Before we all start kicking people who are already down, take Alan Johnson for instance, I would say that I have never had any strong feelings one way or the other for Corbyn. His sons stood up for him firmly in the Guardian and I applaud their sentiment. Corbyn has battled against those of different views to him, in the arguments, stupid simplistic words are hurled around. He also has had to battle against right wing news coverage by such papers, that unfortunately seem to dominate public space.
Whoever he stood up for in the past, would have been seen as right at the time, things move forward though. The delicate issue of antisemitism in the party is still to be sorted and I have neither the understanding of these inner politics or how prevalent they are. Unfortunately in my simplistic world, Israel has a lot to answer for in its dealing with the Palestinian problem but that doesn't make me antisemitic.
But enough of that, today I thumbed through photos of a different kind on Facebook. This time from 'Incredible Edible Todmorden' a town I shall probably move to. It is community involvement at its best, they tend vegetable and fruit trees in the public spaces, they come together and in the space of the church, create things for their town. Someone cooks for all of them, children and old people mix together. One can see traces of the old hippy brigade amongst the gray hairs but it is how we should be moving forward. Also when at times flooding occurs in the town, it is Islamic people who bring hot and cold food to help out those who have no electricity.
Britain at its best is 'kind' that is what the children were making in signposts in that church, as sticky chocolate fingers made truffles, and grown-up fingers stuck cloves into oranges, they had come together in the true spirit of Xmas.
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| Yes even outside the police station |
Such communal living is lovely when it works. It means you have many on your side to stand against the coming storm of life. I am an introvert and also not to big on that communal meal thing. Cafeteria food is my least favorite.
ReplyDeleteIn fact community works under the politicians and the mainstream, if we didn't have it there would be more dissent. As for communal meals surely that is about sharing and humility?
DeleteIt reminds me of Totnes - a similar community spirit, although having said that, my gran would definitely not recognize the Totnes of today!
ReplyDeleteThe children and I would make those clove-studded oranges too. It looks like a lovely event and well-supported too.
Totnes, I think it must be because Dartington Hall is somewhere in the vicinity, old age hippies maybe? Spiking oranges with cloves can be quite painful on the fingers, I use a skewer first.
DeleteWell said. Thankyou for putting it into words.
ReplyDeleteThere is a lot of advice on how to cope with the new arrangement of government, mostly it says calm down and be kind. It would be nice to see people governing from the bottom up.
DeleteI see kindness every day, just not in politics.
ReplyDeletePolitics are temporary and once in power the politicians tend to serve themselves and their party. Though this cannot be said for all politicians and I should learn not to generalise.
DeleteI have heard a lot of comments about Todmorden - all of them favourable.
ReplyDeleteIsn't it good to now have a spell when we don't have to think about politics either with a small or a capital P?
Its' like having a heavy cloak lifted from your shoulders, or indeed pushing a boat down the slipway into rough seas, we will see what happens.
DeleteMost communes in the US have tended to eventually fail. Someone has to dominate and eventually the others get irked with doing work that isn't equally rewarded. There might be a couple still out there but most don't last. It would be interesting to know why some work and others eventually fail.
ReplyDeleteWell I think there has been one problem, but it seems to have righted itself. It is not a commune by the way. Communes fell out of fashion in Britain years ago. There are people living the self sufficient life in Wales but again different.
DeleteA couple of your commenters mention communes and communal living; I hadn't heard of this town so I looked it up on Wikipedia and the article says nothing about a commune. From your words it sounds like a living sort of community in which there are enough people who have the vision and energy to participate in an informal way. Is that right? Or is there an organization that you join? Your photo at top is striking!
ReplyDeleteYes you are right it is not a commune, think those went out of fashion years ago. As you say it is the community who get together. Bovey Belle mentioned Totnes down in Devon, well they call themselves a 'transition town', there is a very small movement of people who do things differently and of course it has to be agreed by the majority, so getting councillors and mayors involved is the first step. Todmorden has been successful and they entertain people from all over the world to see what they are doing.
DeleteWhen Alan Johnson had the opportunity to put himself forward as lead candidate for the Labour leadership. he bottled it. Who the hell does he think he is - pompously pontificating from the sidelines? To me he is just another turncoat - like the vindictive Dame Margaret Hodge who didn't even have the graciousness to recognise that Mr Corbyn was acting properly and bravely ahead of the election of a new leader. As for this anti-semitism business - to me it was just a chimera. It has no definable substance. It was built on rumour, false accusation and social media mischief. In my opinion, the smearing of Jeremy Corbyn was a sustained and disgraceful campaign of crucifixion by marshalled forces.
ReplyDeleteVery eloquently put Niall and I totally agree with your last sentence. In actual fact everything political is stage managed in this country. The actor in chief, Johnson loved for his ability to lie, has been taken on by the people as a misfit who just might, just might take them all dancing into Brexit - we shall see.
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