5. Election Results

This was recorded intermittently while following the Brexit referendum and, later on, while remembering the victims of the tragic fire at Grenfell Tower (immediately after the re-election of the Conservatives whose systematic social neglect was linked to the disaster), and before that, at the height of the farce that brought into office the 45th president of the United States. To some extent, I have lived through these moments with a sense of incapacity because I am not allowed to vote in either the UK or the US despite having lived in those countries for many years. Of course, these referendums and elections result in policies that affect whole communities living in regions and environments located far away from where the votes are cast.

The suffering of local communities from police violence also reached a tipping point this year, but one of the symptoms of the broader anxiety felt by nations politically and culturally at odds with themselves; the disregard for justice at the hands of all sectors of authority leads to an extreme escalation of the social logic of abjection that makes it even harder to rest in peace.