Demonstrable Peace
activism, holding hands & digital swarms
So, I decided to write a blog. Starting today. I’m not sure how this will transpire; there are recurring themes and thoughts that have been rattling around my mind for the last three decades or so, which I am now going to attempt to form into some semblance of philosophical coherence, and in so-doing move a small step closer to world peace. I invite you join me.
1984
I was 10. Our teacher introduced us to George Orwell, reading us extracts of 1984 in the time of its setting. It was a story. We were relieved that Orwell’s vision was so far removed from The Real World.
I got a copy and read the book at home. Immersed, I became Winston. Reaching the end, I put it down on my bed and went downstairs to the kitchen, where a BBC Radio 2 newsreader was explaining loudly how the CCTV cameras being installed in town centers would make us safer, because of the Miners strikes…
Newspeak!
My child-mind couldn’t understand how or why people could be enacting this crazy dystopian future, when everyone knew where it would lead. I still don’t…
1993 — Anti-BNP Demo
A decade later. Derek Beackon was elected as the first far-right BNP councillor in the Isle of Dogs. The recent racially motivated murder of Stephen Lawrence compounded the situation — the BNP’s election victory inferred a growing legitimacy of far-right thinking. In reaction an anti-fascist rally was organised to march on the BNP bookshop that was their headquarters in Welling.
I’d just arrived in London to study and with a group of college friends joined the 50,000 people marching against racism and fascism. This wasn’t the future we wanted to live in.
We were forced away from the target, the route blocked by a police cordon. As we got closer to the line the crowd became more condensed— kettled, and angry.
A line of riot police on horseback were a short distance in front of us. I saw a black-clad figure with a rifle up in a tree behind the police line. One of the protestors threw a smoke bomb clouding the battle-line in thick orange smoke. Chaos.
The police rushed at the crowd. Some protestors threw placards, most were confused as we were caught in the middle of “violent clashes that seemed inevitable.”
We moved away, up to a park where the crowd was dispersed and a load of coaches waited to take people home. On a coach radio, we listened incredulous to a live report of the Police efforts to keep the peace against “left wing troublemakers”.
The picture they painted was very different to the situation we’d just left. People were staggering around with bloody faces from truncheon beatings. There were troublemakers on both sides of the clash, and the whole situation felt orchestrated.
A week later my friend Ben & I arranged to go down to the BNP bookshop (the one we weren’t allowed to protest outside) to interview their spokesman, Jim White — research for a play.
Behind the thick bolted steel door, we sat across a wooden table in a small room. To one side, on the top shelf of a bookshelf lined with far-right literature, Jim pointed out a big wooden club stabbed with nails, bearing the scrawl “complaints department”. A bulldog pattered through the room, oblivious of the cliché.
We questioned policies and philosophies. On education, Jim told us how “corporal punishment never did me any harm.” On immigration, as a Cornishman, I was curious how far back the BNP draws the line of what constitutes ‘English’, fifty years, a hundred, a thousand? History wasn’t his strong point and the conversation quickly moved back to the recurring rhetoric of foreign threats to housing and jobs.
The interview didn’t reveal anything more than a confirmation of phobic attitudes and doublethink typical of far-right extremists. We left, glad to be away from the atmosphere of hatred and fear.
Interestingly, the 2010 testimony of Special Demonstration Squad (Special Branch’s secret undercover unit) ‘Officer A’ reveals that undercover SDS had also infiltrated the BNP.
The BNP seems to have been forgotten since the more media friendly and socially acceptable far-right UKIP has risen. But you don’t have to scratch the surface very far to discover the same reductive mindset.
1995 — The Magic Hat
Spring of 1995, disillusioned with England and my education, barefoot and broke, I headed off to Amsterdam.
There I met a Storyteller with a Magic Hat, and followed the rainbow to the 13th Annual European Rainbow Gathering at Pohorska Ves, in Czeckia, South Bohemia near the Austrian Border.
A day or two into the gathering, a warning rippled through the camp, “…have had their passports taken, …held in custody, …being deported.” Armed police came suddenly — shouting, grabbing at people. They had pistols and demanded to see our passports.
Three thousand of us swarmed, orchestrated by the more experienced among us to, “hold hands, form a circle” and so we did. We chanted “We are a circle, with no beginning and never ending, we are a circle…”
The police were surrounded — confused, out of context. They gathered themselves and left, dancing under our entwined arms to retreat, ineffectual. We didn’t see them again.
Beautiful peaceful people, together.
2003 — Stop the War Coalition march.
This is what democracy looks like. This is what peaceful demonstration looks like. Make tea. Not war.
Unfortunately, the elected dictator of the day chose to ignore the people.
For a long time after that day I felt disillusioned with the power of protest to change the actions of a government who ignore the people, because they don’t need to listen to them.
2015 — swarm activism
Today, I am inspired by the real change effected by online click-activism. Organisations like Avaaz, Change.org and 38 Degrees, have made big and small positive changes to our world, and the impact of our collective actions through them is only just beginning to be felt.
Critics say its easy to click a mouse to salve your conscience and then forget about the issues. I agree, however millions of people momentarily caring enough to click and sign an online petition is a massive force for good.
It’s also important to stand up physically to injustice: at home, in the workplace, with local councils, to corporations, to governments and to international organisations; to witness human rights violations, and to stand together for peace and freedom. To not ignore what is happening, nor our power to change it.
Cynicism is bred of fear and hopelessness that perpetual government inaction spreads through our lives like a cancer.
So for me, 2015 is a year of action.
I don’t think its ever a waste of time or effort to stand together to protest for what we know to be right. I believe that it all counts. Every action small or grand. A click, a signature, a massive protest, a direct action, a film, a book, a blog even — together these micro and macro actions work to align our collective consciousness, shaping The Real World that we choose to live in.
