Carnaval del Pueblo

Carnaval, Right To Protest & Tobin – 2005

Carnaval, Right To Protest & Tobin: On Sunday 7th August 2005 I began by photographing London’s Latin Americans getting ready for the Carnaval Del Pueblo procession, then went to Parliament Square for an illegal protest against the Serious Organised Crime and Police Act 2005 which had come into force on August 1st and among other things restricted the right to demonstrate within a large area around parliament without prior written notice to the police. Finally another illegal protest on Westminster Bridge expressed support for the Tobin Tax, a low rate of tax on currency conversions with the aim of discouraging short-term currency speculation and so stabilising currency markets. Here is what I wrote about the day in 2005 with some pictures and links to more on My London Diary

Carnaval del Pueblo – Southwark

Carnaval, Right To Protest & Tobin - 2005

Sunday I started off photographing London’s Latin American communities getting ready for the start of their annual Carnaval Del Pueblo procession. This year it was starting from Potters Fields near the GLA headquarters, on an empty site awaiting development, rather than from a street, and this made photography a little more difficult.

It was good to see so many groups taking part, although I found it very difficult to sort out the different nations, and found myself unable to recognise most of their national flags.

This procession, making it’s way to Burgess Park where there is a Latin-American Festival, is one of London’s most colourful events, with some costumes to rival those seen at the much larger annual Notting Hill event at the end of the month.

I was sorry not to be anle to go on to the festival, especially since there was to be a short period of silence to mark the tragic shooting by police of the innocent Brazilian electrician, Jean Charles de Menezes, on a tube train at Stockwell Station the day following the second round of bombings in London.

I followed the procession up to London Bridge Station where I needed to get on a train to get to Westminster.

More pictures

The Right to Protest – Parliament Square

*Police arrest a demonstrator in Parliament Square, London. The crime? Holding a protest banner. Welcome to Britain, the police state (not that I think the police particularly welcome it.).*

Britain once had a deserved reputation as a haven for free speech and the rights of the citizen. A number of acts by our New Labour government have seriously curtailed these freedoms – including introducing a number of measures that they had opposed before they came to power.

Some of these measures have just been a part of the general trend to central control begun under Thatcher, but others have been brought on by the threat of terrorism and even more by the growth of opposition to government policies, and in particular to the war on Iran.

Formerly a life-long supporter of the party it saddens me, and angers me. One of the signs that Brian Haw holds in a picture is a quotation from a speech by Condoleeza Rice in January 2005, when she said “if a person cannot walk into the middle of the town square and express his or her views without fear of arrest, imprisonment, or physical harm, then that person is living in a fear society, not a free society. We cannot rest until every person living in a ”fear society” has finally won their freedom.”

New restrictions have been brought in that move Britain into that realm of a “fear society”.

This afternoon I saw five people arrested for simply peacefully holding banners supporting the right to protest. It happened on the square opposite our Houses of Parliament, and it made me feel ashamed to be British.

Although the law was passed largely to get rid of Brian Haw, it turns out not to alter his right to be there, as his protest started before the act became law and is thus not covered by it. Rather a lot of egg on government faces there.

[The High Court decision that agreed Haw was not covered by the Act was overturned by the Court of Appeal in an alarming decision in May 2006.]

More pictures

The Westminster Tea Party – Time for Tobin Tax

*Holding up tea bags on Westminster Bridge*

In 1978, Nobel Prize-winning economist James Tobin proposed a uniform world-wide tax at a very low level – perhaps only 0.2% – on all foreign currency exchange transactions. The aim was to deter speculation on currency movements, thus giving the elected governments greater control over their fiscal and monetary policies, and reducing the power of unelected speculators (who include some of the larger multinational companies) to affect the markets.

Exporters, importers and long-term investors would all benefit from less volatile exchange rates, and the revenue raised by the tax could make a significant contribution both to the revenue of national economies and also for international development projects.

As a small gesture of support for the Tobin Tax, another illegal demonstration took place in Westminster this afternoon, unnoticed by police. A small group of demonstrators, again following an example from Boston – although this time from 1773 – chose tea as a way to symbolise their protest. Each threw a teabag, produced by one of the giant corporations, from the middle of Westminster Bridge into the River Thames below.

A couple more pictures at the bottom of this page on My London Diary.

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All photographs on this page are copyright © Peter Marshall.
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A Day At The Seaside – 2004

A Day At The Seaside: It was Saturday 14th August 2004 and a day at the seaside seemed appropriate, and where better than Hastings where the Old Town Carnival was taking place.

Rather than mine my ageing and probably false memories, I’ll here resurrect the text hidden away on the August 2004 page of My London Diary, with a few minor corrections. Since then I have decided that it makes sense and greatly improves legibility to make appropriate use of the Shift key and upper case characters. So here it is, along with just a few of the pictures I made that day.

OK, so Hastings isn’t London, but it is only a short day trip down to the coast, and many of the people down there with me to watch the carnival were from London. Hastings Old Town Carnival was once a traditional English Carnival, but now is more eclectic, though still with relatively little input from our more recently arrived ethnic groups.

Being Hastings there were a few references to the events of 1066 (though not in the pictures I put on line.)

There was a well-supported float for the Hastings/Sierra Leone Friendship Group, but we also had King Henry VIII, Noahs Ark, Pirates, a Tropical Island, Fairy Tales, Chicago-Style Gangsters and more.

I’m not a great fan of majorettes, but there was certainly some virtuoso baton twirling on display, including one lady who needed a lorry to carry her prizes.

Judging from the pictures of previous years there was perhaps a little less zany invention this year than before, but it was a good-natured event, and the centre of the Old Town was crowded to watch it.

Rather than battle it out through the streets I adjourned to the Kings Head for a couple of pints, only to find the carnival was still making its way round as I made mine to the station.

I wasn’t entirely happy with the pictures I made that day; too many were of people posing for the camera and I would have liked more spontaneity. But the kind of things I was searching for just didn’t happen.

The following day I photographed another very different carnival in London, the Carnaval Del Pueblo billed as the largest Latin-American festival in Europe, taking place around the Elephant and Castle in south London. We have few traditional English carnivals left in London, but others have taken their place, reflecting the changing population, adding colour and spice to our city. You can see more pictures here.

More pictures from Hastings
More from the Carnaval Del Pueblo

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All photographs on this page are copyright © Peter Marshall.
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Carnaval, Protest For Protest & A Tea Party

Carnaval, Protest For Protest & A Tea Party: On Sunday 7th August, 2005 my working day began with a Latin carnival and ended with a not quite Boston tea party. Sandwiched between the two was a very varied protest against new laws passed by the New Labour government to restrict the right to protest under the Serious Organised Crime and Police Act 2005.

Carnaval del Pueblo – Southwark

The Carnaval Del Pueblo procession by London’s Latin American communities was this year starting from Potters Fields, an empty cleared site between the GLA headquarters then in More London and Tower Bridge. I photographed a number of those taking part in their varied costumes but found it hard to get more interesting pictures as the groups were more spread out.

The pictures, thanks to the various different traditions across South and Central America are very colourful but it was impossible for me to identify the different countries and groups they represented. Most of these countries became colonies of Spain and Portugal and influences from there blended with more traditional indigenous costumes and practices.

Spain was of course traditionally a major enemy of Britain, and this country supported many of the movements to gain independence from Spain in the 19th century as a number of memorials across London testify. Though much of that support was more aimed at getting some of the riches of the continent than freeing the people and was for middle-class movements by people of largely European orgin rather than for the indigenous people – and remains so in UK foreign policy today.

Eventually the procession moved off, on its way to a Latin American Festival in Burgess Park, but I had to leave them as they passed London Bridge station to catch the Jubilee line to Westminster.

It’s hard to choose just a few pictures from so many – so please click on the link to the August page of My London Diary and scroll down to see more.

The Right to Protest – Parliament Square, Westminster

Under New Labour a number of restrictions were introduced which curtailed free speech and the rights of citizens, including a number of measures that they had opposed before they came to power. Some were just been a part of the general trend to central control begun under Thatcher, but others were brought on by the threat of terrorism and even more by the growth of opposition to some government policies, in particular the huge opposition to the invasion of Iran.

This protest followed the passage of the Serious Organised Crime and Police Act 2005 which prohibited “unauthorised demonstrations within a one kilometre radius of Parliament Square” and was one of several in early August 2005 in which protesters were arrested.

Most people believe that this law had been brought in largely to end the ongoing protest by Brian Haw who had the been protesting in Parliament Square since 2nd June 2001, and whose presence embarrassed Tony Blair and other government ministers. Careless drafting meant the law did not apply to him, though on appeal the court decided it had been meant to and that was good enough, but by then Haw had got permission for a smaller area of protest on the pavement. Despite continuing and often illegal harassment by police and others the protest continued even after Haw died in 2011, continued by Barbara Tucker until May 2013.

At the protezt Brian held up a large poster with a quotation from a speech by US Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice in January 2005, when she said “If a person cannot walk into the middle of the town square and express his or her views without fear of arrest, imprisonment, or physical harm, then that person is living in a fear society, not a free society. We cannot rest until every person living in a ”fear society” has finally won their freedom.“

The protests in Parliament Square while I was there took various forms. People held up posters, placards and banners; Pax Christi held a service; clowns clowned – all were warned by police they were committing an offence – and five or six were arrested, rather at random from the hundreds present, probably because they argued with police. I got warned for just being there, despite showing the officer my UK Press Card.

Eventually there was some discussion among those taking part and people agreed they would lie down for a short protest together on the grass in Parliament Square.

More pictures on the the link on the August page of My London Diary

The Westminster Tea Party – Time for Tobin Tax, Westminster Bridge

At the end of the Parliament Square protest everyone had been invited to join another short protest about to take place on Westminster Bridge. People gathered there and held tea bags, used here as a political statement against corporate power and in favour of elected governments calling for the introduction of a ‘Tobin Tax’.

Nobel Prize economist James Tobin had in 1972 proposed a small tax on currency transactions to cushion exchange rate volatility by ending speculation, increasingly now carried out by ‘high frequency’ computer algorithms and now relying in AI. It was a development of earlier ideas proposed in the 1930s by John Maynard Keynes.

The idea of a Tobin Tax was taken up by global justice organisations at the start of this century as a way to finance projects to aid the global South such as the Millennium Development goals. In part this came from the Fair Trade movement which gives growers and other producers a fair return for their work. One of its most successful areas has been in promoting fairly traded tea. Once only available from specialist agencies such as the sadly now defunct Traidcraft this is now stocked on many supermarket shelves – as too are Fair Trade certified coffee and chocolate.

More pictures on the the link on the August page of My London Diary

Carnival Time 2005

Years ago much of my photography was of public events other than protests, partly because there seemed to be fewer protests, or perhaps it was simply harder to find out about when and where they were taking place.

Although social media existed, back in 2005 few groups that were organising protests had began to make much use of it. There were some groups that had web sites on which they published information, and a few wider organisations, particularly Indymedia that had some listings but finding information was still largely a matter of reading printed newsletters and flyposted posters along with lengthy sessions on the web, going through a long list of web sites and searching – and back in 2005 Google had just begun to be the hugely dominant search engine.

But I was also more interested in cultural events, both traditional English events and those that had been brought to us by our migrant communities. And in London many events involved people from all across our now very varied communities, whether their roots were in this country or abroad.

Cultural events change more slowly than political events, and many, particularly religious events tend to follow a set pattern and become less interesting to photograph for me. Though I might still enjoy going, for example, to Notting Hill Carnival after perhaps a dozen times I found I had little new to say. Though it was a knee injury that prevented me from getting there in 2005. I dragged myself painfully to the station, but fell down in agony on the steps and decided it wasn’t a year for dancing and began the painful journey home.

Earlier in the month I’d accompanied fellow photographers to a couple of more traditional English carnivals in Hayling Island and in Hastings, as well as photographing the Shoreditch Festival Parade and the Latino Carnaval del Pueblo in Southwark. The pictures in this post come from those events. That month I also found time to visit Brian Haw and to cover another protest in Parliament Square over new protest laws and one calling for a tax on foreign currency exchange transactions.

Back in 2005, My London Diary was in a slightly less developed state. My comments were still all in lowercase and there are no links to individual events. And although all the pictures on-line are digital colour I also took some pictures in medium format on black and white film.

In 2008 I took part in a show with 3 other photographers, English Carnival, and the web site from this remains on-line. My pictures are a black and white set from Notting Hill in 1990-2001, but those by the others – Paul Baldesare, Dave Trainer and Bob Watkins – are from traditional English events, and include several taken at events I was also photographing.

All photographs on this and my other sites, unless otherwise stated, are taken by and copyright of Peter Marshall, and are available for reproduction or can be bought as prints.