Mark Wallis Of Sheffield - Mozaz Dies

For all his faults, I was saddened to hear yesterday of the death of Sheffield Anarchist Mozaz, at what must have been a very young age.

I first met Mozaz nearly fifteen years ago, whilst doing some support work around the Gandalf court case. I had the dubious honour of driving the editor of Green Anarchist, Paul Rogers, up to Sheffield for a support meeting one Saturday afternoon. We were instantly hit upon by a bizarrely overweight, very friendly and typically blunt Yorkshireman, who insisted we have dinner with him before heading back south. Mozaz lived in a 1960s inner-city high rise, and the flat's interior demonstrated it was home to a true eccentric - his toilet was plastered in his collection of prostitute call cards, something that appeared all the odder as he never seemed to miss the opportunity to remind you that he was gay.

In his politics, Mozaz seemed to want to combine deep green ecology with class struggle Anarchism. He had clearly overdosed on the rather bizarre belief of Andy Anderson that there was no such thing as a ruling or upper class in society - only a working and a middle class - and that middle class was the enemy. How this fitted with his green and vegan politics - where more than the occassional middle class person is to be found, was left unarticulated. Against my better judgement, a few days later I sent Mozaz a hundred copies of Class War which he promptly hawked around the streets of Sheffield. He promptly ordered another hundred papers, although not, it should be noted, actually paying for any of those he had sold.

Shortly after, Mozaz invited himself to London, and gave me one of the more bizarre weekends of my life. Meeting him at Victoria Coach Station, we discussed politics on the 38 to Hackney. Whilst I denounced the hypocrisy of left, right and centre, Mozaz inserted himself, or his own personal experiences, into each topic discussed. When Peter Mandelson was mentioned, Mozaz was insistent he had once lived in a squat with the great spinner. When I mentioned the far right, he claimed to have beaten up Combat 18's leader Charlie Sargent in the centre of Sheffield. This went on and on all weeked.

By now a trail of reports were coming in from across Yorkshire of Class War's new activist and his fantasy world, and before the month was out South Yorkshire Class War had decided Mozaz could make his contribution to the class struggle somewhere else. And being Mozaz he did - he was a fine photographer, took to new technology with gusto, and never stopped doing what he was doing. Some of the flare ups around Mozaz were deeply unpleasant - he was capable of telling the most appalling lies about other individuals, and when challenged or exposed would cite his mental health problems and terrible upbringing in children homes as an explanation - before usually pausing then carrying on as before.

The Anarchist movement is probably challenged far more by men like Mozaz than other political currents. Labour party policy is not in practice set by its members, so it can broadly let anyone join and keep them on the inside pissing out. Anarchist groups are very different, with actions being determined and acted upon by those who join or regularly attend meetings. This fact certainly shaped my falling out with Mozaz - and meant it was never reconciled, despite, I am sad to say, a few attempts on his part. I simply did not want to spend too much time in his fantasy world, and certainly did not want Class War or any other Anarchist current to be associated with it.

His passing is however sad, because he had spirit - a spirit that was never extinguished, despite the life he had experienced and the problems he sometimes brought to others. I would guess Mozaz was in his mid-40s, a very young age to die. He was someone who genuinely loved Sheffield and its surrounding countryside - it was part of him, even though he only ever wished to experience it, never to own it.  And that is how I should try to remember him.

Comments

[TomC]

yup Yorkshire will be a little less colourful without Mozaz.

[Dansumption]

Thanks for writing this Paul, it sums up exactly the man I knew.

I met Mozaz around 5 years ago (he was 45 when he died), initially online, where we discussed photography, then in person when he attended my first photography exhibition. Like you say, he spun out the most incredible stories - on our first meeting he told me that he had been a founder-member of the Human League - and had held egg-boxes onto the wall of the scout-hut where they used to practice. Then, he said, he'd shared a flat with Jarvis Cocker for a year, and co-written Common People with him. Being a gullible type, and seeing no reason why he would spin out such elaborate and easily-testable lies, I believed him. It was only a few months later, when friends started saying to me "I hear that you've hired Mozaz as your assistant..." that I realised he lived in a fantasy world.

For the next few years, he often followed me around - often to my great annoyance, as he aggressively imposed himself upon gig promoters and venue owners I'd spent time nurturing a relation ship with, again proclaiming himself my assistant. In large crowds, he was a pain in the arse, always wanting to be the centre of attention and angrily proclaiming his right to be so; but when I was out alone with him, and perhaps one or two of his closest friends, he could be wonderful, one of the finest drinking buddies you could wish for and, in his own way, gentle and caring with it.

We fell out many times - although perhaps surprisingly never over politics - although I grew up reading Class War and Green Anarchist, my subsequent experiences have made me more sympathetic to all sides of the political debate so that, while I shared his fundamental desires for freedom and equality, I often argued against his means of achieving them. I am now comfortably and unashamedly middle-class, but that never seemed to bother him (at least when we were on good terms) - in fact he would often (very often) rail against the middle classes to my face and when, unerringly, I would ask him "but Mozaz, I'm middle class, why do you hang out with me" he'd reply "you know I don't mean you love". Of course when we fell out it was a different matter - as revealed in one of his very last tweets, which was aimed at me: http://twitter.com/#!/ur32daurt/status/20519589930602496 - like you, we had unfinished business and I regret that I never got to make peace with him.

Funny that you mention him being gay - he used to tell me that too, but I'm certain he wasn't. He had a... well, I'll just say a certain attitude around women which convinced me of that. He may well have been bisexual - but when I kept asking him about his proposed marriage to his long-suffering friend Andy he eventually admitted that the whole thing had been a joke.

Despite his many fantasies, I did put a lot of store by what he said about his mental illness and his childhood. I saw how bipolar disorder could entirely change his personality from one day to the next, and also how some very extreme phobias resulted from his mistreatment as a child. As a foster carer myself, I tried as much as possible to give him the unconditional love that he longed for, and also to learn from him the lesson of how a messed-up childhood can have such severe implications in adult life. But in the end, I had to sever all ties with him last November after, in a period of paranoia, he again started making threats against me and my household - threats which I am fairly sure he would never have carried out, but which I could not afford to ignore.

RIP Mozaz. The world is much less colourful without you.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/gulch/1284051571/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/gulch/3763556172/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/gulch/3773877565/

[Robert Dunham]

Mozaz was summed up by a mate of mine who said about him "He's got complete anarchy of the mind!"
Mo wasn't gay, judging by how he openly letched over my then girlfriend when the Sheffin centre was open all those years ago. He was a bit of a twat at times but its still sad to see the old bugger go like that.

[Rasta]

R.I.P.

[Warren]

I was at Mo's flat on that day. He'd made a storming mushroom curry. And if I remember correctly it was one of those rare moments when the weirdest conversation in the room wasn't coming from Mozaz ;-)

Do you remember that a certain eco-warrior (naming no names) was actually suggesting that plant spray-cans could be used to douse scab climbers with LSD so they'd all be 'tripping in the trees' come eviction time? I think even Mo was frowning at that one!

R.I.P Mo, One Love Brother.

[Paul Stott]

Warren wrote

"plant spray-cans could be used to douse scab climbers with LSD so they'd all be 'tripping in the trees' come eviction time?"

Sensible policies for a happier Britain!

Given Mark Kennedy claimed to be a professional climber, surely our eco-hero was years ahead of his time with his suggestion on bringing down scab climbers?

[Ihatemarkwallis]

And all the people
Rejoiced.

[joe]

a very kind and honest report

[Mark Wallis]

The man was a fucking C*NT