Grime-encrusted squats, exasperating fashion and Radiohead- is this the reality of a life under a banner? Lauren De’Ath goes beyond the dirt to see what it takes to be a real activist?
It seems everyone’s a-jumpin’ off the mercantile wagon to smudge their faces with mud and get dirt under their fingernails. Heck, even our own king-in-waiting, Prince Charles is an eco warrior these days. Well, albeit from the comfort of his palace armchair and assisted by a CGI frog, but it’s a start. Everyone’s a have-a-go hero: from the G20 rioters to the infamous, and downright legendary, Noddy from Weymouth who sat up a tree to protest Olympic over-development.
“It’s being part of this throbbing crowd; this intrinsic fear of the police on the other side of the line; this almost spiritual chanting- it’s all very intense. That’s why a lot of people come [to protests],” says one enthusiast Alex Wood, who at 25, stands before me in a greying hooded top, as one of the primary instigators of the environmental leg of the G20 riots last month and like all good activists I met him on a street corner, handing out campaign leaflets. “You come alive; remember we’re there to make history happen.”
The British are a notoriously passive race when it comes to fighting for our rights, especially in comparison to our European neighbours; the French average a mass riot a year, whilst the Germans apparently save their angst for May Day, (where the only poles are weapons, of course; not a frolicsome dancer in sight), but none-the-less when it comes to a good old riot we are the lethargic cousin across the Channel. “Lethargic, yeah, maybe,” Alex continues, guns blazing, “But when it comes down to it we don’t mess about. We do our bit when it’s needed.” He has a point. When ripe, we limeys have rallied together for the cause; the last time we strung out our provocative banners was the Iraq war and the time before that was minor’s strikes under controversial British premier, Margaret Thatcher. However there has been a noticeable shift in the way protests have been carried out and the changes are not merely harrowing, but downright un-British.
Police reports from this year’s G20 marches noted a more visibly aggressive, readily violent and less co-operative set of protesters than normal. “Normally, we can work together; sort out what’s appropriate, establishing limits on both sides but this banter broke down this time: there were groups who by their very ethos would not and did not work with us,” one officer, told the londonpaper recently. But what’s different? The answer comes from an unwitting Alex: “We organised a lot of our events on Facebook for the G20,” he tells me. Facebook? Where events are open to anyone? “We saw a massive number of, like, well kids, this year turn up,” he admits. Attempts to salvage the sanctity of the planet were undermined by an apparently unwelcome deluge of under-agers “come for their kicks”; a deluge, Alex insists, that are not the next generation of polemicists. “They didn’t really understand what it’s all about, but on the plus side they like the label ‘eco-warrior’... I think they think it makes them sound purposeful. I don’t know if they’d still want to be as involved after having gone without a shower for a week for the sake of a few potentially homeless bats.”
For some there is a very clear definition of what it is to be an, ahem, “eco-warrior”; one such deferential acolyte is Shahrar Ali, who acts as the Green Party’s London Policy Co-ordinator in his spare time (alongside his full-time job at London’s Institute of Philosophy). Verbose and evidently scholarly, it is often difficult to see around his MP spiel; however I am reliably informed that his attendance to his more academic job often takes the back seat in his quest for mother earth’s salvation: proof that there is more to A Suit than meets our untrained eye.
He tells me- in what transpires to be one of those phone calls where you got more than you bargained for- that: “A real environmentalist assesses the harm which human beings do to the planet; they are proactive in their attempt to get us all to take collective responsibility for this and take positive steps to reverse the harms done. I think there’s a confusion between an anarchist and an activist- and the confusion is deadly to the cause, people associate it with crime and there’s a very negative aura. We need to urgently and collectively put a stop to the unprecedented harm we are doing to the planet – both in our lifetimes and for the sake of future generations.” Such passion as this has seen him campaigning for rights in Gaza; his overwhelming speech against the BBC’s controversial decision to refuse a televised Palestinian appeal, delivered through gritted teeth brought the house down, to the slightly more trivial campaign for better treatment of our fields.
Continues Alex, “There’s more to helping the environment than people think. It’s not all shouting and stamping about by motorways. The beautiful thing is your campaigns can take you anywhere; you’re bettering a global environment. Sometimes you go to places on a whim with nothing but the clothes on your back. It’s more genteel mentality, than mob mentality.”
But there’s just one more thing that’s been bothering me: are you a Radiohead fan, Alex?
Judging by his look of disgust, I’ll take that as a no then.
-Grass magazine, 2009
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