It was a blistering July afternoon on the South Bank of the Thames. As the clock on the old ShellMex building across the river crept towards 2pm, a gaggle of bicycles and their riders began to gather at the time-honoured Critical Mass spot outside the National Film Theatre. Many of the bewheeled group were part of Biketour 2002, a group of European cyclists riding and taking action on their way to the eco-activisty Ecotopia taking place on the west coast of Ireland in August. Others were grizzled veterans from the London scene, while yet others were neither grizzled nor veterans and three cheers for that. Jam sandwiches and leaflets were passed round as we waited for stragglers, before finally moving off at closer to three with a small but dynamic, dedicated and noisy group of around 25.

Our plan was to make the rounds of 5 organisations who are implicated in various ways to oil and gas pipelines to be built from Baku in Azerbaijan, through Georgia to Turkey from 2003-5. And each of the five were to receive a ‘Flaming Helios certificate of merit’, ‘in recognition of services above and beyond the call of duty to the to the destabilisation of the world’s climate, (and to the pursuit of profit before people come to think of it).’

So why did we decide to highlight these particular pipelines (which they call AGT, and we will too if that’s OK with you)? Well, the leading player in all of this activity is BP, a company which is based, like many of the organisations that seem to orbit around it, in London. As the leaflet we gave out along the way said, ‘It seems that we don’t have to travel as far as the White House to find ‘best-of-sector’ climate criminals - London is awash with them!’ In the midst of climate change campaigns that go for Bush and a certain US-registered oil company, it seemed useful to draw attention to crimes against the climate being perpetrated pretty much on our own doorsteps. AGT, which has been computer-generated and part-financed from offices here in London, will pump oil from the ecologically-threatened Caspian Sea to us here in the west. That would belch, when burned, 200 million tonnes of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere every year for its 30 years of ‘life’. Apart from questioning the potentially disastrous effects AGT will have on the communities it runs alongside, a message for the day was ‘We don’t want this new oil, and we will oppose any companies that attempt to profit by bringing it halfway across the world and into this carbon-addicted economy. And we’ll do our damnedest to have a good time doing that opposing, while always of course talking up the carbon-light, capitalism-free alternative ways to spend our 80 or so years on this lovely planet.’

But enough of the rant. ‘What actually happened?’ you’re probably howling. On the way to our first port of shame we passed by the headquarters of Shell, (just opposite Waterloo Station in case you fancy paying them a visit), but were gone with only a few whoops and a couple of whistle-blows. I’m not sure if that was enough to let them know that their crimes hadn’t been forgotten.

Having managed by the skin of our teeth - to block the road successfully all the way to Vauxhall Bridge and over, we arrived at the sinisterly-named International Finance Corporation (IFC) at 4 Millbank, SW1. The IFC (actually part of the World Bank and thus dispensers of public money) were secreted SMERSH-like on an inaccessible floor, so the Flaming Helios was handed in to loud applause (from us) and bewildered consternation (from passers-by). The name comes from our subversion of BP’s green ‘Helios’ logo into a red and orange explosion, to which is often attached the slogan ‘bye-bye planet’, as a more honest suggestion next time BP decides to find other explanations of its acronym. (They’ve already dropped ‘Beyond Petroleum’ because the big shareholders were scared that it meant clearing out of core oil activity, and because the rest of us were laughing fit to burst.)
So our caravan of sanity moved off, passing now on our right the excellent bloke who’s been camping outside Parliament for months now to draw attention to the government’s policy towards Iraq. It seems he’s been in court recently in an attempt to evict him, so send some solidarity his way if you’re able. Unfortunately, the Countryside Alliance are also camped nearby. We declined their request to ‘hoot if you support hunting’ or somesuch, and for that reason our trip round Parliament Square was the quietest section of our route.

The merry throng then dawdled its way towards the National Portrait Gallery (NPG), whose award was made in recognition of its decision to allow BP to sponsor its annual Portrait Award, ‘thus allowing them to embed themselves in British cultural life and stifle criticism of their actual activities. Oh, and having ExxonMobil, TotalFinaElf & British Gas as Corporate Members doesn’t help either.’ Having carried out a vox pop of the mainly tourists outside the Gallery, and found that many of them didn’t really care who sponsored it, (hmm, will probably have to rephrase that question!), we were sent to the NPG’s admin office round the corner in Orange Street. Here, we wandered in with bicycles in order to make the presentation more effective, and enquired of the employees their feelings about the intimate BP link. Some looked torn between telling us their real opinion on the one hand, and the need to remain tight-lipped and on-message on the other. One woman did comment that ‘You must have a lot of time on your hands!’ as she disappeared up the stairs.

Finally, the award was left at reception, and the caravan nipped up to Covent Garden, for what was probably the most tickling of our ceremonies. Tucked away in a little corner of this once bohemian neighbourhood, at 6 Mercer Street, is a small courtyard which plays host to Enterprise IG. ‘Who they?’ you may enquire with some justification. Well, they are that most disturbing of modern phenomenon, the ‘brand consultant’. In particular, they have a contract to run BP’s in-house Helios Awards for the best examples of ‘on-brand behaviour’, (sick bag please.)

This is the sort of trendy young company that probably never dreamt it would be visited by representatives from The Anti-Capitalist Hordes plc. A few of us wandered in wheeling our bikes (not aggressive wheeling, you understand), and mentioned that we would to make a presentation. At this point, however, a man who later revealed himself to be the company’s security man decided to begin removing us physically. (Apparently at this point, the boss of the UK arm of the company did pass by but scurried away before anyone could cajole him into a ding-dong.)

Not wanting to continue scuffling, we handed over the ‘Flaming Helios’ to reception’, and carried on the dialogue outside, watched now by several dress-down-Monday types leaning on the elegantly rusted outdoor stairwell. Much as we tried to engage them in debate about their connection to a company as deeply uncool as BP (actually, we stuck to the climate change and human rights abuses line), they seemed reluctant as is so often the case to participate. The security man, as well as accusing us of being ‘scruffs’, (our shirts obviously being scruffily scruffy rather than elegantly scruffy), shouted up to the patronisingly positioned onlookers to ‘go inside’, an order that they obeyed with frightening respect. When asked about how he felt about Enterprise’s proximity to climate change et al, an un-ironed man in his twenties said something along the lines of ‘The salary I get from working here supports my family.’
‘Do you have kids?’ one of us asked.
‘No, but we will have soon,’ he said.
‘Are you worried about the sort of world that kid will be growing up in?’
‘Not really.’
By now, the onlookers had crept back out, so as we began to leave we exhorted them to think about what had just happened, and some of the issues that we were catapulting into their working lives. It seemed (to me) that trying to get them to look into the issues might have more impact than simply shouting ‘scum!’ at them. (Which isn’t to say that obstructive activity should always be ruled out.) It would certainly be fascinating to be present at their next meeting with BP, and to see if any discomfort was betrayed by either side at mention of the day’s visits…

These first 3 of the 5 ceremonies were separated from the last two by a long delay somewhere around Holborn, where one of our number had his wheel damaged by an over-excited driver. The police eventually came and facilitated the exchange of details. Apart from that and the BP visit, we saw a few police vans here and there on the way possibly keeping an eye on us, but weirdly enough there was no direct intervention to our 2 or more hours of traffic-calming.

When we finally got going again, the noisy merry mood had been replaced by a slightly more dogged determination to get through the last visits and get at the Holy Grail of tea and cake at the London Action Resource Centre (LARC). A wrong turning and the fact that Cromwell & Sullivan (who do the legal work around the financing of AGT) had done a runner from their City address meant that by the time we arrived at BP we were knackered, sunstruck and markedly down in numbers. And lo and behold, what did we see as we entered the hallowed sanctity of Finsbury Circus and cast our eyes to majestic grandeur of Britannic House, BP’s headquarters (though not for long, as it seems they’re moving to St. James’ Square very soon)? Rows of City of London police, obviously there to protect the dignity of the building. Tipped off they’d obviously been, but when and by who we had no idea. An avuncular fiftyish bloke came out and asked what we wanted, once our whistles had died down.
‘To deliver this award to the person responsible for the Azerbaijan-Georgia-Turkey Pipeline System’, said we, all knowledgeable like.
‘I’ll go in and ask the press office to send someone down’, said Avunc.
‘No, it has to be the AGT person,’ we insisted.
‘Well it has to be cleared by the press office first,’ he said.
‘Send ‘em both down then, and the press person can hold the hand of the AGT person.’ He laughed at that. We were obviously getting on famously.

Now here’s the interesting bit (I hope.) I noticed then a young, white, besuited man standing a few feet away. Sensing that he was interested in us in some way, I stepped over and asked if he was here for our visit. He replied that he wanted to tell us a few things about what the people of Azerbaijan really wanted, and that we were the dupes of Armenian groups and merely pawns in the complex political situation in the region. Then he explained that he works for BP in Baku, the city where the pipelines will start their journey as well as oil capital of the region for a century or so.
‘Did you know about this event, then?’ I asked, feeling just a tad suspicious.
‘No, I am one day in London and was just passing,’ he replied. But what are the odds that Ilyas Naibov-Aylisli, BP’s Community Relations Coordinator in Baku, just happened to be on the street outside BP’s headquarters at the precise moment that a noisy AGT awareness-raising bike ride rolled round the corner? Bear in mind also that the front door was guarded by about 10 policemen (so they knew we were coming, although the tip off could have come earlier that afternoon), that no other BP employees apart from Avunc the security bloke spoke to us or even went in or out of the building for the half hour or so that we were there. So was Ilyas in town and they told him to get out there as the only person who could say ‘You don’t know what you’re talking about, I am from Azerbaijan and I do,’? Or is it even possible that they flew him in especially, seeing as there’s quite an alliance of groups and individuals building up a campaign on this one (including Corner House, the Kurdish Human Rights Project, Platform and Friends of the Earth, some of whom are making links on the ground just as they did during the campaign against the Ilisu dam), not just us scruffy anarchos?

Anyway, our line of argument was that AGT would pump oil and gas to us in the west, thus contributing to greater climate chaos, and that the whole shebang was built around BP et al’s desire (or should that be ‘need’?) for profit.
‘You have to separate the pipeline from climate change,’ he insisted.
‘That’s impossible!’ we replied.
‘The people of Azerbaijan all want this to happen.’
‘Well sure they want is a better life, and at the moment the only chance of that is from the oil wealth they hope will trickle into their lives. This plan is being dictated to the working class communities of the region, just as it was by BP in Colombia and everywhere else that big oil develops. We understand that there are complexities to the situation that are hard to grasp from this distance, and that many (but not all) people locally are in favour of the pipeline, but that doesn’t make us wrong in calling for BP and the other London-based vultures to pull out. After all, when did BP ever give communities the right to manage their own resources (not to mention the money they bring in)?’
‘I do not know about all this. All I know is that you are doing this the wrong way.’
And on it went, the whole situation reminding me of the way they sent out a Nigerian Shell employee to negotiate with us when we occupied ShellMex House partly in solidarity with the Ijaw of the Niger Delta. What better way to draw our sting? Fortunately it failed in both situations. Meanwhile, no one from inside the building was willing to come out and accept the award. I can’t think now why we didn’t give it to Ilyas, but we didn’t, handing it to Avunc instead and congratulating him for his New Labour-style ability to appear warm and friendly while withholding his name, job title and any other information.

So we said goodbye politely to Ilyas and with ironic warmth to Avunc, and trundled off to LARC to devour tea and cake and nurse our sun struck souls. Quite a day all in all partly I felt like I was in this unhinged tribe of people to whom drivers and office workers were more than happy to offer insults (apart from the odd brave voice), and partly I felt proud to be out there making a racket about the way the world is being trashed for the sake of shareholder return and all that capitalistic malarkey. What would have tipped the balance in favour of being absolutely certain we were doing the right thing? Well, another 25 riders might have done the trick...

See you next time, maybe.

Yours,

Harry Helios

Rising Tide UK: Rising Tide UK is a new rapidly growing grassroots network. It supports community initiatives and local protest against climate change, and for climate justice. It’s also a part of the international Rising Tide network (www.risingtide.nl).
www.risingtide.org.uk
tel: 01865 241 097
London Rising Tide:  shells@gn.apc.org

Ecotopia Biketour 2002: www.thebiketour.net
Biketour is an international DIY biketour coming to England, Wales and Ireland this summer. Along the route we do actions, give workshops, and have a good time. For more info visit the website, or email:  btour2002@yahoo.com

London Action Resource Centre (LARC): www.londonarc.org
Email:  fieldgate@gn.apc.org
Address: 62 Fieldgate St., London E1 1ES (Whitechapel or Aldgate East tubes)
Tel: 020 7377 9088