Self Image
Does a negative self image make Liverpool the 'axis of all things bad' in the media?
There have been a couple of things about Liverpool in the media over the past couple of days which will have raised a few eyebrows, around the country. Headline’s scream ‘Behind the beauty of Ibiza, Liverpool’s drug gang fight to keep control of their evil trade’.
A turf war between a Scouse gang & a Geordie gang resulted in innocent tourists getting shot in the cross-fire. Liverpool had ruled the roost as the biggest peddlers of ecstasy & cocaine for too long but now they appear to be ‘losing their grip’ as Eastern European gangs have been stirring things – wanting a part of the action.
Then there’s the ‘booze league’ that’s been all over the news. John Moores University conducted a study about our nation’s drinking habits and discovered that Liverpool is second only to Newcastle as the nation’s biggest binge drinkers. But, oddly, Liverpool beats Newcastle in the ‘admitted to hospital for alcohol-related conditions’ league. (What’s that about then? Are the Geordie’s harder than us?)
Or what about the Latvian European MP, Oskars Kastens, who recently branded Liverpudlian tourists ‘savages’ – Ryanair launched it’s flight to Riga from John Lennon Airport last September and people have been visiting the city in droves.
On the surface it looks like Liverpudlians belong to the ‘axis of… well, something really, really terrible.’ But if you look a little closer…. ‘the war on drugs’ as we all know is a nonsense. Whether we like it or not recreational drugs are here to stay. They are everywhere and are part of popular culture. Young people go to Ibiza for the experience of dancing all night while off their heads on something or other. The dance scene there is a huge industry – people go from all over the world. Models, celebrities, bands, actors and actresses, ‘our’ role models, are regularly ‘spotted’ at some club or other, throughout the Summer on Ibiza. The cool factor is deliberately hyped up by the entertainment industry. (What a huge boon to the tourist industry in general) But as the gear is smuggled in from South American countries it figures that it’s a multi-national operation. What no Americans involved? No Canadians? No French? No Germans? No Welsh? ‘A multi-national gang-including some Scousers- ply their evil trade.’ doesn’t have the same ring to it does it?
It’s the same with the booze figures. Both Liverpool and Newcastle are cities with universities and have a huge student population. The businesses reflect that. The clubs, the pubs, the bars and the student unions capitalize on that. Most of the initiation rituals into student life involve alcohol. It’s positively encouraged and is a part of British life now. In Liverpool there are new bars opening all the time. (You know when you’re on the map when Celebs are spotted drinking in the bars you go to. Didn’t Gazza’s latest fracas take place in The Carriage Works bar on Hope Street? How cool is that?) Binge drinking is a national problem and the stats show we are close to the top but come….it suddenly feels like we are holding our hands up to the whole caboodle. ‘Yeah, it was me what done Gov.’ The drugs, the alcohol, the bloody invasion of Riga! Would somebody tell Mr Oskars Kastens that John Lennon airport serves a wider area than Merseyside and on any given day you can hear accents from all over the country, when you’re there? (In the bar!).
I’m not saying that all is rosy in the garden of the ‘pool, like. But if there is to be a renaissance in Liverpool then we have to get over this culture of self-loathing. It can’t just be a surface thing. If we change the way we see ourselves we can change the way others see us. Instead of owning up to every vile accusation thrown at us we should want to question it and not just accept it like it’s some Scouse self-depreciating clichéd behavioural trait.
Bad news stories sell more copy. Fact. But if, for example, you chose to actively concentrate on counter-acting the negative feelings you get when reading a bad news story about Liverpool by searching for a good news story...it'll make you feel better in the moment and may have positive lasting effects.
If you fancy being part of the country’s biggest multi-cultural carnival parade head down to the Community College, Myrtle St at mid-day. It’s the second part of a trilogy about the slave trade. The festival organisers, Brouhaha, have brought together various community groups to explore the ‘Middle Passage’ of the slave trade. The event will tackle the darkest period, a time of inhuman suffering. It has involved artists and participants from Germany, Bristol, Belfast, Luton, Oxford, Stoke, Preston and Manchester. The parade snakes its way round the city and ends at Princess Park, Toxteth at 2 pm. There’s going to be bands, dancing, visual art installations and some amazing costumes from all over the country. And it’s one of the final celebrations of the annual Brouhaha International Street Festival which began on July 15th working with various artists and companies from Cape Verde, Costa Rica, Ireland, Morocco, Palestine, Poland, Spain, Tobago, Trinidad and Turkey …to name but a few. Should be a good ‘un. And it’s where I’m off to now.
I was born and bred in a city - Liverpool and then teenaged in the villages of Cheshire. Things have changed and so have we?
Drugs have changed and so have we - when I was a youngster I could not get alcohol but could "scrounded' fags.
DCity life is often fast and furious and village or country life slow and boring but healthier.
Drugs are now easily available we have to face that. But the big question is do our youth need to use them - not necessarily. But heh you parents - heads in the sand won't do - we need to talk to the youth about everything - including drugs!
I once read a book that I've been trying to tract ever since - a christian perspective from a Pharmacologist about drugs today. The essence of the book was - we use drugs to get a quick fix to God!!
We want esoteric relationships but cant find them the hard way so choose the easy way - drugs!! an interesting theory.
but we all know that drugs don't equal reality and we need to get off of them and get back to living - the drug reformist tell us that too!
So the cure for drug abuse?
Engage with the drug users - don't walk away!
Find alternative highs to drug highs - rock climbing comes to mind!
and love and nurture - we love you but don't love the drug!
Drugs, Crime, and Alcohol are part of the Western World.
brookside, thieves, people who never shut up about the beetles
liverpoolllll
Esther asked - Does a negative self image make Liverpool the 'axis of all things bad' in the media?
Until recently Liverpool had a very positive image of itself. In spite of the national economic booms of the 1980's and 90's passing the city by, the current new city centre redevelopments by Grosvenor et al are now transforming the twenty first century city of Liverpool. Unfortunately the current transformations may be into a divided and polarised city due to previously public spaces being sold into greedy private hands. Oh for the vision of those nineteenth century members of the Liverpool middle classes who built fine buildings, public museums and parks. Today the new mall developers appear to measure success only in terms of retail square footage.
But the negative media image of Liverpool is much older than this, perhaps as ancient as the national media which promotes the stereotype. But what country is without a regional stereotype? The northern Italians abhor the the south, the west Germans mock the east, while to the French everyone living outside of Paris is considered paysan. All of these are examples of smug intranational hubris, and frequently the pathetic sport of an over indulged and complacent middle class who are completely out of touch with how most people in their own country live. In the chicken coop (or the playground) someone has to be the victim, and so it is at a national level - their needs to be a place so terrible, where nobody would wish to go or be sent; and it is Liverpool. The irony is that foreign visitors, who do not suffer the myopic prejudice of the southern English, remark on what a beautiful city Liverpool is. Personally I hope the sterotype remains lest we suffer an influx of bloated southern belles. Oh and as for the drink and drugs, heavens what sociological red herrings with which to lampoon any post industrial city, instead praise us for our musicians, poets, playwrights, photographers and footballers, what great artist ever said "I'm off to Tunbridge Wells to see the world" ? Whoops I resort to snide sterotypical prejudice.
Esther seems to live in a very different city from the one I grew up in during the 1960s. Although many many of the seeds of urban blight (destruction of 'slum streets', the growth of gang culture, high-rise sterility and deprivation, the clearing of the city centre) were underway even then,the city itself had such a vibrant image in the media. It wasn't just The Beatles and Bill Shankly - it was the poets, playwrights, musicians, and cultural ambience.
When I went back for a couple of years in the early 80s, it was changing, that's true, but the negative image was little worse than all the other cities then experiencing urban riots (Bristol, Birmingham, London, etc).
But I don't think it's just ex-inhabitants like me 'looking through rosy spectacles' - I do think Liverpool has a schizophrenic view of itself. On one hand 'artistic, cosmopolitan, free-thinking, melting pot', on the other 'neglected, mistrusted, "we're all scallies so that's how we will behave"'.
I think you will get different responses whether you talk to middle-class 'culture vultures', or go to the deprived council estates where the 'us against them' thinking is all too apparent. It's a pity that Esther can only see the latter and not the former.
My father comes from Liverpool, leaving there in the Thirties. He once said that if you threatened to report bad lads to the police they'd laugh it off, but to the priest -- that was a different matter.
My mother (from Cheshire) remembers Irishmen coming to pick potatoes, sleeping in barns.... Is there this element of foreignness about Liverpool -- because of this Catholicism and the (not unfriendly) attitude of these older generations to those sensed as different?
'In the chicken coop (or the playground) someone has to be the victim, and so it is at a national level - their needs to be a place so terrible, where nobody would wish to go or be sent; and it is Liverpool.'
History shows us this, there's never 'not' been a war, slavery exists all over the planet but that doesn't mean to say that things can't change, that we can't change and places can't be changed and revived. Isnt' that what renaissance means? I disagree that Liverpool is the 'terrible' place that 'on-one would wish to go or be sent..' On the contrary Liverpool has seen a huge influx of student population in the past few years so people beyond Watford are seeing it differently than they used to do. I wanted to raise the point that a collective negative self-image impacts on how the rest of the country sees us. I do see this city as something much more than the stereotypical media-view of us. In my opinion, no other city has a clearer sense of the absurdities of life than Liverpool. We can laugh at ourselves and get the joke that others make about us. But how are people outside of the city going to know that we are more than just scally, druggie, thieving sentimental whingers, unless we challenge that view? I'm interested in seeing the whole picture. It's just it's not always apparant.
Check out the photographs on Peter Hagerty's link. They're fantastic. Especially the Liverpool 11 series. I worked on the Walk The Plank theatre ship last year for a while and watched the changing view from the Albert dock with a great deal of sadness. The photographs are the ones I would have taken if I was any good at stuff like that. Oddly, it feels like did!
I think the media have a point about Liverpool and Liverpudlians. This negative media image and or negative self-image is nothing new. It's historical and complex and I am not claiming to be an expert, but, some of it is deserved and some of it isn't. The more recent negative media coverage may well be deserved. There are a lot of "scalls", and a lot of drugs, crime and violence in Liverpool, acknowledging and accepting this may go some way to improve the situation. It may be true that this is the same in other cities in the Uk, Europe and the rest of the World, but that doesn't help or change anything. We need to deal with our problems, we are all responsible. So I would say that we should take the criticism, fair or unfair, reflect on it and do something about it. Just a point on where the negative media image may have all started. When Margaret Thatcher was Primeminister and Derek Hatton was Deputy Leader of the Liverpool City Council, Margaret Thatcher was big buddies with Rupert Murdoch. I suspect that this relationship was a strong influence on how the media was used to combat the Militant Labour led Liverpool City Council. Since then, the media have often portryed Liverpool unfairly and negatively.