Whose Insecurity?

The news media seem to be increasingly full of lurid stories about terrorism and crime, and a common reaction is a general feeling of anxiety throughout society. Is this anxiety misplaced or are we really more insecure than ever before? It may really depend on who “we” are.

Since the 7/7 bombs, terror, and the threat of terror, have filled many with dread. This has certainly been fuelled by media speculation, but the facts tell a different story. You are still more likely to be killed by lightning than in a terrorist attack (1). Likewise, whilst muggings and burglaries are a common occurrence in student areas, most crime is committed against the poorest and most vulnerable in society (2). This is an interesting statistic because poverty is a huge factor in determining not just whether an individual will become a victim of crime, but their quality of life, health, and life opportunities. Low wage jobs are becoming more and more precarious, with short-term contracts taking the place of lifetime careers, and a continual push by employers for lower wages and poorer conditions. The working classes suffer from a much more rational insecurity about their day to day existence, than the fear of terrorism.

One group of desperately poor people in the UK are those seeking political asylum. Not only are they reduced to existing on a pittance (destitute asylum seekers are entitled to £38.96 per week in benefits) but they face being deported to countries in which they could be persecuted if their claims are rejected (3, 4). Despite the growing number of refugees in the world, the UK is making it harder for asylum seekers to enter the country, spurred on by tabloid-fuelled hatred of their kind. These are forms of insecurity that are severe and very real, but media and political discourse is rarely concerned with them. Whose insecurity should be dealt with first? Do we really think our laptops getting nicked should be a priority?

The measures that have been implemented in order to deal with the “headline story” insecurities are manifold. A whole swathe of new anti-terror laws are being debated and look set to be implemented, and the police are being given a license to shoot-to-kill. In attempts to tackle (or at least appear to be tackling) crime, the government has introduced Anti-Social Behaviour Orders (ASBOs), and councils and property owners increasingly rely on CCTV. These measures appear designed to reduce the insecurity of the “average law-abiding person”, but who is that person? Not those belonging to Afro-Caribbean, Arabic or Asian ethnicities, who are being disproportionately targeted by police anti-terror laws (and by laws in general). Not youths, mental health service users or prostitutes, who are under the threat of criminalisation for breaking ASBOs. Not those whose homes and streets are not under the watchful eyes of CCTV, where crime is displaced (5). Not political protestors, against whom anti-terror laws, ASBOs, and anti-harassment laws are being used. These measures allow those whose concerns are considered important to evade their fears, whilst their insecurities are displaced onto the less privileged in society.

Ultimately this is bound to fail, as insecurity in one segment of society will sooner or later increase the insecurity of others. The insecuritiy of Muslims who feel that their people are under attack fuels the insecurity of those who suspect them of being terrorists. The insecurity of those desperate for money feed the insecurity of those who fear theft. Whilst those with power and a voice in society can call for draconian measures against those who don’t have such power, they still have to lock their doors at night, glance anxiously around on the tube, and keep their wallets out of sight. Terror and crime are desperate attempts by those who have little power to make an impact on the world. To reduce the chance of these things happening, we have to empower everyone in society to take back control of their lives. That means that everyone gets a say in how their life is run, how political decisions are made, and how resources are allocated. To know that you genuinely do have the same opportunities and status as your neighbours is to eradicate insecurity about your privilege or resentment of your neighbour’s. Creating a society in which direct democracy is implemented means that no one’s voice should go unheard, and everyone has the confidence to take back control of their lives.

For most students, insecurity is a fleeting and temporary problem – until the poorest and most vulnerable are made secure we shouldn’t see ourselves as the priority. Perhaps our deepest insecurity is that we know we don’t really have a right to the privileges we have, and that the dispossessed are at the door.



1) Lifetime mortality rates : Lightning = 1:56,000, Terrorist-related activity = 1:88,000 (National Safety Council, US, 2002).

2) “The type of area in which people live can affect their likelihood of being a victim of violent crime. In general, those households located in council estates and low-income areas were the most likely to have been victims of violent crimes - around twice the rate of those living in affluent suburban and rural areas.” (Proportion of adult victims of violent crime: by household characteristics, 1999: Social Trends 32, Office for National Statistics).

In the US (2004)
• Persons in households with an annual income under $7,500 were robbed at a significantly higher rate than persons in households earning more.
• Persons in households with an annual income of less than $7,500 have higher rates of assault than persons in households with higher income levels.
• Households with an annual income below $7,500 were burglarized at rates higher than those of households with larger incomes.
• Households earning below $7,500 and above $75,000 experience motor vehicle theft at similar rates.
(US Bureau of Justice statistics).

3) Asylum seekers cannot claim mainstream welfare benefits. If destitute, they can apply to the National Asylum Support Service (NASS), the Government department responsible for destitute asylum applicants, for basic food and shelter. A single adult is eligible for £38.96 a week, equivalent to 70% of basic income support.
(Refugee Council).

4) 90% refugees rejected on initial claim, with many having to go through the appeals process to have their claim successfully recognised.
(Arun Kundnani, Asylum figures - behind the headlines, 8 March 2003).


5) "The justification for CCTV is seductive, but the evidence is not convincing. In a report to the Scottish Office on the impact of CCTV, Jason Ditton, Director of the Scottish Centre for Criminology, argued that the claims of crime reduction are little more than fantasy. "All (evaluations and statistics) we have seen so far are wholly unreliable", The British Journal of Criminology described the statistics as "....post hoc shoestring efforts by the untrained and self interested practitioner...
Many CCTV system operators routinely exercise their prejudices to discriminate against race, age, class or sexual preference."
(Privacy International).

the truth about british foreign policy

yesterday nspm had the pleasure of hosting mark curtis, the radical historian and author, for a talk on 'government propaganda and the reality of uk foreign policy'. in an attempt to repeat the success of last year's talk by milan rai we had booked a high profile speaker for the start of term, to raise our profile and attract support. it certainly seemed to have worked judging by the size and diversity of the audience. i estimate about 100 people had gathered to hear mark speak, wit plenty of new faces amongst the stalwart activists. i've seen mark speak before at the esf, and from reading his books and articles had a good idea of what to expect. it was good to find that mark was softly-spoken and seemed to be a genuinely nice guy in person, as well as in his writings.

mark's talk seemed to be largely drawn from the material that he's worked on over the course of his last few books (unpeople, web of deceit), condensed into half an hour. starting with recent foreign office strategy (e.g. delivering security in a changing world) and the imperial ambitions of the "ministry of offence", mark then recounted the history of british foreign policy from the 50s onwards. after admonishing blair's support of bloodshed and torture by the russians in chechnya, colombian paramilitaries and the idf in palestine, he gave the figure (his own estimate) of britain's complicity in the deaths of 10m people since the 50s. mark talked about british suppression of the mau mau in kenya, concentration camps in malaya, support for indonesian slaughter of communists, support for iraqi bombing of the kurds, military advice to the americans in vietnam, support for idi amin, and british obstacles to intervention in rwanda. british foreign policy, he said, was driven by 2 major goals: maintenance of its "great power" status, and economic control.

the most interesting part of the talk for me, as it's something he doesn't go into in much detail in his books, was the final part where mark sketched out his ideas of what we should do. change would have to come from outside the existing system which perpetuates these vile atrocities with only cosmetic changes over the years. mark saw a glimmer of hope in the global justice system emerging and gaining victories over companies privatising water from bolivia to south africa. self-education is particularly important, he said, to defend ourselves against the ocean of propaganda. mark saw the democratisation of society as the most important goal in acheiving our aims, with the removal of hierarchical decision-making and the remodelling of our political lives on the principle of participatory democracy.

these ideas were obviously a little too radical for some, including a guy who walked out at the start of questions, waiting til the last minute before shouting "10m iraqis voted last week mate", and a terribly posh sounding persistent questioner who wasn't too sure that the "uneducated masses" were going to do a better job than whatever benign patriarchal dictator he seemed to be imagining. many were enthusiastic though, drawing parallels between mark's vision of society and anarchist thought. it was good to see challenged many of the dangerous myths prevalent in mainstream thought, and to hear discussed media propaganda, the tyranny of centralised power and global movements resisting the takeover of people's lives. mark was optimistic, suggesting that in the many talks he had been giving to people of all backgrounds across the country, he was seeing an increasingly dissatisfied populace ready to wrest power from the hands of politicians. i certainly felt that many people in that room felt that way, and together we can act to make those changes.

arms dealers not welcome

the university of nottingham holds an annual careers fair in the student's union building, hosted by old friends (!) of the peace movement, aiesec. this is usually packed full of some of the worst corporate criminals the world of business has to offer, all getting their pick of graduate talent. to see this year's selection go here. of particular interest to us were bae systems, rolls-royce and caterpillar, all arms dealing companies. we decided we couldn't let them on campus without organising a robust response to their unwanted presence, and various student societies and networks including nspm, people & planet, amnesty, and the environment & social justice umbrella group got together to protest.

bags stacked with leaflets and carrying stickers to attach to the careers fair posters, some of us met early in the morning to get going. attaching stickers reading "resist the corporate invasion of your university" and giving a meeting time and place to all of the aiesec material was a good move, and we also put up plenty of anti-caterpillar posters. the porter was looking nervous, telling us not to stick anything on any walls, and asking whether we were the people he was meant to look out for! it was a good opportunity for a certain "luther blissett" to sign up for the fair and enquire about the military and engineering options on offer. "bae & shell, they're really good!" i was told. hmmmm... by the time i'd tracked back to meet co-conspirators a shifty looking guy from security had come over and was hassling m about our posters. he took one off her, and asked both of us for our student id. i said i didn't have it but he took hers and wrote down her details. we were both too surprised to protest even though he blatantly shouldn't have been allowed to do it. those in favour of id cards take note. i went off to photocopy a few more flyers before the meet-up at 12.

by the time i got back quite a crowd had already developed. t was being interviewed by university radio about why we were protesting and a couple of friends from nottinghamshire indymedia were there to film and photograph the event. their report can be found here. l from the student union gave a briefing about what we could probably get away with and blagged us all flyering passes for the two days. the security guy so keen to be confrontational earlier, jumped in to say that we weren't allowed to do anything that could be seen as intimidating, whatever that meant, but suddenly got a bit shy when the cameras were pointed his way, ducking behind people. nothing to fear if you've got nothing to hide eh?

so in we went in small clusters finding where our poor defenceless intimidated arms dealers were lurking. cat and rolls-royce were in the same room so a few of us took over the entrance to leaflet whilst those with the decency to suit up for the occasion took their places slap bang in front of the stalls. rolls-royce are a particularly interesting target in nottingham because they put a lot of funding into the engineering department, the university has shares in them, and there's a factory just down the road in derby making components for trident nuclear submarines (see trident ploughshares' site for details of a blockade of the factory next weekend). student responses were mixed, as you'd expect. few were openly hostile although many looked at us like we were lunatics and i remember one group of girls standing around in front of me talking about how sad it was that we didn't have anything better to do. i don't know - fighting for global justice has its rewards! on the other hand there were positive experiences too. many students were shocked as they didn't know the full stories behind some of the companies, and one woman stayed around to chat to us about how glad she was that there were so many people out to protest against the companies.


one particularly useful tactic was to take over the space around the companies' stalls in order to chat to people about the companies' before the smooth pr exercise could begin. to do this in a purely informative and non-confrontational way seemed very effective in giving people something to think about. it also pissed off the reps quite a lot. the reactions of non-targeted companies were interesting. one guy wearing a deutsche bank badge wandered over to me and said, quite earnestly, "i really respect what you guys are doing". i don't know whether he was being sarcastic or just naive. people were also coming over and acting suspiciously matey before asking "so when's it all going to kick off then?". i think they were expecting the black bloc to walk in and trash the place. slimy security man asked me "how long are you going on for?" as if there should be an allotted time as well as place for protest. "As long as it takes".

overall i think the numbers of protestors and the access we got to the recruiting space of the companies meant that our actions were as successful as they could have been. hopefully the companies will be discouraged from attending future events although i think the more likely scenario is that they will demand much stricter security. thanks to the media coverage (nottinghamshire indymedia are also making a film about the fair, containing interviews with protestors including yours truly, and the organisers) i hope that students at other universities will take note - that we can overcome repressive restrictions, like those imposed on the george fox 6, and throw spanners in the works of the well-oiled corporate machines.

george fox 6

a group of 6 students from the university of lancaster have been sentenced to conditional discharge for 2 years and costs of 3oo pounds each, for "momentarily disrupting a conference". they were not found guilty of "harrassment, alarm or distress" or "intimidating behaviour". the george fox 6's actions involved interrupting a meeting on venture capitalism at the university, in protest against the commercialisation of research, and the presence of highly unethical companies including bae systems and shell.

the george fox 6 supporter's group website has all the details of the case, and includes copies of their statement, indicating their intention to appeal, to ensure that the right to protest is not eroded. speculation was rife during the run-up to the trial that lancaster was attempting to set a new trend of criminalising activities that ran against the business interests of the university. certainly, if the allegations of this letter from the research students' representative to the vice-chancellor are true, then the university has played a very underhand role in proceedings.

those interested in finding out about defending the right to protest against new laws and new uses of laws might be interested in attending the freedom to protest conference in a few weeks time.

critical massive

it was good to see a record (in my limited experience) turnout for nottingham's critical mass on friday. an army of colourful, flag-bearing, slogan-brandishing road-reclaimers assembled near the texaco garage from 5 onwards, and by 5:45 there were over 40 of us (the notts indymedia report claimed 60 or so, which i think is a slight exaggeration, but not on a stop the war level). numbers were boosted by the visit from the makers of still we ride, a film about new york's critical mass and the unwanted police attention it receives. the film was screened at the broadway on wednesday and its filmers generously stuck around to swell the numbers at our own more humble affair. i was also buoyed from having read about budapest's colossal critical mass that took place earlier in the week, attracting over 30,000 cyclists!!!

would you trust this officer?

after much milling about, bantering, and obstruction of pavements we set off up derby road in the direction of canning circus. there was definitely a carnival feel and we emphasised the celebration aspects of the event. tash was ready and waiting at the top of the hill and then seemed to teleport himself around various locations after that taking the fine photos that i've used in this report. down to maid marian way where we toured a few roundabouts and received audible support for cycling (see top pic). some taxi and 4x4 drivers seemed less enthusiastic but their aggressive revving was drowned out in the cheers, bell-ringing and horns. round the ring road to the broadmarsh then we turned up into the lace market to release some of the angry motorists who were threatening to mow people at the back down.

in case you're wondering that's an asda jacket detourned to read 'asbo'

unfortunately, after coming off the main roads we got a little lost in the narrow lanes of the lace market and ended up coming down hockley. a guy had parked his car in the cycle lane at the bottom of the hill and attracted sarky comments. unfortunately he lost it and aggressively remonstrated with the entire mass, later grabbing the camera woman and shoving her against the wall. it took a big group of us trying to defuse the situation to make the guy give up and the incident ended with the rather embarassing situation of having to grass the guy up to a passing posse of neighbourhood wardens. whilst the majority waited across a side street a police car pulled up, lights flashing. we were asked to get out the road and then they headed off again. critical mass obviously isn't considered such a threat by nottingham police as it is by their new yorker counterparts...

in a change from previous critical masses we ended up by heading down mansfield road to the sumac centre. as we came down the hill past the forest rec, we picked up some zealous supporters in the form of a group of local kids in hoodies and masks. evidently seeing the revolutionary potential they lay down on pedestrian crossings and were quite disappointed to find out that we were just finishing up as they ran home to get their bikes. hopefully they'll remember to join us at the start of next month's. found myself using the stock activist phrase "we should have had flyers" rather a lot ;)

it was fun, it was (mostly) friendly, and who knows, it may even have made one or two motorists rethink their mode of transport. see you next month!