For years the police have managed to dominate and repress all autonomous movements in London. I call on the Reclaim the future organisers and associated groups to call for a demonstration next saturday at Islington Police Station. What do people think?
If we can't even organise a party without it being shut down and people arrested then what does that say about radical autonomous and anarchist politics in London. Lets turn the tide and start imposing our own collective power on the situation. Lets organise a demo at Islington nick.
In Solidarity
a repressed citizen
If we can't even organise a party without it being shut down and people arrested then what does that say about radical autonomous and anarchist politics in London. Lets turn the tide and start imposing our own collective power on the situation. Lets organise a demo at Islington nick.
In Solidarity
a repressed citizen
Comments
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So wha'appen?
01.04.2007 16:56
Ah, there's another indymedia thread -
And this from a bulletin board:
"They sealed the building off just as I was locking my bike up outside. We had to go round the back by Highbury Fields and go into the garden of a children's home, scale a 15 ft wall then walk along the top of it for 200ft (with the 15 ft drop one side and a glass roof the other side) to get in..."
laptop
Protest to defend our spaces, and jack the once that aren't
01.04.2007 17:37
It means they are scared of us.
But yeah set a time and i'll be there...
GAGALAGA
but
01.04.2007 19:07
A Response to Punter/personal views of a helper
03.04.2007 03:33
Speaking on behalf of the organisers, the organisers have frankly had quite enough to do to organise this event and the clear-up after it. If you feel strongly enough about this, then it has been suggested that you could always organise and publicise the demo yourself.
Re: Saturday night, Sunday morning early hrs, noise abatement was always on the cards because of the close proximity to the residential housing behind the building; it was felt that having a party in such a high profile location was too good an opportunity to miss over locating it in a "safer" remoter location. This was on account of the desire to appeal to a broader range of people other than the activist hardcore.
Speaking personally, in essence, the political consideration regarding this event in being as important as the consideration given to raising money meant this choice of location actually reduced our ability to pull off the complete entirity of the event, on account of completely over-the-top policing - a similarly deeply political act. Unfortunately, the police did not respond to the organisers' immediate reduction of the volume of all 4 sound systems with a verified noise-reading, nor indicate what would be an acceptible level. Instead, upon further discussion with a spokesperson of the organisers at the time, the police subsequently issued an ultimatum that a Court Order for Noise abatement would be served within the hour, and that having already received warning that the rigs would be seized if the Order was served, all sound systems still playing would be seized. With the considerable build-up of police and riot police (Islington's notorious divisional intelligence unit), the fear was that the situation would escalate and that people would get seriously hurt (rather, larger numbers of people would get hurt - many more than the number that got physically assaulted by the cops outside as more than 400 people accumulated in the street as the police prevented anyone from entering the building). At the same time, they had no choice but to allow the party to continue, as the entrance to the building through a narrow gate meant that any mass encroachment of police into the building through such a narrow funnel would be very messy and too hard to enforce. Upon notification that the Court Order was on its way, the decision was made by the 2 remaining sound-systems with live music to finish the live music. Music recommenced at a low volume on one sound system, whilst Peace not war had their 12 volt system planning some groovy tunes from a small room into the bar area.
Many people commented on the friendly atmosphere/good vibes all through the event. It is a real shame for the bands who couldn't play, most of the main headline acts did nor perform in the end.
Quite why the police felt it neccessary to close the Holloway Rd (A1), with 4 articulated trucks stopping traffic from Highbury roundabout onto the road, shows the immense police operation that was put in place to respond to this event, by accounts a response (an overblown response) to the level of complaints from local residents rather than it being purely and simply - straight authoritarism which is sometimes lamely banied about by some in the activist/anarchist community as the reason for any police intervention, though it is the state's raison detre (it wholly depends on how far you accept that the police have any independence from the arm of the state - that the institution and it's setup are hand-glove with the state is not disputed by me - just, is there not some element within that finds the idea of anarchy appealing?...anyway, I digress). The fact that riot police turned up an hour after the first arrival of local coppers shows not so much that they were intent on enforcing noise abatement, but that they were infact scared of us. The dignity which most people exerted on proceedings despite this setback was really special, and the wonderful vibrant and revolutionary sounds of liberatory samba nicely filled the abrupt absence of live music inside one of the rooms, whilst outside, it lifted the spirits amongst the mellee of sporadic outbursts of anger from sections of the crowd. On the side of the gate inside the site, members of the crowd who threw bottles were denounced by the majority assembled for giving the excuse for the police to clamp down, which it was clear they were reluctant to do in terms of a forced entry into the site, which would have severely escalated the situation and put their own number's lives in danger even more than those of people inside the site.
The irony of the street gathering was that Reclaim the Streets was inadvertantly reborn for a couple of hours - the crowd outside, albeit with a wall of police in front of them, indirectly closed down one of the busiest streets in London ( at the cost of raising money). The building used to be a taxi repair centre, and was officially opened by Stephen Norris Transport Secretary in Nov 1994 - the exact same time when the M11 protest was at it's height - in particular, Claremont Road, where RTS was born and the original RTS acted as revolutionary vanguard, seizing control of a local campaign and stating in their own internal literature that "campaigners involved were akin to cannon fodder". I do hope that the punx picnic is not being exploited this time; it certainly was not the intention by any of the organisers - but history has a funny way of repeating itself...... vanguards and masses; the steering group of RTF4 are to be commended for going out of their way to make this event happen but were not inclusive in reaching out to get others involved in the organisation for various reasons, the foremost being economic and the second one being security considerations (ie being covert). The latter has been brought about by an increasing survelliance As Socialist magician Ian Saville demonstrated in his ripping up of the front/back newssheet pages of the Guardian newspaper into shreds, analogous of the fragmentation of leftist groups, perhaps it is time to turn the world upside down by unifying under a simple effective goal which he further demonstrated in his brilliant and funny act through "magically" rolling the shreds up in the cusp of his hands only to reveal the outside pages of the newspaper once again!
z-cars
Homepage:
http://www.museum.tv/archives/etv/Z/htmlZ/zcars/zcars.htm
Respect to the Organisers
03.04.2007 09:41
The organisers worked their bollox off and deserve nothing but praise, but my comments about the lack of inclusivity were not meant to be a reflection on them at-all, and I do hope they do not take offence. Everyone should be aware that we always have lessons to learn in whatever endevour we get involved in - that's life.
Second additional point, about preparing for this event, while inclusivity to get others involved was lacking, there were certain individuals who had a central role in the event who took only a peripheral role in the preparation. Those people need to question their contribution quite hard and ask, could I have done more to help out (the same certainlt goes for me, and others). It begs the question, where is the solidarity amongst people who consider themselves part of a movement for change in this country? Do their concerns extend only to talking a good talk or music set? While there is a legitimate concern that these individuals should "put the consideration of their sound equipment above everything else", this excuse is not a hiding place from the need for collective responsibility; whilst the issue of ownership of the means of production which usually justifies other's labour surplus did not occur this time, I'm afraid it has been apparant again. What's the fucking point if we are replicating the same disfunctionality of capitalism within our movement; expenses only. It is akin to the punters who left the party as soon as the soundsystems closed down; if half the attendees had done the same, then those remaining inside would have been completely vulnerable to the extent of police numbers outside, though thankfully, the 14 vans of riot cops soon disbursed as soon as the rigs were shut down. I am also slightly bewildered about the party scene in general, which is why the fusion of the political and party is so welcome, neccessary and refreshing. But it will only succeed if people/punters respect the hard work that goes into organising such events and don't just treat these events like just some other party - especially when cops are breathing down our necks. Respect to the organisers. Nuff said
On these points and others, I share the frustration and anger of Oscar. Ref:
However, whilst many of us shared his venom with those who chucked bottles at police that night, it has to be said that the lack of communication amongst people on the gate and those in dialogue with the police did not help. The lack of security who disappeared (frustrated with the lack of a command or communication structure from the organisers for which I myself can be partly blamed for) meant that no intervention could be acted upon to stop further bottle throwing. The incident begs a difficult and pertinent question for our scene at this time; to what extent does our scene consider it neccessary to self-police itself? It is a difficult question, but one we have to ask ourselves in such situations. The answer, I might suggest was partly on show that very evening. Self-organisation, which was the point of the Insecurity workshop which didn't happen in the end (because people were too stretched). The idea was to have a workshop which emphasised that all of us self-organise oursleves and take collective responsibility in situations. This happened at the gate whilst bottles were being thrown, as most of the crowd denounced the minority doing it. There was hardly anyone who actively confronted these people, however, and that is the issue we must address (like the police enforcing an order for the wider good of the locality around our event, so intervention was required to stop bottle throwing which could have brought on top a violent response from the police if it had got out of hand - though it has to be said that the police's remit on the night was to purely to stop people entering through the gate and enforce the turning off of the sound systems). The self-organisation also occurred in relation to the last-minute movement of stages, after the fire-inspection crew insisted we had to move and barricade off one part of the building from the other so as to comply with fire regs about maximum distance anyone person should be from a fire-exit at any one time. That people mucked in to make this happen was testament to our scene's ability to self-organise, and that is really positive.
z-cars