Skip to content or view mobile version

Home | Mobile | Editorial | Mission | Privacy | About | Contact | Help | Security | Support

A network of individuals, independent and alternative media activists and organisations, offering grassroots, non-corporate, non-commercial coverage of important social and political issues.

Today I was a womble

ginger | 02.05.2001 00:08

Being a womble is about exposing a lie the authorities expend all their energy trying to maintain: human beings have the power to hange the world and upset "known facts". The police are neither right, nor good, nor invincible.

Mayday for me started nearly 3 months ago when I first whited up for the niketown zapatista solidarity action. Can't believe it's been such a short time, because the lessons learnt and people met will stay with me forever.
Today a five foot two slightly built short sighted geek girl was on the front line beating riot police! We actually got through 3 police lines between 4 and 6 when we dewombled.
We were originally planning to meet at Oxford Circus at 4, but obviously events were outside anybodies control - just as they should be. Unfortunately this meant lots of thinking on our feet, and concerns about getting all the tat to where it was needed. The advantages of working closely in a (not perfect but almost) non hierachical way is that everyone was looking out for each other and taking responsibility rather than waiting for orders.
Half of the wombles arrived at the meeting point already wombled up, which gave muh confidence and positivity the few of us cowering down an alley way having suffered lots of cop attention carrying big bags of foam and banners into the pic circ area.. We quickly executed our practised transition into wombles (okay, it was a shambles, but it needs a lot of practise!). Then we began marhing north east towards oxford street showering "money" on everyone.
The other protesters were top. We didn't have enough spare suits or padding to involve as many as we would have liked, but it was incredibly uplifting to hear cheers and warm greetings of "here come the wombles". Looks like its not just the police who were looking for us!
We quickly had a few hundred in our group. It all happened quite quickly, haotically and organically, but we kept moving and growing in numbers and marhed across Oxford St North and then circled west. I had a pink kiddy swim ring around my neck, and a foam, cardboard and bubblewrap arm protector with stuffed penguins taped to it.
Our first confrontation was in cavendish sq, behind John Lewis. The police formed a line in riot gear.
We were a little shakey, but basically walked up to them, arms linked behind the big blue tarp. They did their usual baton run, but with the protection we had on we could take it, and then puished forwards and ... blimey we were through the line! Wonderful feeling.
After that whenever we came across more cops it was "Wombles to the front".
In all we breached 3 lines.
My glasses were knocked off, and I nearly got knocked down myself a few times so ended up very shakey, but kept up. I took some baton blows, but caught them all on my proteted arm and was absolutely fine. Other wombles took direct blows to their shins, arms and even heads and apart from some minor grazes we're all fine.
It is important to say that there was 5 female wombles, and I was definitely the least front line - one who was especially nervous beforehand was an absolute star and cruial to many of the breaches. Being a womble is not about individual macho selfimportant action but requires solidarity, courage and trust. You do not need to be a street fighter. You need to be able to keep a clear head, be solid., look out for those who are around you, and see a demonstration as not just an opportunity to smash a few windows (however cathartic that feels) but about challenging the state's right to batter us when we step out of line.
We made lots of mistakes, but that's okay. We're not here for a single stunt action, but untill a better tactic is discovered, or we've won !

ginger
- Homepage: http://www.sei.ukshells.co.uk

Comments

Display the following 44 comments

  1. you're awsome!!! — maya
  2. where were the wombles? — jjf
  3. oh thankyou — tara
  4. wombles — Abigail
  5. Wombles Wont Fail — decoila chompy
  6. Grazie ragazzi! — ErCl@!
  7. Wombling around — EastHamDan
  8. Womble action — George Roscoe
  9. missing womble found — sara
  10. Beautiful — Bo
  11. Pricks — cybergroover
  12. You saved May Day — tom
  13. Grow Up! — Tony Blair
  14. An Inspiration — Sheffield Mayday
  15. Pure Inspiration — blueplay
  16. Pure Inspiration — blueplay
  17. Pure Inspiration — blueplay
  18. Pure Inspiration — blueplay
  19. Respect! — Eddie Stratton
  20. Making waves — Rich
  21. MORE WOMBLES PLEASE — CHRIS
  22. Cops Get Wombled — Rob
  23. Well Done!!! — Yuda
  24. Caught in possesion of sponge and teddybears — Robin
  25. I'm proud of you, Aunty Bulgaria — Womble's mother
  26. Womble on, guys! — shonagh
  27. HOW TO BECOME A WOMBLE! — FunkyElf
  28. Fair Play — kim
  29. wombling — fat twat
  30. glasses — gawk
  31. YOUR MUPPETS — MIKE
  32. Errrrrr??? — Aunt Sally
  33. Mythmakers — Hugh Jarse
  34. maximum respect to wombles — px
  35. wombling free! — dave
  36. Wombles — Marky Mark
  37. what makes a cop scared — not a womble yet
  38. wimbly wombly — ida
  39. wombles I'm just sooo jealous! — shameless h
  40. Italian styleee — Luther blissett
  41. Keep an open mind — lisa
  42. May Day Revolution — Tigerwomble
  43. WOMBLES AREN'T MUPPETS — gonzo
  44. I wanna join the wombles — Euan Blair
Upcoming Coverage
View and post events
Upcoming Events UK
24th October, London: 2015 London Anarchist Bookfair
2nd - 8th November: Wrexham, Wales, UK & Everywhere: Week of Action Against the North Wales Prison & the Prison Industrial Complex. Cymraeg: Wythnos o Weithredu yn Erbyn Carchar Gogledd Cymru

Ongoing UK
Every Tuesday 6pm-8pm, Yorkshire: Demo/vigil at NSA/NRO Menwith Hill US Spy Base More info: CAAB.

Every Tuesday, UK & worldwide: Counter Terror Tuesdays. Call the US Embassy nearest to you to protest Obama's Terror Tuesdays. More info here

Every day, London: Vigil for Julian Assange outside Ecuadorian Embassy

Parliament Sq Protest: see topic page
Ongoing Global
Rossport, Ireland: see topic page
Israel-Palestine: Israel Indymedia | Palestine Indymedia
Oaxaca: Chiapas Indymedia
Regions
All Regions
Birmingham
Cambridge
Liverpool
London
Oxford
Sheffield
South Coast
Wales
World
Other Local IMCs
Bristol/South West
Nottingham
Scotland
Social Media
You can follow @ukindymedia on indy.im and Twitter. We are working on a Twitter policy. We do not use Facebook, and advise you not to either.
Support Us
We need help paying the bills for hosting this site, please consider supporting us financially.
Other Media Projects
Schnews
Dissident Island Radio
Corporate Watch
Media Lens
VisionOnTV
Earth First! Action Update
Earth First! Action Reports
Topics
All Topics
Afghanistan
Analysis
Animal Liberation
Anti-Nuclear
Anti-militarism
Anti-racism
Bio-technology
Climate Chaos
Culture
Ecology
Education
Energy Crisis
Fracking
Free Spaces
Gender
Globalisation
Health
History
Indymedia
Iraq
Migration
Ocean Defence
Other Press
Palestine
Policing
Public sector cuts
Repression
Social Struggles
Technology
Terror War
Workers' Movements
Zapatista
Major Reports
NATO 2014
G8 2013
Workfare
2011 Census Resistance
Occupy Everywhere
August Riots
Dale Farm
J30 Strike
Flotilla to Gaza
Mayday 2010
Tar Sands
G20 London Summit
University Occupations for Gaza
Guantanamo
Indymedia Server Seizure
COP15 Climate Summit 2009
Carmel Agrexco
G8 Japan 2008
SHAC
Stop Sequani
Stop RWB
Climate Camp 2008
Oaxaca Uprising
Rossport Solidarity
Smash EDO
SOCPA
Past Major Reports
Encrypted Page
You are viewing this page using an encrypted connection. If you bookmark this page or send its address in an email you might want to use the un-encrypted address of this page.
If you recieved a warning about an untrusted root certificate please install the CAcert root certificate, for more information see the security page.

Global IMC Network


www.indymedia.org

Projects
print
radio
satellite tv
video

Africa

Europe
antwerpen
armenia
athens
austria
barcelona
belarus
belgium
belgrade
brussels
bulgaria
calabria
croatia
cyprus
emilia-romagna
estrecho / madiaq
galiza
germany
grenoble
hungary
ireland
istanbul
italy
la plana
liege
liguria
lille
linksunten
lombardia
madrid
malta
marseille
nantes
napoli
netherlands
northern england
nottingham imc
paris/île-de-france
patras
piemonte
poland
portugal
roma
romania
russia
sardegna
scotland
sverige
switzerland
torun
toscana
ukraine
united kingdom
valencia

Latin America
argentina
bolivia
chiapas
chile
chile sur
cmi brasil
cmi sucre
colombia
ecuador
mexico
peru
puerto rico
qollasuyu
rosario
santiago
tijuana
uruguay
valparaiso
venezuela

Oceania
aotearoa
brisbane
burma
darwin
jakarta
manila
melbourne
perth
qc
sydney

South Asia
india


United States
arizona
arkansas
asheville
atlanta
Austin
binghamton
boston
buffalo
chicago
cleveland
colorado
columbus
dc
hawaii
houston
hudson mohawk
kansas city
la
madison
maine
miami
michigan
milwaukee
minneapolis/st. paul
new hampshire
new jersey
new mexico
new orleans
north carolina
north texas
nyc
oklahoma
philadelphia
pittsburgh
portland
richmond
rochester
rogue valley
saint louis
san diego
san francisco
san francisco bay area
santa barbara
santa cruz, ca
sarasota
seattle
tampa bay
united states
urbana-champaign
vermont
western mass
worcester

West Asia
Armenia
Beirut
Israel
Palestine

Topics
biotech

Process
fbi/legal updates
mailing lists
process & imc docs
tech