A CROOKED TALE 3382

Pat01Butcher, 1 y.

- History - Society - Biography -

2.9 min read.

This is a story about barbarians who destroyed an unusual and much loved pub in the west midlands of England. I wrote this tale some months ago for my website, www.globerunner.blog. Recent news suggest that the barbarians, as my article suggests are going to be forced to rebuild The Crooked House! Locals of a demolished pub near where I was born can take heart from the story of a demolished pub near where I live now - one which was ordered to be rebuilt ‘brick-by-brick’. Judging by calls and emails I’ve had from folks who know that I’m a Black Country boy, the news of the recent burning and demolition of the Glynne Arms, aka the Crooked House near Dudley in the English west midlands must have gone around the world. I was born a mile or so away from what we locals knew as the Siden (side-on?) House, and as our local gang of kids grew up in the 1950s and 60s, the pub was a regular curiosity for us to view as we roamed the countryside around the disused pit workings that had contributed to the Crooked House’s subsidence. Later on, I'd often run past it on one of my training stints on the disused railway track which overlooked it. My father had been born even nearer to the pub, and as I grew into drinking age, it would be on our itinerary for an occasional pint, and the traditional rolling of a ball-bearing seemingly ‘uphill’ on the bar or the window sills. It was also a must-see for anyone visiting the area. Now living in north-west London, the last time I was there was four years years ago, showing the place off to some French visitors who’d come to the family home to celebrate my mother’s 100th birthday. The story of the pub’s demise last weekend has been across the national news for days. Originally built as a farmhouse in the late 18th century, it had been a pub since the 1830s. Despite a campaign to preserve it as such, it was sold two weeks ago, apparently to be repurposed. The building then burned down last weekend in circumstances that the neighbourhood websites have universally described as SUSPICIOUS. The fire service arrived to find its way blocked by mounds of earth on the access road. The delays in getting high pressure fire hoses close enough to the blaze meant that the building had already been gutted by the time that fire was extinguished. Then, to pile anguish onto injury for the locals, bull-dozers were brought in the next day, to reduce the place to rubble. Drinkers, devotees and dignitaries across the West Midlands are up in arms, demanding explanation and restoration. They might take heart from the tale of the Carlton Tavern in Maida Vale, a couple of miles from where I live now. In 2015, the Carlton, which had been rebuilt as a pub in 1921, was bought by a company who turned out to be developers. An immediate application from them to build flats was turned down by Westminster Council; and alert locals sought a Grade II listing from Historic England, to prevent further threat to the pub. But two days before the listing was to be awarded, the new bosses gave staff a day off, allegedly for stock-taking, and avoiding the inconvenience of a fire in a residential area, the bulldozers were drafted in and reduced the pub to a shell within a few hours. Cue mayhem! But, as the Guardian reported two years ago on its reopening, ‘… the Carlton’s story did not follow the usual plot, where the developer presents the fait accompli to the local authority and pays a fine before pressing ahead with the redevelopment and counting their profits.’ Over 5000 locals, including councillors had mobilised to set up a campaign entitled Rebuild The Carlton Tavern. They pressured Westminster Council, not noted for its public spirit, and not only did the council turn down the developers’ further application for flats, they ordered the company to rebuild the Carlton ‘brick by brick’. That was a pleasant surprise for James Watson, the pub protection adviser for the Campaign for Pubs, who advised the Carlton group. “I never imagined that I would see a planning inspector order a developer to put back what he’d just knocked down, to look exactly as it was. I thought the developer would get a slap on the wrist, a £6,000 fine. But I was flabbergasted – and it has set an incredibly useful precedent. Other planning inspectors will remember it, and so will developers”. With hundreds of locals descending on the site of the former Crooked House in the last two days to bemoan and complain of its passing (and to take away a souvenir brick), pressure is only going to grow around the Black Country and West Midlands for something to be done about the wanton destruction of such an unusual historic landmark. Roger Lees, the leader of South Staffordshire council has already confirmed it is investigating planning breaches, and the over-zealous destruction of the property, which his body had not authorised. Council and aggrieved locals could do worse than study the case of the resurrected Carlton Tavern. Could the Crooked House yet rise from the ashes?

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Confiscated Freedoms: El Harrach and Tindouf, Two Faces of the Same Oppression... 348

Aziz Daouda, 2 d.

- World Politics - Politics - History -

3.2 min read.

It was while reading, moved, the heartbreaking letter from Algerian writer Boualem Sansal, addressed ultimately to everyone, that the idea for these few lines came to me. In this letter, written from El-Harrach prison, Sansal fiercely denounces the political repression and arbitrary incarceration imposed by the Algerian regime. This denunciation quickly made me think of the tragic situation of the population confined by the same regime for nearly fifty years in the Tindouf camps in Algeria. My thoughts wandered randomly between the zealots who are there, like my high school friend Sadati, bearers of a chimera; those who stay there without even knowing why; those who have aged there; those buried there; and those born there. It is on these last that my thoughts particularly lingered. The Tindouf camps shelter a few thousand young people born in exile, rather exposed where their parents ultimately did not choose to be, under extremely harsh conditions. For many, they are not even originally from the coveted lands nor bear any claim. They mainly depend on humanitarian aid, live in total precariousness, and see their well-being deteriorate, while those living just a few miles away enjoy abundance, comfort, and rights. They did not ask to be there and dream, like all their peers, of a better life, which truly exists on the other side. Unlike a traditional prison with visible walls, like El Harrach, the Tindouf camps are an open-air prison, a constrained space where these youths are held without trial, without hope of freedom, nor any possibility of returning to their homeland—not by their own choice, but that of their jailers. The common point between El Harrach and Tindouf: the sordid game of a military regime from another era. This prolonged situation strikingly evokes the deprivation of freedom suffered by the detainees of Tindouf and the Algerian political prisoners Boualem Sansal describes in his letter. Both embody the same silenced voice, the same hope confiscated by the whims of officers who only carry the name, and by a military caporalism that, since 1962, continuously invents enemies, uses torture, repression, and deprivation of fundamental rights to maintain its grip on one of the richest countries in the world. This regime has stifled all democratic expression, from annulling election results to the spectacular assassination, broadcast live on television, of President Mohamed Boudiaf, sending a message of terror to the whole people. Recently, it brazenly repressed the peaceful Hirak protests and imprisoned their leaders. This regime no longer hesitates to mistreat even its most loyal servants. Randomly, prime ministers, ministers, high dignitaries, businessmen, generals, and journalists, even foreigners, find themselves subjected to quick trials where only the voice of their master resounds. They end up in the same prison, the famous El Harrach. In his letter, Sansal expresses the physical and moral pain of a man imprisoned for having evoked history, dared to defend justice and dignity. His words carry the voice of all those whom the regime seeks to silence. This captive voice painfully echoes the fate of the youngsters held in Tindouf, also deprived of their most basic freedoms and condemned to endless waiting in a desert environment, hostile and hopeless. Far from being a mere analogy, this comparison reveals a universal reality: whether behind bars or in the vast inhospitable desert, deprivation of freedom, forced exile, and broken hope remain the instruments of relentless political oppression. For these youths, the "march through an endless desert" is both a physical ordeal marked by extreme poverty, scorching heat, and isolation, and a metaphor for their quest for identity, dream of regaining their freedom, and joining the motherland. Beyond denunciation, in his letter, Sansal makes a solemn appeal to France, asking it not to sacrifice its values on the altar of mercantile contingencies. The same appeal is addressed to the international community, on behalf of the young detainees of Tindouf, so that human rights principles are not sacrificed on the altar of geopolitical interests. This appeal is all the more relevant facing the situation of these youths, many of whom are not even originally from the Moroccan Sahara but are still imprisoned in a situation of exile and oblivion. Thus, behind two different walls, a prison cell and undocumented, unrecognized refugee camps, lies the same tragedy: human beings reduced to waiting, to deprivation of liberty, and to a silent struggle not to disappear. This convergence highlights the urgency of strong humanitarian and political action to end these imprisonments so that freedom of thought, of living, and of deciding one’s own destiny is never again captured by an oppressive political machine, devised and implemented by an anachronistic military staff. Thank you, sir, for awakening in me this fiber of compassion, even pity, for young people who deserve to live a better future. I take here again Boualem Sansal’s words, which I address to the youth imprisoned in Tindouf: *"Fear is a prison larger than the one where I find myself, and it is harder to break. But I know that one day, the wall will fall. Dictators always end up falling."* Youth of Tindouf, You will break the barbed wire, you will cross the checkpoints to return home by the strength of your character and the power of your will. Your country, that of your ancestors, the Kingdom of Morocco, awaits you; the future opens its arms to you; life will smile upon you for eternity, you will taste freedom there, the joy of living, of building yourself and of ensuring a happy future for your children. Your dreams will come true there and your ambitions will be realized. You will be the continuation of your ancestors in a diverse and powerful nation as it has been for centuries. You will help enrich humanity by your knowledge, your creativity, your genius. You just have to dare.