PUBLIC RESPONSE TO GRIEF: POST MANCHESTER/LONDON/GRENFELL/FINSBURY
With:
Sughra Ahmed from Woolf interfaith at Cambridge
David Walker, Bishop of Manchester
Linda Woodhead – sociologist of religion, Lancaster
Main questions -How have expressions of public grief changed? –how has this been illustrated in recent tragic events? – what does this tell us about the changing religious and spiritual needs of people? – what does this tell us about the state of faith and interfaith in our society? Role of religious institutions and leaders etc.
Public response to tragedy – is it grief or is it something else? Allows focus on concert as well as more obvious grief focused ..,
Katie HarrisonThis is of course an important part ofCole Moreton's work a little while ago - public outpourings of grief, marking and sharing moments, emblems and visual representations of memorial. it's the Is God Still An Englishman? book. Buy it!
Is it about the numbers? About the age? Is it human expression or change over time?
Social media enabling expressions of grief:
The most encouraging thing I’ve seen over recent tragedies is the use of social media to offer practical help to each other – beds, blood, food, etc.
Radio sat night, anger around Grenfall – this vigil stopped a right – contained the anger… (EDL?). soc med cyberbullying .. pile on, open discourse (filter bubble) .. JK Rowling – work at closing down hate speech … Gestures – phones – 1000 roses by muslims get picked up, blindfold hugs for muslims – powerful/sharing – viral… world seems dreadful, individual responses = hope …
Latest talk I’ve done on that area -http://drbexl.co.uk/2017/05/23/social-media-helpful-hurtful-crisis-like-manchester-drive-delaneyman-talkradio/(and similarhttp://drbexl.co.uk/2017/04/10/media-discussing-shocking-images-syrian-children-talkradio/).
https://www.facebook.com/drbexl/posts/10158721027345161?pnref=story
Thinking (as Christian, as historian, as socmed specialist)
1) How have expressions of public grief changed & illustrated in recent events? (Victorian, Ww1, ww2, Senna, Diana, 2017 events - others?) (The poem at Manc, the 'we will resist/the concert - too soon?) (The public minute silence - I was on bus for Manc arena one - socmed people trying to guess what going on at actual event?)
2) What does this tell us about changing religious & spiritual needs of people? (Do peopleturn to church, to civic institutions, are there no atheists when things get tough? Church & mosques etc offering practical responses/spaces for#prayforetc)?
3) What does it tell us about the state of faith/interfaith in our society, role of religious institutions/leaders etc (saw someone on BBC saying differences don't matter - it's all about getting together to help, but then socmed full of hate rhetoric - but love, etc, the use of FB checkin etc)
Hannah Johnson1) Victorians - death was a bit more part of daily life. Think about the sizes of families. They'd have multiple kids because the children didn't always survive past childhood. They'd also take photos of the dead sometimes posed with live family members.
WW1/WW2 - there was the hope that people would come back from serving but some didn't come home. There's probably be gossip about how "so and so up the road got a letter. Her son/husband/father isn't coming home".
I remember Diana dying - I was 11 I think. I'd been at a sleepover and we popped to the petrol station to get milk for my friend's mum and it was all over the front pages. I vaguely remember the Queen Mother passing too. My mum had had the news on because it was coming. Chances are my Dad was watching the F1 race when Senna had his accident. It used to be a thing - we'd be allowed to eat Sunday lunch in the living room to watch the F1 races after church.
2017 - I've usually seen it break on fb first and has often been one particular friend. I think it's more instant and more collective in a way. Not only do we share the information about what's going on. We share the missing people and pleas for help. Facebook has been where I've found out about who in Bedford is collecting physical stuff for the Grenwell Tower appeals. It's been FB and Twitter where news updates have started.
We tried to honour the minute silences but I've often missed them because I've been juggling Jaxon or the group I've been at haven't realised the time. I know the Town Chaplaincy in Bedford have been holding memorials in town along with other faith groups.
2) Do we reach for people to rely on over God? However it's been the churches and other faith groups around Grenwell who were on the "ground" and doing what they could do help those out of the tower. Sometimes being salt and light and showing Jesus's love to those around us is more powerful than any words we can say. Within hours churches/mosques had open their doors even in the middle of the night to take in people both in London and Manchester.
3) With all the rubbish that has happened in the last few months I think more people are realising or having it reenforced that we as human beings on planet earth have more in common than the things that separate us. Also that the percentage of extremists compared to total is the minority affecting the majority.
(Okay long comment on my phone so hopefully it makes sense!)
Where social media is less helpful:
· Questions whether the check-in feature is useful (don’t need to contact lots of people), or unhelpful (complaints about geography, people wanting to be part of the ‘thing’, comparisons with ‘the past’ – but we now know so much about each other’s lives if go silent – may worry?). * Part of wider conversations about e.g. weddings, birth announcements, death announcements online – can deal with a lot of people at once rather than multiple phone calls.
“This Facebook post is how many of Lauren’s close friends learned that she had died. We—her family—hadn’t yet been able to call people. The first post sparked a cascade of statuses and pictures, many from people who barely knew her. It was as though an online community felt the need to claim a stake in her death, through syrupy posts that profoundly misrepresented who she was and sanitized what had happened to her. Lauren was an intensely private person, not one to identify with her diagnosis—a rare form of neurological cancer. And she would have had little patience for the mawkish kind of tributeson social media that followed…. Social media has increased the speed and ease of communication to an unprecedented degree, and yet sites like Facebook and Twitter are poorly suited to grief’s strangeness. By design, social media demands tidy conclusions, and dilutes tragedy so that it’s comprehensible even to those onlydistantly aware of what has happened. The majority of Facebook posts mourning Lauren’s death were full of “silver linings” comments that were so far removed from the horror of the reality that I found them isolating and offensive. Implicit in claims that Lauren was no longer suffering, or that “everything happens fora reason” are redemptive clauses—ones that have a silencing effect on those who find no value in their pain.” https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2016/06/internet-grief/485864/
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/2017/05/23/facebook-safety-check-mark-safe-manchester-attack/
https://www.engadget.com/2017/06/14/facebook-safety-check-new-features/ - new for London – community features, extra detail, etc.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-40172377 - useful to let overseas family know – some felt is ‘riding on coattails of tragedy’
https://www.cnet.com/uk/news/facebook-safety-check-is-stressing-brits-out/ - esp Grenfell – small community, doesn’t need whole of London, but if puts others minds at rest. People don’t agree! Can use personal statement instead…
Rox NichollAnd what about the thing with the stickers on profiles - and then ppl don't take it off ....
‘Grief Tourists’ taking selfies - http://metro.co.uk/2017/06/18/grenfell-tower-residents-beg-people-not-to-take-selfies-at-scene-of-fire-6717132/
Josephine ElmsMy friend who lives next to Grenfell said they're fed up with "grief tourists". People saying they're there to pay their respects but really just wanting to join in the drama or worse, gawk
Mark Longbottomrubber necking of a different kind
Bex LewisYes, I felt a bit like that going to St Anne's Sq, but once I was there was struck by the atmosphere and stayed there for half hour in thought - and we don't do that much now...
Hannah JohnsonAdmittedly I did google it to see where it was geography wise and tried to figure out in relation to the tube line I was in when it was above ground but I wouldn't go to the site - I wouldn't want to get in the way of the work that needed to be done
Bex LewisWent to Diana's funeral as well, as was already in London, and we literally said - this is a historical event, we should go. Something about it being a 'public life' giving legitimacy. The Senna one I was in Brazil for, and they were all lining up at the grave - I always said no one in Britain would understand it until Diana..
Hannah JohnsonBexI think Diana was the first where I "knew" the person as a kid if that makes sense. Prior to that it had always had been friends or family or I didn't really get it. Actually Dunblane would have been before then and I remember something happening because of stuff that happened around our school but i was still to young to really understand.
Josephine ElmsI think there's a big difference between joining in with a public memorial or funeral and going to the scene, especially when the survivors are in such a desperate state still (there are still some without shoes... and worse I'm sure)
Pam SmithI was genuinely affected by Diana's death, I think it touched me because I was the mother of two young boys at the time. I was really interested in the relationship between Diana and 'the nation' that her death indicated - she seemed to have grown into the role of 'royal' as a figurehead, bringing healing with her touch etc.
Barbara EdwardsI think I agree going to the scene, but I can slightly understand the need to see things for real. Maybe remind people that it isn't fair on the grieving and may get in the way of emergency services. I don't really like the whole narrative of shock andamazement, then the great and the good, heroes and villains, all in about a week. Diana, we had a neighbour party that night, went ahead and no one said a thing. But I have lost people in horrible car accidents in times of drinking without seat belts and I think felt the horror of divorced families and how you handle it.
Pre-WW1 (from Christina Welch)
Regency: Black was expensive, so demonstrated wealth by being able to mourn properly. Others were socially disenfranchised from grief, as even a black armband was beyond some of them. Important that fair skin/black clothes, not black skin.
Victorian – when death became ‘big’. Socially stratified. Money meant one could be ostentatious. Huge memorials have become part of the landscape –making an impact beyond death/express power & status. See e.g. magnificent 7 graveyards in London, which became over-stacked with bodily fluids leaking, led to new legislation – graveyards were set up out of town – one way ticket for coffin, 2-way for mourners. Unusual – Thomas Sayers - http://www.victorianweb.org/sculpture/funerary/222.html - famous so people paid for his funeral/memorial.
People mourned those who were important figures in their lives – friends, family, the Queen, etc. Not uncommon for 1000+ to attend public figure’s funeral.
“The Victorians were the last generation to make a pageant of grief – female mourners were even required to wear black underwear – but clinging to elaborate public mourning practices during the First World War could have brought the country to its knees. Instead, the message that pain and grief should be packed away “in your old kit bag” was a powerful one.” http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/health/10639359/Have-the-British-forgotten-how-to-grieve.html
Barbara EdwardsBig questions Bex, several volumes. Victorians were I think very sentimental but also very used to loss through disease and illness. Sentiment was round the family and nation maybe. But everyone wore mourning when Queen Victoria died, I think people need a feeling of mass sharing of grief. We had a WI talk on war memorials and the Commonwealth Graves Commission. German ones interesting in consuming history. I think people respond to prayer, it is the one bit of my Christianity that people accept and they like it when you pray for them. Interfaith, well meaning but the converted, no hammering out of real differences and the same goes within Christianity. Being global is a value but I think it is natural to want to stick to your tribe and to do it genuinely takes a lot of hard work. And maybe it's the culture not the economy, impressed with Salvation Army intercultural training. Now most of us have no where to go, the odd candle in the cathedral but what about admission charges? Mosque I wouldn't dare, no headscarf, not obviously for women. If you are non religious where would you go - a concert like Manchester? For me and my cousin, the National Arboretum means a lot and the war graves perhaps.
War & Memory: WW1
We need a bit of history, in looking at how expressions of public grief have changed - first world war is an obvious watershed; mass loss of young life and the re-emergence of “catholic”. Note that re Manchester, and Finsbury Park in particular – young people and sense of life ahead wasted highlighted (cowardice of attackers)
https://www.bl.uk/world-war-one/articles/remembrance-and-memorials - how remembrance and memorialisation have been used by nations and communities to negotiate the overwhelming losses of World War One. (Dan Todman)