I worry when the version of events at Dale Farm I hear on the BBC or read in the Guardian is so much at odds with the account I read in the Daily Mail and elsewhere
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One of my liberal friends says: "Whenever I see Fergal Keane on the telly I turn down the sound." My friend has Irish ancestry, which I do not. But I know what he means. The BBC's Keane turned up at the Dale Farm Traveller camp the other day and has been providing regular frontline reports for radio and TV. I am astonished.
Why? Because I thought Fergal Keane had long since passed beyond mere reporting and gone on to higher service. His appearance anywhere gives an event status, much as Kate Adie's arrival at an airport used to indicate that bullets would soon be flying nearby.
Is the Dale Farm confrontation now underway between council/bailiffs and Travellers/anarchists worthy of such star status, of Fergal Keane's personal attention, not to mention that of the UN human rights chap who surfaced last week, worthy of leading this morning's radio bulletins long before the expected confrontation ? whoops, it later seemed to have been postponed ? had materialised? I'm not sure it is.
That's not to say the issues here are merely local or lack wider significance. In today's Guardian Alexandra Topping takes a good look at the marginalised and increasingly difficult lives lived by Travellers, Roma and their kin ? Irish Travellers are quite separate, the article suggests ? across Europe. Jan Jarab, a human rights official in Brussels, is quoted as suggesting that Gypsy Roma seem to do better in Britain than elsewhere, France and Italy for example.
I'm glad he makes that point. At the risk of further inflaming the Daily Mail I'd thought that too. Bad things have been happening in all sorts of places, economic pressures, the pressure to conform to a settled way of life, the desire of states and local administrations to tidy up groups which are, by their nature, untidy.
Travellers told Topping they feel more threatened and I'm sure they're right. Eric Pickles being in charge of the localism agenda must also make them nervous.
I'm for protecting the travelling way of life too, as best as can be achieved. It's like protecting minority languages ? we've had a real success with Welsh, less so with Scots Gaelic, I think ? or plants and animals. It's a form of biodiversity. Travelling hunter-gathering nomads were the norm in human society for thousands of years, very tough work too. Let's protect the volunteer remnants if we can.
The trouble is that there's usually two sides to any story, including this one. I worry when the version I hear on the BBC or sometimes read in the Guardian or Observer is so much at odds with the account I read in the Daily Mail and elsewhere.
In the latter version, the protracted battle (it's lasted 10 years) reflects the willingness of Traveller communities to defy the law, extend their camps illegally, fill local schools with unruly/itinerant kids and engage in antisocial, even criminal, activity.
On angry days ? today is not one of them ? the Mail version prints photos of houses owned by Dale Farm residents elsewhere in England or ? last week's tale ? in towns and villages in Ireland to which travelling folk return for an extended family knees-up at Christmas. In Fergal Keane's version his travelling fellow-countrymen are finally asserting their human rights in England, in the Mail's they're abusing other people's.
The tension between local residents who want their communities, schools and green belt sites protected from unwelcome and transient newcomers is a version of the "them and us" tensions which exist in all small communities ? and applies with as much vigour to retired admirals and City second homers who love-bomb picturesque villages all over southern England, especially those with a decent train service to London.
But this one is tougher for both sides and Essex county council ? which claims to be the most generous of southern English counties to Travellers, who like Essex in return ? seems to have tried quite hard to reconcile the conflicting claims at Dale Farm. I don't know for sure, I've not been there (I did offer to go), but that's what I read.
When talking to officials in Brighton the other day I picked up similar complaints about the way Travellers ? like lots of other people ? like to head to the south coast in the summer. Brighton's new Green council has been struggling to get the right mixture of firmness and fairness. It's harder in power than in opposition.
Why don't we hear more from Dale Farm's local residents, the ones who live in the neighbourhood for all 12 months of the year? When I tweeted a sceptical note some tweeters rapidly told me most feel too intimidated (how do they know?), while others abused them/me. It's worth raising the point. Despite ? or because of? ? our noisy well-wired world all sorts of people feel unheard.
There's another read-across here which some have seized upon, others studiously ignored, to illustrate the darker side of such disputes; namely the recent flurry of police arrests for alleged "slavery" by Traveller groups of homeless people in need of shelter and a few bob to eat (or drink). Again, the facts are disputed. Some "slaves" freed by the police have refused to co-operate and gone straight back to their "jailers." Others and their families have told sad stories.
It's tricky, that much we can all see. But the anarchists/anti-fascist/human rights campaigners who have endorsed the Dale Farm camp ? some of them turning up to make trouble, so they have been saying ? seem reluctant to concede that some local worries are likely to be legitimate.
As for the Travellers themselves, some of those interviewed seem to want their cake and eat it: to have proper homes with electricity and water, but also to travel at certain times of year, to educate their kids but also to take them out of school, to be part of the community but also keep to themselves and their traditional habits and extended family life.
Would the BBC's star reporter want the Dale Camp hold-outs turning up in the park at the end of his street? I doubt it. Nor would I. But it's always a test worth bearing in mind.
Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/blog/2011/sep/19/dale-farm-two-sides-story
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