MY NEIGHBOR MR. CHURCHILL: A SHORT ETHNOGRAPHY OF MALCONTENT BRIAN HOWE
By Kameel Ahmady

KurdishMedia, UK
Feb 14 2007

Not long ago I was at Parliament Square before attending a public
meeting at the House of Commons. The meeting was organised by
Armenia Solidarity and supported by the London Nor Serount Cultural
Association also attended by some Kurdish supporters of Harnt Dink who
was gunned down in Turkey, a Turkish Armenian journalist who worked
courageously and tirelessly for a Turkey where understanding and
acceptance of diverse cultures, and open dialogue between ethnicities
would triumph, instead of the intractability from many sides which
currently reigns. The group aimed to put an end to Britain’s shameful
denial of the Armenian Holocaust by holding such meeting at the
British Parliament. Before the meeting started there was an hour long
open-air tribute to Hrant Dink followed by "Silent Vigil and Prayer
for Armenia", When the meeting ended I crossed over to the other side
of Parliament House to share a cup of tea with Brian Howe. He has
now held a six-year vigil outside Parliament and won numbers of high
court’s permission to remain the only living protester at Parliament
Square, his last victory over the police and removals of his banners
was just less then ten days ago. Today he has been there for 2083
days since he started his protest. He said before the hearing:
"The government clearly does not want me as a constant reminder
of the immense suffering they are causing the people of Iraq and
elsewhere. And not long ago most of his paintings and posters were
removed by the police now an art installation at the Tate gallery.

He remembers me form some time ago when I was among a group of
protesters at Parliament square which was organised by Mark Thomas,
the famous British comedian and good friend of the Kurds.

At fifty-five, Brian feels a little worn by his years on the street.

His wife has divorced him since his protest began, and he’d love
to go back to his town of Redditch, Worcestershire, to see his
seven kids; he’d love to tone down the voice he uses to debate with
tourists, curious onlookers, drunken Australians about why he won’t
be moving anytime soon. Some mornings he squats down, presses his
fingers together and prays to Mr. and Mrs. God, whom as a Christian
he fervently believes in, for a little more of the wiry strength
that, along with cups of coffee doused with packet after packet of
brown sugar, keeps him going. "Do I want somewhere I can talk in a
soft, sweet voice?" Brian says. "I do." But most of all, he says,
he wants to see a stop to the killing of the children he calls them
his "neighbours’ children" like the Iraqi kids with their mangled
bodies portrayed on his display.1 The only real light is the flashes
coming from the camera of two American tourists who stand, in matching
UCLA sweatshirts, before photos of an Iraqi child with half his head
missing.1 (guardian)

I listened closely to his points as he told me about his past, current
life, aims, dreams and why he was there day in and day out for such
a long time. He has been sleeping, living, eating, debating, and
smoking an endless series of hand rolled cigarettes on the pavement
for over six years. Brain leaves only for court cases or emergency
hospital treatments; his nose now has a soft curve in the middle
where it’s been broken twice, first by an American, the second time
by an Israeli. His fingers are embossed with the layer of city dirt
that comes with life on the street. On top, his corduroy hat is held
together almost solely by his vast collection of pins Keep My Muslim
Neighbours Safe, Bush Lies, No War.

Brian still took up his usual position under his blue tarp and fell
asleep for the few hours he gets each night, surrounded by his many
protest banners and buffeted by the horns of early-morning traffic
and the regular toll of Big Ben.

He says I don’t see many Kurds around here to come and speak to me,
why? What I do is partly to show how Kurdish people have suffered in
hands of Iran, Iraq, Syria, and Turkey. Then he point his finger at
a large stone of Winston Churchill not far away from him and says:
"well my neighbour Mr. Churchill was the first who used chemical
bombs against Iraqi Kurds in the town of Sulaymaniyah and famously
called the Kurds uncivilized tribes at the time of the Sheik Mahmood
upraising, even before Turks used gas on the Sheik Raza’s Zazaki tribe,
the Kurdish rebel in Dersim in Turkey (north Kurdistan)".

Over there (he points out at the House of Lords, across the road)
still are the people who sold chemicals to Saddam Hussein to kill
thousands of Kurds in the town of halabja and many other Kurdish
villages both in Iran and Iraq Kurdistan. They supplied guns to the
former Iraqi regime that committed the Anfal operation on Kurds killing
over 180,000. He added: Turkey can’t cross borders to Iraqi Kurdistan
now, well not for long he smiles, but there was all this time when
the allies turned blind eyes to turkey’s air force when they crossed
to south Kurdistan and killed many Kurdish villagers. He goes on: The
same with Kurds in Iran and Syria ,as long as the foreign office can
strike a deal with Iranians over oil and security in the Middle East
or with Syria over Lebanon or Palestine they don’t care about Kurds who
are the largest minority in the world with out a state of their own.

While I was amazed with his information on Kurdistan and the politics
involved there, suddenly he looked very sad, saying: "What about
these children?" pointing to his posters of the maimed victims in
Iraq, Africa and what seemed like Latin America. "When are we going
to cry for them?" And then he was back up on his feet, fuelled by
the coffee, the sugar, cigarettes, and the righteous anger. "Stop
sending our kids to kill their kids," he said. "Stop killing kids."

Brian Howe has a regular fixture, part of the landscape of the
Parliament Square, who sleeps, eats and lives only yards away from a
building where hundreds of his opponents want him to leave and have
done a lot to achieve this. Surely this battle will not stop there,
facing the recent public protest by laws, which makes Brian Howe and
his crusade the centre of it all.

Kameel maintains a website at: