The Arrest of the Rev: Stop Shopping Tour UK- Day One, Nottingham

The streets of Derby were lined with your typical of array of Saturday shoppers: tourists, teenagers clad in the latest American street gear, families with complacent smiles. Nothing stood in the way of their consumption, a habit of overspending as natural as a stroll along the pier once was, in the days before shopping became the preferred international pastime. Very few were thinking of where their booty had come from, this readymade buffet of goods and trends lining the streets for their taking, choosing instead to think of how far their next pound would take them.
Then, as though a voice from on high, came the crackle of a megaphone: “Children, we can and will stop shopping!” The burning bush in question was none other than the Reverend Billy, a charismatic evangelist whose gospel is that of anti-consumerism, of putting an end to the pestilence of needless consumption, whose mission it is to strike a new covenant with his people: Thou shalt not shop. It’s a difficult message for the streets of Derby, but an intriguing one. Several stopped to gawk at this Faulknerian preacher clad in virginal white, hair and eyes wild, megaphone in hand, urging them to put all impure and covetous thoughts away and embrace a world without product roll-outs and niche marketing. His intention:unveiling an ugly truth of sweatshops and child labor.
As the procession continued through the streets of Derby, the good Reverend, the Pied Piper of Progressive Thinking, attracted a congregation, both loyal and morbidly fascinated. His destination: the Disney store, whose quest for capitalist domination had led them to this prime piece of land in the once beautiful and untainted English country town. Where once local markets had thrived, now customer service representatives in starchy company-issued polos were overcharging Mums and Dads for plastic molds of Mickey Mouse worth mere pennies—with the hours of backbreaking labor for third-world children safely out of sight and mind.
As though angels appearing to foretell of the Second Coming, the Reverend was preceded by the ‘Cellphone Symphony,’ a group of performers equipped with cellphones holding one-sided conversations out loud on the qualities of whatever goods they happened upon. Picking up plastic Little Mermaids, for example, and remarking to their imaginary companion on the other end how they couldn’t believe it was made in Taiwanese sweatshops for 10p an hour, and here it was being sold to the ignorant consumer for a healthy £7.95—all well within earshot of the other customers. Though this caused more than a few confused glances, which grew more and more prevalent as the Cellphone Symphony grew in number, it was merely a prelude, the warning lightning to the storm that was to come.
And come he did, as a sudden voice rang out, “Children, stop having sex with these products! They do not and cannot love, and you should not love them!” All eyes were instantly fixed on this man in white, holding court among a display of Little Nemo acrylics. Reverend Billy delivered a fiery sermon about the fourteen year old girls whose hands had shaped these trinkets several continents away, the blood and misfortune that went into them, and the moral price each shopper has paid for wanting to add them to their collection. The store erupted in applause, a spontaneous reaction from the very people he was condemning. Having given their inner conflict a voice, they felt liberated from their desires, if only in theory, and held rapt at the possibility of their redemption. Were they being delivered from sin? Was this the final judgement, where their name could at last be added to the Book of Life, and saving them from being cast into the Pit of Eternal Shopping?
But alas, as with all prophets, Reverend Billy was doubted. Not only doubted, but crucified, by the very Romans that he was trying to save. Soon the sound of sirens could be heard, and despite the fact that the Reverend had already been drowned out by the staff (who turned the in-store television sets to full capacity and attempted to quell him with “Toy Story” in twenty decibels—which drove out more innocent shoppers than the Reverend’s sermon had, ironically) it was apparently necessary to subdue him with three uniformed police officers. They pushed him flat against a display of plush Winnie the Poohs and handcuffed him, while he continued to preach despite their admonitions. The charge? A breach of the peace, disturbing a staid Saturday afternoon, disrupting the shopping ritual.
On the streets he was greeted with cheers and even more perplexed onlookers--none hostile or even particularly disturbed--most shouting “Why are you arresting him?” He managed to wind down the police car window, screaming, “Don’t buy Disney!” before they drove him away. Within minutes he had an entirely new group of apostles, some of whom rocked the police car in protest. Later, standing in the rain outside the Derby police station, his most fervent followers awaited his release, holding signs reading “Free Billy” and “Kill the Mouse.” And so, crucified and buried, on the third hour (his release scheduled to coincide with the closing of the shops), he rose triumphantly again, ready to fight on.
Not however, in the Disney store of Derby, where he is effectively banned for life. Which, incidentally, is not an uncommon thing for Reverend Billy.
Follow us online:  http://www.breathingplanet.net/tour
www.mydadsstripclub.com, www.conglomco.org, www.thevacuumcleaner.co.uk, www.howandwhy.org,
www.revbilly.com