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Identity crisis

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By Kevin Gopal

Monday, 05 November 2007

TV producer Phil Redmond says our hard won freedoms are under threat from CCTV, ID cards and phone tracking. He told Kevin Gopal what needs to be done to protect our identities in the digital age

Incest, drugs, wife-battering: Phil Redmond’s TV programmes have rarely shied away from controversial issues. But today the creator of Brookside, Grange Hill and Hollyoaks has something just as controversial on his mind – the theft of our identity by the government.

The digital technology that allows for CCTV cameras, phone records, ID cards and other forms of surveillance is threatening to undo the freedoms we have won only after hundreds of years of struggle, he argues. Instead, governments and states assume they can own our identity.

Freedom and identity are the themes he is exploring as part of Radio 3’s Free Thinking 07, a series of debates, films, performance and other events in Liverpool. Without protection for our identity, he believes, there is a danger we could be told: “Youse do not exist.”

The list goes on, says Redmond, co-founder with Liverpool John Moores University of the International Centre for Digital Content. Mobile telephony and broadband allow us to be tagged. Traffic movements in and out of cities and along motorways are routinely recorded “just in case”.

Would the man in the street agree?

Whether the majority of people in the country agree with him is a moot point. For most, the suggestion that if you’ve nothing to hide, you’ve nothing to fear is sufficient reassurance when faced with ever more surveillance and intrusion. But Redmond argues: “It would seem that way until you talk to them and point out how much surveillance they can be placed under.”

He pulls no punches about the dangers of complacency. The Weimar Republic gave way to Hitler on the basis of nothing to hide, nothing to fear. Saddam Hussein in Iraq and Vladimir Putin in Russia also rose in this way to threaten the freedom of their people. The UK is not a police state at the moment but the apparatus is available.

“I’m not being alarmist, I’m being protectionist,” he says. “Benign governments can be replaced by malevolent ones.”
His solution is to open up a debate on freedom and identity and “work up protocols” so that technology’s effect on our identities is automatically considered when it is introduced.

A willingness to tell uncomfortable truths is a hallmark of the Scouse identity, continues Redmond, who was born in Huyton and considers himself “Irish, then Scouse, then British – never English”.

He traces that identity to Liverpool’s historical role as a seaport and the huge variety of people passing through. Looking back to reformer and poet William Roscoe, to politician and philanthropist William Rathbone, even to aspects of the Militant era, he notes a pragmatic approach to the harsh realities of life. “People get used to dealing with bad news in Liverpool – they take bad news, digest it and do what needs to be done but they won’t lie down.”

Do we not make too much of identity in this respect? Isn’t this what gives rise to nationalism? Only when it’s subverted by the likes of the BNP, he responds. Most people’s identity is both fluid and secure, he believes, derived first from an area that can be walked in an hour, then their region, then their country. This sort of identity is more about community pride than chauvinism – and doesn’t need the government to work out a set of British values that can be imposed on it from high.

How will Liverpool address its imminent cultural identity?

How identity relates to culture is a pressing question for Redmond now. He’s become deputy chairman of the Liverpool Culture Company after yet another shake-up in the organisation planning the city’s 12 months as European capital of culture next year.

Despite the problems of departing directors and contested arts programmes, Redmond points with Scouse pragmatism to the work of cultural consultant Robert Palmer, who was involved with Strasbourg’s capital of culture year. Palmer’s research uncovered a pattern: cities get awarded capital of culture status for the collegiality they show in bidding; then the various agencies involved jockey for places and squabble; but then there’s a tipping point and everyone realises the need to pull together.

Liverpool, believes Redmond, is following this pattern. The headline programme, including Sir Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr, is “fine – it ticks all the boxes”. That will attract people into the city who will then go on to visit the museums and attend the Hub Festival and Liverpool Biennial.

An important third phase is to open up culture so that people create it, rather than consume it, “without the high priests of culture moderating”.

Typical of this approach is the Liverpool Saga – 800 lines of poetry about 800 years of history written by Liverpudlians. At the saga’s launch in September, Redmond said: “Capital of Culture doesn’t belong to anyone in particular, or even to the council.

“It’s ours, it’s yours – we’ll make Capital of Culture the best in the world because it’s in this city.”
The city itself, as it undergoes extensive regeneration, is re-identifying itself but Redmond is concerned that in chasing after the same industries as every other city it might be in denial about its maritime past. The city needs to build on its international links, work out what it can do with digital technology – play to the strengths of its identity.

“The city’s USP is innovation and flexibility – wherever there’s a seismic shift you’ll find a Scouser.”

Kevin Gopal, editor, the Big Issue in the North. Republished by kind permission.

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