Berkeley: The War At Home

The musty glow of many lights hangs in the mist around Berkeley City Hall, the denser beams of spotlights cutting through. Sturdy riot police are interspersed along the road in front, their thick arms holding batons across their chests, stern faces staring from beneath helmets. I step off the curb and one of them growls at me to get back, followed by the next one along.



We pass a row of clean white television vans parked on the corner, satellites like strange statues on their roofs. Crossing the road, the glowing white facade of the hall loom authoritively over us. But is it just a façade? Today the real authority which this building holds is being challenged.

A fenced catwalk licks out from the front steps, more muscular police posed here like grotesque models in a military inspired show. Their visors are pushed up – hard eyes watching the crowds around them dispassionately. This gangway physically separates the two sites of the argument.

The area on the left is like a small section from a 60’s music festival. The grass is boggy from restlessly tramping feet, grubby abandoned placards on the floor. Small tents are pitched, their domes draped in pink banners about the anti-war group Code Pink. A mixed crowd stumbles around them – talking, handing out flyers, dancing and singing.

There’s an old man in a bright blue suit, waving a placard with neat writing saying ‘I can’t afford a real sign.’ A couple of dreadlocked teenagers carry around a stereo and Dylan’s mellow voice crackles into the busy area. A few kids with skateboards wander around curiously, one of them picking up a discarded placard and waving it with excitement.

The right side feels more subdued. Here tidily dressed people, some with military jackets and hats, press forwards towards the steps so that there seems a lot less of them than the sprawling peace activists. Some are waving flags, while others hold Placards neatly painted in blue, red and white. ‘God Bless America’ and ‘Berkeley Council is a National disgrace’. This group appears less energetic, less sure what they are supposed to be doing on a protest like this.

They are all young, even more so than the peace activists. At this demonstration, and at the Obama rally I attended last week, I have been struck by how young people have been moved to express themselves. They are at the centre of these events, the ones who could grow into Obama’s rule, the ones most likely to go to Iraq.

A man suddenly surges over, calling out ‘Where’s the right wing?” He pushed forward into the crowd, shouting loudly all the time. You’re all fascists he shouts. Most of the crowd back away, but a sturdy man faces up to him. “Fuck You!” He shouts, pushing his broad face forward and staring at the other with hardened, savage eyes. “No, fuck you!” The smaller man snaps back, stepping forward and rising up a little more stiffly. They look fiercely at each other and I’m sure they’re going to fight, waiting for a fist to swing and smack flesh. But then the smaller man shuffles away, mumbling to himself.

These two are here for the conflict, but it seems like most of the demonstrators are more serious. They are just people who really believe in their perspective, enough to trek out on this cold night to stand up for it. Watching the two sides – I feel that really it is two different Americas that are set against each other here.

On one side you have the hippyish peace- protestors, taking the libertarian but not the consumer part of the American dream, dissatisfied with the nation, tracing a lineage back to the glory of the 60’s when America was awash with fellow travelers. On the other you have working and middle class American, probably living in the suburbs somewhere, keeping to their neighborly circles, enjoying moderate comforts that the dream might provide, unconcerned about freedom.

As the hearing starts almost all the action outside stops and more placards are thrown down. People turn to face the hall and listen intently to what is happening inside. This small provincial conflict has taken on a much greater symbolism. The legitimacy of the Navy to invade Berkeley acts as a synecdoche for the legitimacy of America to invade Iraq.

Like that faraway war, our information on the battle inside the hall is limited, crackling out of speakers so that it’s hard to get a real sense of the drama inside. A group of older, tattered protestors retreat into their tent, pulling thick blankets around them and cradling radios to their ears.

The meeting reaches the public lobbying section. A member of Code Pink speaks in a slurred, forceful voice. “Our babies, our eighteen to twenty-six year olds, they're dying out there – you have to know that!” There are cheers from the group of demonstrators gathered outside who collectively will their representative on. “We’ve got to enter the hole with them.” Another spattering of applause. “You must have soul!”

“Yeah, soul!” a man in the crowd whoops, swaying from side to side, eyes glazed with the excitement of protesting. But I wonder if something as airy as soul can really be enough to transcend the earthliness of national politics, the different machinations and tensions.

Behind us the riot police are changing over. A new squad march down the channel between the two lines, standing in a regimented huddle. On a command they step forward and the troops they replace step back. Feet apart, bodies solid, the new guards settle into their position – blocks of unfeeling stone that create a necessary wall between people.

“This is fucking fascism.” A man in the crowd yells. People turn round to watch as the replaced police march out – chanting left, right, left right – their long line moving off along the murky street. I can’t help thinking of images from Nazi films I’ve seen.

Inside the hall a mother of a soldier comes to the podium, talking about the picture of her son that she holds. He was shot in Iraq, but he fought for a noble cause, one that all American’s should defend. I sense she is struggling to understand how people can think differently, how people can make her son’s death seem purposeless. Her voice, deepened by the speakers, is flushed with emotion. I picture her inside the hall, holding back sad, proud tears.

“Your son died ‘cause he was stoopid,” shouts a young African girl bitterly, her braided hair pulled back to expose a glowing face. Hatred for this pro-war mentality stiffens her whole body as she listens intently to the speeches. There is so much passion amongst these peace activists, but much of it feels misdirected, like a burning blaze from which sparks leap in all directions.

As we leave, I clamber over a placard sunk into the muddy grass. Its message – Recruiters Out Of Berkeley – is torn smeared with dark brown footsteps. Later that evening Berkeley Council decide to take back their ‘get out’ letter and the clustered hopes of the peace activists are broken and walked over too.

San Francisco - Super Tuesday

A crowd is gathered beneath the huge crystal chandelier of the Fairmont’s Grand Ballroom. They are dressed in ordinary, sometimes scruffy clothes, and they contrast with the formal grandeur of the room around them. Hardly talking to each other, they all cluster towards a big TV at the front. White placards bob above their head, saying “Yes we can,” or just single words like “Hope” and “Change”.

On the television a confident, small yet imposing African man is speaking, another crowd stood behind him – a digital reflection of this room. The man is Barack Obama. He is using his sweeping rhetoric to powerful effect. With his right hand he seems to squeeze together the tight phrases, swinging his arm to offer them to the rapt audience. His words rise and fall like a symphony, charged with excitement. Almost every sentence is punctuated with the word ‘change’ – the other words dancing around this central pole, this key message. Almost every sentence brings whoops of delight from the crowds, a building pressure of excitement, leaping out in little bursts of ecstatic applause.

There is perhaps no real substance to what Obama is saying. It’s just the glossy surface, the soft waves of a deep sea of politics – nobody even knows how deep! But tonight isn’t the night for substance. Obama’s speech is lifting up to a climax. Can we do it? He asks. “Yes we can!” The crowd chant back. “Yes we can.” Their arms are raised and they pound the glittering air of the ballroom with their fists. It’s slightly frightening, like some fundamentalist cult.

The flash of cameras burst from the side of the room, capturing this glorious moment. This could be a historic point – the time when America changed forever. Yet, like Obama’s speeches, the substance of the glory is yet to be realized.

San Francisco - Inside City Hall

I feel a sense of transgression as I’m led into the press box, like an outsider snuck into a secret sect. The room has a staged grandeur about it. The high ceiling, ornately plastered, painted in different pastel shades. Polished wood stretches down the wall behind the clerk and president’s long desk, reaching out into the fitting of the room. It’s like a church, but with that newness, that cleanness which is distinctly American.

This setting gives grandness to the supervisors. Yet rather than the mighty, wizened God’s I imagined, they are almost ordinary. Some are surprisingly human, surprisingly young, to be holding the city in their hands. They really do seem to represent the ordinary people of the districts which elect them. As the clerk check’s attendance, I glance round, letting their different characters sweep into me.

There’s Ross Mirikami, who reminds me of a vampire with a small goatee accentuating the length of his tanned face. His greased hair is swept back with a slickness which sheens his whole body. Gerardo Sandoval stares surlily forwards - chubby Latino face and serious eyes, neat silver hair the same colour as his tidy suit. Sophie Maxwell’s hair and eyes fizzle with energy and willpower. She is a tall, commanding African woman, watching the world cynically through nose perched glassed.

A few seats along is Carmen Chu. Straight glossy hair falls tidily around an attentive, business like Asian expression. Chris Daly contrasts with this neatness, and with the slickness of the others. His suit is thrown over a tieless white shirt, crumpled a little like he’s just been in a fight. This reflects his reputation as a political scrapper. His cropped hair and glasses are those of a tired computer programmer. A heavy shadow of stubble covers his rounded jaw and his eyes scowl.

This scowl is particular for the study Sean Elsbernd. He sits opposite, physically and politically, looking like an overgrown schoolboy in his loose blue suit. Hand’s stuffed in his pockets, he gets up to shuffle around restlessly, a hint of playfulness, of cheekiness, still hiding in his youthful face.

The bulk of Jake McGoldrick comes and slumps in the chair next to him, golden strands of hair stretched across his bald patch. Like an oil prospector in his sandy colored suit. Nearby, Amiano leans back comfortably, used to the politician’s role now. His body exudes casualness. His dark blue blazer makes him look like an ageing party goer. An earring twinkles his more exuberant side.

People are still shuffling in, still greeting each other loudly, but the huge animal of democracy is already leaping forwards. I have to lean in closer to hear as the clerk’s murmured voice races through the first items. Numbers 1 to 16 are dispatched in a single clack of the hammer. The next item is read quickly and voted on: Supervisor Sandoval? “Ay” Supervisor Maxwell? “Nay” Supervisor Chu? “Ay” etc…Everything moves so fast. Each of these points is something real being debated, some law that can impact hundreds of people’s lives. I worry that it is too fast. There is so much to decide though. If you want a democracy that embraces everything, perhaps this speed is necessary?

Like the clack-clack of a train, the meeting surges on with this insistent rhythm. Then suddenly things stop as one of the supervisors chooses to speak on an issue. This is perhaps the real magic of democracy – the potential for human feelings to influence things by arguing passionately for their beliefs. Sandoval stands and makes a clipped objection to CCTV funding. Mirikarimi rises in response, standing powerfully straight, his crisp, persuasive words like a solo in the meetings symphony.

After this brief interlude, the rhythm resumes again. As points are raised, Supervisors get up and pace around, talking to each other, leaning over to great people in the press, leaving the room for a while and then returning later. I watch as some tourists come into the public gallery and pose for photos. There is a sense of great comfort in the functioning of democracy here. I wonder if there is perhaps too much complacency at times, standing in the way of effective decision making.

In the middle of the meeting, the supervisors hear an account of the investigation into a recent oil spill. A short stocky man comes to the microphone, adopting a tone of frankness as he twists and euphemizes mistakes. His words rush out in a long, smooth flow, relaying every detail of the report. This is a culture of accountability, where every detail must be dwelled upon, everybody’s roles questioned, all the mistakes ringed in heavy red for everybody to see. Yet I sense that few of the Supervisors are really listening. The speech keeps going as eyelids slide down, chins drop into palms, and people get up to stretch stiffened limbs.

Finally it’s time for the lobbyists – that powerful part of democratic process that gives a voice directly to the people. An Indian man - a regular here – stands to speak, staring forward at the supervisors with intent white eyes. His speech starts slow, but builds into an impassioned plea, its polished rhetorical phrases carefully practiced. He begins a series of stepped phrases to the climax, but then the buzzer sounds, slicing the head off his rearing argument. This is the contradiction of this great democratic ideal. If everyone is allowed to speak, then each person will have too little time to say anything.

Next is a Middle Eastern man whose curled grey hair is pulled tightly back accentuating his fierce expression. Eyes stare out from sagging skin that’s overgrown with a ragged grey beard. Leaning forward, he growls at the supervisors, his rough tone and accent making it hard to understand what he means. He is speaking about a church where he helps the homeless. Suddenly he pulls tattered blanket out, light pushing through its many holes. This is all the government gives to help him, he shouts accusingly, and I feel a wave of pity. But I see that the supervisors are hardly listening now. It is late in the afternoon and the ‘serious’ agenda is complete.

There feels something wrong in this; that these leaders of the people are too tired by bigger business to hear the plight of these people. That because the issue comes in such antic form, instead of a written memo, it no longer has weight as political business. Overall, my visit to City Hall has shown me the great energy that democracy has in practice, but also the ways in which practicality and casualness might damage its ideals.

Macau - New vs. Old

The first thing I notice as I step into the casino is the increase in people. Three years ago when I visited Macau, the departure hall was quiet, a few neat businessmen and a scattering of tourists sat somberly on its metal chairs. Now there is a long ragged queue for the immigration gate, large groups of people jostling about, moving impatiently between queues, weighed down with shopping. As we pass through it becomes even more chaotic, harassed officials waving their radios, vainly trying to shepherd different groups to the right gates. They rush about frantically, wheeling their small cases around like puppies behind them. The air echoes with the shouts, the clamor of mandarin and Cantonese. This is a new, restless China, freed from the constraints of financial struggle and suddenly, uncertainly on the move. Where are these people going? Some to Macau to gamble, some to do business in the mainland or back from business in Hong Kong, some just tourists. Money drives their movement, getting new money or spending new money already got. Ferries depart every 15 minutes, each hauling over 300 people across to Macau. At busy times, particularly weekends and holidays, it becomes impossible to get a seat.

Walking into the immense lobby of the Sands casino, you feel as though you are stepping into some strange parody of a church. In the past, only religious buildings offered such a huge space devoted to one activity. Everything beneath the spiritual glow is glossy plastic and flashing lights. Row after row of tables line up like a futuristic army, stretching out their arms of lights, each one an isolated cell of activity. There is a strong sense of unreality, everything carefully stages and crafted to have an immediate effect. It feels theatrical, all surface with no depth. This is perhaps true of casinos everywhere in the world, but here the effect seems heightened. Nobody in the casino appears quite comfortable with their role – like actors crudely playing parts.

The attendants and croupier act out their roles unnaturally. When the security lady checks my bag, she does it with strange, automatic gestures. I try to take a photo and one of the attendants – positioned everywhere – comes to tell me not to. He does it uncertainly and I sense that he’s not quite used to this smart uniform, this officialdom, voicing the company policy without quite meaning (maybe even understanding) it. It is hard to take him seriously and from then on I make it my challenge to get as many photos as I can. All these workers have perhaps been dragged from ragged roles on the mainland. They still show their displacement. Looking dazed by the glitz of the casino with its bright lights. I thank them in Cantonese, Macau’s normal language, and they look at me bemused.

The customers at the tables don’t seem much better. They are not the tycoons you see puffing cigars in Vegas, young wives draped beside them, their wealth sunk into their skin. These figures wealth is new, this gambling pose like a costume they wear uncertainly. Many can’t help still smoking with cigarettes dangling from their bottom lips, or spitting into the waste bins. Some wear ill fitting suits, others still in scruffier clothes. Others stumble around like excited tourists at Disneyland, dazzled by this magic world and unable to contain their awe.

A lot of the gaming here seems more leisure based than the seriousness in Vegas. People really seem to be having fun as they gamble, with groups who all know each other gathered round tables shouting. It’s a striking contrast from the surly, serious faces I can remember in Vegas. There’s a surprising number of women gambling too – in groups on their own, or alongside their husbands – what look like housewives or young wives.

On the main stage a show starts – a sort of sanitized erotic show. Like the rest of the decoration it takes and then and draws all the substance out of it. It is simply surface erotica, tight clothes, and exposed skin. Western girls in black underwear and push up tops thrust their hips forward, moving like strippers – but again a false copy. Replicating something always destroys its value. The music’s lyrics are raunchy – don’t you wish your girlfriend looked just like me – but probably not understood by most here. There is grotesqueness to all of this – so suggestive without any substance. Its only 8pm, but casinos are deliberately timeless.

The Chinese young men gawp at these women, sipping at watery beers from the bar. They are probably unused to such decadent, mainstream references to sex. The female waitresses, themselves heavily made up, watch the show from behind a little uncertainly. All this is such a stark contrast from the traditional moralistic attitudes which still hang their shadows over China. I see the women on stage as synecdoche of how art is made to prostitute itself in the casino, subserviently serving the financial aim of making people gamble more.

At Macau’s Museum of Art is ‘space’ an exhibition by local artists, many of whom respond in powerful, intriguing ways to the current developments. One artist has replicated the window cages common in poorer parts of Macau. This at once draws attention to and records the older, original culture of Macau. It shows how it has value, the everyday architecture representing a way of life. At the same time, it exposes the flaws with this. Poor people have these boxes because their homes aren’t secure any other way. They are trapped by their poverty, having to construct cages around them. An entrapping, close, claustrophobic way of life.

A video installation by Kent Ieong shows images of a bay, at first undeveloped, slowly gaining more buildings as the images flick by. It captures the value a landscape can have, just from its simple shape. In the foreground are figures, indicating how a landscape acts as a stage for human experiences. The images act like photos – offering memories of something which might be lost. A lot have parents and children, symbolically representing passing down from generation to generation, with Children as the future. Yet many of these figures are like advert images, perhaps symbolizing the unreality of our memories, of our ideas of place and time.

Other sculptures use neon, so distinct in Macau now. One has a box with neon working a door and window on it. These have no function, they are just a surface. You cannot enter through the door, or pass through the window. They are just surface like much of the decoration in the casinos. The rest of the house is dark empty walls, suggesting how Macau is buried by this flare. The ironic name ‘Well Known City’ draws attention to how Macau is becoming world famous, but raises questions about what this notoriety is based upon. Is it just glare like the neon? As you step close, you hear the harsh hum of the neon and feel its glare – normally you can’t get this close- allowing you perhaps to see the more damaging effects of this light show.

Inside the house, a gaudy chandelier, decked out with false crystal flashes different patterns of light. Placed at the heart of this house, this is its core – it represents the unreality manifested outside. Its shifting patterns of light are beautiful but ephemeral, they do not really exist or having lasting impact, but always change.

I am also struck by photographs from the Venice Biennale. Konstantin has made a ‘flightless plane’ – resembling the type of things people enter in birdman contests. Stuffed full of kitsch, casino styled decoration – it represents the ‘flightless’ dreams of wealth harbored by those who visit the casinos and the kitsch decoration they eat up. Another photo shows an artist who has made replicas of the stone works from Macau’s temples. The artist wants to show the value of this heritage, threatened by the Casino’s now – how such art is equal to the Venetian monuments often exported to Macau.

Hong Kong - Escape from the noise?

Most of the time I find the noise of Hong Kong exciting. The clatter of passing trams, the dull whoosh of looming buses, the rhythmic tock-tock of the crossings, all blend into a strange music, a symphony that celebrates the city’s chaotic energy. Even high up in my flat I enjoy hearing the city asserting its presence with a dull rumble bellow, and the rattling Cantonese of my neighbors. It makes me feel connected. But just occasionally this noise gets too much and I long for a moment of silence.

The other day, I wandered over to North Point Park, hoping to find some quite there to reshape thoughts scattered by long city days. But while the park can assert a space that is distinct from the bustle around, it cannot separate itself from the noise in the same way. Roadwork’s on one side hammered into my head, while the grinding growth of a new skyscraper swept its sound in from the other side. I felt trapped – squeezed in between these harsh walls of noise.

After abandoning the park, I decided that the next day I’d head for Sai Kung. Surely Hong Kong’s beautiful back garden, far away from the gleaming metal, could offer me some stillness. It was beautiful cool morning and I set off full of expectation. I’d been to the beach before and knew how dazzling it was, knew how soothing the long tree lined walk afterwards could be, staring out over soft valley flooded with clumpy green. The whole day stretched before me with a promise of peace.

What I hadn’t expected was all the other hikers! And these weren’t just any hikers – These were hikers Hong Kong style. For me, walking can be a brilliant way to experience a very personal, very individual, relationship with nature. You walk along, gazing up in silence at the long branches that are over the path, clustering their different shaped leaves. You can reacquaint yourself with the nature from which you came, but from which modern life has detached you massively. It is like visiting an old relative who can tell you much about your own identity.

But these Hong Kong hikers instead flocked through it in huge groups. The city mindset has sunk so far into their minds that they need to feel close to other people and would feel uncomfortable otherwise. Nature becomes just another background to their socializing, like a restaurant, or a shopping mall. As they chatter away noisily to each other, they hardly look up at the stunning green around them, and there is little chance they will be privately moved by the experience.

The chatter of different groups floats up all around me. The connection of these groups isn’t enough however and often the walkers will slice the forest apart with their shouts, positioning themselves in locations to other groups on different parts of the trail. To aid in this, some have radio’s which crackle and buzz restlessly as they stride along, constantly notifying them of where others are. Instead of feeling sunk in an overwhelming force of nature, perhaps a little disorientated, they are all connected to each other.

Most of these hikers are so kitted out with brand new bags, shoes, water bottles, and sunhats that they could be climbing Everest. It seems sad to me that walking, which only really requires a pair of shoes, has become as comodified as other sports. Adverts create an image in people’s minds of what it means to be a walker, and the public follows.