An AngloSlavic memorial to European Unity in Erdington?



Tereza Buskova & the Bohemian Procession on Erdington High St June 11th

A few years back I wrote quite a lot of long rambling and tacky loose ideas about my wife’s art. I continued to support her battles to produce art for a living, but after a while I learnt that my ideas didn’t necessarily do her any favours. I kept pointing out that the art world seemed to be overfull with smug boring attempts to illustrate misunderstood philosophy accompanied by incoherent texts that revealed just how misunderstood those concepts were.

An Erdington volunteer clipping St Barnabas Church with a Czech & a Slovak behind a fence

The powerful results of the EU referendum and public performance part of her Clipping the Church artwork that took place 12 days earlier have uninhibited me enough to get reckless and talk about her art again.  The problems differentiating between New Labour & the hug a hoody Conservative party rendered me nihilistically all or no party for most of my adulthood. However when an email from the labour party asked me for help on June 23^rd I felt obliged to man phones, mostly to make up for the fact that despite living in the UK for 17 years my Czech wife and architect of clipping the church in Erdington did not have the suffrage for the question about whether or not her country of residence should remain in economic and political union with her homeland.

Rt Hon Gisela Stuart MP intrigues me. Like my wife she grew up in a country ravaged by both German national socialism and Russian communism. Like my wife she immigrated to the UK and created an Anglo-European family. Unlike my wife she did not see how the EU might have helped to keep the former Soviet Bloc democratic and friendlier with the UK than Russia. Unlike my wife she did not see how leaving the EU could harm other immigrants including those born East of Berlin like her. The thing is before the referendum campaign I had held a couple of talks with Gisela, including one Birmingham Salon BMI panel discussion on the NHS and migration. She made a good impression and as my constituency MP I must admit that I both voted for and still trust her to make reasonable representations for my constituency in parliament.

St Barnabas Vicar Freda

12 days before the UK chose to reject union with my wife’s homeland, amongst others, my wife revived the British tradition of Clipping the Church. This Christianised blatantly pagan act of local parishioners holding hands together around the local church was a stunning event to participate in and witness. She added a Bohemian wedding procession involving a carriage of baked goods headed up by one hundred Birmingham based Poles, Czechs and Slovaks, most of whom came in the demonised waves of migration since their home countries’ ascendancy to the EU. Erdington high street was lit up with celebration and Anglo-Slavic unity.  Local tory councillors held hands with the local Labour MP. Those hundred Eastern (or central) Europeans ‘came over here and’ held hands with one hundred Brummies.  This event had been planned for two years, so the timing with the referendum was a curiously pertinent coincidence.

Czech & Slovak participants in Clipping

Now I noticed that the photos of the event looked like both a memorial and celebration of unity. On 24^th June 2016 when we learnt that the same Birmingham community had rejected the EU it felt more like a memorial, but that event was not an EU event. It would have happened whether or not Cameron had gambled his career and many more. So the question is do we trust Gisela? Do we trust the 52%? Will the 48% and the EU British communities still hold their hands? Will the unity and mutual celebration evident at Clipping the Church of June 11^th be possible post-BREXIT? The simple joy of walking, holding hands and eating together seemed to bring many people a sense of cohesion and happiness. Is that gone forever, or did the EU have less to do with it than it seems?

The simple joy of clipping

Farage looks like a dangerous man to me. Will we see the rise of ugly Nationalism in the UK catalysed by a jingoistic Brexiteering Johnson? Was clipping the church a memorial to peace and unity within Britain and Europe?

An AngloSlavic memorial to European Unity in Erdington June 11th 2016?

Thursday 21 July 2016, 6.30-8pm Motherhood, maternal and art – discussion Eastside Projects, 86 Heath Mill Lane, Birmingham. B9 4AR
£4/2/free to ESP

Over the 20th century the representation of maternal in art has drastically changed from devotional and idealised to challenging traditional ideas of motherhood, exploring multifaceted categories of maternal subjectivity, including plurality of voices. A discussion at Eastside Projects will explore the representation of maternal in art, including different models of family and motherhood. The event will also investigate the position of a woman-mother-artist. The discussion will be followed by the screening of Clipping the Church.