Modern european mind

Today has been something of a blur. As usual, down in the mouth over virtually everything. I missed my Modernism tutorial but found out I finally had permission to change to American Literature.

My mood's a little better as a result. American Lit! I got a new study plan and this I rattled off in quick time. My other took hours. I want to take a course on Romanticism and one on Whitman and Dickinson. Most of my contextuals will stay the same: Modern America: Black Americans, Conflict and Consensus in American Society:1933-57, and the Modern European Mind.

Not down on my agenda

Woke up cold. We had to be out of the Church Hall by eight as it was being used, so we trudged back to our minibus and drove to a Community Centre for a breakfast of coffee, cakes and a workshop on the Loyalist working class.

Left-wing factionalism again surfaced to the full. Revolutionary Communist Group hecklers were attacked by Revolutionary Communist Party “stewards” and I saw one man being grabbed viciously by the hair before a brief scuffle erupted. Ten or twenty people rolled around on the floor thumping and shouting. There were disgusted comments, one non-aligned member of the audience leaping up and angrily yelling “what the fucking hell is going on here?” For an instant, the small unsmiling chairwoman looked put out, but within minutes everything was back in line and the darkened consciences had been soothed.

I felt like any leanings I'd had in the RCP direction had now disappeared.

We passed the hours until the 1 p.m.march as best we could. Lindsey and I sat around looking glum while the band tapped out rhythms on the chairs with drum-sticks. We got another little lecture (at least that’s how it seemed), from a woman who made me feel like a child talked down to by an adult. I have nothing to say for myself: maybe this is why I’m so scathing about these people?

As the crowd assembled for the march, there was a growing sense of anticipation. It was alternately bright and clear or blowing a blizzard and as we huddled at the playing fields assembly point, thick snow flakes swirled around us. It was bitterly cold and it took hours to assemble, but at last we were off in lines of four (me in one with Barry, Derek, and Lindsey), a forest of banners, the air filled with ragged shouts. We trailed up through rundown suburbs, passersby watched us anxiosuly, the green arm-banded RCP stewards egging us on, leading the chants. I saw two film crews.

By the time we'd got to the main shopping street into Whincliffe city centre we had stopped the traffic. It was interesting to watch the expressions on the faces of the people trapped in cars and buses as we passed by, mild impatience from the odd one or two but mostly just blank stares. Someone on the top deck of one bus repeatedly stuck two fingers up at us as we trailed past.

We approached the city centre and started to attract more and more attention. High above us, leaning over the parapet of a multistorey car park was a gang of skinheads who watched us silently as we went by. Some of the RCP hard men pumped the air with their fists as they chanted: they were much in evidence throughout the weekend, and most of them wore the RCP uniform of Doc Marten boots/shoes, crew cuts, round NHS specs (I lost count of the number of pairs of these I saw over the two days). I got the impression these were the people who dealt with any trouble—men like Ken, another London RCPer, whose job was to run up to the police film crews and stand inches away from the camera, blocking their shot..

Finally at the Town Hall. I thought of the storming of the Winter Palace or something as we reached the steps and all flooded upwards, some of us running, others turning to stand with banners, defiantly. chanting. “Get ‘em inside,” the police shouted at the stewards and we surged through the narrow doors into the ornate Town Hall, milling chaotically in the entrance way, three policemen watching us from behind a glass door. There was a powerful and spontaneous, almost explosive feeling filling the packed hall, militancy in the air.

Tom McKee from Sinn Fein was one of the speakers. He's an ex-British Army soldier and now in the RCP. “This is crap!” he shouted and hurled his medals from the stage. He got two standing ovations. Another speaker ranted on repetitively for a long time, and finally causing someone behind me half-shouted “alright, you’ve proved your pointI”

Lindsey and I stayed seated during the first speaker but during the second sheer conspicuousness finally forced us to stand. Sinn Fein's Finbar Doyle was due to speak but someone said he'd been arrested on charges of violating the Prevention of Terrorism Act and was being held overnight.

Confusion now towards the end, a woman speaker was introducing the absent Doyle. There was scattered applause and yelling and the chairman was mumbling protestingly that “this speaker is not down on my agenda.” The hall was emptying quickly, everything chaotic, disorganized.

We waited for ages in the bitter cold out on the town hall steps. Finally we left around teatime and got back into London late in the evening and caught the last train back to Watermouth.

Communists just want to have fun

Overnight I managed to escape into sleep for a few hours: I was very conscious of Lindsey lying next to me on the floor. Some people didn’t sleep at all, and we rose to find a wintry sun blasting in through the window above a vista of terraced rooftops and scruffy backyards. We hung about for a long time waiting for word, being treated to RCP Carl and co.’s early morning wit, which I do not like at all.

Finally we set off for the conference. Lindsey and I didn’t want to go but everything was very structured and regimented and there was no way out of it. So we walked in a freezing wind to the Trades Union Hall where we were hand-stamped and ushered into a large seated auditorium. Along the back wall, behind the stage, stood an array of banners (Irish Freedom Movement, Troops Out Now! etc.).

Carl advised us to take notes. Patrick and Phil and Fiona were there too, Phil in a serious and earnest mood. The day began with an introduction by a small humourless woman from the Whincliffe RCP who acted as chairperson throughout proceedings. She introduced Frank Richards who seems to be one of the leading figures in the national RCP. He looked to be about 30, with short black-hair, glasses and prominent front teeth. He spoke with what sounded like a slight Germanic accent and talked about the Irish question.

Much of what he said made sense to me, and once I even felt fired up with enthusiasm. Question time followed, and a few trade unionists rose to query him or applaud him for his comments. When the RCP reps spoke to the crowd, they strode to the front of the stage, as if to emphasise their presence.

There was a fair degree of political back-biting going on, especially toward the end when an arrogant young woman named Joanne leapt up and condemned Workers Power and the Revolutionary Communist Group for their lack of participation in the Irish Freedom struggle. “You have no right to question us—look at your own record!” she yelled as the session ended, before demanding money from the audience in a patronizing and irritating fashion. She raised £229.

We broke for a lunch of samosas, fruit and salad and I sat there eating and feeling thoroughly out of my depth.

Then back for the second half and a talk by a leading contributor to The Next Step, whose speech was full of humourous anecdotes which had the hall roaring with self-congratulatory laughter and gave me the impression that he was making light of what is, after all, a particularly unfunny situation. I sat unsmiling at the back. A final word from arrogant Joanne about a badge everyone is wearing that quotes Trotsky saying that every socialist who doesn’t support the struggles of the Irish people deserves to be shot: much cheering and clapping at this.

It all sounded so crap coming as it did from what is essentially a middle-class audience, many of whom (I thought to myself) would no doubt grovel shamelessly at the sight of a gun, yet here they were talking coldly about shooting and bombing people without, it seemed, fully appreciating what it was they were talking about. However, this did make me see another side of the argument.

It does seem hypocritical to condemn the IRA as murderous psychopaths when the British Army does things that are equally bloody, this the British Army whose soldiers gun people down mercilessly too and repress them to a greater degree than the IRA. Yet they are always blindly supported in this by the British press. After all, we are all here in Whincliffe to commemorate the gunning down fourteen civilians during Bloody Sunday in 1972.

For the first time I began to see a clearer picture of the situation in Ireland. But somehow I hated the cold way it was all discussed. Sometimes I agree and sometimes I don’t, and so my mind boils with confusion. Is this all there is? IS it the answer?

While the rest of the conference settled down to wait for the evening social, Lindsey and I left to walk into Whincliffe. I drew out £10 from the cashpoint and we found a Pizza Land and ate one huge pizza each, followed by ice cream. While we ate we discussed our doubts.

Carl counters the internationalist arguments against supporting the nationalist and sectarian IRA by stressing the need to follow the stages of economic development laid out by Marx. If Ireland is still fundamentally an agrarian nation Carl says (echoing Marx), it must first become a capitalist and bourgeois one. But this seems to me to be using the IRA and the Irish people as pawns and not fully explaining to them why the RCP supports Irish liberation.

This difference was thrown into perspective by a story we both heard later; the red-faced, beery members of the Glasgow Provo youth band, hired to entertain conference-goers, were seen ridiculing a made-up and lipsticked member of the Revolutionary Gay and Transgendered Caucus. The Provo lads didn’t know about Marx, didn’t know about the intricacies and the ideological wrangling over Ireland, or the factional tensions and differences between the RCG, the RCP, WP, the SWP etc. They didn’t know and they didn’t care. They were just ordinary lads from the back streets of Glasgow.

And yet all these “ideologically sound” middle class RCPers clapped and cheered them, echoing their shouts of “Up the Provos!” with upraised fists. It felt (and feels) like a pantomime of solidarity, because come the actual revolution, the RCP will be the efficient and cold apparachniks while the lads in the band and people like them will be the poor bastards who are being mobilized into ‘labour armies.’ I can’t help being so cynical, because this is how it will happen.

Lin and I returned to the social; strange walking back through Whincliffe on an ordinary unconcerned Saturday night. Somehow it seemed safe, it seemed real, and that other place didn’t. In a way it was like walking back into a dream.

We got back to find everyone plunging into festive oblivion (“See? Communists know how to enjoy themselves as well”). I noted with detached contempt those people we'd traveled up with from London as they leaped stupidly around the dance floor—mustachioed Dennis, whose monologue to me in the motorway dark about the history of N. Ireland ended with “Yeah, but do you get to study any good books?” when I’d told him about my American Studies course; droning, boring, arrogant Kate with the (stereotypical) short hair, heavy face, large mouth, monkey-boots. Are these the people we are to hold up as revolutionary examples? Will everyone be like this one day?

The band finally struck up again towards eleven, three flag-bearers at the front before the stage, legs apart, flags held at chest level, their young faces scowling, the band roaring out pipe and drum tunes, the drummers thrashing their drums with violent grimaces. One little group stood up to watch and clapped along, cheering, shouting “Troops Out!” and smiling broadly as they thumped the air in time to the beat. Down in front, a small kid hurled a baton high into the air.

Finally, back out into the night, organised chaos for quite a while, minibuses everywhere, dark figures hurrying to and fro. Tonight we were destined for a Church Hall somewhere. Patrick, Barry, Carl, Lindsey, Michael (another Barry Duckworth communist friend) and I are upstairs in a small room while the majority are downstairs in the main hall. Carl, Patrick, Michael and Barry have each other in fits of laughter.

I feel subdued and somehow worthless. At least tonight we have heaters.

Threadbare

I took a calculated risk and missed my tutorial for American History, anticipating I can change course on Monday. So I ligged in bed until one instead and got up to find Barry and Lindsey packed and ready to go. Whincliffe beckoned.

We got the train up to London with Susie (who was going home) and Rowan (who was catching a train to Durham to visit a friend at the Uni there). I couldn't tell whether I was looking forward to it or not, but we reached the big city mid-afternoon and were soon on our way to the Polytechnic of Central London.

We were riding up an escalator in the tube when Barry bumped into his friend Derek. It was just incredible: in mannerisms and speech, Derek is an identical replica of Barry’s RCP friend John. He had the same quick-fire wit and dry humour which came from a strangely creased sharkish face and downturned mouth. Susie, Lindsey and I smiled disbelievingly to one another at Barry’s apparently nationwide network of revolutionary communist friends. He seems to meet them everywhere!

After a short walk to PCL through dark and familiar streets hemmed in by concrete and glass, we found RCP Carl sitting in the bar downstairs with a mate Don, who was a quiet old-fashioned looking bloke with short back and sides. He reminded me of a 1920s miner or something. A few drinks and several packets of crisps later we left, said goodbye to Susie, and caught the tube to Hackney to meet our ride to Whincliffe.

Near Hackney town hall we were greeted by a group of dark figures huddled around a white minibus. They looked frozen to death, and I was so dispirited as we clambered in the back that I briefly contemplated doing a runner, leaping out and going back to Watermouth. . . . The back of the bus was heaped with bags and people and spare tires and I settled miserably into my 'seat.' In the blackness all around me the others shared political in-jokes about “Workers' Power,” “Sparts” (Sparticist League) and, their favourite target, liberal CNDers and the “Greenham Gals.”

Carl was in typical cynical form: what was it someone said about cynics knowing the price of everything yet the value of nothing? Hours went by before the other minibuses from the North and South London branches arrived and we could finally set off. We reached Whincliffe in the late hours of the evening.

We drove for ages around the dark back streets and it was all very conspiratorial. For a while we waited miserably in the back yard of a towering dark terrace beneath a bright moon and scudding clouds, cut to death by the wind, before we were ushered up several narrow flights of stairs into an empty curtainless room with bare floorboards and just a pile of bricks in one corner. So this is our room for the night we thought, but no, we were off again, back down to the minibus and a short drive to the Islamic Youth Centre, “somewhere in Whincliffe.”

This was a big old house with a long garden in front and dark and empty windows. There was a hassle as the door wouldn’t open at first but soon we were ensconced in a plush carpeted room which we couldn’t use after all as it was a prayer room: we'd probably defiled it beyond redemption by tramping in in shoes and boots, unrolling our sleeping bags, etc. We removed upstairs. The building seemed to be in a state of semi-dereliction, the cold toilets strewn with litter.

Our new bedroom is similar to the last, only with a thinner and more threadbare carpet, no curtains at the windows and very cold. We quietly unpacked and everyone has laid down on the hard floor to sleep, and me to write this.

Lateral thinking

Shawn’s birthday. At lunchtime Barry and I went up to meet him and everyone else at the Town & Gown. I was in a weird mood, I don’t know why.

I bought 3 boiled eggs just for the hell of it (16p each!) while Shawn got pissed on all the vodka and oranges everyone bought him. He was really drunk and as his eyes got bloodshot they gradually merged with the general colour of his face. He walked unsteadily back to Wollstonecraft, all the while an evil and inane grin spread across his face.

In the evening a few people went to see The Psychedelic Furs at Medusa’s in Watermouth, a surprise birthday present for Shawn, who'd been told it was sold out. Bev persuaded Susie and I to go see Julian Bahula’s Jazz Afrika at The Shelter instead. We twisted Barry’s arm until he reluctantly agreed to come too. All the way into Watermouth Susie and Bev amused us and one another with lateral thinking problems.

Tickets were £2.25 each and, as I seemed to be the only person with any money, I ended up paying for everyone. We seated ourselves at a table stuck away at the back apart from everyone else and the band started almost immediately, a jazzy sound with afro rhythms and a Weather Reportish bass player. Jazz-rock I suppose, but pretty infectious. They did no less than three sets, each one more enthusiastic than the last until finally everyone was up dancing, strange and swaying, all smiles and twitching feet.

We left before the end to get the last train back.