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A Call To Arms

There is an extremely interesting case of denial happening within the borders of Great Britain. Nationally we are amazingly good at blowing our own trumpets, looking down our noses at the ‘others’ across the seas and bathing in self-congratulatory for simply being ‘British’. If we were to listen to our own self-indulgent praise, we are angels, leaders of the world that have never put a foot wrong.

But if we are to look under the cover so to speak, we are actually incredibly good at doing absolutely nothing about the glaring corruption and unjust behaviour that directly has an effect on us from the way our leaders, government and elites conduct themselves year in year out square in our faces.

My apologies, we do do something. We moan.

Yes, we are experts at it. We love to moan. I mean, how much corruption must we endure until that moaning turns into some action? Some of us at times slump from moaning into apathy. But action, real action that changes the playing field, well, this has yet to be seen.

By this I’m not denying there are and have been movements for good, for justice, for a better system. Of course there are, and it would be stupid to deny it. Woman wouldn’t be able to vote, homosexuality would still be a criminal act and foreign invasions would happen without any protest while others fight to save the planet, end poverty and more. All of this is obviously good.

But how is it that collectively we can just sit back and watch our governments and their associates clearly act in such corrupt and unjust ways? How is it that we are able to only share (moan) our frustrations on social media or to one another and that simply be the limit of our action. Perhaps action here, is totally the wrong word.

Are we so wrapped up in the fact that we are British and buy into the nonsense our leaders and elite spout out every day that we prefer to deny how we are being royally shafted? Better to live within the lie than to see the truth, otherwise we may just have to do something, other than moan. Or are we just so fucking lazy and life is just easier in the consumer dream?

I mean, what will it take to get active and move to create a better country for all, one built on egalitarianism, one where we don’t accept such levels of corruption and injustice?

Here are just 10 instances of corruption and injustice that should make our fucking blood boil:

2003 – 2016 – The Iraq war and the fake WMDs2009 – The United Kingdom parliamentary expense scandal2012 – The Health and Social Act 2012 that led to huge redundancies, cuts to beds and doctor and nurse vacancies in the NHS2016 – The Panama Papers, money laundering, tax avoidance by bankers, politicians and celebrities2010 – 2020 – The treatment of Julian Assange2010 – 2020 – The austerity cuts against the population of Britain2010 – 2019 – Prince Andrew and his relationship with Jeffrey Epstein2019 – 2020 – The Government’s handling of the COVID pandemic2020 – The track and trace app cost at 37 billion where contracts were given to friends and associates of politicians in the Conservative Party2021 – Priti Patel to make the UK a protest free zone

How much more will we sit back and take?

Motta’s novels Celebrity Rape and VIR(US) are available from Amazon.

Photo by Ehimetalor Akhere Unuabona on Unsplash

They paved Prince’s Parade and they put up a boutique hotel, houses and a swimming pool

51 years ago, in 1970 Joni Mitchell wrote the melodic highly compelling song ‘Big Yellow Taxi’ with the lyrics “They paved paradise and put up a parking lot” to alert her listeners to the fact that “you don’t know what you got ‘til it’s gone” which included various different things including trees, animals, her old man and of course paradise. Paradise, of course, comes in many different forms to many different people.

Since 1970, and before we have witnessed the concreting of the planet. There’s a space, quick, build on it, swamp it in concrete! And of course, there is a profit to be had, and most likely through private development. I’m not against the building of homes considering that we have a population explosion and houses are in need of course. Plus, we have an influx of immigrants where I live, and I’m not talking about those from Europe, I’m referencing with satire to the ‘DFLs’, the ‘Down from Londoners’. I jest, but there is some anger from the locals about the DFLs, but nothing compared to the attacks of those ‘who didn’t stop at the first safe country they got to’ ad nauseum.

Housing in Britain is a huge problem, I’m not talking about ‘enough housing’, I’m talking about ‘Rent vs Buy’. There are people in Britain who will simply never be able to buy a home. But why buy a home? Because the price of rent is the same, if not more than the mortgage on a house. But unfortunately, the way our society is structured, it’s just not that easy, and so some people find themselves in terrible positions of insecurity for their whole lives. Let’s face it, selling off council houses wasn’t the greatest move considering the long-term effects to society’s most disadvantaged.

But it isn’t just houses that the world is being doused in concrete for. Just drive to the outskirts of any town and you can visit the corporate hell holes of superstores slammed together where people can choose to waste their weekends consuming to the hypnotic mediocre muzak of one of the ‘great’ musicians and voices of our time: Ollie Murrs and the like. Again, on the latter, I jest…

And so routinely like many others I like to get away from that world and stroll by the beach, along the promenade, sometimes with my partner, friends or alone with my thoughts, passing others who clearly enjoy the serenity that the coast clearly provides.

Where I live, in Seabrook, between Hythe and Sandgate there is a beautiful stretch of beach and grasslands with a canal running parallel called Prince’s Parade. But not for long. Pretty soon building work will begin for a new swimming pool, 150 homes, shops and a hotel. It’s time to lay yet more fucking concrete!

Of course, this will greatly benefit some, it could be a nice addition to the area creating jobs and providing homes. But it will also disrupt the wildlife and as I said cover yet another piece of land in yet more concrete whilst overlooking the beach where the local population routinely stroll back and forth. From the promenade you can, with your back to the sea look at the town inland, it’s quite a beautiful site, but like I say not for long, for a wall of houses will block the view.

I understand the arguments by the local residents particularly those who live close by and will be subject to how many years’ worth of work that will essentially be on their doorstep, but at the same time there are rows of houses in parallel with the beach, so at some point in history the same argument could have been made by the row before the next row was built, and so the argument could be viewed as hypocritical.

But still, how much concrete do you fucking need?! So, I go back to Joni. An age when there was a change in the air. She’s most certainly right, we may not know what we’d had until it is gone.

So, I ask the question, who are buying these houses? Are they affordable? For if, they are bought by people in London who have sold their properties, thus amassing a healthy profit and then moving into an area where they can buy more for less money, they will never know ‘what they had, ‘til it’s gone’ because they will have only gained as they watch those strolling by who could be suffering from the disadvantages of Thatcher selling off the council homes and will most certainly ‘know what they never had’ or never will have, as it is built before their eyes on the beautiful piece of land.

And of course, the wildlife, in the face of profit, doesn’t stand a chance at all.

Let’s be honest the only reason for the development is profit. BAM construction has just been appointed to deliver the new leisure centre, promenade and infrastructure work set to be worth £23 million and you can imagine the profit on 150 houses overlooking the English Channel.

The council have refused to accept a petition of over 6500 people, ignored 600 plus local planning objections and, more importantly, the Cabinet have overridden a vote made by the Full Council to abandon the scheme.

Among those who object to the plans are Historic England, the Environment Agency, CPRE, Kent Wildlife Trust, KCC Archaeology, Hythe Town Council and Sandgate Parish Council.

You can read more here https://www.crowdjustice.com/case/saveprincesparade/

And here: https://saveprincesparade.org/

So ask yourself the question: Do we really need to cover yet another piece of land in more concrete and watch a huge building corporation make a fortune with locals are priced out of buying a house yet again?

And as that contemporary of Joni Mitchell: Bob Dylan so well put: “Money doesn’t talk, it swears.”

Motta’s novels Celebrity Rape and VIR(US) are available from Amazon.

Did society make me, or did I make society?

The other night as I lay awake at 3 in the morning, as does happen from time to time, the thought suddenly hit me, among many others, that in 13 years I will be 60. Fuck me 60! I have to admit I felt a twinge of fear, a spike of horror, a stab of insecurity.

“Okay Motta, all is not lost, you’re only 47, 3 years from the half century and let’s face it, life is good.”

And life is good. I have a house, car, beautiful partner, 2 well-adjusted lovely children, healthy income that enables me to put on weight, travel and fill most of my consumer needs. And I also have time. From the moment I left school I knew inherently that time is of the utmost importance and have built that into my life since then so I can pursue all my creative needs.

But ‘time’ is what produced that fear at 3am, the fear that I was running out of it. And what was so fearful about the slowly emptying hourglass of life? The answer reverberated around my skull:

Had I achieved, become everything I wanted to become or needed to be? Had I recorded all the songs, written all the books, performed all the comedy, painted all the pictures I had inside of me?

I’m sure I’m not the only person that has had this moment of early morning solipsistic terror.

And then I looked at the sentence from a distance, and it was quite revealing, for it was simply about me, about what I wanted to be, what I needed to be. Me me me me me.

Am I simply a product of the age? I have lived for some time now in the ‘age of the individual’ and quite arguably we are at the height of that era right now. Just look at the name of some of the biggest well know consumer goods:

‘Iphone’

‘Ipad’

Imac’

‘I!’

Is this not a symbol of the ultimate need to poorly attempt to show you’re an individual? Just take a look at social networks as people fight to stand out from others: the loudest, most stupid, ridiculous voices will be heard. Don’t believe me? Spend 5 minutes on Tik Tok.

But seriously how free really are we? Or more to the point, how free am I? Since my emergence into the world, specifically the UK, I have only ever known a competitive society, through my years at school, at work and through recreation. We live in a society that is run from the top down, with a royal family that undemocratically has a higher ranking in our society than most. At school we are taught to be competitive, not essentially to work together, and the same is repeated throughout our working existence. To be a celebrity is a dream, a dream where everybody celebrates ‘you’ as an individual. Britain, whether you like it or not, choose to see it or not, has a class structure. It is simply not in the nature of British society to work and collaborate together for the people, for the society.

Thatcher is famously quoted to have said: “There is no such thing as society. There are individual men and women, and there are families. And no government can do anything except through people, and people must look after themselves first. It is our duty to look after ourselves and then to look after our neighbour.”

So, I have to ask myself, am I product of this? Has my behaviour been influenced by the unseen, underlying structure, the driving force of the society of which I am part of? Have I as an artist who has believed to be singing, writing novels and comedy about an unjust system, actually just been playing my part in it unaware of the beautiful irony as I push and promote myself in a self-serving manner?

Or is the system simply a part of the way we as humans’ function? Is the system like this because we are inherently self-serving individuals? Can I blame my environment for the way I am, or does it function like this because of the way I, and many others are?

Of course, there are areas where people do work together in the UK, movements wouldn’t happen otherwise, but from a simple cursory look around you will see rampant individualism and its effects.

Last year my father died of cancer. Due to COVID I couldn’t see him when he was in a hospice until they felt he was going to die. Nervously, after the phone call to tell me I could visit him in his last hours, I put on smart clothes and drove to the hospice. It was an odd experience. One I am glad I witnessed. He lay on the bed asleep through drugs to relieve the pain before he finally let go.

I sat with him and spoke to him. Walked about the room and thought about his life and my life with him. It was a somewhat existential experience. I didn’t break down or fall to pieces as I thought I may. I just looked at him, thought about life, the high, the lows, what one can do with the time and what he truly meant to me.

He didn’t die when I was there, but two days later I got the call. He was gone. He had left the table, as so many do every minute, every day.

And it was then that I thought: Are we really that different from anyone else? Are we really under the illusion that we are individuals and special?

We are born, we do something in-between and then we die. In a sense it is that simple.

We are part of humanity as it moves through the ages and subject to the ideas, systems and structures of the time we are born into and live through, which in turn shapes our characters.

But if we choose to question…

Motta’s novels Celebrity Rape and VIR(US) are available from Amazon.

Photo by Kyle Myburgh on Unsplash

The Undemocratic Royal British Society

Over the course of the last few weeks, I have seen a subject on the ‘news’ that has been circulated widely across many news mediums that should make you question British society: The royal family.

We can all debate ‘what the news should be’, but more importantly if we look at what the news actually is, this in itself is much more telling and a greater insight into how our society functions.

When one reads an article about the new royal baby, the Queen’s thoughts on Prince Harry and Meghan or that Prince Philip is ‘OK’ in hospital, what they are actually reading is a reinforcement of an established imagined order, an order that you have no control over, that is highly undemocratic. It matters little what the Queens thoughts are, anything about Harry or Prince Phillip ad nauseum, what matters is that there is a Queen, a royal family and that you have no say in the matter and never will. It is a ‘truth’, a ‘reality’ not to be contested. It is of course in reality nothing more than nonsense and completely unjustified.

It’s very easy to not pay it any mind because if you were been born in the UK this has always been the order of things. There are them, and there are us, and that is the way it is, the way it must be, and how the order of things must stay. This is the message from the moment you leave the womb and set your little feet on British soil until your days are numbered.

So, there is a Queen, a royal family, why?

Can any reason be justifiable? Of course, there is a history for why our society is currently constructed as it is, but does that mean it should exist today as an established order that is sacrosanct and beyond question? Should we so easily accept it? Are we really to believe these people should have a better life than the majority of us simply because of their characteristics through birth amongst other ridiculous things?

As my girlfriend likes to remark, they are nothing but incredibly overpaid ‘professional wavers’, employed to sit in extremely expensive cars and move their hands back and forth to the insane who have stood in the British dull weather for 48 hours to get a glimpse of… well… an old woman, that is waving.

Some may argue having a Queen, a royal family is good for the country, but to counter that argument, is it good to have a country that claims to be democratic while having an established order that no citizen has any control over and sell it through the idea of patriotism and tourism? Surely only those who choose not to question would agree to such a contradiction.

What it comes down to is this: how much do you value and believe in the idea of an egalitarian society?

I personally have nothing against each one of them, I don’t know them, but a system that clearly denotes a class structure that is so evidently unbalanced I do disagree with, and the fact that it’s so easily accepted and barely questioned gives a clear indication of the foundations and functions of British society.

We can also see that the ‘news’ in itself is a servant to power. Rarely do we see articles challenging the status quo, but repeatedly we see articles reinforcing the order of the royals. It is essentially nothing short of gossip.

Now I won’t be anytime soon standing outside Buckingham Palace dressed in a beret and Che Guevara t-shirt with a megaphone spouting anti-royalist sentiment or rhetoric about us being a republic, the imagined order is too firmly established in the minds of many and there are far too many other pressing worthwhile causes to dedicate my time too.

But for once, just once, wouldn’t it be interesting and enlightening if we could all collectively agree and acknowledge what British society actually is: a highly undemocratic system, rather than pretend with the utmost self-congratulatory pomposity that we are the greatest country on earth, the leaders of the world, while insecure, melancholic and suffering in our empire patriotic hangovers.

Photo by Jean Carlo Emer on Unsplash

Acceptable racism vs unacceptable racism

Thankfully we now live in a time where collectively racist terms are no longer used by the majority and if they are, people are quick to point out their disgust and move to halt such behaviour. To say the N word or the P word just simply is no longer excusable or acceptable.

It has been somewhat amusing to hear white people exclaim ‘All Lives Matter’ since the ‘Black Lives Matter’ movement picked up pace, which is of course true, let’s face it, all lives obviously do matter, it’s just that, to use an Orwellian quote from Animal Farm with a slight twist “All lives matter, but some lives matter more than others.” And if anyone hasn’t noticed how the scales of equality have and do lean more to one side there is a serious case of denial or plain stupidity at play.

You only need to take two racist terms and put them alongside one another to see how strong racism is and the effects it has had throughout history and society.

Nigger.

Honky.

Clearly the first racist term carries a huge weight, it is understandably unsettling, provocative and inflammatory.

The second, well, it’s a joke. I don’t believe any white man in the history of humanity has ever been insulted by the term honky.

And one only needs to look through history to understand the gravity of why. I really don’t need to point it out, a couple of minutes dedicated to research will outline the years of abject racism that gives the N word its power and weight.

But unfortunately, racism didn’t stop with the near eradication of the N and P word. No, it’s started to re-emerge, I’m not sure whether it’s necessarily more sophisticated given those who promote it, but it’s definitely filling our social networks and media, can be heard easily in conversations and vocalised by politicians, celebrities and other ‘important’ figures.

Katie Hopkins, Nigel Farage and Tommy Robinson have built whole careers on racism under the guise of patriotism, but there is a very fine line between patriotism and jingoism, an extreme version of nationalism.

I have witnessed here in the Deep South of England, Folkestone twinned with Alabama, huge amounts of anti-immigrant, anti-refugee diatribes, but guaranteed if you asked each person if they were racist, they would deny it swiftly and be disgusted at such a notion. No one wants to be labelled a racist.

Just because you don’t say ‘nigger’ or ‘paki’ does not automatically mean you’re not racist. Posts about letting foreigners drown because they don’t belong ‘here’ and putting gunships in the channel to stop migrants crossing and comparing them to cockroaches is, erm, racist.

Reading the comments on posts recently about the Napier Barracks arson affair where people were calling for immigrants to be thrown into the flames of a burning building because they don’t belong here, believe it or not, is racist.

Interestingly, I have experienced some of these very people who swiftly claim, ‘All Lives Matter’ in the next sentence attack ‘immigrants’. Perhaps there should be a footnote. All lives matter, unless you’re from Syria, Africa, Iraq, Iran or anywhere else that simply isn’t ‘here’, on this sinking rock.

How far are people going to go with the anti-immigration movement? Are we going to find ourselves in a position whereupon a pregnant woman enters a hospital and because she isn’t British rather than help her with her labour, they sew up her vagina instead ensuring that no UN-British child will enter the UK in any fashion, as a form of contraband?

“No non-Brit is going to enter my country across the borders or via the vagina canal! British forceps for British people!”

I recently bumped into a black friend of mine, (see I’m not racist. Little joke there) and we were discussing this, that and then finally got into a talk about race whereupon he told me he didn’t realise that so many of his friends were racist after viewing their posts and comments on social media. It wasn’t that they were posting the N word, it was that they were expressing themselves through the now socially acceptable sport, that pastime, so many know and love: the hatred of immigrants, a new football to kick around when you are unsatisfied with your own life.

Immigrant is now a pejorative term. A way to look down on another. A noun that is divisive. A term to be used in post-truth politics. It may not start with a N or a P, but it is already beginning to carry a certain weight to be used by those in fear to control and keep others down.

Pastor Niemoller may need to amend his widely quoted poem to fit the day and age in which we live:

First they came for the immigrants, I did not speak out, because I wasn’t an immigrant.

And then they came for me, and there was no one left, to speak out for me.

Let’s not turn this the UK into the UKKK.

Motta’s novels Celebrity Rape and VIR(US) are available from Amazon.

The water cooler moment is dead, the age of remote working and our destructive acts of convenience

Every morning, in a Kantian fashion, I like to rise from bed and walk down to the beach. It’s a walk I generally do in solitude to allow myself 40 minutes or so to compose my thoughts, to allow the dust to settle as each thought fights for prominence and importance in my mind, and with a gentle act of selection I file each one into a somewhat ordered list to work through as the day moves along at its own pace all determined by its sequence of events.

If I look back over the years, I have spent my life walking, and most of it, alone. I have always had a lot on my mind it seems and being the biped that I am, that we are, always found a good hike was the perfect way to get the cogs in the brain spinning into motion, the act of cognition. And so, on this glowing snowy morning I decided to brave the blistering winds and walk up to Tescos to buy a loaf of bread and a few other staple foods. To be honest I just wanted another reason to go out. Why I needed a reason I don’t know…

I live in the middle of a hill with the supermarket at the brow. It’s not far, but it’s good for the system, gets the blood moving, wakes you up! Tesco is my go-to store for no other reason than convenience. It’s close and in comparison, relatively cheap compared to other stores, but I am by no means evangelistic about the place.

I have noticed as of late, since Christmas in fact, that there is an air of jubilation, of morale, of cheer in the store. People are happy, shopping currently doesn’t seem to be a dull affair. Lately there is also music playing and people are talking in the aisles akin to the run up to Christmas. And then of course it hit me. This is the only place people in a lockdown can meet and talk. The last area of engagement. People are truly starved of real human interaction and so over the tomatoes, cucumbers and peppers are able finally to converse without a screen between them, minus Zoom, Google Hangouts or Microsoft Teams that enable the interlocutors to digitally natter. 

Who knows perhaps this will catch on and pretty soon there will be a one in one out system, not strictly because of COVID but simply because the need to interact with their fellow bipeds has drawn people to superstores to catch a glimpse of another human and exchange words in the flesh. Maybe there will be flashing lights, the stale smell of perfume too that is often found in nightclubs alongside the dull beat of the neanderthal. Let’s hope there isn’t a dress code enforced like in certain clubs and pubs, when you consider how inflammatory the imposition of wearing a mask for some has become.

And so, with my few bits in my rucksack I headed back out into the snow and decided to walk the long route home through the white fields we now so rarely see in the UK. So uncommon is the occurrence that I can’t help but smile and enjoy the cold weather, knowing it won’t last more than a few days before we return to the British darkness, the heavy climate, the grey damp oppressive lethargy that weighs us down until Spring finally reinvigorates us all.

On my Kantian stroll I noticed, I had heard rumours, but I now had firsthand evidence that SAGA, the holiday company for the quinquagenarian and older was selling its buildings, this one and others. All its staff would now simply work from home remotely. Like a TV, they would essentially be remote controlled by their employer. But would it be ‘simply’? Of course, for many individuals there are benefits, and for the company more, the savings alone will be astronomical. The reduced overheads will be hugely beneficial. But simultaneously, homes have now become more than homes, they have become offices too. For the some, the same four walls they live in, they will now work within. Their four walls of ineluctability. Is that healthy? This of course isn’t just an isolated incident with SAGA, many companies small or large will be following the same path. In short, the small person will be the one who loses out more.

Over the last 15 years I have worked in many offices and from home too. I like a balance of both. I have met many interesting folk as well as many dull company bores, but hey, that’s life. You take the insipid, vacuous and servile with the interesting, out-of-place and radical. I would say I have learnt a lot from many different folk and it was through the idle chit chat over the proverbial office water cooler. That water cooler moment when one mentions a book, a film or song in conversation. This cultural moment will soon be extinct. Gone with the wind. Buried in the dust.

“Hey, you can go online, on social networks where everybody is sharing everything!” I hear you say in a digitised chorus smeared with emojis.

Maybe, but there is something about the human voice, the human touch, about… the human.

With the combination of work and life at home, the symbiosis of the two will keep one constantly behind a screen. At least the travel to work broke up the life behind a screen. But now we will awake, pick up phone, look into a screen. Eat breakfast, more than likely in front of a screen, a multitude of them. Sit down to work, in front of a screen. Communicate with others, in front of a screen. Check out our social network worth in front of a screen. Be the voyeurs we were born to be, in front of a screen. Buy everything we want, need, desire, life’s desiderata… you guessed it, in front of a screen. Relax at night, in front of a screen. Check social networks one more time before sleep, in front of a screen.

But it’s not so much ‘the things’ we crave, we desire a life of convenience and with that we have imprisoned ourselves. Our high streets are closing down because it is more convenient to buy almost everything online. It’s incredibly hard for us to lament the high streets in our towns with more shops ‘To Let’ than those open when our acts of destructive convenience have partly led to this. But given a large part of the public hypnotically stare into their phones rather than look around them, does it even really matter about the desolate thoroughfares in our towns?

My Kantian walk brings me back to my house, where unavoidably I will sit in front of a computer in my office and attend to my work duties in front of ‘3 screens’, but always in the back of my mind I will be thinking about what I need to buy under a pretext from Tescos so I can interact in face-to-face communication over the fresh veg with a fellow biped listening to the playlist of my local supermarket.

Motta’s novels Celebrity Rape and VIR(US) are available from Amazon.

Make Britain Great Again?

There is a well-known phrase: Never judge a man until you’ve walked a mile in his shoes.

But perhaps that should be: Never judge a man until you’ve seen his family killed, witnessed his country being bombed, travelled precariously thousands of miles to find safety and warmth, been vilified in the press and all across social media, then detained and treated like an animal for simply being one of ‘them’ in his shoes.

What is a society? A mass of human beings living, working, coexisting together through different ideas, traditions, rules, laws, an element of trust, love, a form of order that has gone though many evolutions until finally agreed upon.

What is Great Britain? A name, a psychological construction, an imagined term, like economics, religion or the rules of a corporation. It is simply a work of fiction that we have all bought into and kept alive. It is intersubjective.

I find this incredibly interesting, particularly when faced with the abject racism that seems to be growing, swelling and permeating throughout the United Kingdom of which I am a native. For racism, if anything, is purely subjective.

Where does such an appetite for racism come from? As a child born in the early 1970’s I have a very vague memory of the NF, the National Front, the far-right fascist political party of the UK. All I recall is that it existed, I was too young to understand how despicable it was, and of course the wrong colour. Perhaps if I had been any other colour than white, my memories may not be so vague.

And so, time rolled on, I grew up, experienced many of the great benefits of living in Great Britain in a pretty secure family environment first in London and then on the Kentish coast. Over the last 47 years I have done pretty well, extremely grateful for a good start, and of course lucky. Lucky? Why lucky? Because like some and unlike others I did well in the geographical lottery or ovarian lottery as Warren Buffet likes to call it.

“The womb from which you emerge determines your fate to an enormous degree for most of the seven billion people in the world.” Warren Buffet

We seem to have got to point where we are now so easily divided by wealth, by consumer products, this unfortunately is how we now define human beings and their rights. You only need to read the many posts online about immigrants to witness how they are judged:

 ‘They have mobile phones, come here and get a TV, walk around in Nike trainers…’ ad nauseum.

This appears to be the standard gripe. Obviously, it is a reflection of the fact that the people who are attacking, are not happy, content materialistically or are incredibly spiritually bereft, lacking any real feeling for those in need, unable to show any real understanding of another’s plight or show any real empathy.

Let’s also take into fact the media doesn’t help with its flourishes of propaganda, jingoistic rhetoric and social network’s echo chambers with stories shared at lightning speed.

But can we really blame them completely? Does the media have the power over some to manufacture racism, hatred and such blindness to other people’s troubles and unhappiness?

Is there not a point in our development as human beings where we should suddenly start to question why we may have certain thoughts and begin to show a little empathy for those who didn’t have as much luck in the ovarian lottery as we did?

Now where I live, I have with a pinch of satire started to call it the Deep South, Folkestone twinned with Alabama, to illustrate the amount of racism one can hear if they put their ear to the ground of the social networks or even just by walking down the street, into a local bar or any place where people congregate.

Being that we are situated directly opposite France, the gateway to Europe, immigration is a somewhat hot potato, a King Edward may I add, not a Patata di Bologna or a Bintje. British potatoes for British people and all that… Hot or otherwise…

Over the last 13 years of residing in the Deep South I have witnessed a section of the locals uprising, spitting out venomous bile across social networks at the smallest mention of immigration with hate-fuelled marches and demonstrations through the centre of Dover, a neighbouring town. All that was missing was the burning of crosses and the wearing of white hoods.

Now once again on the 29th of January 2021 the local digital denizens decided to grab their prosaic pitchforks and take to the KentOnline News page on Facebook (No gingham on the avatars, yes you’re as surprised as me) to attack the 400 Asylum seekers housed at Napier Barracks with a litany of abuse because of a fire to one of the houses situated there.

Arguably, it’s not right to burn one of the houses down but after being detained in poor quality military housing that isn’t good enough for the armed forces as a new BBC report claims https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-55911765, after the ‘Home Office put the refugees in the barracks after fear better housing would ‘undermine confidence’ in system and damage the public perception’ as an Independent news report claims https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/asylum-seekers-napier-barracks-home-office-b1793951.html, and after reports of COVID in the barracks with no ability for isolation, you can imagine the minds of those who left war torn countries to not have the most stable of mental states.

What is interesting and defining of the KentOnline News readership is that there is obviously an insatiable appetite for hatred and racism.

Let us look at their posts 4 days before leading up to their Napier Barracks post:

Headline: Council think again over funeral pricing row
41 likes, 5 comments, 10 shares

Headline: Pent-up demand for travel is there

9 likes, 42 comments, 2 shares

Headline: Bride-to-be’s plea after cancer bombshell

7 likes, 3 comments, 2 shares

Headline: Where was most popular for Eat Out To Help Out

3 likes, 1 comment, 2 shares

Headline: School supplier expands sales to parents

4 likes, 1 share

Headline: Kent Covid patient numbers lowest for five weeks

72 likes, 11 shares

Headline: Johnson & Johnson Covid-19 vaccine: Who will get it, when and how?

4 likes, 3 shares

Headline: Man punched by teenagers in robbery attempt

15 likes, 2 comments, 3 shares

Headline: Abandoned dog had just given birth

26.2k likes, 639 comments, 3.4k shares

Headline: NHS pays out millions after boy suffered injuries during birth

12 likes, 1 comment

Headline: Huge fire at barracks housing Asylum seekers

636 likes, 1.5k comments, 413 shares

Only a post about a dog tops the post about Asylum seekers which provoked so much malevolent language. Thank God the dog wasn’t an immigrant or black! Or both! Can you imagine how rabid the public would have been?!

So why is there is so much hatred for others? Do people really think they are adding to the social capital by saying they think “the immigrants should go back to where they came from” or “throw them in the fire” or asking, “Why don’t they just stay in the first safe country they got to?”

The first question one should be asking is:

How did we get to a position, a situation in the world where people can even be deemed as illegal?

To end this small article I’d like relay to you a situation I found myself in last year before COVID hit. I was sat on a train travelling home from work. It was incredibly packed and as the train stopped at Ashford a young man, no older than 18/19 years old sat next me. We got talking and he mentioned he’d just finished work at the local outlet centre.

Knowing of the place I asked if he was working on the new section where there was a new development.

“Yes.” He said.

“Any good new shops?” I enquired.

“Nah just a Hugo Boss.”

“Oh, I don’t wear Hugo Boss.” I replied.

“Why?”

“Because Hugo Boss designed the Nazi uniforms.”

“So, What’s your problems with Nazis? Don’t you like them?”

“Erm try the death of 6 million Jews?” I said somewhat lost for words.

“Are you Jewish?”

“No.”

“So why do you care?”

“More importantly, why don’t you care?” I replied.

Thankfully my stop was next. Was this the future of Britain?

Patriotism plays a huge role in the whole affair, it’s a driving force particularly with the propaganda and rhetoric used by the likes of Nigel Farage, Katie Hopkins and the Tory Party.

But ask yourself this, if you really want Britain to be ‘Great’ again, do you think this is the right path to travel?

Motta’s novels Celebrity Rape and VIR(US) are available from Amazon.

Live reading of VIR(US)

I am now filming myself reading VIR(US), the latest novel that I have written. Each chapter will be broken into 5-6 minute segments. You can view the videos here: https://meetthemottas.com/author/virus-a-live-reading/

Kai Motta’s novels Celebrity Rape and VIR(US) are available from Amazon.

A Bona Fide Firestick

As we move through this period of COVID with the lengthy lockdowns I have sat in front of the TV more than I would be prepared to admit. I don’t have terrestrial television and refuse to pay for a licence, simply because I don’t use it enough or feel there is actually anything worth watching. I have 5 shelves of DVDs, mainly films you won’t find on Netflix or Now TV, possibly on Amazon, but you would have to pay the extra on top, which I feel is a bit much. These films I return to periodically, like a good novel, as they are such beautiful, in this case, cinematic experiences.

So invariably, around 8pm both my girlfriend and I settle down for the night, try to find something good to watch, relax and enjoy as the evening gradually fades, while occasionally intoxicated by (hopefully) a fine wine. But we are now slowly getting to the point of struggling to find something to kill time to. Admittedly, I am extremely fussy about what I let enter my brain. I can’t just passively watch anything. I want an experience. I want a good heroes journey. I want a story that fucking grips me! My Dad, who spent many years in the industry to much success told me before he died that film quality started to decline the minute all stars starting appearing with gleaming white teeth. This seems to be endemic throughout our society in all different areas and industries, and is of course nothing new. Beautiful exteriors with nothing inside.

Anyway before this rant explodes from my chest like the Alien, as of late, as I said above, we are struggling to find something to watch. Click, click, click across Netflix, Now TV and Amazon. I’m actually surprised at the amount of stuff that is produced that I can’t sit through. It’s like being in a Blockbuster store 15 years ago wandering around the shelves of DVDs on a Friday night at 8pm trying to find a film to take home. Click, click, click. Do people really watch this shit? I exclaim aloud. My girlfriend gives me that look, the one I know too well.

Out of frustration last night I turned off the TV and cast the remote aside. I just couldn’t sit and stare at the TV another night, in short, it was slowly killing me.

I turned to the log burner to see how much wood was left. I opened the door. A breath of intense heat hit me. I watched the flames dance and lick along the edges of the logs as if it was trying to search for untouched wood to remain alive and carry on consistently burning. It was breathing and glowing with hues of red, yellow and orange, so mesmerizing and hypnotizing that I sat there and just watched its animated behaviour. In a meditative state I also watched my thoughts as they too danced around in my skull. It’s interesting how the mind just throws up these constant thoughts, apparently it’s around 70,000 a day.

As I watched the fire in action, I started to think about fire in itself. Fire of course being one of the 4 elements, the other 3 being earth, water and air. What was life like before fire, with it being such an amazing source of heat, light, energy and a formidable way to protect us from predators early on in our evolution? Our whole lives are subject to the power of the sun, that great ball of fire! The travel industry has been ripping us off for years every school holiday as we fly across the globe for 10 days in the dedicated search for sun to lie under and burn, sorry, tan. Everyday we stand beneath it, in the UK if we are lucky, we may even see it and feel its warmth for 2 or 3 days a year. And what about the immensity and power of fire as it rampages across the outbacks of certain countries destroying everything in its path to remain alive. Forests and jungles wilting and eventually charred to the ground, animals barbecued, humans and their worlds scalded, scorched and murdered by the blaze. Go back to the 2nd Sept 1666 and we refer to it as ‘Great’ with evocations of London burning. In the beginning it was the simple rubbing of two sticks or the sharp edge of flint violently struck against steel to create that spark. That spark of creativity setting alight everything around us. Without fire what would our path of evolution have been like? It is said the control of fire was a turning point in our technological evolution as human beings. Just imagine a life without it!

It’s interesting to think that from the initial spark of creativity we that now find ourselves endlessly clicking across subscription sites online to pass away the evenings.

Tomorrow I will return to the book…

Kai Motta’s novels Celebrity Rape and VIR(US) are available from Amazon.