When A Country Crumbles — Part 3

Some things get undone

Media-magnified outrages, whether Social, Broadcast, Digitally Narrow-Cast, Printed, Postered, T-Shirted or Beer-Matted, usually demand government action. Mr. Growser’s, ‘It aught not to be allowed’ could have been one of Bernard Levin’s ‘popular substitutes for five minute’s thought’.

As the sorry history of ‘unintended consequences’ testifies, knee jerk pressure for yet more central control has little in common with evidence-led policy. Tabloid headlines rarely scream, ‘SOMETHING MUST BE UNDONE’ — except, of course, the ‘red tape’ furiously demanded in some earlier blood-boiling outrage.

But when things really do fall (or are taken) apart it is Local Communities (not central governments) that must pick up the pieces.

This is Part 3 of the Country Crumble blog.

Part 1 looked at Power failures — the over-centralisation, the deliberate (oft misrepresented) misunderstanding of subsidiarity — marginally practised within the UK but a core principle of pan-European collaboration adopted to protect national sovereignties. Resilient Communities, we observed, respond to the crumbling erosion of central authority. The resurgence of community action eagerly identifies local priorities that have long struggled for attention from the averaging calculators of national misfortunes.

In Part 2 the People’s Crumble alluded to extreme inequalities — ample Apples but barely the thinnest pickings of Blackberries in some places and, naturally, massive variability across the nation. Not much comfort this Autumn for those dependent on fallers.

Now we come to the crumbling conclusion. In this third part Places erode alongside Power and People in the mix of convergent crises faced by communities. Writing this as young folk everywhere are taking to the streets, as politicians scramble to catch up and as climate crisis deniers double down, Channel 4 News devoted quality airtime to a coastal village in Wales and another ocean-threatened settlement in Rhode Island — both reports featuring communities struggling to face their extinction realities.

These are not entirely new challenges. Homes and entire communities have long been lost to the ravages of storms, crumbing cliffs and insurgent tides. Governmental responses — even Local Governmental responses — have long fallen short of resilience planning. They could learn so much from Jenny Andersson’s saga of Slapton Sands and their evolving community adaptation.

UPDATE 26/SEPT/2019: Retreat is worth considering now where coastal population size and density is low, risks are already high, and the economic, cultural and socio-political impacts of retreat and resettlement are carefully considered and addressed by at- risk communities and their governing authorities. Ref: IPCC SR Ocean and Cryosphere report upgrading assessment of Sea Level Rise, published 25th Sept 2019 Section 4.1.4, page 4–12.

Coastal erosion was never Knut-able. Thanks to Greta far more folk now see the hands of humans and far fewer blame Acts of Gods. But instead of just bemoaning crumbling infrastructures, even more folk are campaigning to mend, to clean, to redesign, renew, reregulate and prepare to pay the costs of decades of neglect. This campaigning is driven by people in Local Communities closest to calamity who see the issues with shocking clarity. Local Community leaders are learning to defy remote wreckers who mistakenly describe ‘investments’ as ‘subsidies’ or reclassify ‘benefits’ as ‘penalties’.

Channel 4 News observed the local tensions that arise when citizens must come together to face reality. It is difficult because for decades they’ve been led to believe that something must be done by someone else to whom taxes have been paid. They’ve been encouraged for decades to complain of Postcode lotteries — a defiance of diversity — but the centre cannot (and never did) hold. At best the central performance was only merely average.

The Power Failures, the Unbearable Inequalities, the Climate Challenges, all demand that Local Communities must decide their own local priorities. There is no point in shouting ‘Something Must Be Done’into a void. As they bring up the Brexit bodies, the awful reality dawns and illusions of an ordered society vanish in a haze. ‘Who did we think we were?’ that somehow we could assume superior status?

Not all communities yet have the skills and cohesion to think these erosions through — but few are now inclined to assume the crumbling cronies can deliver adequate responses. Peace and reconciliation is a mighty big agenda but one that can be tackled locally.

Time it is, then, for new beginnings. Time to start again. Time to redefine who we now think we are — what you (in your Local Communities) wish to become and how you relate to your neighbours.

When A Country Crumbles Some Things Get Undone — but resilient local communities can pick up the pieces.