I wanna post about my favourite Christmas music and ask about yours, but I think this needs to be a post of its own:

Fuse ODG just released a reply to Band Aid, which I think might become a new fave. It’s making an important political point, about the damage done by the image of Africans as starving victims and Africa as this place of inherent famine and poverty rather than somewhere for tourism, business, joy; about how far things have come. But mostly I just like its groove and its celebration of Ghanaian culture and independence. My dad’s an academic who specialises in Ghanaian history and took me when I was ten; I’ve grown up around Ghanaian art, fashion and music a lot more than most white British kids so this made me really happy even beyond the shining optimism for Ghana (and Africa, and black people) more broadly.

The last twenty-four hours in South Korea have been wild and terrible, but inspiring. I think a lot of the details are still-to-be-confirmed, but in case you missed it:

( the people stopped a coup )

https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/617312/

It closes tomorrow!

The government's trying to force through some of the more draconian shit they couldn't get through in the Policing Bill. The Lords stopped it last time (glad I went to the protest going on loudly outside while they were debating) but who knows?

"Were it to become law, just attending a protest could result in being served with a “serious disruption prevention order” restricting their right to protest, in part by limiting who they can associate with, what they can do online, and where they can go. A protester could be served with an order if they have twice within the past 5 years “carried out activities related to a protest that resulted in, or were likely to result in, serious disruption to two or more individuals, or to an organization”. Neither “serious disruption” nor “activities related to a protest” are defined. Breaching this order can carry a 51-week prison term." - Human Rights Watch

I was at the trans rights protest in London today, to protest the rollback of rights the government is moving forward on (despite 70% of people in their consultation saying they supported the move FORWARD that was being suggested then) and in favour of a move forward, including various policies.

The protest was very intersectional, and had some great speakers (esp Juno Dawson, a best-selling YA author in the UK, and some others whose names I didn’t catch). I met some nice people. There were great signs.

I’m just feeling rather emotionally bruised after it, and actually had a little quite a big cry just now.

The protest itself was great, I just… I mean, I’m cis, so the chants weren’t affirming for me - and I'm not there to get affirmation but to provide it - but the stories about how awful things are still got to me. And it’s not like I didn’t know, but...

One of the chants was Protect Trans Youth. And we can’t. ( cut for feelings about that )

I did really like the bit at the protest where the speaker spoke to the closeted people out there, saying everyone there was thinking of them and wishing them safe, and we all cheered and yelled maybe the loudest we did all day. And when a separate BLM protest march passed, we all cheered and screamed and did our best to loudly support them. Solidarity forever.

That’s it, then.

I feel sick.

Today I taught my advanced English class “police brutality”, and “suppression”, and “ballot box”, and “riot police”. I taught them the difference between “hit” and “beat”. My peacefully-protesting Catalan student was beaten by the police. The EU said this was an internal matter and a girl had every finger systematically broken by police. I’m sick with rage.

Day 14
Go forth and commit an act of kindness. Leave a comment in this post saying you did it, tell us about it if you’re comfortable doing so.

I thought I’d do one of the missing Snowflake Challenges, since the mods assure us there’s no hard deadline. And I’m going to count something I did today. I went to the anti-Trump Women’s March here in London. It was great: a really positive atmosphere, despite the angst of the thing and the fact that 15 000 to 25 000 people were expected to show up and it was actually 100 000.

On a personal note, I’m glad I did it because I immediately felt so much better than yesterday. Doing something helped a lot, as did the community aspect. Both my sisters and my mum were there, and I marched with the female cousin of mine who lives in London and two American friends of hers. YAY SISTERHOOD.

A Japanese tourist asked me what was happening. I said it was an anti-Trump women’s march, and he expressed confusion because “this is the UK” - and that’s the reason I’m counting this as an act of kindness, because I was able to explain it politely and also, thanks to my job, avoid using the English most native speakers don’t realise is difficult (i.e. phrasal verbs). It was helpful for me too, because I’m a measurable goals sort of person and this is the first demonstration I’ve been on that didn’t really have one? Not a shared one, anyway. Not least because while I know some disagree, I do not think Pence would be an improvement.

So I told him that it was in solidarity with American women, as well as brown & black & immigrant Americans. And that it was to express our public grief and anger. To push forward a little on myriad feminist & lefty causes closer to home - I saw Repeal The Eighth signs (re: the appalling lack of abortion rights for Irish & Northern Irish women) and tampon tax signs as well as anti-Brexit ones. To inflict what international pressure we can on Trump & Republicans, particularly given the British/American “Special Relationship” and Trump’s being a bit of an Anglophile. And that because Britain is significantly more left-wing than the US, the US has elected several presidents who kind of horrified Britons, most famously George W Bush. But this is on a new scale, and this is not normal. That was the most important reason, I realised as I was saying it. To show that This Is Not Normal.

( the signs were epic - more details here, photos on Tumblr )

NB: in the UK, the ninth of November – the day we knew Trump had won – is written 9/11/16.

A cheap comparison to make, maybe;
No one died or jumped to escape the flames
They're live and whole in the... land of the free?
But it's a brave (bad) new world all the same.
(Live? I knew a woman who killed herself
Wednesday, before she could lose her healthcare.
Come January access to help and health
Would be considered more than her fair share.)
Americans say, how could it happen here?
Europeans say, we've seen this before.
And the Middle East holds its breath for fear
Of breathing the flames oxygen, of more.
Cheap comparison. But the date seems like kismet
Now we can only wait; the worst hasn't happened yet.

Today I went to see my grandpa in Sussex. I haven’t seen him since last Christmas, what with going to Italy for six months and all, so today my mum, Youngest Sister and I went. He’s very very deaf and getting much more tired; he’s in his late nineties, so it’s entirely natural, but rather sad. We did what we usually do: talked with him, went to this fucking amazing Indian place (the best I’ve ever found by far, and that includes some Brick Lane eateries), did some errands for him. Then Youngest Sister went to a feminist meeting I’m sad to be missing, about fighting the fucking ludicrous abortion ban in Northern Ireland - appallingly, in part of my own country, abortions are illegal unless the mother’s life is in danger. I came to work. My students haven’t shown up, so I’m doing the same thing I’ve been doing all day: a moment without a specific thing to think about, and I’m worrying about the American election.

( I haven’t posted about Trump really )

Oh, and here’s something else I think is important that I haven’t seen talked about much. There’ve been a lot of Brexit comparisons drawn with Trump’s ascendancy. I think some of those parallels hold water, but some don’t - I won’t get into that here, although we can do it in comments. (Also, the polls DID predict Brexit. People were surprised because they ignored the margin of error and that London is its own world.) I think the possibly more instructive, and scarier, comparison is with the British general election last year.

The Conservatives were not predicted a majority. Professional politicians, party leaders, well-known pundits all predicted a minority government or hung parliament. When the exit polls came out at 10pm, showing a ten-seat Tory majority, Paddy Ashdown (former Lib Dem leader and eminence grisee) said he’d eat his hat if they were correct. They weren’t. The Tories had a majority of seventeen.

Why were the polls so wrong? ‘Shy Tories’. People were not willing to admit to pollsters that they were planning to vote Conservative. How much stronger must that effect be for Trump voters? They’re not idiots; they know what people think. And there’s a documented effect where people say they’ll vote for a woman (or POC) but in the booth? They don’t.

However far ahead Clinton looks now, I can’t believe it yet. I want to. But… last May I went to my friends’ flat to watch the election get called. We started with olives and wine, and then at 10pm the Tory victory was predicted and we switched to chocolate and gin. I fell asleep WhatsApping a friend on the 23rd of June and woke up just before seven am to see three crying emojis on my screen. Chills go through me at the thought of it happening again, and worse.

I was scared of Romney. I’m scared of Republicans in general: I have a lot of friends who are women, POC, LGBTQ+, or some combination, living in the USA and deserving full rights over their bodies and lives. But it was nothing like this.

Sorry, I know all my posts recently have been in the middle of the Venn diagram of ‘politics’ and ‘horribly, horribly depressing’. But guys I am FREAKING OUT about the EU referendum.

Thank God for living in Sardinia because I’ve been able to live in a state of more-or-less denial. Obviously Facebook and the papers have been full of it, but apparently posters in windows and leaflets and everything are ubiquitous right now in the UK.

I am TERRIFIED. I teach English as a foreign language, and when I was working in London, my students asked about it every so often and I assured them it wouldn’t happen. Because we’re not that stupid, and also having City boys and lefty liberals on the same side of the ball doesn’t often happen. So surely we would win?

And we won’t know anything for two hours yet because legally the exit polls stay secret until everyone’s voted, to stop them influencing the process.

If you don’t know much/anything about it I’m happy to give you the rundown, but this post isn’t about me venting all the many reasons, both idealistic and pragmatic, why staying in the EU is the best choice for the UK (and why everything I’ve heard from lefty Leave supporters is frankly ludicrous). It’s just about ( I AM SO SCARED )