I wrote Abdullah an e-mail. I aksed him to watch documentaries about people, to pray about it. I wrote that if people could see his personality they might get a totally different view of what is was to be a British Fundamental Islamist. Over the bank holiday weekend, I missed out on loads of opportunities to get shit faced.There was an impromptu trance festival in Kent, a 3 day party just south of the river.
I knew after reading the papers on Friday that I was in a far too volatile mental state to do anything stronger than a bottle of wine. Instead I went to a “ European creative forum visioning meeting. “ These are the people who are going to take over the world. (see NEW SOLUTIONS NEW PROBLEMS) The discussion was focused around the theme “ Visions of another world.” A decorative glass ball was taken by each person in turn as they wished to speak.
Late into the night I broke down about my situation. I have been to a few of these meetings and most people knew what I was doing.
“ Basically I’ve been filming, quite flippantly in Finsbury Park because I thought it was the hardest place to test our theory that another world is possible. All of a sudden they’ve arrested a guy who I’ve chosen to spend a year and a half in the company of and the U.S. government want to put him to death. I have no idea what he’s done. I’m going to see if I can visit him and I want help from everyone here. If you believe another world is possible and wanted to apply that belief to reality what would you ask a Fundamental Islamist like Abu Hamza?”
I stayed the night. The next morning after breakfast the discussion for the first hour or so focused around an arguement between two people as to whether the “visioning” would continue inside or outside. I left with a really nice girl I met there for the Kingston green fair. We drank a couple of bottles of wine and I began to relax. For a long while there was an upside-down rainbow in the sky. Never in my life had I seen this before. I’ve seen rainbows touching the ground on both sides through the rain but never high up in the air, a peculiar reaction between sun and sky. I wondered if this was a sign, A change came over everyone as it was pointed out. The Samba band Rhythms of Resistance came through. They played the most exciting set I have ever seen them do.
This morning (Tuesday) I woke up and arranged to meet Patrick at Idealworld H.Q. near Old street. It was good to meet up with Simon and Jamie again after Friday. We spoke about events at Finsbury Park and I admitted that I missed being me on my own with a camera and spoke about the difficulty in introducing anyone to Mr. Abdullah at this stage. We went for dinner.
“ The trouble is, if we had done this a few weeks ago, we could have made a relaxed doc about Mr.Abdullah’s beliefs but now everyone watching will be screaming at the T.V. Are you a terrorist?? And if I make anything depicting Mr.Abdullahs actual beliefs do you think it would get on T.V?”
“ You’re kidding, “ said Patrick. “ When I told the commissioning editor at Channel 4 what you had she almost shat herself and said that was everything Channel 4 was about.”
In my head I’ve been suffering for a long time beating myself up. As a film maker on my first real project, with my first little camera listening to what Patrick had just said made me stop beating myself up a little.
“ But, I mean, if I make anything showing these guys views, its going to be seen now as me vs. the U.S. government, and if they want to shoot the messenger I’m a pretty easy target. I don’t know what I’m doing, but if Mr.Abdullah and Hajj are terrorists I will eat Michael Moore’s baseball cap.”
We went back to Idealworld H.Q. and with baited breath I phoned Mr. Abdullah. I wanted to introduce him to Patrick, Patrick wanted to meet him.
I asked him how things were going. He said Hamza was allowed no visitors for 2 weeks and that when he was allowed visitors his family would take priority. He said he had been in a meeting with the Police commander.
“ Barry?” I asked.
“ Yeah, Barry Norman. He asked us to stop our protest. He said it was costing too much public money. “
“ I’ve also got him on film saying that you’re protest wasn’t causing any problem..” I said.
“ Yeah, we told him that it wasn’t our fault and that our protest would continue..”
“ A meeting between yourselves and Mr. Norman is just what I’d want to film..” I said.
They were a small group with a lot of attention. I asked him again about making a documentary and told him of the interest in his life shown by the guys at Idealworld. I asked him if he would meet Patrick, just to talk to him. He said that would be out of the question. He didn’t want to be in a situation where even inadvertently he might affect Mr. Hamza’s case. Patrick passed me a note
NOONE IS PUTTING FORWARD THEIR VIEWS. WE WANT TO DO THIS.
I read it too him but he said he didn’t even want to meet Patrick.
“ Look David, You’ve been patient for 15 months and I appreciate that not all the media are run by Zionists but you will just have to wait a bit longer. “ he told me.” I had a conversation with some of the brothers about what they had said to you and they pointed out that I had been doing TV with you so I have to stop too.”
For some reason he had objected to what the younger guys had said to me. I thought they had given the best interviews I had from Finsbury Park.I could imagine which people had told him to stop talking to me. I felt the mosque doors closing.
“ Look if I could just show the British public who I have been talking to..” I tried, but it was no use. “ Well, you know I am still going to be there with my camera, Mr.Abdullah.”
It looked like the locals at Finsbury would be closing ranks against all cameras. I realized that Mr. Abdullah would never meet Patrick in these conditions, but I wondered if I didn’t have an ace in the hole. G. had filmed with me before. (See MALUNG TV NEWS, FINSBURY PARK)Mr. Abdullah and everyone else had taken an instant liking to him. I wonder if we may be able to use our charms next Friday. If this doc never makes the screens it wont be for want of trying. And I still want to ask Hamza my question.
“ Why have I been doing this? “
1 comment:
because you are a nutter
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