If it's free, it's not allowed! - Oxford party closed down
Angry of Oxford | 21.06.2004 16:51 | Free Spaces | Oxford
The location was spectacular: a wide-spaced, well-canopied wood near Forest Hill on the A40, with no neighbours to disturb. The rain had stayed away, and the wonderful sound system crews were doing their uncoiling, cabling and generating stuff to create a party where people did not have to pay to get in, could bring their own booze and stuff to share, and where we could each make an individual adult decision when we wanted to go home, rather than be cast out onto the street by an expensive nightclub. We were so ready to dance!
But, with an awful sense of inevitability in authoritarian, neo-liberal, Blairite Britain, the party-goers weren't the only people there. When we arrived the police had already brought several vehicles and were threatening that this was an "illegal gathering" in an offensive way. Remember that in contemporary Britain, if you don't pay for your fun, you'll be treated as scum. A helicopter circled pointlessly, and most absurdly of all two fire engines stood guard, their lamps piercing the forest gloom with a quite appropriate disco-light effect. When I asked a fire officer where the fire was, he pointed to the small bonfire below. Was he serious? Members of the FBU, I've supported you in your fight for better wages and conditions, so please don't do just any crap thing the police ask you to do. I guess you like to party too? You probably have a lot more in common with us than the killjoy police. Anyway, after a while you went away. But I've got another question: how much did this whole operation cost? I think Oxfordshire tax-payers have a right to know how much money is being wasted stopping a few people having a good time. And isn't it unsafe to take fire engines away from frontline duty?
The sound system started up and played for a brief but glorious half-hour, before the arm of the law was made longer by confiscating generators and carrying them out of the wood. The somewhat embarassed ordinary coppers said they were only following orders (be careful with this line, guys, I think it's been used somewhere before), and seemed to have no idea why they were doing it. I wonder if, when they first joined the force, they imagined that this is what they would end up doing? Or perhaps they're just sad Daily-Mail-reading bastards who do it out of envy.
Anyway, how should we respond? How can we assert the right to do that most fundamental of human activities - to party? The state fears it because it can liberate us from its control. The capitalists fear it because it's free, and so much better than what they provide. How do we take them on??
But, with an awful sense of inevitability in authoritarian, neo-liberal, Blairite Britain, the party-goers weren't the only people there. When we arrived the police had already brought several vehicles and were threatening that this was an "illegal gathering" in an offensive way. Remember that in contemporary Britain, if you don't pay for your fun, you'll be treated as scum. A helicopter circled pointlessly, and most absurdly of all two fire engines stood guard, their lamps piercing the forest gloom with a quite appropriate disco-light effect. When I asked a fire officer where the fire was, he pointed to the small bonfire below. Was he serious? Members of the FBU, I've supported you in your fight for better wages and conditions, so please don't do just any crap thing the police ask you to do. I guess you like to party too? You probably have a lot more in common with us than the killjoy police. Anyway, after a while you went away. But I've got another question: how much did this whole operation cost? I think Oxfordshire tax-payers have a right to know how much money is being wasted stopping a few people having a good time. And isn't it unsafe to take fire engines away from frontline duty?
The sound system started up and played for a brief but glorious half-hour, before the arm of the law was made longer by confiscating generators and carrying them out of the wood. The somewhat embarassed ordinary coppers said they were only following orders (be careful with this line, guys, I think it's been used somewhere before), and seemed to have no idea why they were doing it. I wonder if, when they first joined the force, they imagined that this is what they would end up doing? Or perhaps they're just sad Daily-Mail-reading bastards who do it out of envy.
Anyway, how should we respond? How can we assert the right to do that most fundamental of human activities - to party? The state fears it because it can liberate us from its control. The capitalists fear it because it's free, and so much better than what they provide. How do we take them on??
Angry of Oxford
Comments
Hide the following 7 comments
simple...
21.06.2004 17:41
xxx
yeah and
21.06.2004 18:38
party goer
it's easy...[humour!!!]
21.06.2004 21:50
ie
wear stuff that makes you all look like the BNP
the police'll have no problem with that!!!!
Captain Wardrobe
Not really really scared
21.06.2004 22:01
Of course it's perfectly true to say that you only see them wading into innocent citizens practising their "so called" democratic rights and wait for hours for them to turn up when you get robbed.
Money laundering has come on a lot in the last few years and through freemasonary and other old boy networks have now plugged organized criminals into the banking system, freemasonary also provides cover in the police force, judges, lawyers and all the other professional classes .. the cops are powerless to do anything but I'm sure a lot of them believe in what they are doing people just don't want to believe that the world is run by a bunch of crooks capable of staging anything .. oh well
villan
Rights or wrongs?
22.06.2004 10:40
What exactly is a "right"?
Sounds like something that has to be granted to us - basically its a scam - there is no such thing as a "right" to do anything..........
Fred
Thames Valley
22.06.2004 15:11
We had a house party once with fire jugglers in the garden and a police helicopter turned up for a good 10 minutes.
And then there are the times the police have shut loads of country roads with roadblocks to stop free parties. This happened at loads of free parties. It doesn't happen to this extent in Hertfordshire or Bedfordshire.
Thames Valley - Upholding Injustice, Enforcing Inequality and Increasing the Fear. And wasting your money.
Ex-Oxford
FAO: Angry of Oxford
22.06.2004 22:32
If you get in touch ( matthew.sellwood@new.ox.ac.uk) maybe you can give me some more details and I can raise it with the police?
Cheers,
Matt Sellwood (Cllr now)
Matt S
e-mail: matthew.sellwood@new.ox.ac.uk
Homepage: http://www.greenoxford.com