Eeyore visits London CrimeStoppers 5.2.07

Do you remember my surprise at the London (Metropolitan) Police's diligent handling of the theft of my property, in December?

- For once not giving in to my cynicism, born from a series of sad experiences with bureaucracies in general, and with bureaucracies of law and order in particular, I opted for a sunny view. Couldn't it be a real start of a humanistic revolution, fruit of Blairite moralism and inspiring accomplishments of London Mayor Livingstone? I gave it a full chance to be true. (Remember, it was Christmas).

Source: Daily Mail 2007.02.06Since the first one, I had several international telephonic conversations with Hotel CrimeStopper, Detective C., with his light cockney accent. And an enthusiastic officer of the Victim and Witness Care Unit, Officer F., came also on the telephone, urging me to accept the hospitality of the Westminster Borough Law authorities and come over to witness at the trial of the culprit. Hotel, and travel Brussels-London on the house.

Meanwhile, a Southwest England reader of 'Huibs UrbLog' put a hair in the ever more heating soup of my enthusiasm, writing:

"I must say I am astonished at the amount of resources that the police are putting into your case (into your case!), compared with the daily debate about whether they have enough resources to catch terrorists and murderers. Our own social systems are as mysterious as the stars."
[The "stars" refer to the e-urban city-stars in its website banner, HR]

Suddenly, all my traditional and darkest suspicions came into life: They were about to lure me into a TRAP! On arriving at Waterloo International, they would take me into an interrogation room and subject me to a "Zaanstad" treatment*). That is why they are so eager to have me on British soil!

But then, I heard again the already familiar Cockney voice of Detective C. on the phone, and I departed from my paranoia. "They are just common officers, I reassured myself, trying to get a condemnation of a felon. Surely, it seems that it doesn't happen all too often. That is why they are so excited... Do not let them down, brooding continental coward!"

I imagined a lone, weathered detective in the Conelly style, braving his superiors, persecuting the evil ones out of conviction, not out of eagerness to rise in the CrimeStopper's hired consultant's statistics. I would not let them down, my new friends C. and F., a couple of lone revengers in the midst of an uninterested mass of routinists and ostriches!

So, I did two things:

1. Taking a closer look at the UK debate about police efficiency and the issues coming up about that, and
   
2. Go to London on trial day, to see for myself, how things were going to work out.
   

I stuck to my decision, even when, at the last moment the prosecutors' office decided that my presence in person as a witness, was not necessary at this moment, so that the promised free trip turned into an empty box.

There he was, the so cared-for Victim and Witness, with a deflated balloon in an empty box.

Eeyore's birthday!

*) The "Zaanstad" method of interrogation was, in Holland, until it was forbidden, a 'robust' set of techniques to destabilise the interrogated person, until he or she was ready to confess anything suggested by the interrogators. It produced, when it was applied in the right setting (in an optimally bare police room, duration minimum 5 hours without interruption nor refreshments, absence of lawyer or other support for the client), delirious self-accusations, which led to a series of misjudgments and long imprisonments of innocent people, that are slowly being undone at this moment by a special independent commission of academic jurists.

 This post is the first of three ones, drawn from an article that originally appeared in Huib's UrbLog at e-urban ThinkTank website on February 5, 2007. It was updated for publication in huibslog on March 20, 2007.

PlameGate: 'Slate' is the best.

PlameGate - John Dickerson: Matt Cooper testifies at the Libby trial. - By John Dickerson, Dahlia Lithwick, and Seth Stevenson - Slate Magazine
The best coverage of the Scooter Libby trial, to me, is Slate's. It is a day-to-day report of what really happens in court.
It has become evident, already, that:

'Scooter' Libby, Leaving the White House, October 2005, after
having resigned because of his indictment

* Libby was NOT informed of Valerie Plame by reporters, but that we have to deal with a full-fledged campaign, initiated by his boss
Cheney;
* Libby's own counsel sketched a version of the facts, that depicts Libby as a victim of the White House's efforts to keep Bush's witch Rove out of the line of fire;
* and that there was panic in the White House, following Wilson'sq revelations in his NYT op-ed in July 2003.
US justice is good, mostly, but often slow.
We cannot expect an outcome that permits an indictment of Cheney and Bush before the end of their term, in 2008.

Wall- und Raumfahrt in Bremen - Gröpelingen 29.12.06 [DE]

Grau war der Himmel über Gröpelingen.

Es regnete in Bremen. Ich machte eine kurze Wallfahrt nach das Ort, wo ich im Jahre 2002 oder 2003 ein URBAN-Schlussfest überrascht hatte mit dem Philosophen Peter Sloterdijk. Dieser deutsche Philosoph hat die modische Errichtung von Themaparks als Ersatz für das reale Leben angeklagt in seinem Buche, wo er von "Menschenparks" spricht.

Tierpark - Menschenpark: Es ist nur ein kleiner Schritt.

 

Die freie Hansestadt Bremen hat sich als Raumfahrtstandort durchsetzen wollen. Das Millionenmanna des URBAN Programms (II) sollte helfen den Traum wenigstens parkenhaft zu verwirklichen. Deswegen schuf man auf dem Gelände der stillgelegten Werften an der Weser ein "SpacePark", oder, genauer, ein "Space Park Center". Beton- und Glas Architektur. Riesenhaft. Ein horizontaler Babelsturm.

Ein kommerzielles Bereich war vorgesehen, um die Exploitation zu ermöglichen (deswegen das "Center" in der Name).

Aber nach sechs Monaten eröffnet gewesen zu sein, musste das ganze Center schliessen wegen ungenügendes Besuchs. Das geschah aber zwei Jahre nach meiner pessimistischen Prophetie.

 

Diese Letzte wurde vorgetragen im "Lichthause", ein Überrest vom Werftencomplexe, das im Rahmen des "Kohesionsteils" des Urban Programms mit kargen Mitteln umgebaut war zur Klienbetrieben- und Ateliers-Behäusung.

Die kleine, begeisterte Gruppe die am Grossprojekt angehängt war (und zugleich abgehängt) und die als Aufgabe hatte, um im dorfhaften Arbeiterviertel Gröpelingen eine Erwachung aus der Lethargie der Dauerarbeitslosigkeit hervorzuzaubern, hatte, mit Hilfe eines Grosswohnungsbauvereins, etwas geschaffen, das aus dem Dorfe ein Kulturpark machte. "Kultur Vor Ort" lässt verborgene Brunnen von Schaffungskraft und versteckte Fähigkeiten der deutschstämmigen und der türkischstämmigen Bevölkerung üppig fliessen.

 

Aber es ist, im Vergleich zu dasjenige was möglich gewesen wäre mit den Euromillionen, und auch als "Kohesion" (dauerhafte gegenseitige Anregung der Projektelementen zur Weiterentwicklung - ich bedenke diese Definition hier und heute, aber sie scheint mir richtig), viel zu schwach, beinahe nichtig.

Hauptfehler ist, dass die Kohesion nicht im Perspektive der Wieder- und Weiter-Entwicklung der Bewohner und der Arbeitnehmer, sowie der Ökonomie der Nachbarschaften (Gröpelingen, Waller, usw.) gesehen worden ist, aber nur als Anhängsel des Grossparktraumes.

 

Wäre das "Center" mit seinen kommerziellen Grossflächen wirklich instandgesetzt sein, dann hätte das Kleinladenbestand Gröpelingens seinen letzten Überlebenschancen verpasst. Keine Anregung zur Anwerbung der Dauerarbeitslosen Gröpelingens im Center war vorgesehen. Reparatur dieser Situation ergab sich als unmöglich.

Einsam hebt sich der Kopf der Ariane Rakete über das leere Space Park Center. Sie wird nie zum Himmel steigen.

Hundert Meter weiter erhebt sich das Minarett des neuen türkischen Grossmoschee. Himmelfahrt ist dort nicht vorgesehen. Ein ironischer Bildreim von verfehlter Kohesion.

 

Frei nach Heinrich Heine:

 

"...Die Chinesen haben die Industrie, das Meer gehört den Briten, 

aber im Traumreich des Parks, herrscht der Deutsche unbestritten." 

 

Ich habe trotzdem etwas Postives, ein winziges Prinzip Hoffnung gefunden. Nur Träumer können einen so riesigen Beitrag zum zukünftigen Urban Blunderbook leisten. Es handelt sich hier um einem Monumentalen Fall von "worst practices", das uns so viel lehren kann. Vielleicht mehr als the best of the best practices.

 

Ha, ich bin wieder froh, dank der Deutschen. Ich hole mir einen "Space Cut" bei dem gröpelinger Friseur. Der einzige Laden in ganz Gröpelingen bei dem ich eine Hoffnung auf Kohesion mit dem Space Center beobachtet habe ...

Mehr Photos (mit Kommentar) von meiner verregneten Wallfahrt sind im "eurban"-Bereich bei "Flickr" zu sehen.

Photos aus dem Jahre 2005 sind in der e-urban Gallery "Bremen 2005 - Gröpelingen, Oktober". 

London Thieves and Police 22.12.06

London, November 9, 2006. X-Mas decorations appearing everywhere. Me meeting my best friend in the UK, Gabriel, between our afternoon meetings and his departure by train from Victoria Station. We found a moderately quiet public place to sit and talk, in clubchairs in a sort of corridor between the Hotel lobby and it's bar. Afternoon tea was served.

Wet get up, having finished our talk. I reach for my bag with laptop, camera end papers - but no bag any more...

Stupid. STUPID! I should have kept it closer. A seasoned traveller like me can be robbed, yes, but not in such a simple way. It should have been more dramatic.

But here are the good things that the event produced:

The CrimeStoppers of Belgravia Police Station delivering...The London Police, contacted the next day, were quite different from other big-city polices I have had to do with. In spite of the fact, that thefts and robberies of foreign tourists happen 20 to 30 times a day in their sector, the Belgravia force handled my case, as if they were happy to serve and eager to deliver. I cannot exclude, that they really were.

The CCTV recording of the theft, I had meanwhile discovered with the gracious help of the Hotel Security Manager, identified the group of thieves. In stead of an uninterested typist, moaning under the charge of making his keyboard rattle, I got an efficient young woman who could have been my grandchild and who set a real chase for the criminal in motion. The eventual problems of the victim were not forgotten either. On my journey home, to Brussels, I was followed closely by a letter from a specialised department of London Police, who offered psychological help for victims. 

Not of any possible use for me, of course, but the letter in itself healed most of the mental wounds I had incurred from this event.

On former occasions, this would have been the end of the story. Those robberies are filed, and it becomes quickly and exclusively a matter for insurance companies. But not here. On an early Saturday morning, my Brussels phone ringed, and a voice belonging to a London detective with an accent "à couper en deux", as the French say, announced the arrest of one of the suspects. That jewel of civilisation which is called "habeas corpus" and that restricts detaining powers (without inculpation) to maximum 24 or 48 hours, necessitated some supplementary statements from me, so that a judge could decide upon further detainment of the suspect during the weekend.

Which was done. And -also a new and unusual kind of care- was confirmed by letter to me. With a number of details, that are restricted and I will not betray the confidence of the senders of the letter by publishing it here. Anyhow, all this will not restore my belongings to me. But this normal and consequent behaviour, which can, in my opinion only be delivered by a public service (No privatisation of the Police! - See European Petition on Public Services and Market that is featured elsewhere on e-urban.) is a positive experience.

This small adventure is worth remembering at the closure of this first e-urban year. It conveys some hope for a civilised Europe of sustainable communities. Hope that had to be so painfully absent from most of the other articles we published in 2006...