Randomosity

this was originally posted on my myspace blog but i’ve moved it here since i’m deleting that.

hey folks,

so here i am in london, it’s 1:16am local time and i can’t sleep yet, thinking about the last ten days since laura and i first arrived in dublin.

i think the craziest thing so far for me was walking through a protastant / loyalist neighborhood in belfast last week and seeing a giant de-facto trash dump that’d sprung up in what used to be a park, surrounded by murals supporting the UVF (a loyalist paramilitary). this is a neighborhood that looked a lot worse then most of the ghettos i’ve seen in the US – it made east oakland look like beverly hills – and yet these folks are willing to kill and die to support the status-quo, now that’s a mindfuck.

the situation is particularly hard for me because most of my ancestors were protastants from Scotland who settled in north ireland to escape english colinization and genocide in scotland before moving on to america and doing the exact same thing to native americans that the english had done to them. when my ancestors left, of course, most Ulster Scots suported Irish independance and many actively supported the early Republican movement. Andrew Jackson (america’s first scotch-irish president) was an active member of the Ancient Order of Hibernians, a secret society aimed at overthrowing brittish rule in ireland by force of arms. The fact that Jackson – the original american “populist” politican – was also the genocidal butcher responsible for the Trail of Tears says something profound about the ability of people who have been oppressed beyond words to oppress others. on an intelectual level i *knew* that this shit happened, after all it’s happenning again in Israel right now as zionists use the nazi hollocaust against them to justify their hollocaust against the pallestinians, but there’s something truly horrific about seeing it first-hand and knowing that its *your* history and identity being used to justify the slaughter. When i left belfast i felt physically ill. i’ll probably end up writing a research paper based on what i saw, but i’ll save it for now.

scotland, on the other hand, was absolutely beautiful. the country is absolutely incredible. it reminds me in a lot of ways of the pacific northwest, very dense cities surrounded by huge open areas. there’s a lot of very ugly history tied up in how it got that way of course – most of it having to do with colonization – but it was still beautiful. what was more amazing was finding out that hikers are allowed to go pretty much any where they want and camp almost anywhere – including on “private” estates – as long as they don’t camp right next to someones house or invade their privacy. apparently backpackers and hikers there are an oganized and active political lobby with clout on a par with hunting enthusiasts in the US… truly amazing and very cool. nothing is perfect of course, i noticed quite a lot of clearcutting going on (laura and i did a 3-day, 45-mile hike from fort williams to fort augustus at the foot of loch ness and had a lot of time to look at scenery, heh), and there are plenty of other issues, but i’m not going to bore ya’ll with the details. basically scotland is incredible, i love it, i want to move there, and i know there will be plenty of campaigns to get involved in when i do.

we arrived in england yesterday morning and have spent the last 2 days wandering around london. so far i really like some things – the fact that so few of the radio stations here are playing american pop usic is a welcome change for one thing and the incredible diversity of east london where we’re staying is another – but at the same time this city is very definately the capital of an empire, and unapolagetically so. there’s also something fundamentally hostile about the way most people approach you here, which is only heightened by the fact that just days ago in scotland i was surrounded by people who were almost universally friendly. come to think of it, almost every single person we’ve encountered since arriving in london that’s been friendly has been a recent immigrant from someplace else, mostly africans. i don’t know whether that’s because of my american accent or just sort of general unfocussed hostility. I think it might be a bit of both though.

we’ve got one more day here – we planned to be here till tuesday because we were suppossed to do a radio show – but that fell through so we’re stuck here in the mean time since we can’t change our bus tickets. on the 13th we’ll be getting on a bus for wales to do a couple more shows and i’ll be glad to move on. there are some beautiful people here (big ups to the Art Not Oil folks and the rampARTs community center!), but this city is just a bit too big and a bit too hostile for me.

guess that’s all for now, i’ll write more later.
lynx

***addendum june 13, 12:08 am***

we’ve had one last day in london since i wrote this post and it was a lot better then the first two, we found an incredibly cool open mic near leichster square at a place called ‘the spice of life’ and virtually everyone that got up was great, plus they were very friendly and i got a great response from the 2 songs i did, so i’m feeling a bit better about london and londoners then i was yesterday. i’m still looking forward to leaving for wales tomorrow but at least i won’t be leaving with a bad vibe. i’ll post again in a day or two once i’ve had a chance to explore Wales a bit. Big ups in particular to Toff (aka Trouble Over Tokyo), a super-talented indie musician who i met and traded CD’s with. ya’ll should google him or check out his myspace page.

Comments (copied over from myspace)

Hilde

Thanks for that rundown, lynx! It is amazing to read your experiences and be shocked through you. How cool that you have falled in love with Scotland! I’ve never been there, I’ll have to visit you when you move there. I lived in London for two years and thought it was a cool, but exhausting city because of the same chilliness you describe. There were too many people there!! You had to line up for everything, and people would bump into you on the streets. Once, a young girl deliberately screamed into my ear and laughed hautily to her little entourage of guys. I wanted to smack her, but didn’t, of course. But, the art scene is amazing in London, and the theater there is the best I’ve ever seen. Try to catch some independent theater while you guys are there! Keep posting your observations, I love reading it!

Posted by Hilde on Sunday, June 11, 2006 at 7:24 PM

Posted: June 11th, 2006 under culture war, personal.
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