Anarchist Travelling Circus

An idea for a UK-wide series of actions, projects and
events, and a mobilisation against the latest knees up
of the powermongers of world misery - the G8 Summit
taking place in Paris, June 6th 2003.

The summit-hopping protests of the last few years,
labelled by Tony Blair post-Gothenberg, as an
‘Anarchist Travelling Circus’, have done much to build
and revitalise the growing anti-capitalist movement,
to strengthen existing international solidarity, to
create new links, and to facilitate the mobilisation
of people and ideas. The inevitable publicity that
surrounds such occasions has served to inform people
about the existence of an organised resistance to
capitalism.

While this process is important and should continue,
it is clear that mobilising around specific one-off or
annual events such as Mayday, G8, EU meetings etc.
will never be enough.

The Anarchist Travelling Circus is an attempt to
reconcile the mass mobilisations that accompany events
such as the G8, with local projects and actions; to
create links between the anti-capitalist movement and
the daily stuggles in our communities and workplaces;
to involve those who cannot or do not want to travel
round the globe getting tear-gassed; and to continue
to make the point that our multiple struggles against
war and militarism, the destruction of the earth
(including the resurrection of the road building
programme), debt and lack of housing, the treatment
of asylum seekers, the mind-numbing, soul-destroying
monotony of wage labour and many other issues too
numerous to name, cannot be won until the fight
against capitalism is won and that this must be fought
- not a couple of times a year in set-pieces against
riot police, but daily, constantly, everywhere.

This attitude has most recently been reflected in the
idea of Social Centres and Social Centres networks
which have been springing up around the country,
inspired in part by the Social Centres movements of
other European countries; and by the attempt this year
to use Mayday for a ‘Festival of Alternatives’ that
aimed to promote both theoretical and practical
sustainable forms of resistance and involve a variety
of groups and issues.

The idea of the Anarchist Travelling Circus, while
still in it’s infancy, is a 5-6 week tour of the
country, perhaps beginning on Mayday, and culminating
in Paris on June 6th at the G8, with a possible ‘No
Border’ Camp en route. As the Circus progresses
around the UK, people would join and leave the
procession at will, staying on the road til Paris, or
never leaving their home town. At each city, town or
village it arrives in people would organise actions
around struggles they are involved in, open social
centres, or organise cultural events. This would
hopefully serve to highlight existing struggles and
act as an inspiration for new longterm projects, as
well as leaving a lasting legacy beyond the spectacle
of confrontational action.

It is important that the emphasis is placed on the
actions and events that happen in each place, and that
the impetus for these comes from local people and the
struggles they are involved in, rather than a touring
procession of activists just parachuting in. It is
also important to involve as many non-activists as
possible to network this idea far beyond the usual
politicos.

The theme of ‘travelling’ - in the form of convoys,
critical masses and mass train bunks - would be
primarily used to physically and visually link issues
and ideas that are already fundamentally linked in
that they all pose an opposition to capitalism.

The idea is for anybody who is interested, from
whatever part of the UK, to set up local groups to
organise events and network the idea in their area.
We would like as many individuals and
horizontally-organised groups as possible to take part
in this. The hope is that this would help to build
links between anti-capitalists, refugee groups, those
involved in workplace & community struggles,
environmental groups, claimant’s unions etc., and also
help to build a sustainable country-wide network, as
well as involving people in ongoing projects in their
area.

This project is still at the
‘sitting-in-the-pub-talking-about-it’ stage so there
is plenty of room for input and ideas.

A meeting will take place at the Earth First Summer
Gathering in Devon, in July. The possibility of a
national meeting in August/September is also being
discussed.

This is going to take a lot of time, money and energy,
so fundraising and networking the idea should ideally
start as soon as possible.

In the meantime an internet discussion list has been
set up. To subscribe to this, send a blank email to:
 anarchisttravellingcircus-subscribe@yahoogroups.com

If you are setting up a group in your area, please
email  anarchisttravellingcircus@yahoo.co.uk and let us
know.

Love and Rage,
ATC