This is an experiment in self-government that I am privileged to witness. Call it anarchism, call it collectivism, call it what you like, but will it work? Can people govern themselves on a camp for one week?
First thing: The length of the meetings is becoming increasingly annoying. They started off at about an hour, now they are running up to two hours each. It seems most of the day is taken up by non-stop meetings. This has reached farcical proportions because last night there was a meeting that went on from 6pm until 11pm with an interruption for George Monbiot's speech. The purpose of the meeting was to decide what mass action to take but at the end of the meeting the decision was identical to the decision arrived at the day before, which was that people may like to blockade BAA. Anyway, this is still being considered.
There are meetings every morning but these go on interminably with interruptions. It all seems to centre on a system, which is designed not to allow voting but instead to allow collective decision making. The problem with this is that if you get just one person who blocks the decision then it falls and this happened last night.
Just a handful of people blocked a decision which had been taken by about 250 people to agree that the BAA action was the mass action to take, but because of a handful of blocks it had to go back to being considered.
So, marks for self-government: The jury's out.
There is also the issue of camp discipline. This seemed to be going very well, but there was an incident this morning, involving a very drunk and tall gentleman with face paint who was going around interrupting all the meetings and annoying people. At first, a 'tranquility' team, this is a bunch of people who intervene and stop disputes, didn't turn up because no one could find them. Then, people tried to negotiate with this chap, and eventually it was left to a woman who jumped on him and tried to hold him down. He was marched out of the tent, but then he started wondering around the camp until eventually a bunch of men grabbed him and tried to escort him off the site. This then descended into farce when, this man, as he was being carried off the site started shouting, ‘I want the police, get me the police.’ After being carried off the site he was last seen being intercepted by the police, much to the relief of camp organisers.
There have also been some reports of possible fighting involving locals on the site, but this is unconfirmed. The question for collective-anarchism is what to do about this? How can they police themselves and how can they police others who are causing trouble? Are they allowed to use force to control violence when the police are not here?
This is a social experiment still in progress and the meetings continue.
Update Three - 16/08/07
Police helicopters are flying above us.
There are some people here wondering whether the police know the timings of the workshops and meetings and are doing it deliberately. The white noise is drowning out discussion to the irritation of some.
A few of the inhabitants have also noticed the police increasing their presence along the borders of the camp, especially close to the airport.
Update Two - 16/08/07
There is much concern on the camp about an incident yesterday when a group left to join what they had been told was a protest at Hatton Cross organised by the locals. They soon discovered that the locals hadn't organised a demonstration and when they left the camp they were rapidly rounded up by police and corralled. They claim they were then marched off by police in this corral to cause an obstruction on the Bath Road, which was then reported by the media as the first evidence of the demonstrators disrupting passengers' lives.
There seems to be a feeling on the camp now that the police are manipulating them and did this deliberately to make them look bad. So we are in the process of setting up our own group called 'Cop Watch' which is going to monitor the police activities in some way.
There is also some delight among the activists for an action taking place today at two private airports, I think they are, Farnborough and Biggin Hill. The camp has been told that this is down to small groups of independent people who may, or may not, have come from here.
What's going on at the moment? Several more meetings narrowing down the options for the mass action that is due to take place at noon for 24 hours on Sunday. There is also some concern here about what to do if the police do decide to close down the camp. At the moment the plan is to resist peacefully.
As for the eco-side of the camp, there are a lot of well-intentioned people here who sincerely believe that they are out to save the world from destruction and a lot of effort has been put into constructing eco-friendly activities.
So, let's go through and mark them:
POWER
Pass: There several wind-turbines on the camp providing power. At night a lot of car batteries come out to provide light in many of tents, although it's been said that these have been charged by solar panels and the wind turbines.
SANITATION
Possible Pass: The toilets involve urinating on a hay bale (which eventually start to smell like a rabbit hutch, which have not been cleaned out for months) and also making deposits in a wheelie bin. All this is meant to be used for compost, but where will it go?
WATER
Possible Fail: At the moment the only water on the site, we are told, is being taken from a fire hydrant and there are signs on the back saying that this may be of questionable quality, although people are continuing to drink it. But where does this water come from? It obviously takes energy to bring on to the site.
FOOD
Pass: Much of the food is vegan. In fact, there is a camp-wide policy to have vegan food on the basis that this consumes less energy.
Possible fail: However, mixed in with this food is soya milk, which is a product of industry. Also, some people have been handing out Belgian chocolates. And there have been regular trips outside the camp to find beer to drink.
Update One - 15/08/07
This whole camp is run on meetings. There are hundreds of them. Somehow everything from washing up to the toilet rota has been worked out.
I have been waiting for some time now for something interesting to happen.
The mass action being planned for Sunday has been hotly debated and has been changed several times. Over several hours at a conference in a tent activists discussed various options.
Now Lord Clive Soley can breathe easy. The plan for a mass demonstration in his back garden has been axed.
The most popular plan to date is to bring BAA HQ and Heathrow to a standstill. Conveniently this is only a 800 metres away from the camp.
The activists here are a pretty cheerful bunch, some of whom are veterans of the G8 Parliament Square demonstrations.
The question remains how all the activists are going to physically get out of the site.
There are meetings every morning but these go on interminably with interruptions. It all seems to centre on a system, which is designed not to allow voting but instead to allow collective decision making. The problem with this is that if you get just one person who blocks the decision then it falls and this happened last night.
Just a handful of people blocked a decision which had been taken by about 250 people to agree that the BAA action was the mass action to take, but because of a handful of blocks it had to go back to being considered.
So, marks for self-government: The jury's out.
There is also the issue of camp discipline. This seemed to be going very well, but there was an incident this morning, involving a very drunk and tall gentleman with face paint who was going around interrupting all the meetings and annoying people. At first, a 'tranquility' team, this is a bunch of people who intervene and stop disputes, didn't turn up because no one could find them. Then, people tried to negotiate with this chap, and eventually it was left to a woman who jumped on him and tried to hold him down. He was marched out of the tent, but then he started wondering around the camp until eventually a bunch of men grabbed him and tried to escort him off the site. This then descended into farce when, this man, as he was being carried off the site started shouting, ‘I want the police, get me the police.’ After being carried off the site he was last seen being intercepted by the police, much to the relief of camp organisers.
There have also been some reports of possible fighting involving locals on the site, but this is unconfirmed. The question for collective-anarchism is what to do about this? How can they police themselves and how can they police others who are causing trouble? Are they allowed to use force to control violence when the police are not here?
This is a social experiment still in progress and the meetings continue.
Update Three - 16/08/07
Police helicopters are flying above us.
There are some people here wondering whether the police know the timings of the workshops and meetings and are doing it deliberately. The white noise is drowning out discussion to the irritation of some.
A few of the inhabitants have also noticed the police increasing their presence along the borders of the camp, especially close to the airport.
Update Two - 16/08/07
There is much concern on the camp about an incident yesterday when a group left to join what they had been told was a protest at Hatton Cross organised by the locals. They soon discovered that the locals hadn't organised a demonstration and when they left the camp they were rapidly rounded up by police and corralled. They claim they were then marched off by police in this corral to cause an obstruction on the Bath Road, which was then reported by the media as the first evidence of the demonstrators disrupting passengers' lives.
There seems to be a feeling on the camp now that the police are manipulating them and did this deliberately to make them look bad. So we are in the process of setting up our own group called 'Cop Watch' which is going to monitor the police activities in some way.
There is also some delight among the activists for an action taking place today at two private airports, I think they are, Farnborough and Biggin Hill. The camp has been told that this is down to small groups of independent people who may, or may not, have come from here.
What's going on at the moment? Several more meetings narrowing down the options for the mass action that is due to take place at noon for 24 hours on Sunday. There is also some concern here about what to do if the police do decide to close down the camp. At the moment the plan is to resist peacefully.
As for the eco-side of the camp, there are a lot of well-intentioned people here who sincerely believe that they are out to save the world from destruction and a lot of effort has been put into constructing eco-friendly activities.
So, let's go through and mark them:
POWER
Pass: There several wind-turbines on the camp providing power. At night a lot of car batteries come out to provide light in many of tents, although it's been said that these have been charged by solar panels and the wind turbines.
SANITATION
Possible Pass: The toilets involve urinating on a hay bale (which eventually start to smell like a rabbit hutch, which have not been cleaned out for months) and also making deposits in a wheelie bin. All this is meant to be used for compost, but where will it go?
WATER
Possible Fail: At the moment the only water on the site, we are told, is being taken from a fire hydrant and there are signs on the back saying that this may be of questionable quality, although people are continuing to drink it. But where does this water come from? It obviously takes energy to bring on to the site.
FOOD
Pass: Much of the food is vegan. In fact, there is a camp-wide policy to have vegan food on the basis that this consumes less energy.
Possible fail: However, mixed in with this food is soya milk, which is a product of industry. Also, some people have been handing out Belgian chocolates. And there have been regular trips outside the camp to find beer to drink.
Update One - 15/08/07
This whole camp is run on meetings. There are hundreds of them. Somehow everything from washing up to the toilet rota has been worked out.
I have been waiting for some time now for something interesting to happen.
The mass action being planned for Sunday has been hotly debated and has been changed several times. Over several hours at a conference in a tent activists discussed various options.
Now Lord Clive Soley can breathe easy. The plan for a mass demonstration in his back garden has been axed.
The most popular plan to date is to bring BAA HQ and Heathrow to a standstill. Conveniently this is only a 800 metres away from the camp.
The activists here are a pretty cheerful bunch, some of whom are veterans of the G8 Parliament Square demonstrations.
The question remains how all the activists are going to physically get out of the site.
Comments
Hide the following 3 comments
joim the police force
18.08.2007 23:06
rather than loose your time writing crap
h
ta for the info mate
18.08.2007 23:26
otherwise great marks for letting us know what you're planning.
lucky we thought up the idea of checking on indymedia.
keep these reports coming - they're very useful.
we hadn't thought of the helicopter thing but as you've told us it's annoying we'll start doing it for real now.
see you all at BAA - haha - you won't get anywhere near it. there's 1800 of us waiting to stop you and it helps now we know where you're heading.
fit team
but
19.08.2007 09:43
please