G8 Action
A long and sorry tale of chaos and confusion on the G8 Action in Scotland in 2005 where anarchist decision making and achievement is laid bare. God it's awful.
Now or Never!'s Harry K and Tug Wilson making poverty history, yesterday
The Make Poverty History campaign has a fine name. However, on 2nd July in Edinburgh this wasn’t the best march to attend, from a reporter’s perspective. The protesters marched too slowly, there was little worth taking notes on, and the concert felt naff – “enjoy yourselves for poverty”. I started phoning people who had found their way to Edinburgh through other routes and before long had organised to meet a friend from at four in a café. The link between this and the goings on at the G8 conference is, at best, tenuous.
I had woken up late that morning and missed the anarchist block trying to storm the train from Stirling to Edinburgh. In the end they were kept from entering the station until they had all bought tickets for travel. I thought the plan was daft anyway; getting out of Edinburgh station was hard enough with helpful rail-officials giving directions, substitute them for a unit of police with fifty-five minutes warning and none of the Anarchist Block would be leaving before paying the fixed penalty for travelling without paying the correct fare.
The action was formed of foul intentions, almost designed to lower the enthusiasm of its participants with its failure. Someone had sowed disorganisation at the meetings by being there and having better public speaking skills than the anarchists. A keen social observer, seeking to support this claim, might make comments on the flow of ideas at the meeting the night before, where the train-plan was formed.
The Meeting (the Last One)
To get far reaching support for an action or amendment, all that was really needed was outspoken vocal support. Agreement from consensus would normally follow. This was the case with the action to storm the ten o’clock train, suggested by activists that had arrived on the bus from the Netherlands, but pushed only by one or two seemingly-unaffiliated, dialectically-talented attendees. You would think that in a group so large, a couple of individuals would have little control over the discourse. It didn’t take more than half a dozen stanzas of dialogue between these main proponents before all other participants were giving the action consideration. A goofy looking facilitator assuaged any fears that the police may interfere with the journey to Edinburgh. A bloke with short grey hair forced the issue by getting a train time organised.
This same Anarchist (with a couple of mates) seemed to be using faux-debate to have the press kept off the site, banding an argument around a few individuals until the group was paying more attention to them than to the agenda. That may sound like a weak complaint, but they really did sabotage the course of the meeting, and the outside perspective of the campaign. The facilitators tried to make it clear to them that the press were going to be there, this was not us trying to decide whether to invite them. They have the freedom to roam, just as the activists had the freedom not to be in the camp. There were voices in the crowd who wanted journalists to be present. Still the guy with the short grey hair wouldn’t quieten down. The goofy looking facilitator suggested that a selection of pro and anti press advocates should meet outside to discuss this issue; the man with short grey hair and his friends against any three other people. He left the impression that he was only going to entertain their opinions so that the meeting could proceed, in the same manner that a call to action might be made to silence a drunken outsider. If he told us that this meeting of six people would decide policy for everyone, I probably would have gone to watch.
The main meeting went on inside the tent. It didn’t touch on the topic of the press, but did cover such issues as a noise curfew (there was one but you wouldn’t notice it), communications with the other convergence centres, and the transition from these large meetings to Barrio meetings with central Spoke meetings. The discussion was structured to last for an hour and a half, and then it ran for a full hour longer than it should have done until the main facilitator managed to get everyone so tired and bored they would shut up. He began to give thanks to everyone for attending, but then was interrupted by the goofy looking facilitator who had waited till the very end to give the conclusion of the separate meeting - the press were to be kept off the site. Many didn’t agree and tried to block it, but the facilitator was tired. Apparently the organisers of the camp at Stirling were happy that a group of six could make decisions for thousands of people (this was a theme continuous through the camp’s existence). The press were barred from the camp, which I am bitter about. I wasn’t alone in trying to block it, but only a minority cared one way or the other. If only someone had ignored the pleas to keep the press off site – the man with short grey hair started it off by trying to block a discussion on preparations for press attendance. It seems illogical to block a discussion. The fool made the meeting so heated that the whole issue was thrown outside for a debate, rather than discussed inside to ameliorate any difficulties. I don’t know how he did it, I really don’t. I asked him outside why he didn’t want to be on TV, but didn’t mind being on the Edinburgh railway station CCTV for however long he would be kept there. He made a self-deprecating remark in the form of a joke, then a speedy exit.
Making Poverty History
So I stayed up late and got really drunk, made a few wild accusations of undercover police with bad hair spreading stupid ideas (at an open meeting, anyone can attend - it doesn’t take a genius or a crank to see coppers are more effective spreading dissent than taking pointless information or identifying blatant anarchists), then awoke to find that the camp had emptied out onto the streets of Edinburgh. It wasn’t hard to get there on my own, but totally unpleasant when I arrived.
From the station there were helpful guides all the way to Pottero Square, the site of the Edinburgh convergence centre. From here the marchers could clearly be seen, filing in white toward the centre of Edinburgh for a peaceful hullabaloo, all thanks to Bob.
There were some serious problems for those who wanted to continue marching out of the park where the concert was being held; many people wanted to leave immediately after their favourite act had finished, and rejoining the march meant being crammed through designated streets. Desperately wanting out, I found a way to leave the march without losing the marchers. It was necessary to eschew the prompts of volunteer wardens herding me to back to the park. Frustrated by the slow speed of the well meaning demonstrators, I outpaced them all en route to… well wherever it was, I ended up at the Edinburgh Convergence centre.
There was a while to go ‘til my rendezvous at the café, and a lull had descended in Pottero Square. A face from Thursday’s minivan blazed past towing accomplices and a video camera. News had reached him that the Anarchist Block had been confined to Buccleuch Street following an attempt at an alternative march. This seemed worthy of investigation.
Racing through the streets after them lead me onto a balcony ringed by anarchists in masks, overlooking almost 300 black clad figures surrounded by lines of Police. Caught up in all this were two lines of coaches which backed up along the whole street. People didn’t know what to do. The group had been enclosed for some time now, with no sign of moving. While several lines of police were penning in the marchers, there was only one stopping people getting to the march. But there were not enough of us to do anything useful. People were still arriving, but only trickling in. Time was passing very slowly.
Then there was noise, brilliant noise – pouring out from a precision unit, a very special band had arrived. I had heard rumours of a military parody with intentions to provoke humour – the Clandestine Insurgent Rebel Clown Army (C.I.R.C.A.), but this could not be them, for I had heard nothing of them marching in time to truly revolutionary brass band funk. Who were these magical people in tan uniforms, sporting fluorescent stripes down the sides of their garb? The Anarchist Block had joined in with the Can-Can. How was this scene of distress so suddenly transubstantiated into one of glee? Step by perfect step, the group continued to perform. How does baton twirling bounce into break-dance and body-pop? With presumably home made instruments, police sirens rang out as part of a functionally beautiful sound. Where could I bootleg their album?
This was a marching band like no other, and over the course of the next week the Infernal Noise Brigade were to make themselves and their effect on others very well known. The spirit of their music incited scores upon scores of activists to rally around them. People poured down onto the line of police to the south, where the alternative march was yet to tread. Word was going around that there would be a one-by-one release to the north, where the mass of people had been split by an aggressive move by riot police. This line could be found by scrabbling round backstreets, as revealed by a crude tourist guide. The course was clear and finding C.I.R.C.A. made this a lot easier.
The Rebel Clown Army travel in numbers, and they filled the street, completely surrounding the giggling policemen. Now I wasn’t there so I can’t say how these folks perform in cabaret, but they are hilarious during practical operation, such as the un-mounted cavalry charge that brought them to the front line. It’s a widespread surety that the Now or Never! readership will be familiar with the frustrating atmosphere that one can be immersed in when a yard ahead of a police line that won’t move. You’re waiting for them to go away so you can get on with what you want to do, they’re waiting for you to leave so that they can stop you from getting on with what you want to do, until then it s just a miserable day with panicked crushes and monotonous abuse.
This is not the case when the C.I.R.C.A. is in town. When you sling a witticism at a peeved copper, you expect no recognition except a brutal glare. Nobody can ignore the clowns, for their humour is pervasive. There was an Edinburgh youth, dressed in the white associated with the Make Poverty History Campaign, giving the sort of foul look to the Pigs that made you think he was well practiced at it. He looked juvenile but tough. He could keep his stare going past the point where it seemed comfortable, but when I mentioned the Clowns from underneath my mask – the fabric heaving with chuckles- he momentarily broke away “Yeah man, they’re alright” he beamed, before resuming his more confrontational posturing. The clowns continued with their comedy antics. To see these highly trained buffoons fall over themselves in droves was splendid (the ones in camouflaged fatigues and circus make-up, not the ones in black armour with batons), but watching the police being thanked for “attending our social movement” fifty times at once by the high pitched cacophony of a crack C.I.R.C.A. mob had the crowd in uproar.
Our friend inside the perimeter, Gemma had this to say; “after careering down one or two back streets, with our balaclavas and No Border banners, the few hundred (maybe?) of us who had left the main MPH marchers were repeatedly confronted with riot, Met. and various other types of police blocking our route, and it got a bit scary for a time, with people overturning bins in exasperation, and being charged by coppers. We were gradually herded back to a street where some of the coaches were parked, which was promptly blocked off at both ends, leaving 60 or so of us within the cordon. Thankfully, we had brought our own musical entertainment in the form of Pim, a Dutch sambista who rocked all our worlds with some rousing drum beats and fantastic smile, so instead of giving way to boredom, we just started dancing! the police didn’t look particularly amused, so we tried to get them involved with a bit of Can-Can - they were far too reserved to join in or even smile though, so there was nothing for it but mockery (they did look a bit silly standing stock still with their hands in each others trousers, knees bent Just so). we became a little disheartened at the lack of response we were drawing - only the female officers would reply to our questions, or look at us when we asked them - but then the Infernal Noise Brigade showed up!, serenading us with their resonating instruments from a balcony opposite their solidarity was muchly appreciated. things got even better with the arrival of a contingent of Clowns bearing feather dusters and horns - but our captors had had enough of our frolics, and moved us down a cramped alleyway; they were scared we might take heart and break through their lines!, fortunately a pink and silver band was waiting to greet us when we were finally dispersed, after many hours or wasted police and activist time, but we had missed the entire official march and only had a crap Bob-Marley-cover-artist singing about the thousands dying to console us. Back to camp Stirling on the bus!”
Afterwards attention moved away to Pottero Square. The area outside the Edinburgh Convergence Centre began to fill with the sort of sounds and festivities you wished had been at the main concert in the park. People danced, some with the air of the professional, and many were in awe of the displays available. I left earlier than I would have liked to, so as to attend gate duty at Horizone. The train journey was quick enough, but getting back from Stirling Station would have involved a wait - I wasn’t the only one who decided to walk back. It’s a shame we got directions from a policeman, we went via the Twilight Zone.
We were an eclectic bunch; two teenage friends, a lesbian couple in their early thirties, a young lady who had cycled across Wales to raise funds for the journey and brought her bike and cart to prove it, a campaigner who had travelled from China and I, your faithful reporter. Our journey led us out of urban sprawl and into residential housing, we could hear music coming from somewhere in the distant countryside. It seemed as though we would have to cross through someone’s backyard to get to where we were going, and a consensus decision was made that one person should ask at the door in case the homeowner felt a bunch of unruly anarchists were pressuring them to allow their property to be used as passage. This decision was rescinded before any one got onto the driveway, as the late hour seemed to make such an action inappropriate.
An hour after setting out we looked for an alternative route, and found a green field hemmed in by chicken wire fences. There were more fields leading to the lights of the camp, each crammed with tall reeds. Whether or not to take this difficult route, or to take a path that seemed impossible, was a decision I took on myself. I trekked out to the edge of the field we were in, and finding the chicken wire fence pulled down, I declared the route safe to use. The bike and cart were pulled through the tall reeds for forty five minutes. I stomped on, but found that I was leading us to Stirling River, on the opposite bank from Horizone. I knew how Burt Reynolds felt in Deliverance. I swore loudly. We had been led astray by the mean-spirited and dishonest machinations of an officer of the law.
I dragged the group away from the fields and river, and on toward a wooden gate. Beyond it was a green space with an iron fence as a perimeter. A Dark tower stood over us. All of the gates were locked, except one that swung open and allowed me to fall forward into a graveyard. We had slipped into a horror movie. It wasn’t long before someone was suggesting we separate and look for a route. ‘When lost at night, in graveyards, never let yourself get separated from the group’- I don’t know where this advice came from, but it was saturating my mind in conjunction with phantom memories of Freddie and Jason.
“Just stay here with the tower – it’s a fine tower-” is the line the teenage would-be-scout prompted me with.
“ If you like it so much, you stay by the tower,” was enough to stop the splitters.
Eventually we found one gate that only looked chained shut. Someone not too far away gave us directions that were a really long way away. The older couple said they would catch us up, and we waited for thirty-five minutes before renewing our journey (this added to the growing suspicion that, one-by-one, we would never make it home - although it turned out they had gotten a taxi from the pub). We got back safely, and this is a good example of a set of unrelated individuals with different needs and the same goal working together and solving a problem, without having inherited any form hierarchy to decide their actions for them. Consensus decision making saved my life.
Make Borders History
I can’t honestly say what happened here, really impressive reviews from the people who went. I just didn’t write any of them down.
The Carnival for Full Enjoyment
This was going to be a carnival in the streets of Edinburgh, but the police decided they wanted to make a public order situation of it. A local resident had chartered a tour bus to take protesters to Edinburgh, a vehicle mostly packed with C.I.R.C.A. members. Getting off the bus led to a little confusion as to where the Carnival would be. It turned out to be next to wherever the police were angriest. This was very obviously the day the police had been waiting for. They couldn’t use any of the new tips and tactics they had prepared for on the Make Poverty History marchers, so they held back for Monday.
In a workshop the day before I had encountered a group from Ireland, and through a few of the group activities we had participated in together, I had established that in a real public order situation they would probably be partly responsible for any severe injuries I incurred while mired in the raucous crowds associated with this. Before embarking on the journey to Edinburgh, as a precaution, I asked a couple of Ipswich Anarchists to be the other part of an affinity group with me
The first thing the pigs did was start searching the clowns. Storm troopers encircling a circus; it would make good abstract art, but it doesn’t belong in a civil society.
They then attempted to take out our special weapon; the samba bands were identified and surrounded. The police were intending to crush our spirits, but a few groups of musicians slipped through. Princes Street was the main site for the procession, and it was peaceful from one end up to Dixons, but then the police line became a one-way pass. Entering the enclosure was allowable, but leaving it again would take disobedience and ingenuity.
And so we trundled up to the police lines, where they put their hands on our throats and kicked us between the legs. Later we were pushed over in the face of baton charges. These guys don’t wear body armour, they just carry batons and run at you – look at them and they’ll hit you, turn away and you’ll get a good shove. To play along would be to take a few good steps back when they start running, but then you’re letting eight men keep a whole street junction cleared (they looked so pissed off, it was wise to let them). There was more to it than being assaulted. Dilemmas involved escaping from Princes Street to the park that runs parallel to it without having the sharp metal fence poles run through your shoe; what can you do if a large half-naked Scotsman is in the middle of crowd with a rubbish bin above his head, poised to throw it into what he thinks, rather sadly, will be the police line; what to do when you’re sitting against the wheels of a police van and then protesters choose to squat over your vulnerable body, inhibiting any possible escape (you don’t want to ask them to move on, and seem like you are willing to move, but you want to be able to move immediately if you really have to). Everybody dealt with these things in different ways, from picking up flower pots as weapons, to appealing for such activists to look for purpose in their actions.
Maybe this didn’t highlight the inordinately dysfunctional system by which the unwilling are brought to produce. Perhaps it was just a look at what the police behave like when they get a chance. They were our streets. It wasn’t much of a carnival, but then I don’t really know what it was supposed to be like. There was some funky dancing in Pottero square at the end, thanks again to the Infernal Noise Brigade. Then back at the camp to hear about:
Faslane
By Kostas
Faslane is home to 4 nuclear powered submarines which carry the UK’s Trident nuclear weapons system. Each submarine can carry up to 48 nuclear warheads, each of which is 8 times more powerful than the Hiroshima bomb! Apart from the fact that bombs are bad, mmmkay, the base symbolises and assures state power on a grand scale – all the more reason to stop a day’s work. So, having had only two hours to dream of international nuclear disarmament, we arrived at Faslane (on the west coast 50km from Glasgow) at 7 am. We got to the south gate of the base to find music blasting, people dancing, and police filming. Me and my motley affinity group had arrived with no more than some strips of rope, and felt pretty silly next to the four guys with cemented lock-on tubes and authentic hippy clothing (all clothing worn by a hippy is considered authentic hippy clothing, except when a disguise is in use - Lando). After some deliberation, the six of us who were ‘arrestables’ (not the most comfortable label to wear) sat down next to the group of girls who had nabbed the last two bike locks from Halfords, the previous day. Luckily, after an hour one of the buddies fetched us two dirty tubes from a construction site, joy! Hand locking thingies were quickly made out of our trusty rope. A fellow Norwich Anarchist - Slasher, a rotating person and myself got in. Pretty pleased with ourselves we basically lay around in the sun all day keeping the base more or less shut (a few workers were in, according to a weird Irish guy who wanted us to do a locked-on Can-Can). We waited for the police to try and take us away, but apparently they were letting us stay. At 3pm the four initial guys had to get their scheduled coach, so we had a symbolic de-locking but hung around till 4pm when our coach left. All in all we stopped most of a days work, made a symbolic gesture (or two) and had a pleasant non-violent day, ah. The coaches and stuff were organised by Trident Ploughshares who are full-time, international, nuclear crime stoppers and can be found at www. tridentploughshares. org
On the Path to Gleneagles
The activists were feeling the burn. On Monday evening, around a fire pit it was announced that sixty people hadn’t made it back to the camp. Most of the missing were arrested, but no-one knew who because half of those in hospital with serious head wounds were legal aides. Can I accuse the police of selectivity in their brutality? Those bright pink bibs must make it easy to do.
The next morning decisions had been made. The Barrio meetings and the general gathering had inspired a multitude of ides. I was camped out with a chap who had decided to hike through mountains behind the hotel, and fire paintballs at the windows. He went his own route. There was a large mob going to Gleneagles by train and moving to the hotel perimeter. Some people were even going to be at the scheduled march in Autcherarder.
Those from Norwich joined up with some from Cambridge to be among those descending on the fourteen roads leading to the Gleneagles Hotel. This required camping overnight in Dunblane Woods and then walking down to the A9. About ten of us headed out at Seven o’clock on Tuesday evening, but the minibus was getting followed by a couple of police cars. They pulled us over and we told them we were on our way to John O’Groats. They followed us all the way back to Horizone. We didn’t know if we would get stuck if the police tried to block the camp off. We ran through drills on how to disembark from the minivan as quickly as possible. We left camp for Dunblane Woods, and on the perimeter we noticed some police attention. The driver of the Happy Bus quickened the pace, and we drove out of sight, then quickly jumped out of the van and rushed into a ditch by the side of the road. The minivan carried on without us.
The next few hours were the hardest of the week. Orienteering by consensus is not a process that anyone should take on lightly. We could have been on any edge of the woods. We stopped continually to determine our path on a map. We stopped to decide if a stream was a stream, by consensus. We stopped to separate into a fast-pace party and a slow-pace party. We stopped to regroup. There were helicopters searching the woods and every twenty minutes we stopped to find cover. When two mischievous hippy-girls told us that the police were up ahead, we stopped to decide whether we should go on. We walked for four hours, progress was slow.
Spirits were high, in some places erratically so. One guy kept freaking out. On the final dash for the summit, he kept signalling for our group to hide. It was half past twelve and I was thoroughly soaked. Not to mention very tired. He called for someone to go ahead and I was so sick of having to listen to him, that I did what he said. After a three minute jog I could see the camp, over a wall and across a field, but I had to hide from helicopters, alone in the pine trees. This was too much to bear when one of your shoes is torn open at the toe and you’re carrying a full satchel and camping equipment. I swung them over the wall and dashed through treacherous bracken. Finally soaked up to the knee, I was greeted by those at the fire with a warming hello and congratulations. But the shame! I had abandoned my affinity group. I dumped my stuff and went back to look for the East Anglian Contingent, but they had past the point from which I had deviated from the path. I ran back and forth calling out to them, and was becoming extremely frustrated by the silence. They were out there, but wouldn’t respond for fear of being discovered, not realising that the only person who would find them would be me, and we both really needed that to happen. They switched on a torch for a moment, and I called out to them to come to me, and then the camp. In my absence the paranoid chap had started to aggravate the entire group, and no one wanted to be told they were going in the wrong direction. My arrival and appraisal of the situation was seen as patronising and disruptive. I told them where to go.
Within an hour we had all made up, erected our tents, and slumped down by the fire listening to a comrade read The Hobbit. Three hours later the march to the A9 was begun. By eight o’clock we were there, but I could only see a few other protesters, so we stopped for breakfast by the side of the road. Not long later we were searched by the police. Once our group had been put through this, the police were in a real hurry to go somewhere, so we were free to look for others. In the next field along, about two hundred blockaders were just at the end of a charge as we came round the edge of a hedgerow. They rushed right down a hill to a dry stone wall where the police were lined, and stopped short to deliver verbal abuse, then trotted back up the hill. The police were aghast. Additional units had been requested to deal with anarchists taking the mick. This trick worked again and again, more police turned up to waste their own time.
We all met at the top of the hill. A decent facilitator availed himself. Six great ideas presented themselves, and they were not mutually exclusive, it was left to the individual to decide which plans to pursue. Half the group would carry on charging down the hill and causing more police to turn up at this part of the road. The other half would move away from the road and plough through fields to try to make it to Gleneagles, and perhaps get back on the road. Everyone left the gathering on the hill with a strong sense of purpose, and feeling a lot better for having gotten together to talk. There was strong support, given our proximity to Wallace’s Monument, for a large-scale bearing of our bottoms in an attempt to taunt the police, in the style of the Scottish soldiers depicted in Braveheart, the popular Mel Gibson film based on the life of William Wallace. We then began launching ourselves down the hill, and pouring back up it, always provoking a response from a large number of police as we reached the bottom. Then, just as we were reaching the top of the hill, the police got in their vans and drove away.
This charge couldn’t be matched. Wooden benches were leant over the walls and barbed wire so we could scale the barrier. We clung to each other, sitting three ranks deep and spanning both lanes. We moved quickly to cover the other side of the dual carrigeway, so that we might stop some traffic heading toward the hotel, rather than traffic going the other direction. The police arrived, and like people everywhere trying to break spirits, began a process of intimidation;
“Oh, no. ” one policeman exclaimed after receiving a radio dispatch.
“What?” asked another of our harassers.
“They’re sending Sergeant Schroeder” said the first, as if this meant something.
“Oh, no. ” the second policeman mimicked the first’s initial exclamation.
“Ooh – you folks don’t want to be here when Sergeant Schroeder arrives” another officer piped up in a parody of concern.
“Yeah they’re not like us; there would be no shame in you moving on before they get here. It’s called Pain and Compliance. ”
People were pulled to the side; some went of their own choice. Afterwards we were on the wrong side of the road with no option to go back. The next six hours were occupied with a walk to Autcherarder.
The group which had gone on into the fields had come out on to the A9 further up, that’s why the police had left our section, and why we were able to blockade the A9 for ten minutes. At least we helped in stretching the police across the region. Little victories included stopping a Japanese delegate for fifteen minutes at a blockade, until he eventually came out of the car and yelled abuse at the senior policeman. At the hotel, fifty protesters got into the perimeter and attempted to demolish a security tower that had been erected, eventually setting fire to the structure. A man cycling along the A9 wearing a ‘NO G8’ T-shirt was stopped so his D-lock could be broken with bolt cutters by riot police.
No Escape
That night the Olympics were announced as being held in London. Everyone thought it was some sort of conspiracy to overshadow our efforts - announcing it before the second day of the summit, giving it to a British city - it looked like it was orchestrated. Perhaps it was, but the next day London was bombed and there wasn’t anything that would overshadow that. The night before the attack the police had surrounded Horizone, blocking all exits from the camp. There was a certain amount of ill feeling when people there came to know of the attack. Through the night there had been an attendance of resistance at the entrance, but I couldn’t tell you what happened as I was resting in the tent, damaged by a ten kilometre walk with trench-foot. Around eleven o’clock here was a call for everyone to meet with their Barrio and discuss the London Bombings and their effect on our actions before sending spokes to a spoke-meeting for a final summary.
As our spoke pointed out, we had nothing to add as everything had already been said, our meeting could be assumed to be representative of Barrio meetings across the camp. There was strong support for an action to show that we were opposed to our confinement, but no one wanted things to turn violent, or even for an action with a bad attitude. There was a lot of thought given to what would be done if people started to leave for home. In the spoke meeting there was a general consensus that this would be our course of action, all of the umpteen spokes saying the same thing, barring the spoke from the international Barrio who suggested that an Art display be initiated to keep spirits high. There was a remark made that points which failed to get consensus at Barrio meetings were not represented in the main tent. Hence, though many people knew that the action at the entrance would precipitate an act of aggression from the police, and be matched with resistance of equal bad taste, no-one got a chance to say it at the meeting. Still, it wasn’t going to be a meeting that made people happy, and people’s positions would be changing in the camp even as words were spoken. Lots of people were angry about our captivity, lots of people were nervous in relation to our captivity and the bombings and some people were just sad about the bombings.
Eventually Police started letting people out of the camp but not until they had been searched and photographed. I think those who went along to the entrance to show how they felt presented a mixture of nice fluffy moments and harsh spiky conflicts, but no-one seemed too offended.
People were packing up to leave, and the last action before the cleaning of the camp was Boogie on the Bridge in Glasgow. There was a nice relaxed feel to this one that even remained when the police who were there to stop traffic for us, decide to seal us onto the bridge.
“The best way to get out would have been to never have been here in the first place,” is all that the police would say to people who wanted to leave. That’s no use. I got sunburnt until about three o’clock and then jumped off the bridge.
The next day the Happy Bus left Scotland for Cambridge, slightly delayed because the police stuck a nail in the tyre when they were searching us. Their message was ‘You waste our time, we’ll waste yours,’ I’m not sure if they really understood that in trying to stop the G8 we were trying to do something that would help their world.
I had woken up late that morning and missed the anarchist block trying to storm the train from Stirling to Edinburgh. In the end they were kept from entering the station until they had all bought tickets for travel. I thought the plan was daft anyway; getting out of Edinburgh station was hard enough with helpful rail-officials giving directions, substitute them for a unit of police with fifty-five minutes warning and none of the Anarchist Block would be leaving before paying the fixed penalty for travelling without paying the correct fare.
The action was formed of foul intentions, almost designed to lower the enthusiasm of its participants with its failure. Someone had sowed disorganisation at the meetings by being there and having better public speaking skills than the anarchists. A keen social observer, seeking to support this claim, might make comments on the flow of ideas at the meeting the night before, where the train-plan was formed.
The Meeting (the Last One)
To get far reaching support for an action or amendment, all that was really needed was outspoken vocal support. Agreement from consensus would normally follow. This was the case with the action to storm the ten o’clock train, suggested by activists that had arrived on the bus from the Netherlands, but pushed only by one or two seemingly-unaffiliated, dialectically-talented attendees. You would think that in a group so large, a couple of individuals would have little control over the discourse. It didn’t take more than half a dozen stanzas of dialogue between these main proponents before all other participants were giving the action consideration. A goofy looking facilitator assuaged any fears that the police may interfere with the journey to Edinburgh. A bloke with short grey hair forced the issue by getting a train time organised.
This same Anarchist (with a couple of mates) seemed to be using faux-debate to have the press kept off the site, banding an argument around a few individuals until the group was paying more attention to them than to the agenda. That may sound like a weak complaint, but they really did sabotage the course of the meeting, and the outside perspective of the campaign. The facilitators tried to make it clear to them that the press were going to be there, this was not us trying to decide whether to invite them. They have the freedom to roam, just as the activists had the freedom not to be in the camp. There were voices in the crowd who wanted journalists to be present. Still the guy with the short grey hair wouldn’t quieten down. The goofy looking facilitator suggested that a selection of pro and anti press advocates should meet outside to discuss this issue; the man with short grey hair and his friends against any three other people. He left the impression that he was only going to entertain their opinions so that the meeting could proceed, in the same manner that a call to action might be made to silence a drunken outsider. If he told us that this meeting of six people would decide policy for everyone, I probably would have gone to watch.
The main meeting went on inside the tent. It didn’t touch on the topic of the press, but did cover such issues as a noise curfew (there was one but you wouldn’t notice it), communications with the other convergence centres, and the transition from these large meetings to Barrio meetings with central Spoke meetings. The discussion was structured to last for an hour and a half, and then it ran for a full hour longer than it should have done until the main facilitator managed to get everyone so tired and bored they would shut up. He began to give thanks to everyone for attending, but then was interrupted by the goofy looking facilitator who had waited till the very end to give the conclusion of the separate meeting - the press were to be kept off the site. Many didn’t agree and tried to block it, but the facilitator was tired. Apparently the organisers of the camp at Stirling were happy that a group of six could make decisions for thousands of people (this was a theme continuous through the camp’s existence). The press were barred from the camp, which I am bitter about. I wasn’t alone in trying to block it, but only a minority cared one way or the other. If only someone had ignored the pleas to keep the press off site – the man with short grey hair started it off by trying to block a discussion on preparations for press attendance. It seems illogical to block a discussion. The fool made the meeting so heated that the whole issue was thrown outside for a debate, rather than discussed inside to ameliorate any difficulties. I don’t know how he did it, I really don’t. I asked him outside why he didn’t want to be on TV, but didn’t mind being on the Edinburgh railway station CCTV for however long he would be kept there. He made a self-deprecating remark in the form of a joke, then a speedy exit.
Making Poverty History
So I stayed up late and got really drunk, made a few wild accusations of undercover police with bad hair spreading stupid ideas (at an open meeting, anyone can attend - it doesn’t take a genius or a crank to see coppers are more effective spreading dissent than taking pointless information or identifying blatant anarchists), then awoke to find that the camp had emptied out onto the streets of Edinburgh. It wasn’t hard to get there on my own, but totally unpleasant when I arrived.
From the station there were helpful guides all the way to Pottero Square, the site of the Edinburgh convergence centre. From here the marchers could clearly be seen, filing in white toward the centre of Edinburgh for a peaceful hullabaloo, all thanks to Bob.
There were some serious problems for those who wanted to continue marching out of the park where the concert was being held; many people wanted to leave immediately after their favourite act had finished, and rejoining the march meant being crammed through designated streets. Desperately wanting out, I found a way to leave the march without losing the marchers. It was necessary to eschew the prompts of volunteer wardens herding me to back to the park. Frustrated by the slow speed of the well meaning demonstrators, I outpaced them all en route to… well wherever it was, I ended up at the Edinburgh Convergence centre.
There was a while to go ‘til my rendezvous at the café, and a lull had descended in Pottero Square. A face from Thursday’s minivan blazed past towing accomplices and a video camera. News had reached him that the Anarchist Block had been confined to Buccleuch Street following an attempt at an alternative march. This seemed worthy of investigation.
Racing through the streets after them lead me onto a balcony ringed by anarchists in masks, overlooking almost 300 black clad figures surrounded by lines of Police. Caught up in all this were two lines of coaches which backed up along the whole street. People didn’t know what to do. The group had been enclosed for some time now, with no sign of moving. While several lines of police were penning in the marchers, there was only one stopping people getting to the march. But there were not enough of us to do anything useful. People were still arriving, but only trickling in. Time was passing very slowly.
Then there was noise, brilliant noise – pouring out from a precision unit, a very special band had arrived. I had heard rumours of a military parody with intentions to provoke humour – the Clandestine Insurgent Rebel Clown Army (C.I.R.C.A.), but this could not be them, for I had heard nothing of them marching in time to truly revolutionary brass band funk. Who were these magical people in tan uniforms, sporting fluorescent stripes down the sides of their garb? The Anarchist Block had joined in with the Can-Can. How was this scene of distress so suddenly transubstantiated into one of glee? Step by perfect step, the group continued to perform. How does baton twirling bounce into break-dance and body-pop? With presumably home made instruments, police sirens rang out as part of a functionally beautiful sound. Where could I bootleg their album?
This was a marching band like no other, and over the course of the next week the Infernal Noise Brigade were to make themselves and their effect on others very well known. The spirit of their music incited scores upon scores of activists to rally around them. People poured down onto the line of police to the south, where the alternative march was yet to tread. Word was going around that there would be a one-by-one release to the north, where the mass of people had been split by an aggressive move by riot police. This line could be found by scrabbling round backstreets, as revealed by a crude tourist guide. The course was clear and finding C.I.R.C.A. made this a lot easier.
The Rebel Clown Army travel in numbers, and they filled the street, completely surrounding the giggling policemen. Now I wasn’t there so I can’t say how these folks perform in cabaret, but they are hilarious during practical operation, such as the un-mounted cavalry charge that brought them to the front line. It’s a widespread surety that the Now or Never! readership will be familiar with the frustrating atmosphere that one can be immersed in when a yard ahead of a police line that won’t move. You’re waiting for them to go away so you can get on with what you want to do, they’re waiting for you to leave so that they can stop you from getting on with what you want to do, until then it s just a miserable day with panicked crushes and monotonous abuse.
This is not the case when the C.I.R.C.A. is in town. When you sling a witticism at a peeved copper, you expect no recognition except a brutal glare. Nobody can ignore the clowns, for their humour is pervasive. There was an Edinburgh youth, dressed in the white associated with the Make Poverty History Campaign, giving the sort of foul look to the Pigs that made you think he was well practiced at it. He looked juvenile but tough. He could keep his stare going past the point where it seemed comfortable, but when I mentioned the Clowns from underneath my mask – the fabric heaving with chuckles- he momentarily broke away “Yeah man, they’re alright” he beamed, before resuming his more confrontational posturing. The clowns continued with their comedy antics. To see these highly trained buffoons fall over themselves in droves was splendid (the ones in camouflaged fatigues and circus make-up, not the ones in black armour with batons), but watching the police being thanked for “attending our social movement” fifty times at once by the high pitched cacophony of a crack C.I.R.C.A. mob had the crowd in uproar.
Our friend inside the perimeter, Gemma had this to say; “after careering down one or two back streets, with our balaclavas and No Border banners, the few hundred (maybe?) of us who had left the main MPH marchers were repeatedly confronted with riot, Met. and various other types of police blocking our route, and it got a bit scary for a time, with people overturning bins in exasperation, and being charged by coppers. We were gradually herded back to a street where some of the coaches were parked, which was promptly blocked off at both ends, leaving 60 or so of us within the cordon. Thankfully, we had brought our own musical entertainment in the form of Pim, a Dutch sambista who rocked all our worlds with some rousing drum beats and fantastic smile, so instead of giving way to boredom, we just started dancing! the police didn’t look particularly amused, so we tried to get them involved with a bit of Can-Can - they were far too reserved to join in or even smile though, so there was nothing for it but mockery (they did look a bit silly standing stock still with their hands in each others trousers, knees bent Just so). we became a little disheartened at the lack of response we were drawing - only the female officers would reply to our questions, or look at us when we asked them - but then the Infernal Noise Brigade showed up!, serenading us with their resonating instruments from a balcony opposite their solidarity was muchly appreciated. things got even better with the arrival of a contingent of Clowns bearing feather dusters and horns - but our captors had had enough of our frolics, and moved us down a cramped alleyway; they were scared we might take heart and break through their lines!, fortunately a pink and silver band was waiting to greet us when we were finally dispersed, after many hours or wasted police and activist time, but we had missed the entire official march and only had a crap Bob-Marley-cover-artist singing about the thousands dying to console us. Back to camp Stirling on the bus!”
Afterwards attention moved away to Pottero Square. The area outside the Edinburgh Convergence Centre began to fill with the sort of sounds and festivities you wished had been at the main concert in the park. People danced, some with the air of the professional, and many were in awe of the displays available. I left earlier than I would have liked to, so as to attend gate duty at Horizone. The train journey was quick enough, but getting back from Stirling Station would have involved a wait - I wasn’t the only one who decided to walk back. It’s a shame we got directions from a policeman, we went via the Twilight Zone.
We were an eclectic bunch; two teenage friends, a lesbian couple in their early thirties, a young lady who had cycled across Wales to raise funds for the journey and brought her bike and cart to prove it, a campaigner who had travelled from China and I, your faithful reporter. Our journey led us out of urban sprawl and into residential housing, we could hear music coming from somewhere in the distant countryside. It seemed as though we would have to cross through someone’s backyard to get to where we were going, and a consensus decision was made that one person should ask at the door in case the homeowner felt a bunch of unruly anarchists were pressuring them to allow their property to be used as passage. This decision was rescinded before any one got onto the driveway, as the late hour seemed to make such an action inappropriate.
An hour after setting out we looked for an alternative route, and found a green field hemmed in by chicken wire fences. There were more fields leading to the lights of the camp, each crammed with tall reeds. Whether or not to take this difficult route, or to take a path that seemed impossible, was a decision I took on myself. I trekked out to the edge of the field we were in, and finding the chicken wire fence pulled down, I declared the route safe to use. The bike and cart were pulled through the tall reeds for forty five minutes. I stomped on, but found that I was leading us to Stirling River, on the opposite bank from Horizone. I knew how Burt Reynolds felt in Deliverance. I swore loudly. We had been led astray by the mean-spirited and dishonest machinations of an officer of the law.
I dragged the group away from the fields and river, and on toward a wooden gate. Beyond it was a green space with an iron fence as a perimeter. A Dark tower stood over us. All of the gates were locked, except one that swung open and allowed me to fall forward into a graveyard. We had slipped into a horror movie. It wasn’t long before someone was suggesting we separate and look for a route. ‘When lost at night, in graveyards, never let yourself get separated from the group’- I don’t know where this advice came from, but it was saturating my mind in conjunction with phantom memories of Freddie and Jason.
“Just stay here with the tower – it’s a fine tower-” is the line the teenage would-be-scout prompted me with.
“ If you like it so much, you stay by the tower,” was enough to stop the splitters.
Eventually we found one gate that only looked chained shut. Someone not too far away gave us directions that were a really long way away. The older couple said they would catch us up, and we waited for thirty-five minutes before renewing our journey (this added to the growing suspicion that, one-by-one, we would never make it home - although it turned out they had gotten a taxi from the pub). We got back safely, and this is a good example of a set of unrelated individuals with different needs and the same goal working together and solving a problem, without having inherited any form hierarchy to decide their actions for them. Consensus decision making saved my life.
Make Borders History
I can’t honestly say what happened here, really impressive reviews from the people who went. I just didn’t write any of them down.
The Carnival for Full Enjoyment
This was going to be a carnival in the streets of Edinburgh, but the police decided they wanted to make a public order situation of it. A local resident had chartered a tour bus to take protesters to Edinburgh, a vehicle mostly packed with C.I.R.C.A. members. Getting off the bus led to a little confusion as to where the Carnival would be. It turned out to be next to wherever the police were angriest. This was very obviously the day the police had been waiting for. They couldn’t use any of the new tips and tactics they had prepared for on the Make Poverty History marchers, so they held back for Monday.
In a workshop the day before I had encountered a group from Ireland, and through a few of the group activities we had participated in together, I had established that in a real public order situation they would probably be partly responsible for any severe injuries I incurred while mired in the raucous crowds associated with this. Before embarking on the journey to Edinburgh, as a precaution, I asked a couple of Ipswich Anarchists to be the other part of an affinity group with me
The first thing the pigs did was start searching the clowns. Storm troopers encircling a circus; it would make good abstract art, but it doesn’t belong in a civil society.
They then attempted to take out our special weapon; the samba bands were identified and surrounded. The police were intending to crush our spirits, but a few groups of musicians slipped through. Princes Street was the main site for the procession, and it was peaceful from one end up to Dixons, but then the police line became a one-way pass. Entering the enclosure was allowable, but leaving it again would take disobedience and ingenuity.
And so we trundled up to the police lines, where they put their hands on our throats and kicked us between the legs. Later we were pushed over in the face of baton charges. These guys don’t wear body armour, they just carry batons and run at you – look at them and they’ll hit you, turn away and you’ll get a good shove. To play along would be to take a few good steps back when they start running, but then you’re letting eight men keep a whole street junction cleared (they looked so pissed off, it was wise to let them). There was more to it than being assaulted. Dilemmas involved escaping from Princes Street to the park that runs parallel to it without having the sharp metal fence poles run through your shoe; what can you do if a large half-naked Scotsman is in the middle of crowd with a rubbish bin above his head, poised to throw it into what he thinks, rather sadly, will be the police line; what to do when you’re sitting against the wheels of a police van and then protesters choose to squat over your vulnerable body, inhibiting any possible escape (you don’t want to ask them to move on, and seem like you are willing to move, but you want to be able to move immediately if you really have to). Everybody dealt with these things in different ways, from picking up flower pots as weapons, to appealing for such activists to look for purpose in their actions.
Maybe this didn’t highlight the inordinately dysfunctional system by which the unwilling are brought to produce. Perhaps it was just a look at what the police behave like when they get a chance. They were our streets. It wasn’t much of a carnival, but then I don’t really know what it was supposed to be like. There was some funky dancing in Pottero square at the end, thanks again to the Infernal Noise Brigade. Then back at the camp to hear about:
Faslane
By Kostas
Faslane is home to 4 nuclear powered submarines which carry the UK’s Trident nuclear weapons system. Each submarine can carry up to 48 nuclear warheads, each of which is 8 times more powerful than the Hiroshima bomb! Apart from the fact that bombs are bad, mmmkay, the base symbolises and assures state power on a grand scale – all the more reason to stop a day’s work. So, having had only two hours to dream of international nuclear disarmament, we arrived at Faslane (on the west coast 50km from Glasgow) at 7 am. We got to the south gate of the base to find music blasting, people dancing, and police filming. Me and my motley affinity group had arrived with no more than some strips of rope, and felt pretty silly next to the four guys with cemented lock-on tubes and authentic hippy clothing (all clothing worn by a hippy is considered authentic hippy clothing, except when a disguise is in use - Lando). After some deliberation, the six of us who were ‘arrestables’ (not the most comfortable label to wear) sat down next to the group of girls who had nabbed the last two bike locks from Halfords, the previous day. Luckily, after an hour one of the buddies fetched us two dirty tubes from a construction site, joy! Hand locking thingies were quickly made out of our trusty rope. A fellow Norwich Anarchist - Slasher, a rotating person and myself got in. Pretty pleased with ourselves we basically lay around in the sun all day keeping the base more or less shut (a few workers were in, according to a weird Irish guy who wanted us to do a locked-on Can-Can). We waited for the police to try and take us away, but apparently they were letting us stay. At 3pm the four initial guys had to get their scheduled coach, so we had a symbolic de-locking but hung around till 4pm when our coach left. All in all we stopped most of a days work, made a symbolic gesture (or two) and had a pleasant non-violent day, ah. The coaches and stuff were organised by Trident Ploughshares who are full-time, international, nuclear crime stoppers and can be found at www. tridentploughshares. org
On the Path to Gleneagles
The activists were feeling the burn. On Monday evening, around a fire pit it was announced that sixty people hadn’t made it back to the camp. Most of the missing were arrested, but no-one knew who because half of those in hospital with serious head wounds were legal aides. Can I accuse the police of selectivity in their brutality? Those bright pink bibs must make it easy to do.
The next morning decisions had been made. The Barrio meetings and the general gathering had inspired a multitude of ides. I was camped out with a chap who had decided to hike through mountains behind the hotel, and fire paintballs at the windows. He went his own route. There was a large mob going to Gleneagles by train and moving to the hotel perimeter. Some people were even going to be at the scheduled march in Autcherarder.
Those from Norwich joined up with some from Cambridge to be among those descending on the fourteen roads leading to the Gleneagles Hotel. This required camping overnight in Dunblane Woods and then walking down to the A9. About ten of us headed out at Seven o’clock on Tuesday evening, but the minibus was getting followed by a couple of police cars. They pulled us over and we told them we were on our way to John O’Groats. They followed us all the way back to Horizone. We didn’t know if we would get stuck if the police tried to block the camp off. We ran through drills on how to disembark from the minivan as quickly as possible. We left camp for Dunblane Woods, and on the perimeter we noticed some police attention. The driver of the Happy Bus quickened the pace, and we drove out of sight, then quickly jumped out of the van and rushed into a ditch by the side of the road. The minivan carried on without us.
The next few hours were the hardest of the week. Orienteering by consensus is not a process that anyone should take on lightly. We could have been on any edge of the woods. We stopped continually to determine our path on a map. We stopped to decide if a stream was a stream, by consensus. We stopped to separate into a fast-pace party and a slow-pace party. We stopped to regroup. There were helicopters searching the woods and every twenty minutes we stopped to find cover. When two mischievous hippy-girls told us that the police were up ahead, we stopped to decide whether we should go on. We walked for four hours, progress was slow.
Spirits were high, in some places erratically so. One guy kept freaking out. On the final dash for the summit, he kept signalling for our group to hide. It was half past twelve and I was thoroughly soaked. Not to mention very tired. He called for someone to go ahead and I was so sick of having to listen to him, that I did what he said. After a three minute jog I could see the camp, over a wall and across a field, but I had to hide from helicopters, alone in the pine trees. This was too much to bear when one of your shoes is torn open at the toe and you’re carrying a full satchel and camping equipment. I swung them over the wall and dashed through treacherous bracken. Finally soaked up to the knee, I was greeted by those at the fire with a warming hello and congratulations. But the shame! I had abandoned my affinity group. I dumped my stuff and went back to look for the East Anglian Contingent, but they had past the point from which I had deviated from the path. I ran back and forth calling out to them, and was becoming extremely frustrated by the silence. They were out there, but wouldn’t respond for fear of being discovered, not realising that the only person who would find them would be me, and we both really needed that to happen. They switched on a torch for a moment, and I called out to them to come to me, and then the camp. In my absence the paranoid chap had started to aggravate the entire group, and no one wanted to be told they were going in the wrong direction. My arrival and appraisal of the situation was seen as patronising and disruptive. I told them where to go.
Within an hour we had all made up, erected our tents, and slumped down by the fire listening to a comrade read The Hobbit. Three hours later the march to the A9 was begun. By eight o’clock we were there, but I could only see a few other protesters, so we stopped for breakfast by the side of the road. Not long later we were searched by the police. Once our group had been put through this, the police were in a real hurry to go somewhere, so we were free to look for others. In the next field along, about two hundred blockaders were just at the end of a charge as we came round the edge of a hedgerow. They rushed right down a hill to a dry stone wall where the police were lined, and stopped short to deliver verbal abuse, then trotted back up the hill. The police were aghast. Additional units had been requested to deal with anarchists taking the mick. This trick worked again and again, more police turned up to waste their own time.
We all met at the top of the hill. A decent facilitator availed himself. Six great ideas presented themselves, and they were not mutually exclusive, it was left to the individual to decide which plans to pursue. Half the group would carry on charging down the hill and causing more police to turn up at this part of the road. The other half would move away from the road and plough through fields to try to make it to Gleneagles, and perhaps get back on the road. Everyone left the gathering on the hill with a strong sense of purpose, and feeling a lot better for having gotten together to talk. There was strong support, given our proximity to Wallace’s Monument, for a large-scale bearing of our bottoms in an attempt to taunt the police, in the style of the Scottish soldiers depicted in Braveheart, the popular Mel Gibson film based on the life of William Wallace. We then began launching ourselves down the hill, and pouring back up it, always provoking a response from a large number of police as we reached the bottom. Then, just as we were reaching the top of the hill, the police got in their vans and drove away.
This charge couldn’t be matched. Wooden benches were leant over the walls and barbed wire so we could scale the barrier. We clung to each other, sitting three ranks deep and spanning both lanes. We moved quickly to cover the other side of the dual carrigeway, so that we might stop some traffic heading toward the hotel, rather than traffic going the other direction. The police arrived, and like people everywhere trying to break spirits, began a process of intimidation;
“Oh, no. ” one policeman exclaimed after receiving a radio dispatch.
“What?” asked another of our harassers.
“They’re sending Sergeant Schroeder” said the first, as if this meant something.
“Oh, no. ” the second policeman mimicked the first’s initial exclamation.
“Ooh – you folks don’t want to be here when Sergeant Schroeder arrives” another officer piped up in a parody of concern.
“Yeah they’re not like us; there would be no shame in you moving on before they get here. It’s called Pain and Compliance. ”
People were pulled to the side; some went of their own choice. Afterwards we were on the wrong side of the road with no option to go back. The next six hours were occupied with a walk to Autcherarder.
The group which had gone on into the fields had come out on to the A9 further up, that’s why the police had left our section, and why we were able to blockade the A9 for ten minutes. At least we helped in stretching the police across the region. Little victories included stopping a Japanese delegate for fifteen minutes at a blockade, until he eventually came out of the car and yelled abuse at the senior policeman. At the hotel, fifty protesters got into the perimeter and attempted to demolish a security tower that had been erected, eventually setting fire to the structure. A man cycling along the A9 wearing a ‘NO G8’ T-shirt was stopped so his D-lock could be broken with bolt cutters by riot police.
No Escape
That night the Olympics were announced as being held in London. Everyone thought it was some sort of conspiracy to overshadow our efforts - announcing it before the second day of the summit, giving it to a British city - it looked like it was orchestrated. Perhaps it was, but the next day London was bombed and there wasn’t anything that would overshadow that. The night before the attack the police had surrounded Horizone, blocking all exits from the camp. There was a certain amount of ill feeling when people there came to know of the attack. Through the night there had been an attendance of resistance at the entrance, but I couldn’t tell you what happened as I was resting in the tent, damaged by a ten kilometre walk with trench-foot. Around eleven o’clock here was a call for everyone to meet with their Barrio and discuss the London Bombings and their effect on our actions before sending spokes to a spoke-meeting for a final summary.
As our spoke pointed out, we had nothing to add as everything had already been said, our meeting could be assumed to be representative of Barrio meetings across the camp. There was strong support for an action to show that we were opposed to our confinement, but no one wanted things to turn violent, or even for an action with a bad attitude. There was a lot of thought given to what would be done if people started to leave for home. In the spoke meeting there was a general consensus that this would be our course of action, all of the umpteen spokes saying the same thing, barring the spoke from the international Barrio who suggested that an Art display be initiated to keep spirits high. There was a remark made that points which failed to get consensus at Barrio meetings were not represented in the main tent. Hence, though many people knew that the action at the entrance would precipitate an act of aggression from the police, and be matched with resistance of equal bad taste, no-one got a chance to say it at the meeting. Still, it wasn’t going to be a meeting that made people happy, and people’s positions would be changing in the camp even as words were spoken. Lots of people were angry about our captivity, lots of people were nervous in relation to our captivity and the bombings and some people were just sad about the bombings.
Eventually Police started letting people out of the camp but not until they had been searched and photographed. I think those who went along to the entrance to show how they felt presented a mixture of nice fluffy moments and harsh spiky conflicts, but no-one seemed too offended.
People were packing up to leave, and the last action before the cleaning of the camp was Boogie on the Bridge in Glasgow. There was a nice relaxed feel to this one that even remained when the police who were there to stop traffic for us, decide to seal us onto the bridge.
“The best way to get out would have been to never have been here in the first place,” is all that the police would say to people who wanted to leave. That’s no use. I got sunburnt until about three o’clock and then jumped off the bridge.
The next day the Happy Bus left Scotland for Cambridge, slightly delayed because the police stuck a nail in the tyre when they were searching us. Their message was ‘You waste our time, we’ll waste yours,’ I’m not sure if they really understood that in trying to stop the G8 we were trying to do something that would help their world.
This article came from issue 8 of Now or Never!, available to buy here