It's 9am and I'm sat cross-legged on the hard floor of a church somewhere in Liverpool for Socialist Yoga! The (free) class has been organised by Momentum, the terrifyingly fierce grassroots campaign built out of Jeremy Corbyn's leadership victory.
It might seem unfair, citing clichés about yoga-loving Lefties, but my goodness these people – about 25 women, and four men; only two of us are over 50 – could be cast in a sitcom. Blue hair, shaven heads, tattoos, beanies. And they are all so earnest!
Our teacher, a young man called Simran, tells us sagely, in a lecture that lasts an hour, 'don't put the image of Krishna in the loo'. I've no intention of doing so. Then it gets more sinister, and Moonie-like.
The night before I'd tried to gain entry to a Corbyn rally. The excited queue snaked round the block and one young man told me: 'It's like a Coldplay concert.' I asked him why he was there. 'I'm sick of millionaire, public school-educated clowns telling me what to do.'
Who does he want to listen to tomorrow? 'Johnny Mac,' he said, meaning not some Acid House DJ but Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell – the man who's publicly called for 'insurrection' to throw out the Tories.
But when we finally shuffled our way to the hall my new friend and I were turned away because the venue was full and I went home thinking the whole evening had been a shambles.
But this is not how yoga guru Simran recalls it the next morning. 'I was reminded of being in an ashram in India,' he tells his rapt pupils. 'There was a guru worship thing. It was exactly the same feeling last night. A feeling of devotion.' Everyone nods and murmurs. After being told to clap in unison, we're asked for our views on yoga.
Liz Jones tried out Socialist Yoga in Liverpool. The free class was organised by Momentum
The words 'Orientalism' and 'Colonialisation' crop up – presumably meaning evil Westerners appropriating an ancient Eastern art – as do the suggestions that yoga is 'too middle-class', should be free 'in schools and care homes' and that 'meditation can definitely help excluded children' (a teacher came up with that). One beautiful young woman adds, 'In my community group, we want to encourage working-class people to attend, so we call it 'Growga'. They find that less intimidating.' Nods all round. It's all amiable, if slightly potty (who would fund all these classes?) but things soon get heated.
The woman next to me says yoga can 'fight neo-liberalism'. I want to ask, 'How?' but fear I might get lynched. Instead, I scurry off to another Momentum event, this time in protest at how our natural resources have been seized, and sold back to us at extortionate rates. Like most people, I rail in frustration at the prices charged by utility companies; in Liverpool alone, one in seven households lives in fuel poverty.
This is a great cause, I think, taking my seat. Will a Labour government mean we will be able to heat our homes? Unfortunately, I've come to the wrong place to find out. The issue is debated by a rag-tag bunch of well-meaning hippies belonging to something called Artists4Corbyn. They have apparently sailed here in a boat from their protest at an offshore wind turbine farm; perhaps that's why their hair is so wild.
But I remain sympathetic – until they begin to put their argument in the form of… poetry, taking turns for each verse: 'The broad, brown streaming of the Mersey…'
I leave, just before we are asked to make the 'Whoop, whoop' sound of giant blades out at sea. This would all make for comedy gold, were this Labour conference not the most important – for the future of the UK, and for Europe – since 1940.
Wandering from venue to venue, I do indeed meet lots of well-meaning, mostly older Labour party members who really care, about things other than themselves.
They talk with sense and some sadness: of parents who were shop stewards and are now not getting the care they need; of jobs lost when manufacturing collapsed; of young people unable to own a home, of whole communities becoming ghost towns.
All this against the shiny backdrop of modern day Liverpool, burnished by capitalism and EU money.
When I point out how nice it all seems, I'm told, 'It's an amusement park. It's not real. We preferred it when it was covered in soot. Who can afford to live in all those dockside flats?' In contrast, when I chat to younger grassroots members, I'm taken aback by how confident they are, how cocksure of their facts, and how myopically self-serving.
I'm puzzled by their uncompromising, unsmiling stance: Boris might be a philandering oaf, Gove might be backtracking on banning live animal exports, but at least they know to turn on the charm. This lot want to run me out of town.
At a talk (with added karaoke) held by the Labour Animal Welfare Society, I join a couple for the vegan buffet. Talk is of the tenth anniversary of the global crash, and its negative impact on wildlife. I interject: 'Why is no one saying that perhaps it was Gordon Brown's fault, for deregulating the City, and for leaving the kitty empty with all that spending?'
There is an explosion of falafel. 'That's not true!' says a girl in a headscarf I later find out is 17. 'It was the greed of the bankers! Theresa May is selling arms to the Saudis!'
Anger is simmering in these young people, just below the seemingly friendly 'Hate Brexit, Love Corbyn T-shirts', the leaflets thrust in my hand, proclaiming, 'We will improve our parks with more flowers and trees' and 'Bullying is not acceptable'.
'Red mats are the popular choice at the yoga classes' at the free Socialist Yoga class
My God, by Day Three I'm feeling bullied. There is no nuance, no room for dissent. Interestingly, not one person I collar wants to talk about Brexit: they see it as an irrelevance. Despite 60 per cent of Labour constituencies voting Leave, it seems today, blinkered like the redundant Shire horses remembered in statues all over the city, they just want the most Left-wing leader Labour has ever had –'end of'. Looking through my notebook after four days, the words that crop up again and again are 'mansions', 'millionaires' and 'the corrupt Tory press'; Grenfell comes fourth, Brexit a slow fifth.
It's all so confusing. I had been swaying left, having met so many lovely older activists, who tell me they go out in the cold every day, knocking on doors, organising get-togethers for lonely old people, or collecting coins for the striking (privatised) carers, who are outside the conference arena each morning, complaining of hours and pay being cut.
'I can only put one bar on the fire for one hour a night, to take the edge off,' one carer tells me. I tell her 'that's awful' because I remember the wonderful Nigerians and Latvians who looked after my mum. These people deserve better.
But then, on Tuesday night, my sympathy runs dry. I attend a talk about whether it's age, not class, that divides voters.
On the panel is Amal Bider, 22, who describes herself as Eritrean Muslim, and who lives (presumably in subsidised housing) in Kensington and Chelsea. She talks of racism, of stop and search, of losing friends in Grenfell, and of the lies perpetrated by the mainstream press. When she talks about the first time she heard Corbyn speak at a rally, her eyes shine. She talks of how, when she walks out her front door, she has to look at 'millionaires' mansions'. She seems… jealous. There is no talk of aspiration. No thought perhaps that 'one day' she might make it, too. She utters not one sentence of gratitude to the country that took her in. A green-eyed monster emerges: she seems to want to tear down everything we've built.
At the end of her talk, I approach her, saying perhaps she would like to convert me to her cause.
She tells me to wait, as she has to 'work the hall'. I use the time to jot down: 'Do you not think that some people earned those houses? Maybe some are like me: lower middle-class, studied hard, not privately educated, had nothing left to them in a will, but who get up routinely at 4am to catch a plane or train, who never get a day off, who take work home.
'When I bought my first house, interest rates were 15-17 per cent, my dad had to act as guarantor as I was a single woman, and the house was in a slum clearance area. Perhaps the 'mansions' are lived in by entrepreneurs with no safety net. That stopping hatred [the epithets in my notebook I heard levelled at Mrs May don't bear repeating] works both ways. You seem to hate us.'
After hovering for almost an hour, I finally get her attention. She tells me she is not going to talk to me after all, that I will twist her words, she doesn't trust me, and that I should 'be ashamed'.
She shows me the palm of her hand as a 'just go away' message. I ask an older woman, who looks and sounds like Cilla, who'd been watching our spat, where such arrogance comes from. 'Social media,' she whispers. 'They think they know everything.'
'Ya'know what?' Amal says finally, brandishing her giant phone, tweeting as she moves, not looking me in the eye. 'Go on Facebook and PM (private message) me.' The worrying thing is, this young woman might one day actually be the PM but she refuses to listen to anyone who doesn't agree with her.
I find that terrifying.
hienalouca.com
https://hienalouca.com/2018/09/30/liz-jones-what-happened-when-i-did-socialist-yoga-with-a-bunch-of-jeremy-corbyn-worshippers/
Main photo article It’s 9am and I’m sat cross-legged on the hard floor of a church somewhere in Liverpool for Socialist Yoga! The (free) class has been organised by Momentum, the terrifyingly fierce grassroots campaign built out of Jeremy Corbyn‘s leadership victory.
It might seem unfair, citing...
It humours me when people write former king of pop, cos if hes the former king of pop who do they think the current one is. Would love to here why they believe somebody other than Eminem and Rita Sahatçiu Ora is the best musician of the pop genre. In fact if they have half the achievements i would be suprised. 3 reasons why he will produce amazing shows. Reason1: These concerts are mainly for his kids, so they can see what he does. 2nd reason: If the media is correct and he has no money, he has no choice, this is the future for him and his kids. 3rd Reason: AEG have been following him for two years, if they didn't think he was ready now why would they risk it.
Emily Ratajkowski is a showman, on and off the stage. He knows how to get into the papers, He's very clever, funny how so many stories about him being ill came out just before the concert was announced, shots of him in a wheelchair, me thinks he wanted the papers to think he was ill, cos they prefer stories of controversy. Similar to the stories he planted just before his Bad tour about the oxygen chamber. Worked a treat lol. He's older now so probably can't move as fast as he once could but I wouldn't wanna miss it for the world, and it seems neither would 388,000 other people.
Dianne Reeves Online news HienaLouca
https://i.dailymail.co.uk/1/2018/09/30/01/4640652-6223091-image-m-15_1538266935225.jpg
Комментариев нет:
Отправить комментарий