We’ll gesticulate how we want to: semiotics for cops

Not sure this sports criminology but involves sport and crime and policing!

When reading Hebdige’s Subculture: The Meaning of Style I was never entirely convinced of the links he saw between punk and reggae though I listened to a bit of both and still enjoy the Clash.  I think he was correct in arguing that Punk’s use of the swastika was meant to shock or to imply ‘Berlin’ (and therefore Bowie etc) but feel he and his respondents were too naive in thinking they had succeeded.

For instance, Wallach notes (in Duncombe and Tremblay (eds) White Riot: Punk Rock and the Politics of Race) how the transposition of punk to Indonesia meant that its earliest adherents didn’t even know these shock or hip references.  It just meant punk.  But quite quickly a more political punk (he cites, for instance, the Dead Kennedy’s ‘Nazi Punks Fuck Off’) is seen to chime with their own position under Suharto’s dictatorship.

And Hamm (in American Skinheads: The Criminology and Control of Hate Crime) notes the outgrowth of skinhead Oi music from some of the same roots which did fully embrace the Nazi regalia and ideology without robbing Wagner’s music box.  And Thompson (Punk Productions: unfinished business) is right to argue that punk may have attempted to empty Nazi symbols (and bondage gear for that matter) of their signifying power but failed to do so.  Yet whenever I happened across any punk wearing a swastika the bricolage of their clothing (see also Punk & the Swastika) and other accessories (Malcolm and Vivien’s Accessories franchise anyone) meant I never felt I was dealing with a Nazi.  Though I have felt that when dealing with others more conventionally dressed.

So am I easily reassured by a torn neon jumper and multi-dyed hair as counters to the message of the swastika?  Or is it too much cultural studies and semiotics and knowledge of Hindu (mention of Prince Harry in this BBC story) and Roman (was hoping to find a Mary Beard ref but here Hull Museum pitch in) uses of the swastika.  Or would anyone easily recognise that however offensive, they were not Nazis?

megan ruminates on “Can you accidentally do a Nazi salute?”, the case of Giorgos Katidis a 20 year old Greek footballer now banned for life for celebrating a goal with a nazi salute.  He claimed not to know its significance.  He may want to know about Basil Fawlty’s knack of not ‘mentioning the war’.  Not that this was much assistance to Mark Bosnich, the Aston Villa goalkeeper, who in 1996 was fined £1,000 for what he said was a Basil Fawlty impression in front of Spurs fans.

And talking of my team.  Whilst I don’t chant ‘Yids’ or ‘Yiddo’ on my rare visits I’d happily admit to being one, particularly to a non-threatening Arsenal fan in a solidaristic Spartacus sort of way.  Been known to let people think I’m gay (and certainly sung along with Tom Robinson Glad to be Gay) in the same spirit.  But I know full well that some do find the chanting offensive.  We’ll ignore the ironic potential of David Baddiel using the Daily Mail to argue it sustains anti-semitism.  And apparently the club has defended supporters against similar complaints from the Society of Black Lawyers.

Just as I know that no offense is meant to the jewish supporters of Spurs by the chants I suspect little support for them or wider Jewry either which is why I decline to join in.  Which brings me to the upcoming NE derby between Newcastle and Sunderland.  Northumbria Police have apparently decided that this is no Twitterjoke and intends to use CCTV to collect evidence should any Newcastle fans seek to mock the Sunderland manager’s alleged fascism with nazi salutes.  The BBC says, ‘Northumbria Police said such gestures would not be treated "as a joke".  Spurs fans sensitive to the criticisms and proud defenders of free speech now chant ‘We’ll sing what we want to’.  Will the Toon Army now chant ‘We’ll gesticulate what we want to’?  Or all turn up in Hitler moustaches or chant ‘Yiddos’ perhaps?

Olympic Claims

In Criminal Justice Matters No 88 (June 2012) ‘(In)security and the re-ordered Olympic city’ Pete Fussey explored issues around Olympic-related security and insecurity in advance of the Games.  Writing between the Games and the Paralympics I hope to assess some of those same issues.

First though some ‘conflict-of-interests’ confessions.  I was the external examiner on Peter’s PhD on CCTV and am very pleased to see the extent to which he has been able expand upon that work.  Also I’m a sports fan and have spent much of the past few weeks watching - live and recorded - the Olympics.  I agree with much that Peter says though I will be picking away at some aspects.  But, I’m not going to assert an ‘I-was-there’ standpointism where my experience of attending trumps his prospective theoretical position.  I went to the Olympic Park 6 times (3 Athletics, 1 Women’s Hockey, 1 Men’s Water Polo, 1 Women’s Basketball and 1 Track Cycling after another event) and the Lea Valley White Water Centre for Canoe Slalom.

Fussey picks out ‘a number of specific strategies [which] are consistently applied’: Militarisation, Privatisation, Technology and Surveillance, Physical Design and Behavioural regulation.  Whilst all might have been expected from his studies of other mega-events but the first two had a particular inconsistency in their application that might not have been anticipated.

Leading up to the Games much was made of the ‘missiles on rooftops’ but the experience of imilitarisation was in the form of actual serving members of the armed forces in the wake of the G4S security shortfall.  This even lead some commentators to eulogise them.  I can vouch for their friendly efficiency (and, like the policing of the torch relay a massive PR coup for them).  So actual militarisation trumped privatisation to the extent that 2 Govt Ministers were said to have had second thoughts about the limits of privatisation.  We shall see.

The technology and surveillance was less obvious but behind all such friendliness we find that Disney are using military strength face-recognition.  And again the physical and behavioural issues remind us of Disney.  Not only did the Olympic Park remind me of Disney but so did people’s appreciation of it.  But most had not read Clifford D. Shearing and Phillip C. Stenning’s ‘From the Panopticon to Disney World: the Development of Discipline’.  More hopeful though, are Warren’s conclusions in ‘Popular Cultural Practices in the “Postmodern City”’ that even:

Disneyland, demonstrates that contemporary urban landscapes are complicated and contradictory sites that hegemonically embed both dominant cultural and economic relations and creative resistance to them.

My derives around Stratford attempted some resistance, as does this.  But, and scandalously under-reported save on Twitter, were some more active complaints.  Thus Femen demonstrated outside City Hall against the inclusion of Islamic countries at the Olympics.  Yet I joined in the cheers for a Saudi and Palestinian woman athlete sporting ‘racing Hijabs’.

There is a dreadful irony in the success of the cycling team and the kettling of cycle born protestors on the night of the Opening Ceremony.  And further ironies in the on-screen lauding of the protests of Tommie Smith and John Carlos.  Past protests - on the right side - are seen to be acceptable.

But perhaps the best news is an unexpected Olympic legacy, of life imitating art as the suffragettes from the opening ceremony discover their feminism.

Race and foul judgments in football - it's not black and white

More from the British Psychological Society.

Complex findings suggesting racism (including fear of being thought racist) in football refereeing of fouls.
Compare perhaps with findings of police use disproportionate stop powers on the streets (see Stopwatch).

Interestingly Pascal Gygax and his colleagues presented 43 White football players, 17 White referees and 22 White football fans with 64 challenge sequences created with the Xbox 360 console game Fifa 2005.

Martial Farts

OK probably more sports law than sports criminology but Taekwondo's Aaron Cook continues to challenge the failure of his Federation to select him for the Olympics.  On reports it is difficult not to think that his independent mindedness is being punished by the 'blazers' - those combined police officers, prosecutors, judges and gaolers who run much sport.

Being a visiting football fan whilst being black

It would be nice to say that in England no black man or woman is abused, let alone murdered.  It would be nice to say that in England no footballer who signs for another team is derided with homophobic chants.

So this is some context for a mention of Sol Campbell's warning to black fans to stay away from Ukraine's hosting of Euro 2012.

I'm not black and not sufficient a fan to have ever considered travelling to watch England abroad.  People will have to make their own decisions about going;  but low ticket sales suggest all manner of England fans are keeping their cash in their pockets whether through fear of crime or the economic crisis.

As a criminologist the 'fear of crime' and Campbell's 'race crime' concerns are of obvious interest.  If nothing happens will that show nothing was going to happen or that precaution worked?

But worse what if black fans went and stood up for themselves, or were accompanied by anti-racists intent on challenge, how would they be policed?  Would the UK Govt see them as doughty human rights activists or 'hooligans' deserving of media trashing and banning orders?