Austerity Nostalgia Watch
Wow. These are worth a whole Zizek book in themselves, for their remarkable ideological sleight of hand. These new police posters, based of course on Keep Calm and Carry On, play with the clichés of an aggressive, obnoxious police force which thankfully endure in a country which surely has more abusive terms for the standing army than most. Then, underneath, is the pun, the pay-off, in small print, reminding us that really the police force are all about helping old ladies across the road: 'the police now pledge to listen...' The truth, of course, is in large print, given the recent suspension of Habeas Corpus. So while this ironic gesture claims to play with the brutally state-protecting image of the Police, it also says, very loudly (even more so than these Stasiesque incitements to vigilance) that the rules no longer apply, that the state of exception is fully in force, as anyone who wants to photograph a policeman on Saturday and April 1 may find out.
(photo taken in Nottingham by the inestimable Mr Anderson)
posted by owen hatherley at 1:50 pm
13 Comments:
some amusing "remixes" of the Stasi posters on Boing Boing: http://tinyurl.com/c282ty and http://tinyurl.com/c282ty
I'm glad you wrote this, so I didn't have to.
I spotted this earlier - within my local Tesco complex. Fucking terrifying, and that's not just my pinko-liberal view. What's ironic is that the British version of the American Miranda rights has the opposite meaning to the Miranda rights, since the Criminal Justice Bill removed the right to silence. The whole "You have the right to remain silent" bit is a feedline to the "we can and will draw inferences from this silence, regardless of how terrified or unprotected you are".
The truth, of course, is in large print.
A mathematician writes: not quite - note that the order of the logical operators has been subtley altered. The poster reads "You have the right NOT to remain silent" while the truth is in the permuted statement "You do NOT have the right to remain silent".
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I don't get it - is it the ad for a new Jamie Oliver cookbook? Because frankly I wish he would just shut his gaping gob.
Indeed, the small print is so small it is unreadable to the passing viewer (and the tiny text might as well say: who, other than trouble-makers and perverts, hangs around to read the small print on posters?).
I first saw these in a residential area and it made it look like a set from a re-make of The Prisoner. Perhaps the most horrible thing is how it uses cosy retro-humour (and even recession chic?) as an alibi, a 'friendly' tap on the shoulder which announces, in the manner of a new co-ordinated range of basic consumer goods, an era of permanent suspicion and continual alert. "You" the citizen are instantly reminded of your obligations and your status in this era of compulsory co-operation: "You have the right not to remain silent" (or, you do not have the right to remain silent); "anything you say may be taken down and used as evidence [against you]"; "We'd like to give you a good talking to" (whether you like it or not).
And they think we'll welcome this if they underwrite it with a 'pledge' to 'help' us, as if it were a Tesco price promise or something. So it's for our own good, as if it was one of our 'five a day': eat some fresh fruit; do some gentle exercise; talk to the police. Be seeing you. Not if I see you first, Officer.
You all seem to have overlooked the central premise of this campaign: to give people a say in how their community is policed in order to make the poilice more directly accountable to the people. If you don't want to have a say just ignore the poster.
Aw, bless.
If you want a particularly disgusting example of the placement of this poster, look no further than the front entrance of Brixton Rec, just next to the welcome desk and in front of the creche, where they've gone for 'ANYTHING YOU SAY WILL BE TAKEN AS EVIDENCE'. Makes me, and everybody I've shown it to, shudder every time.
The swimming pool changing rooms there are due for a refurb at the end of this month, might be worth a look when it's finished.
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