“Any city however small, is in fact divided into two, one the city of the poor, the other of the rich. These are at war with one another.”---Plato (BC 427-BC 347)
One house, one family, two ways to get in
the same compound.. One house, many arguments.
One family, too many words
said, deeds done, thoughts, opinions, judgments embedded
into the minds of those within this peculiar sight.
One half holds a yard, a small car park, concrete walls all intact, a nice sturdy wooden door, stairs all aligned leading up to a gallery where only half of the family can sit, talk, laugh with each other…
The other side can barely stand, galvanize fences, rickety and old, aching sores for windows, a roof that can barely hold on to the wiry spaces that no one looks out of…
This is one house, one family, two halves eternally separated yet whole at the same time.
Split right down the middle yet attached at each cut, infected with sadness, oozing yellow resentment and anger-filled puss, festering, bubbling and burning with hate, regrets, clogged with words said and re-said, emotion pouring like blood and guts from the belly of the ‘urban’, while it convulses on itself.
(i) So this picture was actually taking a little way from Curepe Junction. It’s quite a familiar sight as I pass it every day as I’m leaving the area…it’s always been a fascinating sight. I have no idea what the story is, but my dad says it has something to do with a family feud (this is just speculation). The theme for this week’s blog entry is “City Politics: Far from Formal” and focuses on the idea that politics is so much more than politicians and policies and government and elections and all these things we regard as the ‘formal political arena’. I want to draw on the idea that politics involves people..every day, normal people you meet, people you talk to, me and you. Politics is not restricted to parliament, but takes place right on the streets, in your house, in schools, in offices, on playing fields and I thought this 'half-and-half' house represented just that. Having a conversation, pulling to the left when you hear a siren, the Sealots protesters burning debris on the highway this week, bargaining for a better price in the market, teenagers fighting for independence…what do all these situations have in common? They are all political transactions; they are all of political significance within the Urban Sphere.
(ii) Hall and Barret in their book Urban Geography describe the most fundamental question of urban politics as dealing with POWER: what is it? And who holds it? They explain that power in cities takes many forms and in distributed in a highly uneven way. In the same breath they distinguish between two powerful groups:
1. ‘The Obviously Powerful’ such as politicians, political parties, huge organizations and to a certain extent criminal groups all of which influence the formal political agendas and actions of nations and
2. ‘The Less Obviously Powerful’ which simply put includes residents and social groups that gain power through protest or strikes.
The group I want to focus on is the latter: the people that make up the city, the power they hold, the expressions of this power and the significance it hold to urban life and politics.
Bluntly expressed, on an average day the highly marginalized residents of Sea Lots, Beetham and Lavantille seem to have little say on a personal level, about the running of the nation. These groups of people live in, for the most part, impoverished areas and are often swept aside by the general public and politicians and painted as ‘troublemakers’, ‘delinquents’, ‘uneducated’, ‘ignorant’, ‘criminals’. They, in my opinion hold the least urban power. That being said, I have been proved very wrong this week, as residents succeeded in causing nationwide traffic jams and chaos on the roads in their protest against the accident. This I believe is a completely remarkable and amazing phenomenon that truly shows what unsuspecting power these people actually hold. Emotionally charged, spontaneous and completely human in their actions and words, these people took to the streets, and let me tell you, all everyone could do was sit in traffic. Politicians, businessmen, teachers, lawyers, doctors, children alike all sat in the same traffic for hours…tell me if that is not a result of power…
Residents of Sea Lot's Protest: is this not power?
(this picture was not taken by me)
Quoting from Hall and Barrett:
“there is an urban politics beyond the formal political arena…that is, a politics of everyday life…focused on issues of identity, meaning and representation…they involve struggles over access to space, the rights of marginalized groups…It is at the intersections of space, meaning, representation, regulation and development that this politics of identity is often manifested…”
(iii) As promised, some articles/videos for you to read from our nation's newspapers about the protest:
- http://www.guardian.co.tt/news/2013-02-26/sea-lots-protest-3-road-deaths-again-cnc3-video
- http://www.trinidadexpress.com/videos/-SEA-LOTS-PROTEST-193170201.html
- http://www.trinidadexpress.com/letters/Cops__actions_upset_Sea_Lots_residents-194093371.html
Also, some songs that came to mind when I was thinking about the idea of urban politics as a function of the interrelation between people...
What is power? Maybe somewhat related to the idea of "wealth" I would say that it is the ability to affect change -- having the capability to develop. Do you think the people in Sea Lots have power? What have they been able to change for themselves? How have they been able to influence change for their community?
ReplyDeleteThe act of protest is powerful. The performance has power. Still, where does change come from?
A very thoughtful post.