Et cetera: Steven Poole’s non-fiction choice:
The Angry Brigade, by Gordon Carr
by Steven Poole
The Guardian
September 18th, 2010
This
fascinating history of “Britain’s first urban guerrilla group” (who
fought for the people while stealing their chequebooks) begins with the
1971 bombing of the house of the employment minister, Robert Carr, and
then works back to the évènements of May 1968, and forwards through the
complex police investigation by the newly formed “Bomb Squad”, and then
the lengthy and sensational 1972 trial of the “Stoke Newington 8”, in
whose flat had been found explosives, guns and the equipment used to
issue the brigade’s sub-Debordian public statements. Gordon Carr’s
narrative is scrupulous and suspenseful.
We also hear from one
of the convicted, John Barker, proud of recent demonstrations against
arms dealers (“[we] had the nous to do it without the melodrama of
dynamite”; exactly what tune dynamite normally plays is left unclear),
and one of the acquitted, Stuart Christie (“to engage in remote violence
without taking full personal responsibility is reminiscent of the state
itself”). A policeman offers a sober opinion about the inspirational
power of French theory: “I didn’t think Situationism was the driving
force behind the Angry Brigade. It was a style that helped Barker write
communiqués.”
