The Big Weekend.

Over the next three days (27/8/11, 28/8/11, 29/8/11) it will be a three day, Bank holiday weekend in Britain. As this is the last Bank holiday until Christmas the August Bank holiday is widely seen as the end of the British summer and there are many events planned to celebrate.

In London there is the Notting Hill Carnival. Imported by immigrants from the Caribbean and with it's roots in the end of slavery the ethos of Carnival is very much throwing off the shackles of oppression and taking to the streets in celebration. In 21st century Britain this translates as over a hundred thousand people drinking and partying for four days straight. Inevitably when the music stops and the party ends on Monday night there is always some level of disorder but normally it's just the occasional fist fight. Due to the concerns over violence this years Carnival also marks the end to the unspoken police lock-down that has been in place since the riots. So providing Carnival ends relatively peacefully all the people who have been remanded in custody since the riots can start making bail applications. However there are sections of British society including the police and the wealthy residents of Notting Hill like one David Cameron who will do everything in their power to provoke a riot to make sure future Carnivals are cancelled and the police lock-down never ends.

Saturday (27/8/11) also sees the opening of Camp Constant the Amnesty International supported camp to non-violently resist the eviction of Dale Farm the gypsy/traveller site in Essex. Although the eviction itself is not expected to take place until Thursday (1/9/11) the United Nations have already warned the British Government that this eviction is illegal unless the residents of Dale Farm are properly compensated for being forced off the land they own and are allowed to continue their cultural traditions at another location. Therefore I think there will probably be a lot more then non-violent resistance because there is a growing global consensus that the forcible transfer of an ethnic group constitutes a crime against humanity and therefore everything up to and including lethal force can be used to prevent it from happening. Obviously though the British courts are not part of that consensus.

Oh and a group calling themselves "Western Education is Sinful" contacted the BBC to claim it was they who taught the UN a lesson in Nigeria today. That claim has not been independently verified.