Me, my bike,
a rubber duck, and lots of enthusiasm.
This is not a complete report
of everything that went on on May 1st in London. It\'s just how I percieved the
day\'s events.
My train arrived in London at
12:30, having come down all the way from Yorkshire just for the
day. I didn\'t know much about precicely what was going to be happening (a
\'carnival against capitapism\' is a good enough reason to come down!) - all I
knew was that there was a Critical Mass bikeride at 10:00, and some kind of
guerilla gardening event in Parliament square at 11:00, and wasn\'t sure if it
would still be there by the time I got there. I knew I wasn\'t going to make it
to the critical-mass, but decided to bring my bike along anyway.
I could tell I was getting
close when I frequently saw horse-s**t on the road. Once I arrived at trafalgar
square, it was obvious from the line of police and people in fancy dress which
way to go.
When I arrived, I was greeted
by slogans that welcomed me to a world a lot better than the one I knew. I was
in awe that pro-environmental and anti-capitalist slogans were displayed in such
high-profile places and being enjoyed by the masses. This is just the thing
people need to do to help recharge our morale, and prevent people like us from
going insane. Parliament square was packed, and very colourful. This was not the
London that I knew!
I did not know anyone there,
so I just wandered around and had a look, accumulated many handed-out leaflets,
and gave a bit of help where needed. I consider myself to be a shy person, I
came on my own, and I didn\'t know anyone who I came accross, but it was my
enthusiasm for creating a world without capitalism that brought me down to
London.
I stayed at the makeshift
speakers\' corner for about half an hour, where people could voice their opinions
about anything and everything. Although there was a bit of a debate about a few
issues, one thing was clear - the world had to be changed. At some stage, the
debate seemed to be turning too \'heavy\' and risked ruining the chilled out
atmosphere of the day. I was thinking of going up there and reading out a poem I
had written with the help of my computer so I could liven things up and cheer up
people who were being brought down by the debate. Alas, my shyness got the
better of me, and I never read my poem.
The debate didn\'t spoil things, and there were several speakers who made
speaches that went down so well that they got a loud applause and did not
encourage any arguing. By the time the people near the speakers corner were
thinning out, most people (including myself) turned to watch and listen to the
Samba-band.
By now, a Maypole had been
erected, and people were dancing around in full swing. When I was watching, all
the ribbons were wound and unwound in a perfect fasion. When it was time to
change people, I decided to be one of the people doing the next dance. We were
told which way round to go, and which order to weave in and out. Somehow this
seemed all irrelevant, as everyone went off their own ways. To make things
worse, the Samba band then moved in and occupied the area round the Maypole,
making it even harder to move. Eventually, we got going, but everyone was so
confused that we kept overtaking eachother and changing directions. By the time
we wound the ribbons round, we had made a pig\'s ear of it.
I saw someone calling on all
the cyclists to gather together. I was still getting myself tangled up in the
maypole at the time. By the time I left the maypole for the next lot, the
cyclists were just moving out. I asked what was going on, and decided to cycle
along with them. There was a bit of talk that the police were about to surround
parliament square, so we set off to find a way out. After about two attempts, we
found an escape path (we still cycled past a bunch of cops, but they didn\'t seem
too concerned with our escapade), and were out. From then on, it was a
Critical-Mass bike-ride where cycle-power was out in force (this was the second
critical-mass bikeride that day).
After heading south of the
river, we set off in the direction of Kennington Park. At one stage at a junction near
Kennington park, a driver just got so impatient that he charged at the bycicles.
Most of them got out of the way, but one person was hurt (nothing serious), and
a bike or two were damaged beyond use. I very briefly had the urge to throw a
nearby hub-cap at the van, but fortunately, I just settled for a mid-fingered
salute. A police van soon chased after the van, and we were asked a few
questions by some police officers (these guys were helping us out with what
happened at the junction and didn\'t bother much with telling us off for our
Critical-Mass celebrations). We were later told that the driver of the van had
been caught and arrested.
Reports were coming in on the
mobile phones that the police had trapped everyone still remaining in parliament
square. We were thinking of going back just on the outside of the police-line to
let the people inside know that we had escaped and were still active. There was
someone on a wheelchair amongst us, so we kept at a slow pace. When we stopped
to let people catch up, we stopped outside a corner shop and got ourselves some
food.
While waiting, we were
casually asked by one of the cyclists which part of London we were from. Just
about everyone seemed to live in London, but it was when I said I had come from
Yorkshire that people were really amazed. I at last felt comfortable enough to
not be shy anymore. I also used this as an oppotunity to show people a
rubber-duck that I had brought along with me. I brought it along because it
seemed like a silly thing to do, and doing anything silly in a fun way would
liven up the atmosphere (in fact, the only thing I actually did do with the
rubber duck was show people that I had brought it along, but that was in the
spirit of bringing it along).
Up until this point, I felt
that during the 4 or so hours that I had been there, I had felt more like I was
a spectator, rather than a participant of the Mayday festivities. It was only
once people seemed impressed that I had come such a long way by myself that I
had been talking long enough to come out of my shell.
So to sum up, it was just me,
my bike, a rubber duck, and lots of enthusiasm that got the better of my
shyness.
When we finally reached the
south bank of the Thames, what we saw was the police hearding demonstrators
south accross several bridges at once as if they were cattle. The cyclists then
merged with everyone else, and we had a procession back south to Kennington
park. I got separated from the people I was talking to earlier, but I went along
with everyone else, and blew my whistle to make some noise, and even gave
someone a lift on my bike (which I was walking down the street).
We soon reached the park, and
as expected, the police were gradually enclosing on us. We weren\'t allowed to go
in the park, but people were climbing over the fence and filling up the park. As
I had my bike to carry, I stayed outside on the street where an entertainer was
entertaining the crowd and a nearby column of cops with his jugling and
hat-balancing act. He even succeeded in getting a policeman to show some
appreciation. It wasn\'t long before the gate to the park was unblocked. I
decided to move in. I soon noticed a small group of the people I was with on the
bike-ride. I stuck with them, as they were the only ones I knew. There wasn\'t a
sound-system, and there didn\'t seem to be anything coherent going on in the park
at the time, and we were exhausted. The consensus amongst the four of us was to
head home, but we stuck together on the way. I think I must have been inside the
grounds of the park for only about 10 minutes. The spirit of Critical Mass was
still with us, even though there were just four cyclists, and we made noise
every time we went under a bridge. Every so often along the way, we\'d
rendez-vous with someone we met earlier and exchange stories.
Once North of the river,
progress was made harder by police refusing to let us go down certain roads. To
make things worse, the police had now gotten into the habit of charging at small
groups of demonstrators who had to charge down the streets just to get away from
the police. I almost got run over by a stampede of charging
demonstrators.
At one stage, one of us
briefly had a chat with a cop. The nice thing was that he acknowledged that it
was only a small minority causing the trouble, and that most of the people were
out to express themselves in a more peaceful manner. It is always good to see at
least one copper admit that we\'re not all a bunch of \'mindless thugs\'. The
police are often given nicknames like \"The Pigs\" or \"The Blue Meanies\". In a
society with just laws and a police force competent enough to realise who was
out to cause trouble and who was out to be friendly, then they\'d be given the
nickname like \"The Glue\" instead because they would keep everything together. It
is only because of some stupid laws and predjudiced attitues, and fitting us all
into stereotypes, that some of the things got nasty.
We soon got to a pub near
Euston where the four of us stayed around and chatted. Amongst the things we
discussed was that the tensions between police and the crowd died down while the
Samba band was playing, and they rose whenever the band paused.
Eventually, it was time for
me to catch my train back North, so after a group hug, I left everyone else and
headed for Kings-Cross.
About two and a half hours
later, I returned to my flat, and was feeling high because I had enjoyed myself.
Unfortunately, I
made the mistake of browsing the website of the BBC news (  http://news.bbc.co.uk/ ).
Reading the news put such a complete downer on my mood. How could they distort
the truth and blow things so grotesquely out of proportion?!?! It was only a
very small minority of people who rioted, and most of us didn\'t even notice any
rioting going on. Nowhere did they go into great deatil about the peaceful
atmosphere in parliament square. Were they on the same planet as us? There
definitely is some sort of global conspiracy going on to make us all insane!
Fortunately, the World-Wide-WonderWeb is here to save the day! At last, the
truth can be told! The IndyMedia UK website (  http://www.indymedia.org.uk/ ) is something that every
life-form should read (The bit about Mayday 2000 is on  http://www.indymedia.org.uk/newsite/) .
I also went to a similar
event in Sheffiled on Saturday April the 29th. There was a Critical Mass
bikeride, a carnival against capitalism, and a party in a park (almost like
Mayday in London, but on a smaller scale). There was no demonstrator/police
confrontation that I saw, but apparently, a local newspaper had invented stories
about things that didn\'t happen including one about protestors throwing coins at
police-horses (very unlikely to have happened since there were several people
from animal-rights groups present).
I am concerned that the
disasterous media-coverage will give the people in power the wrong impression,
and may even encourage the anti-terrorism bill to become Law. I even believe
that the rioters who spoiled the day for everyone else were secretly hired by
the \"Global Conspiracy\" just so we could get a bad name. I\'m also worried that
the media coverage will discourage people who did turn up not to return, and
will frighten away people who thought about coming but were worried about
possible violence.
I\'m very glad that the urge I
had earlier to throw a hub-cap at a van that ran over the bycicles subsided very
quickly, and didn\'t become reality, as I would have single-handedly created an
\'incident\' in the media.
Anyway, what I propose that
we do next is to have a massive group-hug in Trafalgar square involving all the
peaceful people from the Mayday festivities (and anyone else who wants to join
us). This time, the theme will be pro-something instead of anti-something, and
should have much more positive vibes. This should help repair the reputation of
these Direct-Action protests. I consider a group-hug to be Direct-Action,
because it challenges the belief in society that people gathered in a place like
Trafalgar square aren\'t all meant to love eachother.
Direct action should not just
be about defiance of the law, it should also be about defiance of people\'s
attitudes and predjudices!!!
It is said that in the
Sixties, people really thought they could change the world, and that in the
Nineties, everyone is too apathetic to speak out. But the truth is, we CAN
change the world. This can only happen if we all work together with lots of
enthusiasm and to have a white flame of faith that things will work out in the
end.
But as Chumbawamba wrote in
their song Tubthumping:        
He sings the songs that remind
him of the good times.
        He sings the songs that remind him of the better
times.
Keep the faith!