At the beginning of this year I wrote a short piece about a
vivid dream I had. Here is an extract:
On arrival at the unknown village I got
off the coach, only then realising that I knew some of my fellow passengers.
‘Are you here for the rally?’ one asked me. I wasn’t of course and felt both
disappointed and guilty that I wasn’t staying to support my comrades. Walking
towards the pub I turned to see musicians and dancers arriving to join the
assembling crowd; the rain and the mud clearly not putting anyone off or
dampening the mood. The planned event clearly a celebration as well as
campaign activity.
Anyone kind enough to read my work –
including memoir, fiction and other more opinion focused pieces – will be aware
of my concerns about and criticism of our current government. I have written
previously, many times, about, what I, and I know many others, believe to be,
rising levels of inequality and injustice in our society and about some of the
attacks on those who are working hard to make things better. All
this makes me anxious as does my own, strongly felt, inadequacy. My ego is
not so big that I think that I can change the world. But knowing that I can’t
doesn’t stop me wanting to, or stop me feeling the need to. https://www.abctales.com/story/gletherby/dream-anxieties-and-aspirations
More
recently I’ve been dreaming again and although not overtly connected to
politics in any way I think, as I did about my dream in January, that these
dreams are linked to my (and others’) anxieties about the state of the UK (and
indeed the wider world) and my responsibilities within and to our society and
the world more generally. Lately an increasing number of my dreams have been emotionally and
physically violent. In them I (and sometimes others close to me) are
experiencing attack – most often verbal, but occasionally physical – sometimes
by unknown others, sometimes by people I know (folk who would never, ever treat
me this way in ‘real’ life). In one particularly horrid dream I was both peed
on and shouted at. Upsetting as these have been the most recent in the series
was perhaps the most disturbing to me. It is I was heavily pregnant (eight
months at least). I’m 59 years old and my one and only (to my knowledge)
pregnancy ended in miscarriage over 30 years ago. And yet the pregnancy was no
surprise to my sleeping self. The dream was complicated with lots going on with
the pregnancy being just one aspect, rather than the focal point, of it.
Towards the end the pregnancy became more significant and just before I woke I
realised that the baby in my womb had stopped moving and the anxiety I
experienced was intense.
There’s
no need, I suggest, for dream analysis here. If pregnancy in a dream represents
(I did look this up, I admit, but it’s obvious I think) looking forward to, or
worrying about, new beginnings of some kind (a new project, a new relationship
and such like) concern over the status of a pregnancy/pregnancy loss must
surely indicate fear that what one desires will not happen. So as I said, it
feels appropriate to reflect on the political significance of these dreams. The
need for change, the fear of it not happening, leads to much anxiety in my
day-time hours as well as when I’m sleeping.
Earlier
in the week I retweeted a number of articles focusing on the impacts of poverty
and deprivation. Thus:
First
this article on #foodpoverty
The UK’s largest food redistribution
charity is helping to feed a record 772,000 people a week – 60% more than the
previous year – with food that would otherwise be wasted, new figures
reveal. One in eight people in the UK go hungry every day – with the most needy
increasingly dependent on food banks - yet perfectly good food is wasted every
day through the food production supply chain. FareShare said it was now
redistributing food that otherwise would have been wasted with an annual value
of £28.7m, up from £22.4m last year. “Three years ago we were helping to feed
211,000 people a week – today it’s three-quarters of a million,” said
FareShare’s chief executive, Lindsay Boswell. “We reported in 2015 that we
provided food across 320 towns and cities – now it’s 1,500. It’s not rocket
science to see there has been a massive hike in demand for food from frontline
charities.” https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/may/28/huge-rise-in-food-redistribution-to-people-in-need-across-uk?CMP=share_btn_tw
I’ve written about food poverty
previously; most recently here: http://arwenackcerebrals.blogspot.com/2018/04/evidence-what-evidence-experts-who.html
My own life is, I know, very privileged but I remember sometimes being hungry when I was a child https://arwenackcerebrals.blogspot.com/2017/08/childhood-memories-food-poverty-and.html I am ashamed to live in a society where this is becoming more, rather than less, of a problem.
My own life is, I know, very privileged but I remember sometimes being hungry when I was a child https://arwenackcerebrals.blogspot.com/2017/08/childhood-memories-food-poverty-and.html I am ashamed to live in a society where this is becoming more, rather than less, of a problem.
Second this Blog for Huffington
Post written by Kate Osamor MP on #periodpoverty
Right
now, around 282 million women and girls around the world are menstruating. This
time of the month can be annoying and uncomfortable at the best of times. But
for those who struggle to access water, a decent toilet and sanitary towels, it
is a monthly exercise in anxiety and humiliation. This is true for those
suffering from period poverty both here in the UK and around the world. One in
ten girls in the UK don’t have access to sanitary products. One in three girls
across the globe don’t have access to a toilet during their period. https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/menstrualhygieneday_uk_5b0bd0dae4b0802d69ccf5ce?guccounter=1
And a third focusing on #deathpoverty
Some of the UK’s poorest people are
being barred from attending the funerals of loved ones as part of council
cost-cutting, it has been claimed. Families who must reportedly rely on
publicly-funded funerals are told they cannot be at the service. An official at
Bracknell Forest Council, in Berkshire, was recorded telling undercover
reporters that relatives would not even be told when the burial or cremation
was taking place . . . .
The
average funeral costs £4,078 pricing out increasing numbers of families. Councils
offer a public health funeral – the modern equivalent of a Victorian pauper’s
funeral – for those who cannot afford. About 4,000 people are buried or
cremated this way every year, costing local authorities an estimated £4
million. The refusal to allow people to attend seems to be a way of keeping costs
down and discouraging families from using the option except where financially
unavoidable. https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/funerals-barred-paupers-poorest-families-bracknell-forest-council-a8371496.html
Having been through a number of
significant bereavements myself, and from my experience as an (occasional)
funeral celebrant - http://www.arwenack.co.uk/ - I very much appreciate the importance of a ‘ceremony’ as part of the grieving process.
Excluding the bereaved in this way is beyond cruel; inhumane.
The final piece in my short twitter fest was
an article from The New York Times.
#politicalausterity in the UK the focus
here.
PRESCOT,
England — A walk through this modest town in the northwest of England amounts
to a tour of the casualties of Britain’s age of austerity. The old library
building has been sold and refashioned into a glass-fronted luxury home. The
leisure center has been razed, eliminating the public swimming pool. The local
museum has receded into town history. The police station has been shuttered.
Now, as the local government desperately seeks to turn assets into cash, Browns
Field, a lush park in the center of town, may be doomed, too. At a meeting in
November, the council included it on a list of 17 parks to sell to developers.
. . .
“The government has
created destitution,” says Barry Kushner, a Labour Party councilman in Liverpool
and the cabinet member for children’s services. “Austerity has had nothing to
do with economics. It was about getting out from under welfare. It’s about
politics abandoning vulnerable people.” . . .
Britain’s
turn from its welfare state in the face of yawning budget deficits is a
conspicuous indicator that the world has been refashioned by the crisis [following the global financial panic of
2008]. As the global economy now
negotiates a wrenching transition — with itinerant jobs replacing full-time positions
and robots substituting for human labor — Britain’s experience provokes doubts
about the durability of the traditional welfare model. . . .
. . . . At public libraries, volunteers now outnumber
paid staff. In struggling communities, residents have formed food banks while
distributing hand-me-down school uniforms. But to many in Britain, this is akin
to setting your house on fire and then reveling in the community spirit as
neighbors come running to help extinguish the blaze. [The piece goes on, it’s a long
sobering read]. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/28/world/europe/uk-austerity-poverty.html
Close to home this one. I spend the first
seven years of my life in Prescot. I now live in the beautiful,
vibrant town of Falmouth, Cornwall which recently appearing in The Guardian's: 'ten of the UK's best seaside towns'
https://www.theguardian.com/travel/2018/may/26/10-best-seaside-town-uk-coast-hotels-restaurants
But, and this is a BIG but, it’s important to remember that Cornwall is the second poorest region in Northern Europe so living here is far from a holiday for many.
https://www.theguardian.com/travel/2018/may/26/10-best-seaside-town-uk-coast-hotels-restaurants
But, and this is a BIG but, it’s important to remember that Cornwall is the second poorest region in Northern Europe so living here is far from a holiday for many.
***
In the meantime:
The Conservative Party, yet again, prove
their hypocrisy, when it comes to where they get their money from:
The
Labour Party has accused Theresa May of breaking her promises and
continuing “business as usual” with Russia after the Conservative Party
accepted another £100,000 donation from the wife of a former minister in
Vladimir Putin’s government. Lubov Chernukhin, whose ex-deputy finance minister
husband Vladimir has been described in the past as a “Putin
crony”, donated £112,500 to the Conservative Party during the past three
months, bringing the total amount to £626,500 since 2012. https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/conservative-party-russia-donations-putin-theresa-may-lubov-chernukhin-tory-a8375636.html
There is more evidence of how the governments ‘hostile
environment’ impacts on the lives of many people as we find out that: ‘The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) has been colluding with
Sainsbury’s to spy on welfare claimants and disabled people.’
All
whilst Jacob Rees-Mogg MP’s biggest worry seems
to be that he has been ‘priced out’ of Mayfair and has
to ‘settle’ for a house in Westminster
http://www.cityam.com/286510/jacob-rees-mogg-priced-out-mayfair-has-settle-house
http://www.cityam.com/286510/jacob-rees-mogg-priced-out-mayfair-has-settle-house
All the greater need then for rest of us to keep challenging, to keep talking, and importantly, not to give up hope. Following my recent dreams I’m reminding, admonishing, myself here as much as anyone else. As I wrote nearly a year ago:
I read recently that the average person thinks about politics
for four minutes a week. This, alongside the 'don't politicise' arguments
(ironically encouraged by those attempting to score political points themselves
…[*]) disheartens and enrages me. YET, YET the
scores of people joining the Labour Party since 2017, the continued discussions
between friends and amongst strangers (that I overhear on trains, in cafes, on
the streets), the increase in social networking and political learning, the
tweet from a mother reporting her eight year old's desire to watch the news to
'see how Jeremy Corbyn is doing' are the things to focus us.....
* Just see the latest from James Cleverly MP which I 'had' to respond to. For example:
Thanks for the advice @JamesCleverly - my sweet little head is obviously so full of all things pink and fluffy I am unable (as are my sisters) to think or speak for myself on reproductive and human rights #feminism
@JamesCleverly Given the long history of silencing girl's and women's voices we should all - but men especially - think carefully before telling women what they can and should think and say; what they 'really' mean. Time for YOU to be quiet now Mr C.
***
Like others who enjoy writing, and feel the need to do it, I’m always thinking of what to work on next. The other day I wrote a short piece of poetry prose after the idea came to me whilst I was half sleeping the night before. It begins:
Stand Up.
Stand
Up for what matters.
Stand
Up to the plate.
Stand
Up and be counted.
Stand
Up for yourself, and for others whenever you can.
See https://www.abctales.com/story/gletherby/stand
for the rest of it.
OK,
that’s it, for now.
Wishing for sweeter dreams for all of us.
No comments:
Post a Comment