Sunday, October 29, 2006

Resistance

You may have been wondering why I have not commented fully on the various acts of resistance that take place here. I was hoping that the media would pay proper attention to our plight. Instead they have fallen for the same old publicity stunts trawled out by the Universities with the local collaborators acting as cheerleaders.
Until recently I thought like a victim. Now I will no longer look to my oppressors to alleviate my suffering. I will not ask the Universities to discipline their students. I will not be made a fool of again. I will not ask the police to protect me. We all know that that won't happen. I will not ask the Landlords to soundproof their properties. They are determined to torture every last one of us into an early grave if we can't escape.
The victim mindset is hard to break. When a neighbour is beaten by students she considers moving into a hostel. I know of one family that did just that a few years ago. They foolishly beleived that they would be better off. The truth of the matter is that there's always a circle of hell deeper than this one and hostels are it. I know because I've been there.
Victimhood means giving into fear. It means curling up in the corner and waiting to die. Victimhood nearly killed me. I couldn't sleep with the noise. I couldn't eat with the stress. I wasted away and nearly died of pneumonia. I will never give into fear again. I'll die on my feet, but not on my knees.
When a neighbour tells me he has to get drunk in order to sleep at night I understand him. We're all either on medication or self-medicating. It can never be the answer. Two more of my neighbours are selling up. It's a luxury they can afford. If I'd known better, I'd have tried to buy this house years ago. Almost all of us that remain lack the means to buy our way out. We are prisoners. I would ask what did we do to deserve this, but I don't beleive that we live in a just world. We can't pray our way out of this hole.
We could follow some scriptural fatalism and accept the maxim that the strong do what they can and the weak suffer as they must. But for the oppressed there is always the option of resistance. It was Sartre who said that we have a moral obligation to resist our oppressors. I will not disagree with him.
Every act of resistance defies victimhood. I remember a cop's indignation at an act of arson,
"What a disgusting mess! These assholes have to come and ruin everything!"
Beside him stood the landlord, my violator. Where was the cop's indignation at the rape of this community? Does our pain not exist for him? Or is property sacred and are we but little nothings to be criminalised?
If we are criminals, so be it. But one by one we are ceasing to be victims. I don't know how we'll get justice, but if we want it, we'll have to fight.

Friday, October 27, 2006

Collaborator

David Farrell does not speak for me or what remains of this community. To go on television and pretend that the Universities and their bogus students are not the problem is an act of cynical opportunism from a carpetbagger seeking a cushy job.
The truth of the matter is that the Universities have raped this community and the landlords are their contractors hired to do the dirty work for them.
Now we are prisoners here. We cannot get rehoused. Queens University spends £295 million on capital investment (code for corporate architecture) yet commits not one penny to rehousing its victims.
David Farrell can kow-tow to whoever he wants, but neither he nor his committee represents us nor ever will.

Wednesday, October 25, 2006

Lollipops

What was our Lord Mayor thinking? He stood outside Queens Students Union handing out lollipops. Is the SSHH campaign going to change the attitudes of those who torment us all night, sexually assault our women, beat us up when we ask them to keep the noise down? They're taking the piss.
I like Pat McCarthy, but his party, the SDLP are a Hard Right grouping. Our local M.P. is Alistair McDonnell, a major landlord and close associate of Declan Boyle, head of the Landlords Association and most hated figure in the Holylands.
The Student Union officers promoting this are careerist sock-puppets who will say whatever the University tells them.
Everyone I've talked to about this finds the whole sorry business to be an embarrasment and an insult to their intelligence.

Monday, October 23, 2006

It's only a matter of time

I heard the van pull up, the side door slide open and shut. If it had been just one person I would have heard a door slam. This was a crew. They fiddled with the lock to next door and slipped inside. I heard them move through the house then silence. I knew why they were there. I called the cops.
He was pleasant enough as we talked on my doorstep.
"The house seems secure from the outside"
I walked out and looked at the front door.
" The Bolt's off! It was on earlier"
They said they'd get in touch with the keyholder to find out if he'd been round and off they went.
I went inside and played very loud music. Two hours later at 1am I had a look. The padlock was back on. They'd been rumbled.
They were waiting for someone to break in and damage the building. I honestly beleive they would have beaten whoever came to death. I think it's only a matter of time before the landlords' hired thugs kill one of us.

Drugs bust in Jerusalem Street

On Friday a house was raided in Jerusalen Street. £5000 of drugs was siezed and a 20 year old man was arrested and charged.
One could argue that this is the reason for the massive undercover and uniformed presence. However this ignores a number of issues.:-

1.The stated agenda of protecting property.

2.The presence of a large subculture of heroin addiction in the Holylands/Botanic area so large that a needle exchange has been set up. No heroin was siezed.

3.The large number of drug dealers in the Holylands/Botanic area.If they'd wanted to, the cops could have raided ten houses and siezed £50,000 of drugs

The raid appears to be cosmetic, a bit like the attemps to "police" the "students" in the Holylands

Tuesday, October 17, 2006

Meat Wagon

The cops saturated the area on Saturday night, scouring the alleys for residents or anybody else who might hit back. Three teenagers narrowly escaped them while a resident was seized and would have been carted away had another not intervened on his behalf. I arrived on the scene to witness an armoured land rover, presumably containing riot squad, a police van , two police cars and a meat wagon, a very large lorry that can hold 15-20 prisoners. This is a total of almost twenty cops at one spot, ten times what we usually have at night during the week while the "students" run riot. What is going on here? Clearly landlords property is so important that vast police resources are committed to protecting it. We have a population of 200 residents and a policing presence at the weekend of at least one cop to every ten residents. Interestingly the one to ten ratio is conventionally what is considered neccesary to defeat a resistance movement. Or, to put it slightly differently, the police are being deployed in the manner of an army of occupation.
It was all in vain. Teenagers from the Ormeau Road ran rings round them and torched a house in Jerusalem Street.
We are not alone in this. Other people support us.

Thursday, October 12, 2006

Resident assaulted in Palestine Street

For five weeks they've tortured her with noise. Now she asks them to keep it down. The girl who answers the door of no5 Palestine Street doesn't live there yet takes it upon herself to drag a middle aged woman to the ground and start kicking her in the head. A neighbour comes to her assistance. The assailant flees. The boys who stay there insist they don't know who their houseguest was. Gordon Douglas, the man from Queens, seems more concerned that they've they've just had a window broken than for the victim. One resident tells him,
"We're like the Blacks of New Orleans"
I tell him we're nothing but dogs to that University.

Intimidation

As I walked past he came close and elbowed me then leaned in and whispered
"I'll get the boys for you"
I erupted,
"You just threatened me with paramilitaries!"
We screamed at each other until he stormed up Palestine Street shouting,
"You're making me feel frightened right now"
As I arrived at my front door he stood in the middle of his workmen. I pointed at him and shouted,
"That cunt just threatened me!"
He got into my face and called me out, calling me a coward. I new not to fall for it. He turned to his workmen and said,
" Did you just hear him say he was gonna get me shot?"
To a man and mouse they all said " yes"
Twice during the altercation this happened. He withdrew to no2 . I went home and called the cops. They came out and took my statement.
The next day they tell me he insists he wasn't in Belfast at all and can produce a witness. We all know this is bullshit. The witness turns out to be barely cooperative. The workmen are terrified to say anything. James Devlin is clearly a psychopath.
It is ironic that Douglas Bailie, a rich Protestant, has hired a catholic thug to intimidate residents on his behalf.

Monday, October 09, 2006

I got arrested

It had to happen. You don't stand up to power and not get arrested. They came on saturday morning in an armoured landrover. I have to say they were very civil and not unsympathetic as we chatted in the back of their vehicle. Being charged, processed, taken down to the cells, interviewed, photographed, fingerprinted, DNA'd, none of it was threatening. They were all very friendly. Things really have changed. Others tell me they can't beleive how different it is.
Of course I don't think I have done anything wrong. I beleive my actions are morally correct and am prepared to accept whatever consequences come my way.
Ten days ago the boss builder James Devlin came to my door and threatened me. My response to that was to have a row with him in the street in the course of which I spat at him. I am now being investigated for " common assault" because of the spitting business.
Everyone I have spoken to round here is furious that a resident can be criminalised while at the same time the police do nothing to relieve the torment of this community. Instead, by driving by and doing nothing, they are complicit in the criminal behaviour of bogus students

Wednesday, October 04, 2006

Undercover Cops

Everybody's clocked them. They've saturated the area. As I passed one of them last night I said,
"Good evening officer"
He turned and then, just before acknowledging me, caught himself, and walked on in silence. Helicopters periodically hover at low altituide right over our heads. It feels like the troubles all over again, except whatever else we had then, it was quiet here. Today people are afraid in their own beds. Most keep a weapon handy. The police are not here to protect us. They protect the property of our oppressors. While bogus students go nuts in the streets, cops scour the area looking for residents who might hit back. The whole community is criminalised because we have refused to be victims any longer.

Tuesday, October 03, 2006

Update: Douglas Bailey cowardly Holylands Slumlord

He came with a police escort. Five officers drove him up in a van. He was here to inspect his property after irate residents broke into his yard and torched it. The cops were questioning me. Yes, I heard noise, but there's always noise. No, I don't know who did it or all the other retaliations. No, I don't want it to burn, I live next door to it. The truth of the matter is I don't care if it burns to the ground as long as my own house isn't damaged. No wonder he's an Absentee Landlord. The sight of his victims pain repulses him, so he hides behind a property manager.
On Monday he sent the builders back in to torture me.
He seeks power without accountability. He no longer has it.