In 1964 between the ages of 8 and nine I lived in Bruxelles. Schaerbeek to be precise. Coming from Newcastle Upon Tyne, the grime, poverty and cold - I loved the cobbled streets of Bruxelles, the trams, the nearby high rise with the neon Martini sign. Schaerbeek even then was a suburb of immigrants with its square and grand town hall, its sweet smelling bakeries, the boucherie with cold meats and pork cutlets. The legumieres and the many large windowed bars. Hungarians who had recently fled communism and an older wave of many nationalities who had escaped the Second World War. I lived with an aunt and uncle. She was a dress maker with an atelier who employed a bright gaggle of girls and women of all nationalities who worked sewing machines, sewed by hand - deft stitching, or pressed buttons, ironed the finished dresses. And I loved the incessant chatter of many languages to add to my English and later French and Flemish.
I loved the steep sided street of four - five storied closely joined houses with the doors out onto balconies over the street and the small dark back yard with its sad urban tree that regardless of season, seemed to droop with fatigue-air and light starved.
I could walk to school, a Catholic school run by religious brothers who were genuine educationalists and taught me French by encouraging me to read an array of comic books, TinTin, Asterix, Lucky Luke and many I have forgotten.
For a year I ate raw horse meat with capers and did not know this Fillet Americane was cheval. The Belgian love of food and family get togethers which was an excuse for all day eating. My peasant Walloon bon papa turning up in 'snooty' Bruxelles to visit his 'posh' daughter with bloody rabbit carcase wrapped in thick brown paper, tied with coarse string.
For me Bruxelles was an accepting if sometimes eccentric city. And over the years, my love for its mix of old and ugly modern has not diminished. We were last there in September 2015, where we saw the change; armed police outside the Jewish Museum - which had closed. I had my hair cut in one of the Arab speaking quarters by an older man who was candid about the growing unemployment and sense of despair within his community about the future. A future when he brought his family to Brussels he'd hoped would be better than what they left behind in Morocco. As much the despair was about crime than daesh or its like. And for all of the evident hardship, in this suburb there was a sense of community, women shopping around the market, children on the way to school. A secular and religious world coexisting as is the case for the greater majority of people. And yes, we felt there was an increase in suspicion, racism and more evidence of the white fascist movements stirring in not just Bruxelles but also Paris and Amsterdam.
Like Paris, like Baghdad, Istanbul - like Nigeria, the Horn of Africa - new wave fascists think they can indiscriminately murder people and create terror and that somehow gives them legitimacy for their arid, life killing and warped manifestos. Today in Bruxelles it was suicide murderers at the airport and on the metro using bombs with nails to cause maximum carnage and suffering. Daesh described them as 'fighters' - as if walking into a crowd, firing a spray of bullets and setting of bombs is a fight. As if civilian everyday life is something that can fight back! Are the killers and their minders so deluded? No, this is to create terror, uncertainty, long term fear and a hoped for backlash against all migrants particularly le noir, les arabes and make it a holy war or jihad. We are all expendable, worthless, and the killers martyrs - go figure!
But make no mistake daesh are nothing more than old fashioned fascists with modern technology and weapons. Religion and in this case Islam, is just a cover for wanting the world at their feet; subjucated to their whims and hypocritical belief system. Where women are less than secondary - more sexual slaves and breeders. This is a movement of cowards of the worse kind. That sneak in with death - like shooting fish in a barrel. How does that even begin to give them the right to be described as fighters? They speak fine talks about colonialism-while imposing their own version of it in the areas they do control. They say it is about oppression of Arab populations by the Western World (and the great devil the USA) - but they hate Iran and Saudi even more - what does that say? Or it is in response for those daring to attack the caliphate or Islam or some toxic wordsmith who hijacks a clerics robes who believes they are the voice of one of the many sky fairies. But their actions are to continue to attack the weak, the poor, the dispossessed of even their own people - because they dare to believe in something that is only slightly different from their version of Islam - a difference which remains elusive, unclear and often irrational.
But in applauding and sanctioning murder like Bruxelles and describing them as military actions they, daesh are this times brownshirts; puffed up bullies and braggarts who use violence for no justifiable end other than to install fear and despair. These are people who murder poets, desecrate culture (when they are not flogging it off to buy guns and baubles) rape and prostitute women they have enslaved, who send children to suicide bomb, execute prisoners, hold up cut off heads; who stone women for perceived adultery, think music and art are dangerous and anyone who does not think exactly like them should be tortured, brutalised and executed -and in ways which are cruel spectacle. That they see themselves as religious peacocks; somehow magnificent in their piety and righteous in their dispensing of religious justice. Its all set out in their interpretation of the Koran or sharia law. But as I said from my viewpoint they look and sound just like another variation of national socialism - different uniform but same mean, petty hatred and lack of logic. They provide an ideal home for the bullies, torturers and the cocks who love standing on the dung heap in their chosen uniform. All men. Men scared of secularism, equality, emancipation - in other words of being exposed for the dinosaurs they are teetering on extinction-scared of intelligence, hope and love.
Like in other communities similarly attacked - they, daesh and their compatriots, are not respected but loathed by the majority who see terrorism for what it is - ignorance and hypocrisy. For despite daesh's rhetoric, theirs is not a just cause. Because these are people who have nothing to offer once they have spilled blood but hatred, colossal arrogance and indiscriminate cruelty and ultimately, extinction.
In the end they will not win. Because people (all people) are more generous, more forward looking than that. Look closely at the people at the Bruxelles memorials- all races and creeds- unified in telling you; we, no matter where we are when you attack us, are not beaten and will not be beaten. This is also true of the much maligned people of Molenbeek. Although jihadists have come from there does not make the whole community guilty of support for these actions: it would seem the opposite has been the case. "We should not equate immigration with terrorism" sensible words from the Belgian ambassador in Australia. Again, decency in the face of the 'wise in hindsight'. Those who think mad men on a murderous mission could have been prevented if we knew then what we know now.
Lastly there are the deeply disturbing pictures from the Bruxelles airport and the metro. yet the are images also showing bravery, great courage. People in danger who are not afraid to help the injured, the maimed; to honour the dead. Showing, as they have around the world, in the mosques, the markets-people who are not terrorised or afraid another suicide bomber may be about to detonate. But people who care for strangers whatever their colour, their creed, their nationality, their gender. And this is what will defeat daesh and their like - a love that transcends. We are not scared to go on with life. We will continue to live. We have a belief in a future. You, on the other hand, daesh and your followers are no more than cowards, cold hearted murders with that much blood on your hands; it will ultimately drown you. And your corruption will be swept away by the judgement of history. The people's court. You will be what you are - nothing.
And not forgetting Paris: This makes for interesting reading for those who survive terrorist attacks, injured and scarred in the psyche:
https://www.theguardian.com/football/2016/jun/03/france-forgotten-victims-traumas-security-euro-2016-paris-attacks
Eee up, it's two years since we kicked the good folk inta touch by sellin' off yon Millers Point. Of course for those not blessed with living' in Sydney; Millers Point is the last small pocket of a working class community livin' close to watta by Sydney harbour. Can't be having' that and with a dose of Thatcher like logic - kick out the poor and replace them with a crew of capitalist screw doctors. If you have not visited this part of Sydney it is yon streets around the new vaunted Bangaroo park. Of course the Libs dress it up as freeing money into the public purse to build more public housing...but thus far all it has done is fed deeper into the maw of greed. As evidenced in the symbol of the still rising monolith of the casino. Packer and Ashley? Root an Branch! Both greedy pricks screwing over their workers as they build their empires. As Clover Moore (Mayor of Sydney) pointed out one speculator bought a seized house off the NSW government then nine months later sold it making 700,000 grand profit. In Balmain today, a once workers cottage sold for over one point one million dollars..A former workers cottage which as was pointed out by one speaker today - was not a flash build in the first place. Real estate agents, the consummate bottom feeders of today's society, crow about the once mean (read working class) streets now gentrifying-a better class of punter is occupying the burb and drinking in the pub-sorry family friendly bistro/hostelry. And all those lot are being forced out far, far way - out of sight of the monied classes and so it goes...
But Newcastle Upon Tyne lost its industry, its jobs and bit by bit its community and with that a sense of identity with deep roots. And money came to town, invested in the nice areas and turned estates into no go ghettos. And this is Millers Point. The same story. Once a thriving area of workers for the wharves it has slowly declined as shipping moved over to Botany. But kept alive by the mix of housing commission housing - but with people living there who had been there for most of their lives. With a village green it has its own unique identity. And because of the rich mixture of people it was alive and vibrant in ways long lost in the more affluent harbour suburbs. This is something hard to quantify with money - but money can quantify profit and fat profit at that. Along came O'Farrell and later the Baird gravy train with their belief profit should always come before people (unless the people are your mates from the top end of town). And so two years ago began the great eviction and carve up. And today a march to commemorate the fighting spirit of this community who although punch drunk is still standing and facing forward. 200 people came out and it was good to see the turn out from the Maritime Union of Australia and the construction workers unions.
