Grenfell Tower may be coming down, but a fundamental injustice remains
Eight years after the dreadful fire that killed 72 people, the government has finally confirmed that the Grenfell Tower is going to be pulled down. The 24-storey residential tower block in London’s North Kensington has lain derelict since the severe fire, and has become a political focal point for a range of longstanding concerns and issues relating to social housing, urban poverty and the safety of domestic buildings. The failure of the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea and other responsible corporate bodies to prevent the tragedy and to respond adequately after it happened has also made Grenfell Tower a symbol of the growing disconnect between those in authority and the general public.
Deciding what to do with the bady burned shell of the building was always going to be a difficult and controversial decision. For some local residents – especially bereaved families and survivors – it was felt that the building should stay as a lasting reminder of the 2017 tragedy. For others its very presence was an agonising reminder of the terror and agony of friends and loved ones who were trapped in the inferno, and a more appropriate resolution would be to flatten the structure completely and erect a meaningful memorial.
“It is clear from conversations it remains a sacred site,” the government said in a statement released this morning. “It is also clear that there is not a consensus about what should happen to it.”
Unquestionably the decision to demolish the tower was made on very practical grounds – the building was structurally damaged by the fire and exposed to the elements’ its conditional will only worsen to the point that it will present a further and increasing danger to life.
There were suggestions that some of the upper floors could be removed to leave a more stable lower section as a lasting memorial to those who died, but this suggestion just raised awkward philosophical and moral arguments about how a partially deconstructed edifice would represent adequately those who died in the upper floors, whilst the burnt out flats in the lower sections remaining would also serve as an all too painful reminder to those who had lost loved ones on those levels.
Many campaigners also believe that whatever the final arrangements, the ruined tower ought to stay in place at least until people have been prosecuted over the fire, as there’s an understandable suspicion that the demolition of the tower and the erection of a modest memorial will effectively be a forced closure to the controversy. The Metropolitan Police and Crown Prosecution Service have also said no charges would be announced until late 2026 at the earliest because of the increasing “scale and complexity” of the inquiry. This means that if eventually there are prosecutions, no defendants will appear in court until 2027 at the earliest. The all too familiar strategy of dragging out enquiries and any admissions of culpability for as long as possible adds validation to the argument that the tower should stay until justice is served for the 72 victims.
The question of how we memorialise the dead, especially in situations of great tragedy, is never an easy one. In the wake of the World Trade Centre attacks of 9/11 the few surviving twisted steel remains of the twin towers instantly became iconic symbols of the horror of so many lost lives. At the time there were numerous calls for these to remain in place as a lasting memorial to the 2,977 people killed, but it was decided to disperse this metalwork to locations across the USA where separate memorials were constructed. Some sections have even travelled the world as part of 9/11 exhibitions. At ground zero the immense concrete foundations of the two towers remain in place and now form centrepieces of a large underground National September 11 Memorial & Museum where visitors can learn about the attack, its consequences and information on the victims.
Whilst not a piece of the towers themselves, the “Survivor Tree,” a callery pear tree that survived the attacks, has also been preserved and replanted at the memorial site as a poignant reminder of endurance and continuing life.
In many respects the September 11 museum model really should be applied to the Grenfell Tower landscape. What happened at Grenfell, how it came to happen, and how culpability still remains unresolved means this was no simple accidental tragedy and Grenfell should not be reduced to a mere garden and plaque to be forgotten, like so many tragic accidents over the years. If we don’t learn from the lessons that led to that dreadful fire, it’s highly likely that some similar tragedy will occur again – at the very least the pursuit of profit and the defence of corporate structures will continue to mean that ordinary people will be disadvantaged by their poverty, powerlessness and reliance on the state to guarantee their safety and security.
One of the most outstanding and significant narratives of the Grenfell tragedy was the instantaneous and impactful intervention of ordinary people in the neighbourhood, who were able to respond, organise and ameliorate the tragedy in ways that the appointed agencies and organisations were profoundly and woefully unable to do. From rushing to local shops to buy food and water, sharing their own clothing and blankets, providing emergency shelter and counselling the distrerssed, the innate goodness of the human person was what really shone out on that tragic night – and that is what ought to be commemorated, as well as respect and remembrance for the lives lost so unnecessarily.
As we have seen so often in the past, the public enquiry tends to be government’s favoured response to a crisis of public outrage, not least because it’s a drawn out and tortuous ‘slow thinking’ mechanism that puts significant time between the incident and the outcome, and often conveniently muddies the waters, if not refutes the problem entirely. One only has to look to the first enquiry into the events of Bloody Sunday in 1972, and the final report in 2003 of the 2003 Hutton enquiry into to the death of David Kelly, the UN weapons inspector in Iraq, to see that these exercises can be less than satisfactory, if not a complete whitewash.
This accusation can be pointed with some justification at the ongoing Grenfell inquiry, as this has been given the very limited brief of focussing on why lessons weren’t learnt from previous fires, rather than coming to any conclusions that might help us learn lessons for the future from the tragedy. One can only hope that, as sometimes occurs, those charged with conducting the enquiry exceed their brief and insist on making some meaningful pronouncements that those in positions of power will have to heed. At present governments are almost duty-bound to implement the recommendations of such enquiries, but there is little evidence so far that such pronouncements deliver meaningful transformations. Little surprise then that ‘whitewash’ tends to be the typical response to a public enquiry.
Thinking specifically of the September 11 Museum one possibility would be to accept the inevitable and practical need to demolish the Grenfell Tower but, rather than merely memorialise the disaster, a far better legacy would be to create an educational space where the Grenfell tragedy can serve as an ongoing reminder of the dangers of allowing corporate and capitalist interests to dictate people’s spaces and lives, and as a lasting reminder that – in the absence of government protection and care, the innate and powerful goodness of the human spirit remains indominatable.
If a Grenfell memorial could say these things to future generations, then perhaps those who died in such dreadful circumstances – and those who are grieving for them now – may find some precious peace.
Joseph Kelly is a Catholic writer and public theologian