October Plenty & Martyrdom of Ali: On Sunday 23rd October 2005 I photographed two very different cultural events in London, October Plenty, a theatrical harvest festival event on Bankside and in the afternoon a Shia Muslim annual mourning event in London to mark the Martydom of Ali, the cousin of the prophet Muhammad. Again I’ll share the text and pictures from My London Diary, with a few corrections to case, spelling etc.
October Plenty: The Lions Part – Globe Theatre & Bankside
The Lions Part is a group of actors who came together in the Original Shakespeare Company but now pursue independent professional careers in theatre and TV etc , but work together on various projects including three regular celebrations on Bankside in co-operation with the Globe Theatre.
One of these is October Plenty, loosely based on traditional English harvest festivities and particularly celebrating the apple and grain harvest.
Characters in the procession include the Green Man (or Berry Man), the Hobby Horse and a large Corn Queen stuffed with fruit and veg. Not to mention a violin-playing Dancing Bear and other musicians and more characters who take part in several plays and performances in various locations.
The day started in front of the Globe Theatre with the bear, then the procession came and led us into the Globe Theatre, where they gave a short performance before we went through the streets to Borough Market where further plays and games were scheduled. I decided it was time for lunch and left at this point.
Hub-e-Ali organise an annual mourning program in London to mark the Martydom of Ali, the cousin of the Prophet Muhammad and the first person to embrace Islam, who was martyred in 660CE in Kufa, Iraq.
Ali was struck by a poisoned sword while leading dawn prayers in the mosque, and died two days later. The event and its consequences continue to divide Muslims down to the present day.
Many (and not only Muslims) have regarded Ali as the model of a just Islamic ruler, working to establish peace, justice and morality.
The procession both marks the killing of Ali and also looks forward to the day when a descendant of the Prophet Muhammad will return to be the saviour of the world.
It also celebrates the duty of the followers of Islam to speak out against oppression and immorality, and to live pious lives in solidarity with the oppressed.
To show their sorrow, those taking part in the mourning parade (Jaloos) recite eulogies about Ali and beat their breasts (Seena Zani.) A coffin (Taboot) is carried as a part of the procession, along with symbolic flags. There is also a long session of recitations before the parade.
World Justice And A Black Friday: Friday 2nd May 2008 was unusual for me as my work began with and event by Just Share in front of the Bank of England when my wife and I appeared together in public, a rather rare event as she seldom comes to London. But later it was a very dark day for London as the results of the Mayoral Election were announced, the begining of 8 years of rule by a dangerously incomptent, unreliable and untrustworthy man who went on to become prime minister and make a real mess of the country too. In between the two events I had time to visit an exhibition and take a little walk along the riverside.
Just Shares Take On The Bank – Royal Exchange, Bank, London
‘Just Share’, based at St Mary-le-Bow church in Cheapside, describes itself as “a coalition of churches and development agencies seeking to engage with the City of London on issues of global economic injustice” and to “address the widening gap between rich and poor in the global economy.”
They had organised the event on the steps of the Royal Exchange in front of the Bank of England, with stalls from several groups involved in the trade justice movement including Operation Noah (a Christian-based charity campaigning about the environment) and Muslim Aid, before speeches by Ann Pettifor of Advocacy International and Operation Noah, previously Jubilee 2000, and The Guardian’s economics editor Larry Elliott.
Following this we walked the short distance to St Mary Woolnoth – one of Hawksmoor’s finest buildings, and where former slave captain John Newton, who wrote ‘Amazing Grace’, preached his last 28 years – a few yards away.
Here there was a seminar where Pettifor expanded her argument about the false basis of our current economic system, which is the subject of her book ‘The Coming First World Debt Crisis‘ arguing that the current global debt-based financial systems are unsustainable and that a structural change is necessary to give proper regard to actual production, and the rediscovery of the insights of earlier Christian (and of course Muslim) traditions.
There wasn’t a huge attendance at the event, and probably a majority of those present were wearing dog collars. I didn’t find it easy to make interesting pictures though I did photograph most of the speakers. And I suspect it fell on very closed ears in financial circles where people were and are personally doing very well from our failed system.
It was some time before the result of the London Mayoral elections was to be announced in the early evening, and I made my way to the Hayward Gallery to see an exhibition there before taking a leisurely walk along the South Bank to City Hall. I think there may well have been time for a little food and liquid refreshment too.
On Bankside I made this picture of Cardinal Cap Alley and the house that Christopher Wren didn’t live in. You can see some more pictures from the walk, including at the Hayward Gallery, a distant view of Tate Modern’s chimney, St Pauls Cathedral and the Millennium Bridge and Fishmonger’s Hall at London Riverside.
No to the Crook, the Toff, the Fascist or Cop – City Hall, Southwark
Like other photographers attending protests in London I had become used to being routinely photographed by police photography teams, the so-called Forward Intelligence Teams, FIT. But sitting reading on the steps in Potters Fields on this occasion waiting for things to start I attracted more than the usual attention, perhaps because the book I was reading had the title ‘Terrorist’. As I point out in My London Diary, this is not a training manual, but a novel by one of America’s leading novelists, John Updike.
I was filmed for over a minute and a number of still photographs were taken. Some months later I made a freedom of information request asking what pictures the police held of me, giving this as one of the dates on which I had been photographed. I paid my money, waited and eventually got the response – that they had no pictures of me.
I was there to take pictures as several anarchist groups had come to protest at the result, saying ‘No to the Crook, the Toff, The Fascist or Cop’, declaring none of the four candidates suitable to be Mayor. Personally I felt they were being a little unfair to previous mayor Ken Livingstone who while he had his faults had largely done his best for London and certainly now seems a shining beacon of honesty compared to most of the leading Tories – including Starmer – we have seen since.
Things outside City Hall remained pretty calm until Fitwatch got fed up with being photographed and began to try to frustrate the FIT teams by surrounding one of them with their banners. The police called up reinforcements and the Territorial Support Group (TSG) arrived and began pushing everyone around, including the protesters, press and bystanders, most of whom were tourists, in the direction of a penned area a short distance away. As I reported, ‘One French woman was bemused. “But why are they just letting themselves be pushed” she asked me as I took photographs. “Because this is England and not France” I replied.’
One man sitting watching from the river wall refused to move and was told he was obstructing the highway – which he clearly was not. Eventually they arrested him and dragged him away. But otherwise the police were reasonably well-behaved and on showing my press card I was allowed to walk away from the area.
I was keen to do so, not just because I didn’t want to be kettled, but also because I had seen some of the cannier members of Class War moving away and was able to photograph them displaying an Anti-Fascist banner from a balcony overlooking the site for a few minutes until they melted away as officers began moving in our direction, finding refuge in a nearby pub. By the time the police arrived they obviously couldn’t be bothered to chase them, and contented themselves with moving the innocent public away from the balcony, and after a short time, also moving the press. I went and joined Class War in the pub briefly before leaving for home.
