Message from Paul Robinson - Gothenberg prisoner
Paul Robinson | 04.10.2001 11:29
Message from Gothenberg:
Thanks to everyone who sent letters/messages of love, support, defiance & rage (the only 4 things I’ve not been short of since I’ve been here). It’s been genuinely overwhelming.
Thankyou to all the people who stood outside the Swedish Embassy on various occasions, shivering in solidarity, organising & attending benefits & generally kicking up a fuss on my behalf - I promise to buy each and every one of you a drink.
Thanks to all the groups, support networks, radicals, misfits & anarchist heart throbs who helped spread the word. Not once have I ever had to doubt the beauty of dissent, the brilliance of trust. The prison staff ask me who ‘famous’ I am in the UK. They’re as amazed as I am at the sheer volume of support.
Not as famous as Stuart Christie I answer not untruthfully.
You are all invited to the party. Sometime February.
Trial No2 went much the same way as trial No1, with the same result. Still got called a terrorist but not, as in the first trial, “a destroyer of democracy” (as if I’d ever dare). The judges verdict in the higher court echoed with casual, deliberate ease the sentiments & verdict of the lower court - in essence I’m guilty of being a one man riot-by-association (!?). Political trials by their very nature resonate with perverse logic. The appeal to the Supreme Court is under way.
A special thanks to Bill Lehm who’s been tirelessly running round convincing anybody and everybody of my innocence (both in and out of court), the Solidarity Group here in Gothenberg who have been tirelessly been sending me flowers & trashy pulp novels (to keep me occupied and effortlessly smiling), & Sara who reached in & placed a string of lights... & never once asked for anything in return. A small part of North London will forever shine with beligerence & awe.
“Mother, we do not hold still day after day, year after year & then die. We do not.”
(The Art Lover - Carole Maso)
She deserves more love than I could possibly hope to give her.
A message too to those who think a riot shield or prison sentence wil protect them:
The anger dosen’t fade believe me, not for a moment, not by a long way. Some of us fight to keep alive, some of us are alive because we fight, either way the battle is one & the same.
As one riot cop said in court when justifying the need to get his gun out & start shooting people, “they kept coming, we couldn’t stop them”. Remind me again why we do this, remind me again why all this is fucking worth it.
The creative urge is an indestructable urge - we know what our anger means.
We are dangerous people not simply because we desire freedom, but because we desire it together.
These are the criminal activities of the working class, these are the crimes that we live by. In the words of Bobby TBS “a troublemaker’s what you made me” (Anything else would be a crime). If we’re not causing trouble, we’re not doing it right. This is everything we are. This is all we have.
And I’m proud to be a part of it - the travelling circus, the whispering conspiacies, the deafening global roar, all the chaos & wonder, courage & warmth, never once, in the face of brutality & murder, doubting itself, the madness & togetherness, the desire & danger & damage done. The fearlessness with which we continue to grab at life. When you dare the world to be special, the world will respond... They kept coming, we couldn’t stop them. THIS is what our anger means.
Humanity is not the future you try and create, the future is the humanity you refuse to let go of.
We hold it all in our hands...
Love Paul Robinson.
Thanks to everyone who sent letters/messages of love, support, defiance & rage (the only 4 things I’ve not been short of since I’ve been here). It’s been genuinely overwhelming.
Thankyou to all the people who stood outside the Swedish Embassy on various occasions, shivering in solidarity, organising & attending benefits & generally kicking up a fuss on my behalf - I promise to buy each and every one of you a drink.
Thanks to all the groups, support networks, radicals, misfits & anarchist heart throbs who helped spread the word. Not once have I ever had to doubt the beauty of dissent, the brilliance of trust. The prison staff ask me who ‘famous’ I am in the UK. They’re as amazed as I am at the sheer volume of support.
Not as famous as Stuart Christie I answer not untruthfully.
You are all invited to the party. Sometime February.
Trial No2 went much the same way as trial No1, with the same result. Still got called a terrorist but not, as in the first trial, “a destroyer of democracy” (as if I’d ever dare). The judges verdict in the higher court echoed with casual, deliberate ease the sentiments & verdict of the lower court - in essence I’m guilty of being a one man riot-by-association (!?). Political trials by their very nature resonate with perverse logic. The appeal to the Supreme Court is under way.
A special thanks to Bill Lehm who’s been tirelessly running round convincing anybody and everybody of my innocence (both in and out of court), the Solidarity Group here in Gothenberg who have been tirelessly been sending me flowers & trashy pulp novels (to keep me occupied and effortlessly smiling), & Sara who reached in & placed a string of lights... & never once asked for anything in return. A small part of North London will forever shine with beligerence & awe.
“Mother, we do not hold still day after day, year after year & then die. We do not.”
(The Art Lover - Carole Maso)
She deserves more love than I could possibly hope to give her.
A message too to those who think a riot shield or prison sentence wil protect them:
The anger dosen’t fade believe me, not for a moment, not by a long way. Some of us fight to keep alive, some of us are alive because we fight, either way the battle is one & the same.
As one riot cop said in court when justifying the need to get his gun out & start shooting people, “they kept coming, we couldn’t stop them”. Remind me again why we do this, remind me again why all this is fucking worth it.
The creative urge is an indestructable urge - we know what our anger means.
We are dangerous people not simply because we desire freedom, but because we desire it together.
These are the criminal activities of the working class, these are the crimes that we live by. In the words of Bobby TBS “a troublemaker’s what you made me” (Anything else would be a crime). If we’re not causing trouble, we’re not doing it right. This is everything we are. This is all we have.
And I’m proud to be a part of it - the travelling circus, the whispering conspiacies, the deafening global roar, all the chaos & wonder, courage & warmth, never once, in the face of brutality & murder, doubting itself, the madness & togetherness, the desire & danger & damage done. The fearlessness with which we continue to grab at life. When you dare the world to be special, the world will respond... They kept coming, we couldn’t stop them. THIS is what our anger means.
Humanity is not the future you try and create, the future is the humanity you refuse to let go of.
We hold it all in our hands...
Love Paul Robinson.
Paul Robinson
Comments
Hide the following 4 comments
Twit
04.10.2001 12:28
If you're not causing trouble you don't get arrested.
I thought you were supposed to be innocent. Now you're pleading guilty.
Thanks for ruining the protest movement.
insider
thousands of miles away
04.10.2001 13:54
Forced to spend days reanalysing what his life is about he has concluded that there is no turning back. Activism is not a plaything to be returned to the games cupboard when it is frightening or challenging, it has been forced on us by the world we were born into.
Passivity is not an option - non defiance is what the system is built on. Anybody not fighting the system is supporting it by merely being alive.
Right now everything does look fucking scary and difficult. I have no idea what we can do, but I do know that the incredible diversity and power of my fellow activists and the creative cooperation, and solidarity mean an answer will slowly take shape to the oppression, an answer that will hold not just the key to what we immediately face from the state, but forever to free us from every battle and injustice.
Did the SWP turn in the wombles on sunday? I don't care. We don't need the answer to that to know that authoritarian structures mirror that which we are fighting and provide no solutions. That is not the war, it is a sideline skirmish. Our strength is our positives. What we are fighting for. That is what keeps us all, Paul especially, alive and vibrant.
There is something more human, more REAL about the relationships between us than I have seen before. The solidarity, the anger when someone we might have never met is murdered or incarcerated is not present in "civilised" society. It is an unblemished force because we have rejected a life's worth of brain washing to recognise equality and beauty in all humanity. And this is why we will do or die trying.
ginger
Homepage: http://www.sei.ukshells.co.uk
comments to be deleted
04.10.2001 23:10
an indy
We can all be twits sometime
04.10.2001 23:26
However, as the pillock says, he has basically pleaded guilty in his letter. But he has not pleaded guilty to what he has been charged with. Pleading guilty to breaking unjust laws and opposing unjust sentences is the same as taking responsibility for opposing unjust laws and unjust sentences. There is nothing wrong with Paul. There are very many things wrong with laws - from GATS, which we all know we have to oppose, to the restrictions on Civil Liberties which were happening even before September 11.
I actually said in court that Paul was protesting against GATS which meant that Paul was protesting in favour of the law and not against it. God knows what they would have done to him if he had been against the law.
Don't forget him. He really is a very good man. He is about as innocent as they come. That is the best way to be. We can all be twits. Taking the broader view, the pillock who called Paul a twit is a far bigger twit than Paul could ever be.
Bill.
Bill Lehm
e-mail: Wrlehm@aol.com