When I arrived at university, one of the first stories I read in a student publication was about police spies. It said that for the entire summer vacation, two policemen, disguised as hippies, had been instructed to punt up and down the rivers watching out for students or other layabouts smoking pot. They may have enjoyed their summer but they never managed to catch anyone. A cartoon accompanying the story showed two policeman, dressed as stereotypical hippies but wearing policemen's helmets.
I don't know whether the story was true. I do know that, in the three years of my first degree, I was never offered cannabis or any other illegal drug.
At the time, the story just made me laugh. It fitted with the comforting view that the police were so incompetent at going undercover that, if they tried, they'd fail amusingly.
A little later I became aware of a more disturbing story circulating about the activities of some police forces - and I heard this so often and from so many different sources that it seemed quite evident that it was true. This was all back in the 1970s when homosexual acts in private between consenting adults aged 21 or over had only recently ceased to be a crime. I suppose this affected the arrest totals of many police forces. However it remained illegal for a man to solicit sex with another man, raising an interesting question as to how gay men were ever to form sexual relationships. Several police forces went beyond looking out for gay men meeting one another. They sent policemen in plain clothes (known as "pretty policemen") to places where gay men met so that, if a man mentioned the possibility of sex, they could whip out the handcuffs and arrest the man. There were stories of pretty policemen who did their best to ensure gay men would make advances to them. It all seemed fairly disgraceful to the policemen and forces involved and I'm glad to say that the practice seems to have died out. I don't think today's police would countenance such activities. I don't think the government would allow it.
But I have been disturbed by what I've learned in the last year or so about the activities of undercover policemen. There are plenty of cases of companies going under cover to spy on their opponents. The McLibel case in the 1990s revealed that seven spies working for McDonald's had infiltrated the small London Greenpeace group so that at some meetings the infiltrators were in a majority. The campaigning organisation Campaign Against Arms Trade was infiltrated by a man who worked with them first as a paid volunteer and then as their paid Campaigns Co-ordinator. He was also being paid through a company working for arms muanufacturers British Aerospace. According to the Sunday Times story which uncovered this espionage, he was one of half a dozen paid infiltrators. Although it's a national organisation, CAAT is pretty small.
At least when McDonalds or BAe engage in infiltration and spying they merely lower my already low opinion of them. I had occasionally visited McDonalds with my children when the McLibel trial began but after I heard about the infiltration and spying, I initiated a family boycott. Some people may find James Bond glamorous but I reckon there's something rather sickening about spies.
For a long time I've heard stories about state infiltrators in political groups. I didn't think too much about who organised them. I'd probably have thought it was the secret services, whoever they are. I wanted them to be something shady because I didn't want to put a face to them. I've been involved in some left-wing, mainly pacifist campaigning. I don't want to discover that my friends aren't my friends at all - that they're pretending to like me and share my ideals so that they can spy on me, for money. And I don't want to look at the people who really are my friends with suspicion, because if I began to do that, how could any friendship survive?
But in the past year or so it's become evident that that the state infiltrators might be quite close to home. Mark Kennedy worked as a serving police officer by infiltrating protest groups, some of them near where I live. I don't know if he went on the same anti-war marches but it's possible. He looks vaguely familiar but that's all. At least I wasn't one of the women campaigners with whom he had affairs, while concealing the existence of a wife and family elsewhere. As the story of his spying became public, other spies were unmasked. Some of them had affairs with activists too. Some of them fathered children.
The police response to this was to say that the spies were "grossly unprofessional," "morally wrong" and "rogue." My assumption was that at least, after this, the behaviour of police spies would be reined in.
I was wrong. The Home Office minister Nick Herbert has stated that police acting as undercover spies should be allowed - in certain circumstances - to have sex with activists. I don't know what that makes the government. Paying someone to have sex with people as part of a job isn't quite the same as being a pimp, although morally it seems roughly equivalent. In a few countries encouraging the deception might count as inciting rape - but this wouldn't be the case in English law. I expect the women who have been deceived feel pretty damaged by it - especially if they have had a long-term relationship and a child with the spy. But it's not something I want my government to permit, organise or encourage. I think it's wrong.
I'm relying a lot on instinctive reactions here. So I thought I'd better consider other circumstances. What if the police spy was infiltrating an extreme right-wing group? Would I think this worthwhile?
I dislike extreme right-wing groups, particularly those which incite racism and carry out racist attacks. I want them to stop doing this. It's possible an effective infiltrator would find a way of stopping them. But I'm still not happy about the spying.
Anyone who infiltrates a group has to take part in its activities. Police spies risk arrest when they break the law - Mark Kennedy was arrested on more than one occasion. If they reach a position of power - which must be their aim - they need to suggest activities and encourage them. So the police spy infiltrating a racist group might need to establish his or her credibility by abusing people on the grounds of their race, by spraying racist graffiti on walls, by suggesting groups to be targeted on a demonstration - even by initiating or taking part in racist violence. This comes close to acting as an agent provocateur by encouraging people to break the law. I don't want any police officer to do this, however noble the initial aims. Nor do I want any police spy to be expected to have sex with a racist as part of his or her job.
Doubtless some people - including members of the government - will say I'm being naive. But I think members of the police who go undercover as spies cease to act as upholders of the law and move into a shadowy area of questionable morality. When Nick Herbert endorses undercover policing and says that police spies may have sex with activists to reinforce their cover, he may speak for the government, but he doesn't speak for me. I wonder whether the majority of voters - or the majority of police officers - would agree with him.
I could think of many better things to do. Even the housework was looking attractive. I do not like going on demonstrations and this one scared me. The English Defence League was planning to march through Nottingham and, reluctantly, I'd decided to join the counter-demonstration.
It was my son who persuaded me. At 18, he sees the issues clearly. I don't always agree with him but this time it really was simple. The EDL stirs up hatred against Muslims, hatred leads to fear, discrimination and violence - and if I'm not prepared to stand, visibly, against hatred, I have a responsibility for what happens in my absence.
I was afraid. I've known people who were beaten up by fascists, back in the days of the National Front in the 1970s. I knew that a minority of anti-fascists might also want a fight, however much the organisers urged a peaceful demonstration and reckoned my son might be particularly at risk since young men are often victims of attacks. "Dress carefully," I told myself, and chose a thick jumper and warm jacket, in case of inadvertent blows. I reckoned I also looked sufficiently ordinary to melt into the crowd if necessary. There would be plenty of crowds. The EDL had timed their demonstration to coincide with the homecoming parade of the Mercian regiment and a football match between Nottingham Forest and Leicester City. And then there was Christmas ...
Nottingham seemed as crowded as ever. A Salvation Army band was playing carols. Crash barriers were being set in place for the soldiers' parade. Skaters glided on the ice in the Old Market Square and a continental market had joined the traditional German market. Despite police warnings about public safety, there was no shortage of shoppers. I'd met an A-level student on the train who was so visibly a demonstrator that I introduced myself. He'd travelled alone and didn't know his way to the city centre so I led him to the Old Market Square where we started to look for demonstrators among the crowds of shoppers, Goths, stall-holders, army families and British Legion members.
I spotted a small group of badge-wearers near the stone lions of the Council House. Cautiously I scanned the badges. This was just as well. They included a small enamal badge with the figures "18". It could have been an advertisement for a lucky Lotto number but I doubted it. I've known for years about the Combat 18 code by which 18 stands for A.H., or Adolf Hitler. There seemed some irony that a badge-wearer combined his "18" badge with a Churchill "V for Victory" badge, but I decided not to stay and point this out.
We wandered past the stalls of Neapolitan treats and olive oil and the British Legion veterans holding huge flags. Eventually someone ran up to us. "Anti-fascist demo?" he enquired. "Other end of the square."
We joined the small group with its banners. I began to worry that my son hadn't arrived as planned. The music from "The Snowman" floated out from a nearby shop. Eventually my mobile phone rang - my son had joined the other anti-fascist demo, by the Royal Centre. I headed up to join him, glad to be a little further from the Combat 18 group.
Like most demonstrations, it was mostly rather dull. The group outside the Royal Centre waved banners and chanted slogans, watched by curious passers-by. We heard music that suggested the returning Mercian soldiers were parading. I said hello to a friend and joined in a few casual conversations but they petered out after a while. There were speeches which I couldn't quite hear. My son and I were cold and hungry so went for chips from a nearby shop. Then there was a vote and our group marched to join the other demonstrators in the Old Market Square.
There was a moment of pleasure as the stationary demonstrators cheered and applauded our arrival. Then we settled down to the cold and boredom of just being there. My son was joined by a friend. I eased my copy of Les Misérables from my bag, settled my reading glasses on my nose, and continued with the story of Fantine, who had just been abandoned by the father of her child. I looked up when a group of fascists emerged from the pub opposite. I couldn't hear what they were singing and shouting because the people around me were singing and shouting in response. There were police cordons in keeping us and them in place and we were divided by tram tracks. Travellers in the trams gazed curiously and some took photos on their mobile phones. A couple of elderly women walked between the opposing groups with heavy shopping bags. I spotted a couple of Nazi salutes from the group outside the pub. Behind us, the continental market was doing a good trade and the skaters continued to glide proficiently on the ice. Father Christmas and a snowman walked between the groups, escorted by a friendly policeman. Police dogs arrived, tails wagging, and won a predicatble "Aaah! aren't they lovely!" from the demonstrators, which struck me as very English. Everything became quiet again. I read some more.
After a while, I decided to leave the group briefly to buy some sweets to sustain me on the demonstration. I'd already been there for hours. I made my way to the loo in a nearby shop. When I came out, the demonstration was disappearing round the corner towards the castle. I ran after it and the police kindly let me through the cordon so that I could rejoin the demonstrators. I was a little worried as I knew the ELD was planning a rally near the castle - the statue of Robin Hood had been boarded up in preparation.
Of course, the police weren't letting anti-fascists and fascists meet. We were kettled in a short street but it was a benevolent kettle - people with small children were able to leave if they wished, so long as it was safe to do so. Members of the public walked past. The shouting and slogans started again. I returned to Les Misérables. Fantine had just met Mme Thenardier and her daughters. My son and his friend briefly left the kettle and returned with Chinese food and chopsticks. A policeman brought a bowl and water for the police dogs, to the approval of the dog-loving demonstrators. I met a woman of my own age who had joined the demonstration from her shopping expedition. "I think it's important to be here," she said, "just to show that we don't agree with the EDL." I agreed.
We seemed to spend a long time in the kettle and, after a while, we weren't allowed out - not even to put rubbish in bins. In Les Misérables, Fantine's daughter, Cosette, was being abused by the Thenardiers - I worried about her. There was some more lively shouting so I put my book away in case something was going to happen. It didn't. I asked one of the policemen if he knew the football score but he said they didn't get that information. Later I overheard a policeman say "3-0 to Forest" but I wasn't sure I'd heard clearly. Finally there was a speech to encourage us all. We were told that we had shown that this was our city, that Nottingham didn't welcome fascism, that the EDL hadn't attacked us as they threatened. Now we were going to march back to the old Market Square and disperse - in groups, we were told, for our own safety.
The message about marching back hadn't reached the police nearest the square and there was a pause when it looked as though we were going to be held in the kettle. But a couple of minutes later we were on our way back, cheered that we'd been there and that it was all over. We were just about to cross the tram tracks circling the Old Market Square when a number of screaming men hurtled towards us, unfurling banners. I saw a St George's Cross as well as two banners with the red hand of Ulster. I couldn't hear what was being screamed - just a furious screech of hate and threats.
The police escorted us towards our end of the square and formed two lines between us and the screaming men. Behind us the skaters were gliding, bizarrely, to the tune of "Land of Hope and Glory." The continental market was still doing well. A group of youngsters from the anti-fascist protest dodged out of the police lines and headed at speed towards the fascists. Had they been on a football pitch, their supporters would have been cheering - it was so elegantly done. Then, for ten minutes or so, missiles were thrown around the pub. I couldn't see exactly what was going on and shoppers still wandered between the two groups. Policemen on horseback moved in and everything quietened. My son and I discussed what would happen if a policeman rode his horse into the pub but it didn't happen. The police horses seemed incongruous as they stood quietly between a bus shelter and the Cheltenham & Gloucester Building Society.
It was time to go home to the housework. I decided against olives from the continental market but bought myself a Christmas doughnut from a German stall and headed for the train. Back home, I checked the reports of the demonstrations in the press - it seems that some of the EDL demonstrators attacked the police. Then I checked the football results. Nottingham Forest beat Leicester 5 - 1.
The campus on Nottingham University is a peaceful place. Locals walk there, go boating on the lake, and take their children to play in the playground. It was alarming to hear on national radio of the arrest of two terrorist suspects.
The men weren't terrorists at all. One, Rizwaan Sabir, was a Ph.D. student - a Nottingham local - who had chosen to research Islamic terrorism. It seems a fairly important and relevant topic. I assume his research topic was registered with the university in the usual way - universities are very bureacratic places. It would be natural to list it in the university's submission for the Research Assessment Exercise earlier this year, since universities move up the rankings when they have a high number of research students.
Rizwaan Sabir thought that an Al-Qaeda training manual would be relevant to his research. He didn't download it from any old source. He went to a United States government website and downloaded an edited version, with anything judged to be dangerous edited out. He then contacted a friend, Hicham Yezza, who worked in the university and asked him to print it for him. Students do this kind of thing quite often. So do academics and people with temperamental printers or empty printer cartridges. But someone saw what the student's friend was reading and reported him to the police.
That's when the Counter-Terrorism Unit arrived. Both men were rushed off the jail and held for six days. They were questioned, their families were questioned and their homes were searched. Students at the university, in the middle of their exams, became rather nervous as police swarmed through the familiar buildings. Then, when the truth of the men's story became apparent, they were released.
But Hicham Yezza, a known peace activist from Algeria with a pending application for British citizenship, was immediately re-arrested. Someone had found a problem with his visa. This is very surprising. Universities are scrupulous in checking the immigration status of their students and employees. But I suppose most people make minor mistakes in completing complex forms.
Hicham Yezza - two weeks ago a trusted ex-student and employee of Nottingham University - is now in a detention centre pending deportation. He could be put on a plane and sent out of the country as early as Tuesday - and it's hard to do much on his behalf over a bank holiday weekend.
You may wish to write to your MP, asking him or her to contact Liam Byrne, the Immigration Minister, as a matter of urgency. At the very least, Hicham Yezza needs time to prepare his case. I can't help suspecting that this speed is an attempt to divert attention from two unnecessary arrests and the alarm they caused.
There's a fuller account and more helpful links in a recent post from Beeston Quakers - Beeston is a suburb of Nottingham which borders the Nottingham University campus. The Beeston Quakers post also considers further important questions raised by these events. (And it saves me the time I would usually take in researching and adding links.)
It's up there on the list of favourite superpowers. "Would you rather be invisible or able to fly?" the quizzes ask. I'd go for flying any day - so long as it's not in a plane. I don't like being shut in. And invisibility, however much fun it might be at first, is a kind of prison.
H.G. Wells' Invisible Man came out of the same era as Sherlock Holmes and pre-dates (but only by a little) the spy stories of the Edwardian era. Their heroes gained a kind of invisibility through their mastery of disguise but would return to safe visibility in the world of comfortable rooms, a housekeeper and a London club. Temporary invisibility was a kind of power. It could even be a route to power. W.H. Auden is thinking of the commnist agent when, in his poem "Our Hunting Fathers", he compares the perfect life of animals with the "mature ambition" to "hunger, work illegally/And be anonymous." He's recalling an account of Lenin given in Ralph Fox's biography.
But permanent invisibility - the kind where you look in mirrors and can't expect to see yourself - that's not such fun. Listening to the follies of others loses its attraction if you can't be seen laughing at the joke. And in the end the invisible are vulnerable to all kinds of cruelty. Unless they're caught by chance in a picture or seen in the background of a story, it's as though they don't exist. They can slip beyond the law and beyond compassion. They are rarely seen as equal or fully human.
There's a sinister term "the disappeared", used mostly of those who vanished in South American states. It's sometimes put another way - that they "were vanished" or "were disappeared". The passive verb alludes indirectly to the involvement of government torture squads or death squads. But the practice of "disappearing" people is older than that. It happened in Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union - and in democratic France in 1961 when the police massacre of Algerians in central Paris went largely unreported.
Today we have the "ghosts" of Abu Ghraib, who rarely made it into the photos, and the anonymous victims of extraordinary rendition. Presumably they are still carried through British territories and bases at home and abroad. I complained to my MP once. He responded that the British could hardly be expected to search United States planes on a regular basis and that, in any case, the prisoners being "rendered" could always make representation in the British courts through their lawyers. This seemed such a wilful misunderstanding of the facts that I gave up.
Those are the extremes of invisibility. Others choose invisibility because the alternative is worse. The nameless Nigerian deported on a B.A. charter flight last month was briefly noticed, because his fellow passengers objected to his treatment. It didn't help him. He was still deported but the other passengers were thrown off the flight for complaining. One man, on his way to attend his brother's wedding, was held in police cells where the British police confiscated all his money before dumping him, penniless and without a ticket, back at Heathrow. I don't know what happened to the man B.A. deported. I hope he's still alive, and safe.
For others, invisible is a daily fact. Some office workers literally don't see the cleaners in their buildings. Shoppers walk past the beggars and Big Issue sellers and don't pause to look them in the face.
Detective stories between the wars sometimes used invisibility as a clue. The housewife would open the door and take a delivery but later comment on the emptiness of the street. And the readers, accustomed to not seeing the people who served them, would ignore the implied presence of the man, woman or boy who made the delivery. In those stories, the invisible man would often be the killer. Sometimes invisibility is an excellent disguise. And sometimes people who are ignored want to make their presence felt.
