Message from Paul Robinson - Gothenberg prisoner
Paul Robinson | 04.10.2001 11:29
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
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