My Experience of Coventry City of Culture- A Legacy of Facebook Followers | by Alison Manning | Mar, 2023
Way back in May 2018, we had an inspiring talk at my workplace about the delights that lay in wait for us and our city, and the hard work that had gone in to getting that far, after Coventry had been awarded City of Culture 2021 on a euphoric evening just a few months earlier. OK, I should probably admit I’d arranged the talk, as part of a Learning at Work Week, but it was extremely well-received and others shared my enthusiasm. Encouraged to do so, I was one of many who signed up to Coventry City of Culture on social media that day, in eager anticipation of exciting things to come.
Fast forward five years and, with a heavy heart, I have just unsubscribed from Coventry City of Culture’s Facebook and Twitter, after discovering my likes and follows have been listed as “intangible assets” that are being sold off, along with coffee machines, 55 domain names, a few projectors and remarkably little else, after Coventry City of Culture has spiralled into administration. Besides this dismal list, it leaves behind forced redundancies, disgruntled but mobilised creatives, a disappointed population, unpaid debts and lots of unanswered questions, not quite the three-year legacy it had supposedly planned and we had hoped for.
It wasn’t the easiest of starts, delayed by several months due to the blight of the pandemic, but even then it seemed the opening day was shrouded in secrecy, to allegedly prevent dangerous crowds building. Although some events of the day were shown on YouTube, some of the rest of it seemed to be on a ‘catch it if you can’ basis. A motorcade of interesting old vehicles carried a host of musicians, singers and dancers who would stop and perform at irregular intervals. It was a warm day and we were eating in the garden when we heard the sound of passing music. We literally dropped everything and ran to see what was going on, desperate to be part of the action. We saw the cars pass on a neighbouring street, beeping their horns. We took photos. They didn’t stop and we returned to our melted ice cream, hopeful that more exciting things we could actually properly participate in would follow.
This initial, apparently deliberate, lack of communication unfortunately seemed to set the tone for things to come. An infamous brochure only appeared in venues and through people’s letterboxes after the majority of events contained in it had already happened, presumably to low audiences as no one knew about them. It was the grassroots stuff that made City of Culture, most of which sprang up despite and, in some cases, in the face of direct, inexplicable opposition from the official City of Culture trust. Coventry creatives really came into their own, often roused by official obstruction, creating more opportunities for locals who were feeling ignored or sidelined. The official shop won’t take work by local creatives? Let’s form our own space to sell their stuff- the Sitting Rooms of Culture stall in the market was up and running within weeks. There aren’t openings being made for local artists to exhibit their work? The Litten Tree Buildings Showroom encouraged and exhibited work from many local artists, lots of whom had never exhibited before, as well as hosting film festivals and other events. Sadly, neither of these examples are currently still active, due to logistical circumstances beyond their control, but hopefully they will be resurrected at some point.
It was also the grassroots stuff that became the best means of communication, with local Facebook group Sitting Rooms of Culture, originally set up at the start of lockdown, becoming my and hundreds, if not thousands, of other people’s main source of information on City of Culture events. Without people sharing on this group nuggets of information about what was going on and recommendations of events they had managed to get to, knowledge of events, and consequently ticket sales, would have been even lower than the actual levels. With a whopping £12, 776, 000 spent on events and just £487,000 back in ticket sales something went wrong somewhere. It wasn’t just details of events that were shared on the Facebook group though, but also occasional opportunities for local creatives. I was tagged in one of these by someone I hadn’t really met in person, applied and was pleased to be commissioned to write a poem.
So this should have been the start of me benefitting as a local creative from Coventry City of Culture. I certainly benefitted financially, and it was good in that it encouraged me as a poet and boosted my confidence. Thinking about it retrospectively though, I don’t think they had a well-rounded approach to the project and it felt more like tokenism ie “We have paid ten local artists to write poems/prepare music pieces for this, our work here is done.” What would have been nice was some kind of publicity, promotion, encouragement or exposure of our work. It appeared on an app no one knew about and apart from one or two social media posts we were scarcely mentioned, which seems a shame especially as they paid quite a lot for each work. The commission involved writing a poem related to the artwork displayed in empty shop windows in the city centre. The publicity was so bad that one of the artists whose work I had used as an inspiration did not even know about my poem, despite being involved in the same project, till I told her about it. It would not have taken much effort just to print out the works that were poems and stick them in the windows they related to but would have gained us a much wider audience and made our part of the project more of a thing. Or even just a sign in each window telling you that a poem or a song relating to it was available to listen to with a QR code to scan to hear it (though that would have excluded those who don’t use that technology). I guess they weren’t quite sure what their purpose was and perhaps thought they had fulfilled it by commissioning local artists without really using or promoting their work at all. Several people involved in the project had to purely promote it themselves through social media and local radio. I guess some self-promotion was to be expected and it was good in some ways to have something to promote, but some coordinated central promotion would have been much appreciated. I don’t want to sound ungrateful, it was good to be involved. But it perhaps shouldn’t have come as a surprise when a final proposed event for the project was scheduled to take place in London. When this was queried as a suitable location for a Coventry project the organiser simply gave the following reason for the setting: “Because I’m based in London”.
What has gone wrong with the overall management of Coventry City of Culture Trust I do not know. It could be down to mismanagement, incompetence, bringing in outsiders with no knowledge of Coventry- I don’t really know enough to judge. There are some clues in the figures though, with the accounts for the year ending 31 March 2022 showing just £5,563 spent on Community Engagement, compared with an incredible £122,989 spent on Travel and Subsistence- this for an event based entirely in one city, ideally focussed on the local community. We can perhaps glean from this where their priorities lay. Perhaps now, by listing one of their main, if intangible, assets as their social media followers, they have finally realised that their greatest asset all along lay in the people of Coventry, if only they could have fully communicated with, committed to and collaborated with local creatives and the wider Coventry community throughout. Thankfully, especially in the absence of any other tangible legacy, the grassroots of Coventry creatives have mobilised, networked, formed effective online (and sometimes in person) communities. Their current task, which is in process, is the fight to find out what went wrong with Coventry City of Trust, to ensure a thorough investigation takes place, battle for accountability and seek answers to the many unanswered questions. Hopefully lessons can be learned for Bradford City of Culture 2025, and any more chosen cities after that.
Facebook Faces Yet Another Outage: Platform Encounters Technical Issues Again
Uppdated: It seems that today’s issues with Facebook haven’t affected as many users as the last time. A smaller group of people appears to be impacted this time around, which is a relief compared to the larger incident before. Nevertheless, it’s still frustrating for those affected, and hopefully, the issues will be resolved soon by the Facebook team.
Facebook had another problem today (March 20, 2024). According to Downdetector, a website that shows when other websites are not working, many people had trouble using Facebook.
This isn’t the first time Facebook has had issues. Just a little while ago, there was another problem that stopped people from using the site. Today, when people tried to use Facebook, it didn’t work like it should. People couldn’t see their friends’ posts, and sometimes the website wouldn’t even load.
Downdetector, which watches out for problems on websites, showed that lots of people were having trouble with Facebook. People from all over the world said they couldn’t use the site, and they were not happy about it.
When websites like Facebook have problems, it affects a lot of people. It’s not just about not being able to see posts or chat with friends. It can also impact businesses that use Facebook to reach customers.
Since Facebook owns Messenger and Instagram, the problems with Facebook also meant that people had trouble using these apps. It made the situation even more frustrating for many users, who rely on these apps to stay connected with others.
During this recent problem, one thing is obvious: the internet is always changing, and even big websites like Facebook can have problems. While people wait for Facebook to fix the issue, it shows us how easily things online can go wrong. It’s a good reminder that we should have backup plans for staying connected online, just in case something like this happens again.
Christian family goes in hiding after being cleared of blasphemy
LAHORE, Pakistan — A court in Pakistan granted bail to a Christian falsely charged with blasphemy, but he and his family have separated and gone into hiding amid threats to their lives, sources said.
Haroon Shahzad, 45, was released from Sargodha District Jail on Nov. 15, said his attorney, Aneeqa Maria. Shahzad was charged with blasphemy on June 30 after posting Bible verses on Facebook that infuriated Muslims, causing dozens of Christian families in Chak 49 Shumaali, near Sargodha in Punjab Province, to flee their homes.
Lahore High Court Judge Ali Baqir Najfi granted bail on Nov. 6, but the decision and his release on Nov. 15 were not made public until now due to security fears for his life, Maria said.
Shahzad told Morning Star News by telephone from an undisclosed location that the false accusation has changed his family’s lives forever.
“My family has been on the run from the time I was implicated in this false charge and arrested by the police under mob pressure,” Shahzad told Morning Star News. “My eldest daughter had just started her second year in college, but it’s been more than four months now that she hasn’t been able to return to her institution. My other children are also unable to resume their education as my family is compelled to change their location after 15-20 days as a security precaution.”
Though he was not tortured during incarceration, he said, the pain of being away from his family and thinking about their well-being and safety gave him countless sleepless nights.
“All of this is due to the fact that the complainant, Imran Ladhar, has widely shared my photo on social media and declared me liable for death for alleged blasphemy,” he said in a choked voice. “As soon as Ladhar heard about my bail, he and his accomplices started gathering people in the village and incited them against me and my family. He’s trying his best to ensure that we are never able to go back to the village.”
Shahzad has met with his family only once since his release on bail, and they are unable to return to their village in the foreseeable future, he said.
“We are not together,” he told Morning Star News. “They are living at a relative’s house while I’m taking refuge elsewhere. I don’t know when this agonizing situation will come to an end.”
The Christian said the complainant, said to be a member of Islamist extremist party Tehreek-e-Labbaik Pakistan and also allegedly connected with banned terrorist group Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, filed the charge because of a grudge. Shahzad said he and his family had obtained valuable government land and allotted it for construction of a church building, and Ladhar and others had filed multiple cases against the allotment and lost all of them after a four-year legal battle.
“Another probable reason for Ladhar’s jealousy could be that we were financially better off than most Christian families of the village,” he said. “I was running a successful paint business in Sargodha city, but that too has shut down due to this case.”
Regarding the social media post, Shahzad said he had no intention of hurting Muslim sentiments by sharing the biblical verse on his Facebook page.
“I posted the verse a week before Eid Al Adha [Feast of the Sacrifice] but I had no idea that it would be used to target me and my family,” he said. “In fact, when I came to know that Ladhar was provoking the villagers against me, I deleted the post and decided to meet the village elders to explain my position.”
The village elders were already influenced by Ladhar and refused to listen to him, Shahzad said.
“I was left with no option but to flee the village when I heard that Ladhar was amassing a mob to attack me,” he said.
Shahzad pleaded with government authorities for justice, saying he should not be punished for sharing a verse from the Bible that in no way constituted blasphemy.
Similar to other cases
Shahzad’s attorney, Maria, told Morning Star News that events in Shahzad’s case were similar to other blasphemy cases filed against Christians.
“Defective investigation, mala fide on the part of the police and complainant, violent protests against the accused persons and threats to them and their families, forcing their displacement from their ancestral areas, have become hallmarks of all blasphemy allegations in Pakistan,” said Maria, head of The Voice Society, a Christian paralegal organization.
She said that the case filed against Shahzad was gross violation of Section 196 of the Criminal Procedure Code (CrPC), which states that police cannot register a case under the Section 295-A blasphemy statute against a private citizen without the approval of the provincial government or federal agencies.
Maria added that Shahzad and his family have continued to suffer even though there was no evidence of blasphemy.
“The social stigma attached with a blasphemy accusation will likely have a long-lasting impact on their lives, whereas his accuser, Imran Ladhar, would not have to face any consequence of his false accusation,” she said.
The judge who granted bail noted that Shahzad was charged with blasphemy under Section 295-A, which is a non-cognizable offense, and Section 298, which is bailable. The judge also noted that police had not submitted the forensic report of Shahzad’s cell phone and said evidence was required to prove that the social media was blasphemous, according to Maria.
Bail was set at 100,000 Pakistani rupees (US $350) and two personal sureties, and the judge ordered police to further investigate, she said.
Shahzad, a paint contractor, on June 29 posted on his Facebook page 1 Cor. 10:18-21 regarding food sacrificed to idols, as Muslims were beginning the four-day festival of Eid al-Adha, which involves slaughtering an animal and sharing the meat.
A Muslim villager took a screenshot of the post, sent it to local social media groups and accused Shahzad of likening Muslims to pagans and disrespecting the Abrahamic tradition of animal sacrifice.
Though Shahzad made no comment in the post, inflammatory or otherwise, the situation became tense after Friday prayers when announcements were made from mosque loudspeakers telling people to gather for a protest, family sources previously told Morning Star News.
Fearing violence as mobs grew in the village, most Christian families fled their homes, leaving everything behind.
In a bid to restore order, the police registered a case against Shahzad under Sections 295-A and 298. Section 295-A relates to “deliberate and malicious acts intended to outrage religious feelings of any class by insulting its religion or religious beliefs” and is punishable with imprisonment of up to 10 years and fine, or both. Section 298 prescribes up to one year in prison and a fine, or both, for hurting religious sentiments.
Pakistan ranked seventh on Open Doors’ 2023 World Watch List of the most difficult places to be a Christian, up from eighth the previous year.
Morning Star News is the only independent news service focusing exclusively on the persecution of Christians. The nonprofit’s mission is to provide complete, reliable, even-handed news in order to empower those in the free world to help persecuted Christians, and to encourage persecuted Christians by informing them that they are not alone in their suffering.
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