RBKC
And what of The Guardian‘s silence on RBKC’s ongoing, very public failings? Holland Park is one of the schools that suffered from the entirely avoidable fire at Grenfell Tower, and Holland Park families continue to suffer under the local council also facing accusations of failure to meet its duty of care.
The difference? Perhaps RBKC’s 13-strong crack team of PR spinners pulling the wool, enabled by an establishment media staffed by journalists who consider the social order of Kensington, the haves and the have nots, as natural, or, at best, an opportunity for virtue signaling.
More detail on that another time, but it’s clear that The Guardian and the other establishment outlets have the power to tip the balance in certain situations, and there is enough evidence that RBKC has betrayed the Grenfell victims repeatedly and deliberately to justify serious analysis by the nation’s media.
£
Hall’s retirement was announced the same week that the Pandora Papers revealed that Kensington is home to billions of pounds worth of property owned by tax dodging members of the one percent. If I was aiming for power via Keir Starmer’s Labour party I probably wouldn’t want to piss off potential donors like Michael Tory by empowering North Kensington residents who might demand more democracy or even devolved power locally.
The Guardian gave a platform to the once voiceless of Holland Park School. That is good. But they don’t challenge other unaccountable power nearby.
The previous leadership of RBKC fell because they disrespected the mainstream media, trying to lock them out of a council meeting, something the government knew was a no-no. The despised social cleansers, Paget and Mellen, were made to resign and the pressure on the Tories eased. Their heirs at RBKC have been untroubled by an indifferent, ignorant media…
Urban Dandy London 
