UK

Triage Unit, Lewisham Hospital Psychiatric Observation Ward/ Schadenfreude

Written by Nathan Witt, 18.02.2013
We present a text that has been brought to us by Nathan Witt, as part of an on-going conversation on psychopathology, nature and suicide. Others authors included in the conversation so far have been Franco Berardi Bifo, Federico Campagna, Paolo Mossetti and Oana Parvan.
 
 
Notes:
 
7 days is the standard monitoring duration before they determine the course of treatment for the patient.
 
Description of the unit.
 
Lift> Hallway> Reception> Decompression/ Containment/ Screening> Main eating area and table tennis table> Kitchen to left> Laundry room to the right> Shared toilet> TV room to the right, off the main eating area> Quiet room on left> Followed by art room>Medication room on right> Followed by assessment room> Shower on same side> At end of hallway of all the rooms is the reception that faces you as you walk through these rooms. To the left of the reception are the female rooms and to the right is a sofa, waiting area followed by the mens rooms. On the right of the hallway is a unisex shower/ toilet and then the dorm rooms start, at the end of the corridor of the mens ward is the staff room. Most of the shouting comes from the women’s side.
 

Olympic Britishness and the crisis of identity

Written by Aaron Peters, 03.08.2012
As Team GB entered the Olympic stadium during the opening ceremony on Friday night, it was to David Bowie’s ‘Heroes’. The central line from the song struck me as summing up the country’s hopes for its sportswomen and men amid a double-dip recession and seemingly terminal economic inertia - ‘We can be heroes, just for one day’. A concession in the choice of song perhaps that the Olympics represent a temporary, if somewhat spectacular, distraction from an increasingly dire reality that can only intensify over the forthcoming years.
 
Something of a debate has broken out about the meaning of this extraordinary ceremony, not least here on OurKingdom with Anthony Barnett and Sunder Katwala. The New York Times called it “...neither a nostalgic sweep through the past nor a bold vision of a brave new future”. This struck me as an accurate summation of an event that presented in microcosm the present historical moment in the wake of the global financial crisis of 2008 and the social and economic malaise that has followed. I was reminded of the quote by Antonio Gramsci on crisis in its consisting“...precisely in the fact that the old is dying and the new cannot yet be born”. It is similar sentiments that informed the mixed nature of London's opening ceremony, which looked neither wholly forward nor back. 
 

Radical Atheism

Written by Federico Campagna, 11.01.2012
in loving memory of Pierre Clastres and Max Stirner
 
 
Few places in the world are more secular than the United Kingdom. The laughable origins of the Anglican church, mixed with the centuries-old hegemony of capitalist ethics seem to have finally killed the religious spirit of the people of Albion. Religion, in the UK, is a mark of underdevelopment usually reserved for impoverished ethnic minorities or for the inhabitants of rural areas.
 
As a migrant from Catholic Italy, when I first arrived in the UK I thought I couldn't have asked for more. Not only were the remnants of the church so liberal and progressive that even homosexuals were allowed to be priests, but also people did not feel the need to fight off the presence of the church by indulging in God-oriented swearing, as is the common habit in Italy. God seemed to have finally disappeared, both as an unrequested father figure and as the millenarian oppressor of all living creatures. Back then, I thought I had arrived in the promised land of ‘really existing atheism’. And yet, I couldn’t have been more mistaken.
 

Flee the state, don't seize it! A response to the idea of 'citizen politicians' in UK government

Written by Aaron Peters, 14.12.2011
Andreas Whittam-Smith recently wrote about the possibility of 'a group of like-minded citizens running for election for one term only' in order to bring about the requisite change that is patently needed within British politics and which, it seems increasingly clear, is not forthcoming from career politicians within the bowels of the palace of Westminster. His proposal, therefore, was one in which a better group of persons would in part replace the current cohort, as inept and frequently corrupt as they seem to be. This would be in the hope that improved personnel might be more effective 'problem-solvers' while also mediating a crisis of confidence in our democratic institutions which are, we are often told, of central importance in British public life and whose redemption is seemingly necessary.
 
As was the case with Guy Aitchison's response to the piece I am certainly sympathetic with the basic proposal and it is clear that, as Guy writes, '...the British elite stand politically, morally and ideologically bankrupt'. This is a basic point. Those contributing within the piece, myself and vast swathes of the British population share a common ground – that something has to change. This is an increasingly evident point, but also a basic premise upon which meaningful social and political change can and might be built. The institutions which govern, rule and represent us are failing at every turn.
 

Vengeance de classe

Written by Federico Campagna, 23.08.2011

Une fois que les les gens à capuches sont revenus à leurs refuges, que les incendies se sont éteints et que la menace s’est estompée, la police a repris pleine possession des villes anglaises. Pendants des journées entières, les seize milles hommes armés envoyés par le gouvernement ont fait entendre leur monologue assourdissant, avec des colonnes de blindés se lançant à sirènes hurlantes sur les routes désertes et des patrouilles dans chaque quartier.

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