While reading about what's been going down at Dale Farm I couldn't help but notice that some of the photographs are beautifully striking in an odd way. I suppose it's the contrast. Or the composition in some of them. I thought I'd post some of the images that I'll always remember from various moments of unrest in the UK. I've featured some from Dale Farm, the 2011 London riots, the Poll Tax riots, the Miners strike, the winter of discontent and the battle of Orgreave.
I think my two favourites are the guy from the NUM staring down a police officer during the miners strike, and the punks kissing in front of the burning building during the poll tax riots. Look at the heaps of rubbish from the winter of discontent though! We thought we had it bad when the bin men went on strike... was it in 2009?
I guess the reason like I like reading about troubled times in the past is because it reminds me that what is happening now isn't anything new. No matter how much the media might try and convince us otherwise. Pretty much every decade has had some moments of unrest. That's how the economy - and life I guess works - we have good moments and we have bad moments.
The punks kissing is for sure my favourite.
ReplyDeleteReally interesting post - both for aesthetics and ideas. It's really true that sometimes it's important to take a step back and realise that there's always been trouble, and there probably always will be. A somehow cathartic kind of pessimism?
... Ok, I'm rambling. Really great photos.
These images are amazing. I feel exactly the same way - about strikes and protests by cyclical. These latest Occupy protests seem to have a lot of similarities to the French Revolution. New media (then the printing press - now social media) being used to organise dissent.
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