As people were being taken to hospitals across London, as the fire was still burning, and as the council failed to comprehend or respond to the scale of the tragedy, people from the surrounding area were already starting to donate food, water, bottles, blankets, clothing, nappies, toys at St Clement’s Church, the Al Manaar Muslim cultural heritage centre, the Notting Hill Methodist Church and the Westway Sports Centre as well as Kensington Town Hall. As the council floundered in its response, the communal response was immediate…and it was as compassionate as it was angry. These were the resources out of which a strong community emerged. Politicians were keen, too, to show how much they cared.
Leaders of both the major political parties visited the Grenfell Tower scene on the morning of 15 June. At 10 a.m., Conservative Prime Minister Theresa May made what was called a ‘private visit’, meeting members of the emergency services. A couple of hours later, Jeremy Corbyn, the leader of the Labour opposition, arrived at the scene. The contrast between the two visits could not have been starker, and people were quick to point this out on social media. On BBCTV news, images of Jeremy Corbyn listening to local people voice their anger and putting his arm around a distressed woman inside St Clement’s Church were juxtaposed with Theresa May’s seemingly dispassionate conversations with groups of firefighters and police. People were quick to criticise Theresa May for not meeting residents, for not being prepared to take their anger and pain. More, she was condemned for talking to people via TV about how the government would do everything it could to help and rehouse them. She was being condemned as much for not listening as for not talking; as much for failing to be open to people’s anger and pain as for a seemingly dispassionate display of compassion. Perhaps in an attempt to seem more human and humane, just before 2 p.m., Theresa May announced that there would be a full public inquiry. During the morning, the official death toll figures had risen from 12 to 17. No one thought the death toll would stay at 17; many thought it would rise into the hundreds. The sense that officials were underestimating the tragedy only intensified the anger on the streets around Grenfell Tower.
While Theresa May was announcing the public inquiry, freelance journalist Mario Cacciottolo, writing for the BBC, was reporting the views of local residents (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk‐40291372). He spoke to Maria Vigo, who had lived opposite the tower for 11 years. She told him: ‘There was a lot of anger on the school run this morning. There’s a lot of separation between the classes, and people are telling me that it’s down to social cleansing’. She complained about being priced out of the area by the rising cost of basic amenities. She blamed gentrification. ‘This area’s always been working class. It’s starting to become a bit less so now, and the working class are feeling that they’re being left without a voice. The council isn’t listening to us. We don’t want a pretty building. They should ask us ‘what do we need’? Or ‘what would we like’? In the rich borough of Kensington and Chelsea, Grenfell Tower stood in an area (surrounding the Latimer Road tube station) that ranks amongst the poorest 10% in England.
As Mario Cacciottolo wandered around the streets surrounding Grenfell Tower, he discovered another story. He spoke with Christina Simmons, who had lived near the tower for 27 years. She explained: ‘People are coming together and rallying together. I didn’t realise we had so many Eritreans and Somalians; they’ve come out to offer support’. The growing pride in the community response did not mask the problem. Christina added, ‘They don’t listen to us. We’re being neglected and ignored. I’m bloody angry’. Then, on a more hopeful note, ‘Maybe this’ll bring us all together’.
A day later, the relief effort of the council had not improved. The communal effort, meanwhile, was now enormous, with makeshift relief centres at the Westway Sports Centre and St Clement’s Church straining under the weight of goodwill. While the Queen and Prince William calmly met volunteers, local residents and community representatives at the Westway Sports Centre, a large angry crowd gathered outside St Clement’s Church, where Theresa May was due to meet victims of the disaster. As she appeared, clear on the TV reports were shouts of ‘coward’ and ‘shame on you’. Some broke through the police cordon to shout at the Prime Minister as her car whisked her away. It is not clear whether Theresa May heard them.
The fire at Grenfell Tower exposed the growing social inequality in the area and tensions around gentrification as well as the indifference and unpreparedness of the local council and the Conservative Government (although they would protest otherwise). Yet, the fire also changed the way the area was seen and heard. Perhaps the most remarkable shift was prompted by the communal response: the tragedy operationalised a community that was previously latent and fragmented. Indeed, the escalating acts of compassion crystallised what appeared from the outside to be an impossible community. Significantly, community was quietly articulated through faith‐based organisations – especially St Clement’s Church and the Al Manaar Muslim heritage centre – and expressed (informally) in religious terms (see, e.g., Everett 2018).
On a wall of the Latymer Community Church, in an echo of other tragedies in the United Kingdom and elsewhere, people wrote tributes and messages, and left flowers (see www.getwestlondon.co.uk/news/west‐london‐news/gallery/tribute‐wall‐grenfell‐tower‐community‐13191587; and, www.standard.co.uk/news/london/hundreds‐of‐harrowing‐messages‐left‐on‐wall‐at‐grenfell‐tower‐fire‐scene‐a3565521.html). At the centre of one panel, underneath a wicker heart, in multicoloured felt pen, were the words: ‘Pray for our Community’. Surrounding these words were messages of love, grief and hope, written in English and Arabic. Many of the messages were drawn upon religious themes, practices and iconography to articulate a sense of community: ‘No words can truly describe the pain, the fear, the sense of being lost – only emotions to be felt – the heart felt prayers of the whole world are here and with time and peace will heal and reunite loved ones’. Another read: ‘What a wonderful response to a horrible tragedy. May we continue to give so that no one is in lack. This is the kingdom of Jesus Christ’. Alongside it, someone had written: ‘May Allah grant all the highest ranks in jannah, and all the survivors the strength to carry on’. It wasn’t just that the fire had revealed the different faiths in the community, it was that the commonalities amongst the seemingly incommensurable faiths had become the grounds upon which people were acting together. Theologically different ideas about the soul and heaven found common ground in the articulation of a desire that people’s souls would find heaven and rest in peace. Gifts and giving were at the heart of a now operative impossible community, underpinned by expressions of love, hope, help, resilience, sympathy and strength.
The operability of community was often expressed through ideas of togetherness and unity: ‘Bonds formed in fire are difficult to break – our community will always stand together’. And, on another panel, simply: ‘WEARE1’. On the other hand, community was also what set people apart from the rich and the powerful: ‘May their souls rest in peace #PPPpoorpeoplepolitics’, ‘People help the people’. And, there was also a palpable sense of anger and a desire to see justice: ‘Why did this need to happen?’, ‘Theresa May where are you, your people voted you in, Justice for Grenfell, Jail Those Responsible’.
The operative community quickly was becoming two‐sided: one side, joining the people together, while at the same time separating the people from the rich and the powerful. The demand for justice similarly faces in two opposite directions at once. One demand is faced towards the law. This is the demand for the causes of the tragedy to be identified and the people responsible to be held accountable: this is what Rajiv Menon calls ‘real justice’ and ‘real accountability’ (see above). Theresa May’s quick declaration that there would be a public inquiry addresses this demand: yet, the public inquiry also utilises the limits contained in this demand for justice – the inquiry’s remit would not extend to wider questions of race, class and social inequality. Yet, that circumscription of the inquiry itself creates a contestable limit. Another demand faces away from the law as the law itself is the source of injustice. This