A terrorist incident? The possibility is always in the back of your mind on the commute to London. Has something awful happened at Waterloo? A few months before the pandemic my local station is crawling with men in Hi-Vis jackets talking earnestly to people as they go in to catch their trains. Police too. What has happened? They warn of an incursion. Trespassers. All these people are here to protect us from danger. Cool. Shame all these helpful people are never present when you arrive home late at night and there’s a drunk guy who shouts at you outside Domino’s. But never mind they are here now.
And what are they here to protect us from? I look around anxiously but all I can see is about eight camper vans in the car park. Identical clean white camper vans, most with baby or kiddies’ clothes drying on the windscreens. A few deck chairs.
Ah now I see. The scales fall from my eyes. Gypsies, Travellers, Romanies are in town. Romany people have been in Hampshire since Tudor times if not before. As I know from my own father (a Romany speaking bricklayer born in 1920) for centuries the boundary between Gypsy travellers and other Hampshire rural working class people has been a porous one.
But never mind the history; feel the terror and hysteria at their “incursion”.
Switch to another bit of Hampshire, the Basingstoke area, spring last year. Police have to shut roads because of pony and carriage racing. We are told that Gypsy travellers have staged an event for charity but have not warned the local constabulary. No-one doubts the inconvenience to drivers (never mind the pollution and planet chaos drivers cause all the time; ponies just make manure) but the reaction is totally disproportionate. One of the local papers is inundated with death threats to p****s and when the comments (eventually) get taken down the commentators switch to fantasising about violence to “likeys” or “Irish immigrants” instead. Clever, see what they did there?
This is the climate in which Jimmy Carr’s “jokes” land. A climate of othering. If people do daft or anti-social things those things should be condemned but the violent language used about travellers when they have supposedly done daft or anti-social things is not taboo in the way it is about other groups. The language of extermination and vermin is not a throwback to the Holocaust. It is being used now. Jimmy Carr is absolutely right when he says that joking about a horrible thing is not the same as the horrible thing. But it can contribute to a horrible climate which makes it even harder for us all to rub along together in this messy old world.
*boribumbalas is a light-hearted English Romany word for “elephant” A word handed on to me by my Dad. I think if it is broken down it means something like big grey pig or mouse but any info from ethno-linguistic experts would be appreciated!
* Ruth Bright has been a councillor in Southwark and Parliamentary Candidate for Hampshire East
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15 Comments
Ruth writes personally about a matter of importance politically. And because there is a personal touch, it makes the political effect all the more importantly understood.
Of course, knowing Ruth, as ever, she is fair.
Let’s say it as it is. Jimmy Carr is a disgrace! His joke, like that of other so called comedians, was not funny, because it was offensively meant. It means to single out a minority for ridicule. Rather than do it, like, say, Jackie Mason, as a warm but strong, poking of fun at harmless, traits of, his own lineage, in his case sending up of Jewish people, of whom he is one, indeed, once a Rabbi, Carr makes the very existence of the target group, seem fair game, as if killing is a laugh.
He is pathetic. As were the people who laughed. They can blame fandom and nervous reaction. He planned it. He is a joke. A sick one!
Very well put Lorenzo.
Ruth Bright..I agree wholeheartedly with your, “But it can contribute to a horrible climate which makes it even harder for us all to rub along together in this messy old world..”
I, also believe that denying such commedians the ‘oxygen’ of public venues to repeat racist, sexist, homophobic, etc. jokes might help,
Yet, a few months ago LDV ran an article (Shaffaq Mohammed’s splendid defence of freedom) roundly criticising Seffield’s Labour council for refusing permission for ‘Chubby Brown’ (a far more offensive ‘comedian’ whose entire act is made up of such ‘jokes’) to use the council owned facility..
Where does this party stand?
It is hard to be constructive with something like this (Thanks Lorenzo). Jimmy Carr is performing down the road from me in Southampton in a few days time and it is tempting to turn up with placards about the horrors of the Romany/Sinti holocaust but the demos so far, though completely laudable, have also given him more publicity. It’s a dilemma.
Two really constructive and inspiring voices are: Damian Le Bas (his book The Stopping Places inspired by his Gypsy heritage in Hampshire and elsewhere is realistic and beautiful) and Sal Brinton (of this parish) who has been brilliant on the sheer nastiness of the new legislation which will make the confiscation of GRT homes as easy as shelling peas.
Well said, Ruth. I hope all Lib Dems take note (see below ands well worth looking up) of the work of dear old Eric Lubbock, especially just now in Luton and Richmond (Surrey).
Lord Avebury – one of the greatest friends the Gypsies ever hadhttps://www.travellerstimes.org.uk › news › 2016/02 › l…
19 Feb 2016 — This man wasn’t a Traveller, he was a Lord: Eric Lubbock, the 4th Baron Avebury, former MP for Orpington and Liberal Democrat life peer
@Ruth Bright
It’s not as simple as stopping the police from confiscating Travellers’ caravans. A long time ago there used to be a requirement on local councils to provide sites for Travellers to stop on. I think that that disappeared in the 1990s or 2000s. So the question we should be asking is what sites for Travellers do Hampshire Council run, because if they are stopping in Station car parks it is likely because they do not have any alternative.
@Laurence Cox exactly right
@David Raw – Eric Lubbock LEGEND
Once again there is a danger of shooting the messenger and missing the message. Carr’s joke, which I think was still work in progress, really is a comment on our society, where it has been seemingly deemed acceptable for many centuries to stir up hatred for the GRT communities (in recent years for party political gain) and enact ways to marginalise and remove them from our country.
I suggest, rather than denounce Jimmy Carr, we use the opportunity he has given us, to get the current government and those within it who have history of anti-GRT rhetoric (and who now denounce Carr) to apologise for their past words and take positive action with respect to the GRT whilst they are in office and thus able to walk their talk…
Roland 10th Feb ’22 – 3:29pm…………Once again there is a danger of shooting the messenger and missing the message. Carr’s joke, which I think was still work in progress….
If that ‘joke’ was a ‘work in progress’ I’d hate to hear the finshed article..
A small correction to the https://www.travellerstimes.org.uk website comment. Eric was in fact an hereditary peer not a life peer.
@expats re your earlier point I can’t answer for the party as for some unfathomable reason Ed Davey has been chosen as leader rather than me!! My own position would be (based on the Mill cliche about shouting “Fire” in a crowded building) that Jimmy Carr, like everyone else, should be able to say what he likes as long as it is not a direct threat or incitement to violence. That does not mean, however, that he should not reflect on whether it is really fun or “edgy” that from his comfortable position he mocks a community that is extremely vulnerable (in terms of infant mortality, educational achievement etc) and in living memory has had its beloved children experimented on as if they were beasts.
@Roland, I really did consider your point although I don’t agree. I watched the performance really carefully and it won’t wash that Carr was somehow flushing out the prejudices of others as part of an educational process. Please come back if I am not being fair about what you said.
Why do so many people not have a good word to say about the travelling community? Are a few bad apples ruining it for the rest? By the way, I’ve got no time for Mr Carr and his ‘dog whistle’ attempt at ‘edgey’ comedy either.
@Ruth – I asked myself the question: what was the intended purpose/message of this piece. As it doesn’t really scan without some context, which as you note was missing. To me it seemed he was trying to highlight an uncomfortable truth about our society and its (institutional?) attitude to the GRT communities. The trouble is it probably needed someone like Ben Elton, known for his ability to use satire to communicate political points,
rather than Jimmy Carr.
However, LibDems are missing a political opportunity if all they do is call out Carr and fail to call out the hypocrisy of the Conservatives. Hence why I regard Carr as a messenger.
That’s fair.
Thanks for this post with its personal lived power!
The attacks on GRT community are outrageous.
Carr may have the right to freedom of expression but the rest of us have the right to unreservedly condemn what he chillingly “expressed”.
It was the most offensive joke I have ever had the misfortune to hear and I reckon the permission for it, was granted by the malign legislation criminalising their lifestyle now being proposed by the Murdoch / Johnson regime.
We are all Roma! xx