
Paris Notes
2
Frank
Rynne

October began with the Nuit Blanche or
the sleepless night. This was a night of performance,
art, installations and projections on the streets of
Paris. I spent most of the night at the headquarters of
Louis Vuitton from where a TV broadcast was going out
live. We were there as guests of Thierry Poiraud who had
an installation as part of the event. His 2004 movie Atomik
Circus starred Vanessa Paradis. Thierry gave a good
account of himself, especially since he was on at the same time
as the anorexic lunatic Karl Lagerfeld. It took a few
minutes to locate the Green Room where champagne and
other free things flowed for hours. There were some good
opportunities for photos on the way out of the building
in front of giant L.E.D. screens. Though one security
guard attempted to cut the session short by punching me
in the back. After this we took a taxi to see
Thierrys brother Didiers projections rue
Ramey.
Recently news reports from the U.K. are
full of talk of A.S.B.Os (Anti Social Behavior Orders)
and detention of suspected terrorists/people without
charge for ninety days or longer. It used to be said that
Northern Irelands policing methods and riot control
using extreme measures like plastic bullets and shoot to
kill were a training period for what would be eventually
needed on The Mainland. This seems to have
come to pass.
It is clear that agents of the secret
services are serving along side the regular police. This
had fatal consequences in Stockwell tube station
recently. In the late 1980s I squatted in Tulse Hill near
where police lay in wait for Jean-Charles de Menezes.
London is a city of all nations yet a
melting-pot it is not.
In the Irish context the internment of
suspected republicans in the early 1970s allowed the
government to gain a unique understanding of the
nationalist community in Northern Ireland. Internment and
interrogation allow officers of the police and
intelligence services to gain knowledge of the social
structures in communities as well as the potential weak
points common to members of those communities. The
authorities need only one informer, transgressor or
general weak link to gain insights necessary to crack the
hardliners. An Irish example of this is the
Stakeknife informer who was in the inner
circle of the I.R.A. command from the early 1970s. There
is now ample proof that the republican movement was
riddled with touts and agent provocateurs. Indeed the
current peace deal and I.R.A. decommissioning is probably
the most profound proof of that H.M.G. infiltration.
However
internment can have unfortold effects. It may nip
revolution in the bud or it may prove to be a catalyst
for revolutionary actrion.
Since the eighteenth century the
suspension of habeas corpus or detention without trial
has been a corner stone of British democracy when they
dealt with India or Ireland. In the mid 1860s members of
the Fenian Brotherhood who might have been interned in Ireland
needed only to take the mail boat to Liverpool or
Holyhead to avoid treatment they would have received in Ireland.
Fenian John Devoy
as prisoner 1866. Devoy was instrumental in the
organisation of 1916 on the fiftieth anniversary of his
initial detention under th Haebus Corpus Suspension Act,
1866.
These days the British Labour Party is a
brand leader in what might be termed repressive democracy.
However this is not an innovation. Previous experience in
Ireland should offer the U.K. government both
encouragement and also a strong warning. Abondoning
habeas corpus and criminalising large groups of people
can have unpredicable consequences. By taking the road of
internment in 1866 they slowed a revolutionary movement
down. The process of revolt took longer than the Fenians
had intended and traveled different routes through a Land
War and the Gaelic cultural revival.. However revolution
manifested itself in the Fenian/ Irish Republican
Brotherhood organised Easter Rising of 1916. The
internment which followed 1916 provided those locked up
in Frongach prison camp in Wales ample time to reorganise
and prepare for what became known as the War of
Independence. Guantanemo style detention and
solitary confinement do not allow for the same
organisational opportunities among detainees as the
Volunteers of 1916 were allowed. However they do provide
cause célèbres for activists to rally round.
(illustrationGeneral
Michael Corcoran leading Fenian in 1860s)

October ends with some of my favorite
Americans arriving in Paris. Bret Easton Ellis did a
signing at the Virgin Megastore on the Champs-Elysées
promoting his intriguing new novel Lunar Park. I
went along to take some photos. I liked the ones of him
on the in-store TV monitors. Later I took some shots of
him on TV at home. He is playing large in Paris.
.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * Saturday night I went to see
Kid Congo Powers and his band The Pink Monkeybirds. The
Kid was a founder of the Gun Club whose leader Jeffrey
Lee Pierce I knew well in the early 90s. Jeffrey was
supposed to produce an album for The Baby Snakes but
between his camp followers and my own, the project went
up in smoke. Sadly he died a year later as did
Snakes drummer Nigel Preston who had linked us all
up. Kid Congo has a cool band and a great guitar sleaze.
Nice to end a month with the revolutionaries of
literature and rocknroll. Next month Ireland
and Moroccofrankrynne@gmail.com
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