Chickens Coming Home to Roost Over Cosmopolitan Housing?

I understand that Liverpool's Cosmopolitan Housing Group have “experienced significant challenges” recently, so much so that they may only be rescued by a takeover by Riverside - another Registered Social Landlord (RSL), though this takeover is in itself now doubtful (see Inside Housing 7 December, 2012) . 

I believe that a certain Bill Snell recently resigned as Chair “for personal reasons”. I happen to have a letter from him which included a threat of legal action if I didn’t desist from making “spurious and false” allegations about impropriety in Cosmo, and suggesting that their board were less than perfect in their duty of scrutinising the staff’s activities. I had written to Mr. Snell in the hope that he as a new broom would sweep cleaner than his predecessors who had refused to deal with a complaint I had brought to them several years earlier. Their imperviousness had caused me to write a blog in frustration in 2009, one line of which now seems prescient: “...With scrutiny of this level of intensity, would it be unreasonable to fear that if one searches behind Marybone House's clean facades, one might find festering there much more malignant malpractice?“ I had written to every member of the board individually, suggesting that “...you and your Board colleagues may want to satisfy yourselves that CHA’s “normal procedure” does not consist of intentionally sabotaging - without justification - the innocent and best intentioned efforts of ordinary professionals to provide decent affordable housing to the people of Sefton, while earning a decent return in the process.” I know the board never discussed the matter, and I never once received a response, until Mr. Snell’s dismissive letter, several years later.

An HCA official is quoted as suggesting that poor governance may have a part to play in Cosmo’s current troubles. I felt a long-overdue vindication for my lonely campaign when I read that, because it had long been clear to me that governance appeared to be a problem within the organisation. It is however also troubling to see how far this appears to extend beyond Cosmo into the regulatory sector. Having had no satisfaction from Cosmopolitan’s board, I appealed to the Housing Corporation and found them wanting. They were replaced by the Tenant Services Authority who were no more helpful. I am doubtful about at least certain sections and/or individuals within the current regulator, the Homes and Communities Agency, because as recently as this August, despite the proverbial brown matter hitting the fan at Cosmopolitan, someone from their regulatory department could write to me stating with apparent confidence that “... there was no evidence of a breach of regulatory standards in relation to the matters raised...”

This suggests that today, all these years later, there are several individuals and organisations who may have serious questions to answer about how effectively they have been regulating Cosmopolitan, and probably other RSLs. We have enough recent examples of victims of crime and malpractice being ignored by those whose duty is to protect the public and ensure justice for the maligned, oppressed and abused – the Hillsborough Disaster and Jimmy Savile Scandal revelations are just two. My own cries for help fell on deaf ears, and I now feel that I was a potential proverbial canary in the coal mine that was ignored right from the start. 

Thankfully, I lived to tell the tale and sing a different song, but I still consider it a shame that we are now watching the chickens coming home to roost for Cosmopolitan, when good governance within the group and in the regulatory system could have prevented this. I also read somewhere the HCA’s director of regulation is quoted as referring to Cosmpolitan’s troubles as a “one-off”. Let’s hope, for the sake of the social housing sector and their tenants in Merseyside and elsewhere, that he is right. 

Update: Podcast of BBC Radio 4 Programme, File on 4, "What Price Social Housing?" Broadcast 27 October. Puts Cosmopolitan's demise in a very worrying, larger context.

Ontario: A Safe Haven for All?

Passing through Ontario briefly recently, I was particularly pleased and proud to have made small headline news with the success of my play, Call Mr. Robeson at the London Fringe. I understand that positive stories about Africans are relatively rare front page items in Canadian papers, so I will always have good memories of Ontario.

Talking of recent stories of foreigners on these shores, people will be more aware of the Toronto Eaton Centre shooting from early June involving members of East African and Guyanese immigrant families, or, if we go further afield geographically and racially, of the gruesome murder of a Chinese student in Montreal, and the subsequent mailing of his dismembered body parts around the country by his killer.

Whilst the colour of the murder victim should be irrelevant to any discussion, these examples of White-on-Yellow or Black-on-Black violence are rightly front-page news. In the short time I have been here, there have been no reports, thankfully, of a White person being killed by a Black person, so I am pretty sure that hasn’t happened, for it would almost certainly be national news too. As for a White person killing a Black person, we need to cross the border and head all the way down to Florida to find such a well known case – the slaying of Black teenager Trayvon Martin by a white man. What brought that case to the eyes and ears of the world was the fact that the killer was known to the police, but was not even arrested, and was able to enjoy liberty until protests all over America and elsewhere (including one by Black Law Students at University of Windsor) shamed the Florida authorities into arresting and locking him up.

It would be good to assume that this wouldn’t happen in Ontario. That wouldn’t be accurate, however, for on a visit to my Nigerian cousin in Kitchener/Waterloo, I heard of the sad story of Jany James Ruach, a 19-year-old boy from an immigrant Sudanese family, knifed to death by a White Kitchener resident. Admittedly, I have heard only one side of the story, but there are disturbing similarities between what I have heard and read in this case, and the Trayvon Martin one. First, the killer is free to walk the streets:  he was granted $2500 bail (with few conditions) the day after the killing. Second, what little press coverage there has been repeatedly mentions the victim’s criminal record (he apparently spent six months in jail for punching a hole in a wall during an argument with his girlfriend – seriously!) Third, the confessed killer’s protestation of self-defence has been accepted as reason enough for him not to be seen as posing a threat to anybody else.

Where the similarity ends, sadly, is in the fact that this case is not receiving the coverage that other killings have received. Protests by the local African community in Kitchener are being dismissed as playing the race card (again) and the white youths who come out in support of the victim’s family are being labelled as gang members. It is as though the taking of the life of a promising, ambitious young man is not serious enough, and the central issue here. It is conceivable that the story would be very different if the white boy had been killed by the African (if his six-month sentence for damaging a wall is anything to go by) but we all know that this should not be the case.

The existence of thousands of Canadians of African descent is testament to the kindness and bravery of hundreds of strangers (black and white) who conducted their forebears along the Underground Railroad to the safety of Ontario and other parts of Canada a few centuries ago. Their descendants, including those who have arrived here directly from the Mother Continent, whether passing through briefly or not, would like to be assured that Ontario remains a place of safety for all. A demonstrably transparent, fair and accountable justice system is one requirement for this. So are the interest of the general public and their outrage in the face of perceived injustices on their doorstep.

Facebook Page: Justice for Jany James

Who Wanted Troy Davis Dead, And Why?

I looked up the Georgia Pardons and Paroles Board the other day and was a little surprised and disturbed by what I saw. I then looked at the U.S. Supreme Court website, and found the same thing. Members of these two bodies were Black! So much for my simple, convenient explanation that the failure, or refusal to halt Troy Davis's execution was down to these institutions being the preserve of racist white men.

How then does one explain their decision to overlook clear evidence that showed that Troy Davis DID NOT commit the murder for which he was wrongfully convicted in 1989? Why did they ignore the appeals of hundreds of thousands of people in America and all over the world, including distinguished religious and political leaders from all over the world, and human rights organisations to do what was right, and not bring international shame and disrepute on themselves and their country?

I decided to make my own enquiries. A few calls, and the answers started to emerge. It turns out that among the membership of these bodies, one or two might have had an interest in seeing Troy dead.

Here is the evidence:
According to a source known to one of my informants, one member is believed to be a director of an munitions company who sold arms to Gaddafi and other Middle East dictators. Another is rumoured to be very close to a corrupt, murdering Russian oil oligarch, and their families were once photographed holidaying together in Saudi Arabia, although those photographs were allegedly burned in a mysterious fire at a fashionable London address. A third has a name which is incredibly similar to someone who has had allegations of child sexual abuse leveled against them (a thin disguise, surely?) And the name of one prominent member was apparently once glimpsed on a list of major shareholders of a company that builds prisons in Georgia and other states, and also supplies guards to these jails. More damning, irrefutable evidence is likely to come to light, but I think I have enough already.

Now, as you can imagine, I need to protect my source, especially as his/her recovery from drug addiction is likely to be set back if he/she is exposed. Suffice it to say that (s)he tells me that his/her source heard directly from a fellow prisoner sometime around 1997, that someone passed all this information to Troy, and this information might have come out if he was freed. Indeed, that former prisoner is known in the criminal underworld to be the current or recent lover of one of the individuals in question.

Using the Davis case as a benchmark for the quality and admissibility of evidence to be relied upon at any serious trial, I am satisfied beyond doubt that these individuals are totally guilty of the charges leveled, are unfit to continue in their positions, and should be immediately dismissed. They should be tried before a jury made up of representatives of the Davis and other executed Death Row inmates' families, and summarily punished, with no recourse to legal representation.

The verdict reached shall be binding and final, and the form of punishment shall be at the discretion of the members of the jury, whose verdict will be seen as totally unbiased.

So shall justice in the land of the free be seen to be done.


PAUL ROBESON: WE CHARGE GENOCIDE
Click on link to read programme note from a recent performance of Call Mr. Robeson on the case.

PISSING ON GRANBY

“It’s a great way to share a piss” said Donald Gallagher, as we left the legendary gents’ toilets at Liverpool’s Philharmonic Pub. His appreciation of the marble “walk-in” urinals, the tiling on the walls, the craftsmanship on the wooden urinal doors was almost (dare I say it?) sexual. And when we saw the tiling below the bar and the stained glass above it, I feared I was about to see, and hear, the, er, “climax” of his visit to Liverpool. Thankfully, he regained his composure once the first drop of local beer touched his lips.

Donald is a member of the “StopShopping Gospel Choir”, whose inspirational “service” I had just attended. They were on the “Church of Earthalujah UK tour, with powerful, comedic gospel singing and preaching about anti-consumerism, environmentalism, neighbourliness and community. It’s all so skilfully done that as happens in “real” churches, some people “testified” that they had been converted that night! Reverend Billy, the charismatic leader of the Church was even able to make the congregation shed all British inhibitions, clapping and hollering along, “Preach, Reverend, Preach!” “That’s right!” “Earthalujah!”, “Granbylujah!”

Granbylujah? Yes, earlier in the day, the choir had gone to “minister” in the Granby Triangle, that famous part of Liverpool at the centre of the Liverpool 8 uprising 30 years ago. Since then, the City Council, Housing Associations and private developers have succeeded in reducing the Triangle to a wasteland. Most of the houses have been demolished after (the residents allege) deliberate neglect of perfectly decent houses and a flawed consultation process which “found” that most residents would prefer modern houses. Not so on Cairns Street, where the last remaining residents are refusing to move, and have transformed one of the last surviving streets in the Triangle into arguably the most beautiful street-garden in the city. The occupied and bricked-up houses have been painted in bright colours, flowers of every type adorn the walls and pavements, and children from 6 to 80 “hang-out” and pass the time of day. Many people choose to walk or cycle along Cairns Street on their way to work – it’s that beautiful, and the atmosphere that warm.

At the corner of Cairns Street and Kingsley Road, the residents (and some outsiders) have this week started a picket to stop the demolition of two more houses by the council’s preferred developer. In place of those two are proposed four more “little boxes”. The residents say they should instead be refurbished, and that they know local families that would happily occupy them. The developers, who haven’t built any new houses in the Triangle for a few years now, are however intent on demolishing them anyway, because refurbishment is not an option. The fact that VAT (Value Added Tax) is now 20% means that preservation and conservation is that much more expensive than new-build, which attracts zero VAT. Just as Southern Cross found that care of the elderly is not “economically viable”, so property developers will argue that sensitive neighbourhood development is economic madness.

One could argue that the economic madness is not just the disparity of VAT on new-build versus refurb, but the billions spent on defence and war-mongering by our governments who try to persuade us that there isn’t enough money to take care for our elderly, our communities, our jobs, the environment. This was agreed by all in the Philharmonic pub last night. Donald, the white Bhuddist New Yorker; Dragonfly, the Black Texan woman; I, the Nigerian adopted scouser architect-turned-actor and Eleanor, the “grandmother from Granby” in the thick of the picket. She said a powerful thing too - that it was so inspiring that an American “Church” can take their story, sing about it, twitter and youtube it (whatever that means), and show that they understand, and care. Even if they managed to get a mention on Radio Merseyside a few days ago, and the Echo ran a story about it the following day, these Americans came and sang to them on their street, sang and preached about them, about the power of community.

Even if they lose their battle to save those houses, and they put up four little boxes that will not be worth travelling any distance to share a piss in, the memory of this day is one she will carry with her to her grave. The day when people from the other side of the world used their art as a weapon in defence of the voiceless, like, as Reverend Billy preached, the great Paul Robeson.

Amen, and Granbylujah to that!

Click here to view video of the choir at the demolition site

Raising A Toast to Nigeria on Her 50th

Patricia, grandmother of two, is “dead proud” of her mug. It is almost as old as she is. She was one of five children in her family when they each got one, and hers has survived intact, with the inscription as clear and proud as it ever was: “NIGERIA. INDEPENDENCE. 1ST OCTOBER 1960."

The Black Tie affair was held at the Federation Club, a building purchased and run collectively by Liverpool’s Africans; an establishment so respectable that one had to dress formally to go there. They welcomed whites too, despite the fact that the courtesy was hardly ever reciprocated elsewhere in the city. That evening, Black and White rose together to toast the future of Africa’s newest and most promising nation.

Well, the nation born that day has grown up into quite a dysfunctional 50-year-old. The most widely touted and accepted reason for this is said to be the serial corruption of its leaders. Of course, there is no corruption anywhere else – certainly not in Britain: not in the House of Lords, not in the House of Commons, in Local Government, anywhere. Ministerial office (and certainly that of Prime Minister) has never been, and never will be used as a vehicle for personal enrichment, during office or afterwards. No corruption in America either – not in the Senate, the House of Representatives, or the White House. The Presidency is always attained by transparently free and fair elections, and nobody ever needs a well-placed relative to help swing an election, or needs to break into opponents’ offices for any reason whatsoever. And Presidential resignations will of course be seen as a high, honourable standard to which future Nigerian Presidents should aspire once in a while.

And talking of election rigging, it has never been proven that the outgoing British Administration engineered the rigging of the elections in 1956 which prevented the man regarded by many as easily the best candidate from becoming the first Prime Minister of Independent Nigeria. Many wonder what might have happened if Obafemi Awolowo had assumed office, just as they wonder what might have happened in Congo if Patrice Lumumba had not been assassinated with the compliance of Belgium and the CIA, eventually ushering in Mobutu Sese Seiko.

But of course, we must move forward, not dwell on the past, or blame others for our problems. All Nigeria’s ills are definitely Nigerians’ fault after all. All that oil and foreign aid, and the money ends up being stolen and spent abroad. The British and other European bankers gladly take all this loot for safe-keeping: better to use it to “create wealth” in Western “casino banks” than to provide health in Nigerian clinics. The European and other oil companies that make billions while leaving nothing but pollution behind them do so because it is Westerners’ God-given right to have as much oil as they want for their cars. Look closely enough in the Bible, and you might find the justification, just as justification was somehow found there for the enslavement of Africans.

This historical landmark will hopefully make us take a hard, honest look in the mirror. By “us” I don’t mean just Nigerians. When for example we see Cadbury’s - that great, previously British institution which gets much of its raw material from Nigeria - sold to an American company with the loss of hundreds of British jobs (not to America but to Poland), we are reminded of how closely connected we remain, and how it is in all our interests to solve Nigeria’s and Africa's problems together, by recognising and tackling greed and corruption everywhere, and promoting fair trade, everywhere.

So, how to mark this anniversary in Liverpool? The Federation Club is long gone, and Africans have lost all the buildings they once owned that were big enough to hold a celebration of the size held in 1960. Not that anything remotely similar could be successfully organised, for the solidarity and fraternity between Nigerians and other Africans in Liverpool has, like in the Motherland and elsewhere, dissolved somewhat. Besides, they would probably need Local Authority funding for such an event now, and that is in desperately short supply these days.

In the solitude of her living room, Patricia pours some palm wine into her fifty-year-old mug and raises a toast to Nigeria’s future. She hopes the survival of the mug is a good omen. It reminds her of something the “Yoruba aunties” would say to console a woman who had suffered a miscarriage. They said the rough translation was, “Take heart. The water may have spilt, but the calabash remains unbroken.” In other words, as long as you remain fertile, more (healthy) children will come. Nigeria’s fertility is without question. Among her children at home and spread all over the world, there is an abundance of talent, industriousness, resourcefulness and imagination. To that list we must add hope and optimism that, in the words of the National Anthem, “The labour of our heroes past shall never be in vain”.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, MR. ROBESON

Paul Robeson was born 112 years ago today, 9th April, and it seems fitting for me to publish this, my fourth blog in almost a year, on this day, even though I never set out to always or only write about Mr. Robeson. It is clear however that even though my first blog was inspired by what I saw as a grave injustice on me personally, that and subsequent blogs have mentioned him, so I’ll just have to admit that I am an addict. A fanatic. But better to be a Robeson fanatic than any other kind, in my view. And better to blog only occasionally and sparingly, than to contribute too much to cyber-pollution by writing thousands of meaningless words every week.

Often, a lot of beauty and meaning can be contained in the briefest of texts. Take this tribute to Robeson on the occasion of his 44th birthday by the playwright, Marc Connelly for example, “I suppose by that dreary instrument, the calendar, it can be contended that you are the contemporary of your friends. But by more important standards of time measurement, you really represent a highly desirable tomorrow which, by some lucky accident, we are privileged to appreciate today.”

When I grow up, I want to be able to write like that! But I’m already four years older than Robeson was when those words were written about him, so maybe I never will. Still, I can take some satisfaction in generating beautiful words from others, such as the gentleman from Charlottesville, Virginia, who wrote after seeing my performance there, “I have wished my whole life (64 years) that I could see and hear Paul Robeson. Now I feel almost as if I have. Thank you”

That was last month, at the very end of my longest tour to date performing my play, Call Mr. Robeson: Lagos, Seattle, Vancouver BC, Los Angeles, Palo Alto, Charlotte NC, Charlottesville VA. Six and a half weeks during which I introduced, or reintroduced hundreds of people aged from about 9 to about 90, to Robeson. From boys in my old secondary school in Lagos, Nigeria (at an event sponsored by the US Consulate - representing the same State Department that cancelled Robeson’s passport in 1950) to students at University of Charlotte, North Carolina (where for a week I assumed the esteemed title of “The Distinguished Artist in Residence” at the Africana Studies Department!) to a 90-odd-year-old woman who made a day trip and traveled some sixty miles on her own by ferry, bus and train from The Sunshine Coast to see the play in Vancouver. She wrote saying how much she enjoyed it, and by the way, that her mother had once accompanied Robeson on piano!

I am pleased to say that thanks to some great friends, I did manage to get quite a bit of publicity for Paul Robeson too – a TV interview and much national newspaper coverage in Lagos, a few radio interviews in Vancouver and Charlotte (on NPR too!), but the most amazing and unexpected was a TV appearance in Charlotte. I remember putting the phone down at the end of a conversation with the publicist at the Harvey B. Gantt African American Center, wondering if I had really agreed to what I thought I had just agreed to? To go and talk about Paul Robeson on FOX TV??? Was this a trap? A live on-air lynching fist thing in the morning? Would Big Paul not turn in his grave? Well, I went ahead with it, and FOX Charlotte turned out to be nothing like the FOX TV that makes progressives, liberals or socialists squirm, and as a result of that broadcast, quite a few people came to the performance at the Blumenthal Performing Arts Centre to contribute to my largest audience in America to date – just under 300.

So, now back in the UK where I dream of generating that kind of publicity, especially in the run up to the Brighton and Edinburgh Fringe Festivals, I will end this essay by giving the last word to Mr. Robeson himself. Words he uttered on behalf of Spanish Republicans in London in 1937, dreaming that yesterday of a better tomorrow which we still await today. Words that have adorned his grave since he was laid to rest in New York State in 1976, in the peace denied him most of his life – in peace which hopefully was not disturbed by my Fox TV appearance:

“The artist must take sides. He must elect to fight for freedom or slavery. I have made my choice. I had no alternative.”

IT'S BLACK CHRISTMAS IN OCTOBER, AND I'M ON MY KNEES TO NICK GRIFFIN

“South Africa is a different country, an awful long way away”.
I’m sure that’s what I heard Nick Griffin, the BNP leader say, when asked if he had supported South Africa’s apartheid regime, on Radio 4’s Today Programme on the morning of his election to the European Parliament in June. As if to say, “Nothing to do with me, guv.”

My vote for the Greens in Liverpool was wasted, and Griffin is now my MEP. I remember thinking at the time that there was some potential for me as a Black writer to write an interesting script about his new position, and sure enough, an idea for a screenplay has formed in my little head. I can’t start developing it until after Christmas though, i.e. sometime in November at the earliest. No; that wasn’t a mistake, because for me as a Black performer in the UK, Christmas is the month of October, when councils and venues seek out Black artists to help fill their Black History Month calendars. So I, like thousands like me, am going to work like hell earning as much as half my annual income in October alone, and then trying to live as frugally as possible until next October.

Of course, I’m not complaining about the relatively full diary in October. I also understand why many theatres, in these hard times, look to schedule “Black acts” in the particular month when they are surest of increased awareness and interest about Black History. But what about the rest of the year? Why does “Black History” not offer enough entertainment or educational value, enough spiritual uplift to keep us Black artists in gainful employment all year round?

For example, picture a finely woven story set in say, 6th Century Mali, at a time of plentiful harvest, when regular feasting is accompanied by dancing and storytelling. One evening’s stories would be folk tales describing why and how food, work and power was always shared equally among the people. The next evening’s would be stories told to people by birds who made annual pilgrimages from far off lands where people’s skins were fair, where they have seasons when the ground was covered in something thick and white, which looked like cotton, but when you touched it, it felt cold and then turned magically into water. And when the people slept, they slept under blankets made of gooses’ feathers? Imagine this being devised and performed by a racially mixed group of so-called disaffected youngsters in Liverpool, under the direction of a talented black artist, say sometime in May, as part of a vibrant year-round programme of events designed to keep youngsters engaged in creative activity and engaged with people of different races? Imagine it being funded by the local authority and the police? What idealistic rubbish! Political correctness gone mad!, the BNP would say.

I suggested May because I won’t be available in February: I’ll be performing a play in America – taking advantage of their own Black History Month. And since my play is about one of the finest Americans who ever lived – Paul Robeson, who happened to be black - I’d be crazy not to. Robeson imagined a world where resources would be shared equally among all people, of all races, but was branded a communist and a traitor, and has been practically written out of history. In his country today, as we see a new form of racism emerging in response to the inexplicable mistake of the election of a Black President, Robeson’s story needs to be told all year round, but I’ll settle for February.

Now, in order to evenly distribute my annual earnings, I need to find somewhere to perform the play in June (that Nick Griffin script had better be finished by then). Where in the white world is Black History not celebrated? Belgium? Now, here’s an idea: I can approach my MEP to help promote my Robeson play around Belgium in June next year. Surely, he would be happy to carry out his duty of representing my interests in Europe? Unless of course he decides that it’s about an American, and as we know, America is another country, an awful long way away (nothing to do with Belgium). Maybe I should write something about King Leopold. Now, that’s one hell of a story!

Mr. Griffin, I love you, and I’m really, really glad you’re my MEP. You just have a way of getting my creative juices flowing...