Chavs. Owen JonesЧитать онлайн книгу.
people for whom life is very difficult, who are struggling for a secure, let alone comfortable, existence; and it includes people for whom life is OK, but could be so much better, and who face rising insecurity and fears about the future of their children. For those of us who aspire to transform society, we must build a coalition including both groups: for both low-income and middle-income, for those languishing in poverty and for those working in an office on £28,000 a year, for those who call themselves ‘working class’ and those who self-identify as ‘middle class’.
That means examining how class is evolving. It is projected that there will soon be more self-employed people than public sector workers: around one in seven workers are now self-employed. Many of them value their independence, and who can blame them, particularly in a country where power is intensely concentrated in the hands of bosses rather than workers. But many resent the insecurity: they often lack paid sick leave and maternity leave; the tax credits many receive are being cut; they find getting loans from banks difficult; they are frequently turned down for mortgages; they spend too much time chasing invoices for work they have completed; they are punished by inadequate infrastructure, like Britain’s poor Wi-Fi network; and so on. Here are issues that must surely be championed by those who wish to transform society.
We must also have a clear vision of what society should look like. In much of the Cameron era, the posture of the left has been ‘antiausterity’—that is, a defensive approach. ‘Austerity’ is a term that means little to many people. A coherent industrial strategy to create thriving renewable energy and hi-tech industries, creating skilled secure jobs; public investment banks to help rebalance the economy; democratizing the economy; a just tax system; making the case for trade unions in raising both wages and productivity: here, surely, are the approaches that desperately need to be developed, and translated into a language that most people can understand.
Injustice often seems daunting and difficult to overcome; but history tells us that what seem like insurmountable odds can be overcome. It is profoundly irrational for so much wealth and power to be concentrated in so few hands. Such a divided society is the source of needless insecurity, hardship and stress; of dreams that are never realized; of futures that are vandalized. All this injustice can be overcome. But as injustice is a collective problem, it requires a collective solution: people must realize that, although they may have their differences, the differences between them are far less significant than those that separate them from power; and that if they organize together, their collective power can transform society. It is easier to write about this than to achieve it. Nonetheless, it remains my sincere belief that, as our ancestors overcame injustice, their traditions will be inherited, and a far more just Britain, and world, will be built, however difficult that may sometimes be to imagine.
It’s an experience we’ve all had. You’re among a group of friends or acquaintances when suddenly someone says something that shocks you: an aside or a flippant comment made in poor taste. But the most disquieting part isn’t the remark itself. It’s the fact that no one else seems the slightest bit taken aback. You look around in vain, hoping for even a flicker of concern or the hint of a cringe.
I had one of those moments at a friend’s dinner in a gentrified part of East London one winter evening. The blackcurrant cheesecake was being carefully sliced and the conversation had drifted to the topic of the moment, the credit crunch. Suddenly, one of the hosts tried to raise the mood by throwing in a light-hearted joke.
‘It’s sad that Woolworth’s is closing. Where will all the chavs buy their Christmas presents?’
Now, he was not someone who would ever consider himself to be a bigot. Neither would anyone else present: for, after all, they were all educated and open-minded professionals. Sitting around the table were people from more than one ethnic group. The gender split was fifty-fifty and not everyone was straight. All would have placed themselves somewhere left-of-centre politically. They would have bristled at being labelled a snob. If a stranger had attended that evening and disgraced him or herself by bandying around a word like ‘Paki’ or ‘poof’, they would have found themselves swiftly ejected from the flat.
But no one flinched at a joke about chavs shopping in Woolies. To the contrary: everybody laughed. I doubt that many would have known that this derogatory term originates from the Romany word for child, ‘chavi’. Neither were they likely to have been among the 100,000 readers of The Little Book of Chavs, an enlightened tome that describes ‘chavs’ as ‘the burgeoning peasant underclass’. If they had picked it up from a bookshop counter for a quick browse, they would have learned that chavs tend to work as supermarket checkout cashiers, fast-food restaurant workers and cleaners. Yet deep down, everyone must have known that ‘chav’ is an insulting word exclusively directed against people who are working class. The ‘joke’ could easily have been rephrased as: ‘It’s sad that Woolworth’s is closing. Where will the ghastly lower classes buy their Christmas presents?’
And yet it wasn’t even what was said that disturbed me the most. It was who said it, and who shared in the laughter. Everyone sitting around that table had a well-paid, professional job. Whether they admitted it or not, they owed their success, above all, to their backgrounds. All grew up in comfortable middle-class homes, generally out in the leafy suburbs. Some were educated in expensive private schools. Most had studied at universities like Oxford, LSE or Bristol. The chances of someone from a working-class background ending up like them were, to say the least, remote. Here I was, witnessing a phenomenon that goes back hundreds of years: the wealthy mocking the less well-off.
And it got me thinking. How has hatred of working-class people become so socially acceptable? Privately educated, multi-millionaire comedians dress up as chavs for our amusement in popular sitcoms such as Little Britain. Our newspapers eagerly hunt down horror stories about ‘life among the chavs’ and pass them off as representative of working-class communities. Internet sites such as ‘ChavScum’ brim with venom directed at the chav caricature. It seems as though working-class people are the one group in society that you can say practically anything about.
You would be hard pushed to find someone in Britain who hates chavs as much as Richard Hilton. Mr Hilton is the chief executive of Gymbox, one of the trendier additions to London’s flourishing fitness scene. Known for its creatively titled gym classes, Gymbox is unashamedly aimed at fitness freaks with deep pockets, demanding a steep £175 joining fee on top of £72 a month for membership. As Mr Hilton himself explains, Gymbox was launched to tap into the insecurities of its predominantly white-collar professional clientele. ‘Members were asking for self-defence classes, as they were scared living in London,’ he says.
In spring 2009, Gymbox unveiled a new addition to its already eclectic range of classes (including Boob Aerobics, Pole Dancing and Bitch Boxing): Chav Fighting. ‘Don’t give moody grunting Chavs an ASBO,’ its website urged, ‘give them a kicking.’ The rest of the promotional spiel did not pull its punches either, in the voice of a vigilante with a good grasp of PR. ‘Forget stealing candy from a baby. We’ll teach you how to take a Bacardi off a hoodie and turn a grunt into a whine. Welcome to Chav Fighting, a place where the punch bags gather dust and the world is put to rights.’ The leaflets were even more candid. ‘Why hone your skills on punch bags and planks of wood when you can deck some Chavs … a world where Bacardi Breezers are your sword and ASBOs are your trophy.’
There were some who felt that glorifying beating people up might be overstepping the mark. When the Advertising Standards Authority was called in, Gymbox responded with technicalities. It was not offensive, they claimed, because ‘nobody in society would admit to being a Chav; it was not a group to which people wanted to belong.’ Amazingly, the ASA cleared Gymbox on the basis that chav-fighting classes ‘would be unlikely to condone or incite violence against particular social groups …’1
You would have to speak to Richard Hilton to appreciate the depths of hatred that inspired the class. Defining ‘chavs’ as ‘young Burberry-clad