Motion on Depiction of Neo-Nazis on Goldsmiths Mural
Passed at GUCU Branch Meeting, Monday 13 March, 2023
The branch notes:
1. The Goldsmiths ‘Battle of Lewisham’ mural was unveiled on Saturday, 26 October, 2019. It purports to be an historical representation of an event in 1977, when neo-Nazis attempted to march through the area. The mural is a collage, rather than a documentary photograph, and as such, it is a mediated and constructed re-telling of history.
2. The mural depicts John Tyndall and Martin Webster, two well-known neo-nazis, both convicted of domestic terrorism offenses.
3. This depiction is in contravention of Prevent’s “Statutory Guidance” (sections 10 and 20) for HE institutions, where HE institutions are expected to carry out statutory risk assessments:
“to look at institutional policies regarding campus and student welfare, including equality and diversity and the safety and welfare of students and staff. We would also expect the risk assessment to assess the physical management of the university estate including policies and procedures for events held by staff, students or visitors and relationships with external bodies and community groups who may use premises, or work in partnership with the institution.” (section 20)
4. Paul Halliday, lecturer in Photography and Urban Cultures, raised a complaint against the mural on 24 August, 2022, through Prevent, cc:ing College Senior Management. To date, no appropriate action has been taken to address this complaint.
The branch believes:
1. These people have no place on campus walls, it is entirely inappropriate for the university to have placed images of convicted domestic terrorists on a public facing wall, knowing that local people, staff members and possibly students are likely to have been impacted by their criminal actions.
2. Had the College commissioned black artist/s with a clear situated understanding of how systemic racism and fascism has impacted on local communities, the researchers and artists would have identified these terrorists immediately and that this reflects the problematics of the white gaze of the university
3. Both neo-nazis depicted were known for violence against black and LGBT+ communities, their islamophobic and anti-semtic activism and were directly involved in setting up terrorist training camps. John Tyndall, in particular, is established to have been the Soho bomber, David Copeland’s mentor.
4. Having these figures depicted in this mural is harmful to individuals and communities who were directly impacted by the violence organised by such domestic terrorists, particularly tennants groups who developed response and protection resources; by youth workers, academics, artists and educators, working with young people to combat neo-Nazi extremism across London.
5. The College should have investigated the complaint immediately, and that action should have been taken to remove those domestic terrorists from the mural after the complaint was made.
The branch resolves:
1.Goldsmiths must immediately launch an independent investigation focusing on how the mural’s background research was commissioned, its methodological framing and application; and why local residents, students and college staff were not informed that convicted neo-Nazi domestic terrorists were included within the collage.
2. Goldsmiths must investigate why white historians failed to recognise the criminals in the mural, and explain their failures of ‘due diligence’ and duty of care to staff, students and the local community.
3. Goldsmiths must remove the mural and establish an advisory group with adequate resources to advertise, identify and commission a Black artist or artists with the appropriate cultural skillset to understand and respond to the ethical, experiential and historical specificities around antiracist activism.
4. Goldsmiths must identify those academic members and Senior Management Team members that endorsed and promoted the public platforming of known convicted neo-Nazi domestic terrorists.
5. Goldsmiths must issue a public apology for platforming convicted neo-Nazi domestic terrorists, and rather than hiding behind the predictable and by now jaded rhetorics of ‘unconscious bias’; accept its institutional culpability and complicity in such an abuse of cultural and historical research.
6. Goldsmiths must respond publicly to the complaint forwarded to the government anti-radicalisation organisation Prevent, particularly with reference to the sections 10 and 20 of Prevent’s Higher Education guidelines.
7. Goldsmiths must cooperate fully and in good faith with the ongoing Metropolitan Police investigation around the mural, and do so in a transparent and open manner.
8. As many of the discussions around how the mural has impacted on staff, students and local communities become more apparent, the campaign will widen to include discussions around statutory legal provisions to ensure that no public organisation may place photographs or visual representations of convicted terrorists (domestic or other) on public walls. We would invite Goldsmiths to support this developing campaign in a meaningful and open-minded manner.
Proposer: Paul Halliday
You can read the motion and background statement in full here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Jvif-kzW5XhayvDdjL9E4LnNgYe2C6g52k6sL3wcabY/edit?usp=sharing