Unfortunate things happening to horrible people - is this... good news?
Mixed feelings, media bias and hope
Look, I’ll take it. I’m not convinced it’s going to solve anything, and the fact it’s such a tiny victory makes my heart a little sick, but gosh darn it, we need a win, so I’m gonna celebrate.
Suella Braverman has been sacked as Home Secretary. 🎉
That’s the first bit of good news.
Suella Braverman, who thinks the British Empire was a force for good, who opposes schools using children’s preferred pronouns, who wanted to imprison 500 men who have committed no crime on an unsafe barge and who uses inflammatory language about those on the margins of our society and those trying to improve it, will still be an MP (and will be replaced by another right-winger) but she’s been chucked out of the Cabinet. …Yay.
The far-right homeless-hater and Spitting Image puppet animated by an ancient curse was given her own marching orders this morning, following an article she penned for the Times accusing the Met of bias in policing a protest march.
Yes, the same march the Met first reportedly urged organisers not to hold on Armistice Day and then said they would not ban, despite Suella’s wildly inappropriate pressure to do so. Honestly, I would say the Met were pretty measured. And I was there.
On Saturday, hundreds of thousands of us marched in London for a ceasefire and for Palestine, despite Braverman’s threats that we ‘might’ be breaking the law and that the march might result in violence.
Here we are (I think the Met underestimated by several 100k in calling this 300,000 people, but who’s counting):
Personally, I was kind of nervous to participate. Not that Pro-Palestine marchers would get violent (despite the righteous and understandable anger, none of the previous Palestine marches I’ve participated in have been violent). I worried that far-right neanderthals, spurred on by Suella, would attack the march. And they did. People who love to foam and spit about British values and fetishize British military might (while also holding values closer to those of the Germany Britain defeated in ‘45), disrupted the memorial to British military dead.
And the police arrested about 100 of the thugs (though others harassed protestors at a sit-in at Waterloo), and that is the other bit of good news. It really could have gone either way, but weird racists and violent drunks were sequestered in a pub and taken away in restraints. Couldn’t happen to a nicer bunch. That’s good news part 2.
So is this good news? It’s gratifying, for sure, just to see bad people be inconvenienced. But Suella will still be rich, still has power, still has influence, and now has an even greater profile that will help her gain more wealth and more power.
But hey. The country has now seen who the real problem is, right? After weeks of demonising pro-Palestinian protesters, and a week of fear-mongering about Ceasefire-marchers attacking Armistice celebrations, everyone must now understand who the bad guys are.
Well. Here’s a headline from the Daily Mail:
Either the hugely qualified and experienced (frankly brilliant at what they do even if it is kinda evil) journalists and subeditors at the Mail failed at fairly basic proofing, or that ‘participating to’ is a clever way to avoid being accused of publishing deliberately misleading claims. Because the hooligans in question were not participating in the Pro-Palestinian protest. But if you were perusing the Mail over your morning coffee and crayons, you might be forgiven for thinking the arrests were of marchers like me. You would think Suella was right.
But hey, that’s the Mail. Everyone knows it’s a right-wing rag. The online version (where that comes from) more so. What thinking person takes it seriously? Everyone else will see the truth. Right?
Here are this morning’s papers:
So, again, you’re an average Joe/Jo/Zo, chomping down on your British bacon butty, and you see these:
“Marchers ‘valorise terrorism’”
“Hate marches must end”
“Arrest antisemitic yobs”
If you’ve not been following things closely, but knew Suella was warning about trouble, what would this lead you to believe? This is The Sun:
To their bare-minimum, the-bar-is-the-ground credit, The Sun admits right-wing thugs committed violence, but the Murdoch-owned paper (which famously writes its articles so children can read them) immediately mentions activists “dressed as Hamas killers”, “glorifying terrorists”, “violence on Whitehall” and the words “sick, inflammatory…”.
Let’s ignore the fact that I’m pretty sure you would never find ‘IDF killers’ or ‘Israeli killers’ featured on a Sun front page despite the 10,000+ people killed this month by the IDF. What impression of the march would scanning this front page give you?
Those allegedly glorifying terror or Hamas numbered exactly two, according to reports. The violence on Whitehall was perpetrated by the gammon patrol inspired by our thankfully former Home Secretary. The only thing sick or inflammatory I saw (and I saw a lot of the march due to stops to soothe my spine which is made of faulty Lego and spite) was two signs that compared Israeli leaders to Nazis. I personally find that wildly insensitive. But the rest of the march was about as wholesome as I’ve seen.
Countless mums and dads pushing strollers. Septuagenarians, octogenarians, little kids, white people, black people, Jewish people (I’m not going to list all the ethnicities, it’s one of those things that feels racist without being so), trades unions, colleges, Muslims, Christians, religious Jews and countless other people of good faith getting footsore and hoarse, marching and shouting for justice and for a cease-fire. Were the reason not so awful, one could have thought of it as beautiful.
What our media class has presented, though, is a violent, hateful march that was at least as bad as the attacks of Suella’s foot-soldiers.
So, am I glad Suella got fired? Sure. Am I pleased the police mostly went after bigots and white nationalists? Yeah. Did I feel an elated sense of hope after the march, because it went off peacefully, because we were not tear-gassed or arrested, and because so many people turned out in such a wonderful way? Yes, actually, that gave me hope.
But not optimism. The billionaire-owned press still sets the media agenda in this country and most people will tend to assume that if they hear a message a lot it must have some truth. And the message they are getting, now that more of us are waking up to what Israel and our governments are doing, has once again shifted to ‘both sides are bad’. Their goal is our inaction. And they are very, very good at this.
So all we can do is keep talking to people, keep sharing the truth and good arguments, and keep showing up.
The campaigners against South African Apartheid did not always think they would succeed. And then suddenly they did.
So, while the news from Gaza is so heart-breaking it could make you want to disengage, please don’t. Whether you’re a person of faith or not, we can all play our part in changing the narrative and shifting the perceptions. We don’t have to be naively optimistic but we must retain hope.
Keep praying for Gaza, for justice and peace in the Holy land, and for more people to see the truth. And, yeah, allow yourself a little celebration, too. It’s good for the heart.
More videos from that growing List of good TikToks about Palestine
I’m collecting videos that make good points about Israel, Palestine, the Occupation and more. Check more out via the link in the title.
1. Vox pop: Ukraine v Palestine
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Oddly different reactions….
2. Signs of genocide
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This creator usually does amazing deep dives into disasters. This is a helpful summary.
3. Media bias is not a conspiracy
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This is ten minutes long and worth it.
The end bit
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Hey there. Love that you made it this far. I’ve been super encouraged by people supporting the newsletter and podcast by sharing and donating (looking at you, Colin, Sarah and Claudia❤️). Also by the emails and comments on social. I started the day reading that patients in Intensive Care in al-Shifa hospital had died, and burst into tears, which was a come-down from the great march. I cannot even imagine what people with relatives in Gaza must be feeling, let alone people in Gaza. This is a small platform and maybe yours is too, but we can’t let the forces of oppression grind us down or exhaust us. Not when we have so much privilege. Thanks for reading and for everything else you do. Peace.
Shalom. Peace. Salaam - to you J and the Beer Christianity team.