On International Women's Day 2003, Rhythms of Resistence London samba band took to the streets of London's West-end to support the NoSweat Campaign's protests against the exploitation by the the High Street Clothing brands of their predominantly female workforces .

We arrived at the meeting place, Bond Street tube station, late- (hey, what are the chances of that?). To find that the NoSweat activists had already left to protest at the Niketown superstore on Oxford Circus. However a group of about twenty of the Met's finest had gallantly volunteered to wait at the station for the samba band to arrive to make sure we didn't get lost on the way to the protest. Perhaps they'd heard about the laughs we had last year and didn't want to miss out on the fun-
See:  http://www.rhythmsofresistance.co.uk/?lid=64

So we struck up a tune and headed down the street towards Niketown at the head of a phalanx of coppers marching three abreast, trailed by two pig vans. Oxford street shoppers were generally bemused and got out of the way of this strange solidarity protest as it went by - but perhaps both they and Rhythms should not have been so amazed - after all as Brecht once quipped - "A baton is a piece of wood with a worker on each end of it."

At Niketown, we met up with about a dozen or so other protesters including Elvis and in solidarity with the campaign the coppers formed a solid line across the entrances to deter the Saturday shoppers from boosting Nike's profits from misery.

Then down to Disney on Regent's St. (a company that enjoys exploiting children both as producers and as consumers of their sacarine plastic crap). As we approached Disney we were greeted by the smiles and cheers of animal rights protestors picketing a shop next door called Expensive (sic) which sells fur from factory farmed rabbits.
Then on to the Puma store on Carnaby Street, where we heard from a woman union activist working to organise resistance to the sweatshops in London's East-end and where we drummed out a lively call and response with the crowd based on the 'Kaslashnikov' tune, alternating the samba grove with the slogan break: Sweat shops - No Way! This got protestors and passers by jigging in the street, whilst the coppers again helpfully blocked the entrance to the store to deter any shoppers from going in.

At the end of the protest , one of our drummers suggested that we should go back and join the animal rights picket to show our solidarity and make the links- Since many of us feel that the exploitation of people by the factory system and the exploitation of animals through factory farming are both rooted capitalism's drive for profit - this was rapidly agreed. We headed back to 'Expensive' on Regent's St. to give a booming rendition of the old RoR favourite 'Hedgehog'- shouting 'No Fur!' in the breaks before calling it a day.

Greetings and revolutionary kisses to all the people world wide struggling for social and environmental justice- we will be back again - after all, revolutions are the parties of the uninvited.