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Cambridge Anarchists at London Climate Camp 09

Cambridge Anarchists | 04.09.2009 12:17 | Climate Chaos | Social Struggles | Workers' Movements | Cambridge

Reflections and criticisms of this years Climate Camp outside London.

Members of Cambridge Anarchists travelled down to Blackheath, London, for the Camp for Climate Action. The opinions expressed are those of the authors alone and do not represent the perspective of the whole group.

Some of us were old hands, some of us had never been to Climate Camp before. But we were definately all up for a week of direct action against coppers, bankers and other class enemies! We arrived at the site in rental vans and immediately jumped to work putting up the defensive fence around the peremeter of the camp, putting up the “Tripods”, and mucking in where-ever. In a short time people flooded in and we sat back (well, some of us sat back!) to watch as tents popped up over Blackheath common like mushrooms. We were pleased when our comrades from the Whitechapel Anarchist Group turned up with their banner and sound-system. We had been expecting hordes of caveman Met police but were pleasantly surprised just to be having a beer and meeting other anarchists from around the country.

As we sat around having a bit of a laugh we suddenly noticed that student-hippy looking types were escorting these cops into a tent by the WAG sound-system. Our feelings were the same — WHAT THE FUCK??! We surrounded the tent and told the scum inside exactly what we thought of their kind. Afterwards the media and liberals referred to “drunken, aggressive anarchists” but our reaction was more than political it was a personal reaction. Like many working-class people our relations to the police have never been good. How many of our mates, how many of us, have been banged up, harrassed, beaten up and fucked around by the Old Bill? Had these organisers, these “Police Liaisons”, forgot Ian Tomlinson so quickly? The cops beat a hasty retreat out of camp and the wankers who had let them in were left with some hard questioning. This incident was dealt with by members of Whitechapel Anarchist Group in the interview they gave on Dissident Island Radio, we just want to say we took part in this action, fucking hate all coppers and their apologists and will NEVER compromise in our attitude that there can be no peace between us and the police. (WAG Radio interview:  http://whitechapelanarchistgroup.wordpress.com/2009/08/29/wag-climate-camp-debate-police-violence-class/ )

One thing that also got us angry was the media circus that decended on Climate Camp. On the first couple days as we worked putting up tents and pavilions we had to constantly tell reporters to Fuck Off as they tried to snap a picture of us swinging a sledgehammer or tightening a guy-rope! We have come to feel that there are strong organising elements of Climate Camp that are really obsessed with coverage by the mainstream media and “appearing respectable”. We felt the problem with the idea that playing to the mainstream media, and especially cultivating the liberal media (e.g. the Guardian), is that at most it just reaches out to middle-class liberals. If people think that Climate Camp is for respectable, Guardian reading types a lot will be put off. Being liberal peaceniks playing to the system in a time when working-class people are angry and disillusioned is shooting yourself in the foot. At various meetings like “Making our Workplaces Red, Black & Green” and “Green Authoritarianism” this could be seen, with people from the Left and the liberal wing of the Green movement taking statist positions denying agency to working-class people. Pandering to the status quo strengthens the status quo.

On Friday the 28th Cambridge Anarchists joined the march into the heart of Canary Wharf from Climate Camp. After giving police and private security a good run for their money, we stood outside Barclays bank shouting up to the bankers to top themselves! Then we took a tour of the yuppy wine bars and gastro-pubs, shouting the old slogan “Behold Your Future Executioners!” A typical coked-up bankster stumbled drunkenly in our path and we got him to prance in front of the cameras, confident that he’d wake up the next day with a massive hang-over and (hopefully) no more job. After marching through the sacred monuments of capitalism we left laughing, leaving a gaggle of striken looking toffs huddled in cafes. On the train back we started chatting with a guy sitting next to us (not from the protest, just taking the train!) who happened to be from St. Neots – In his opinion, as an unemployed construction worker, people were fucking angry and the time for polite protest was past and it was the time for smashing windows. A real sampling of genuine public opinion!

All and all, we have been enjoying the freedom of the autonomous camp but have serious problems with strong elements of the Climate Camp, liberal authoritarians. These people wish to use the state (the same state that battered them at Kingsnorth and at the G20!) to “save the world” from climate change. This is very dangerous for personal freedom. This enthusiasism for curbing working people’s access to resources and freedom of thought and action could lead to a stronger, more authoritarian capitalist system. The current system is in crisis and there is a strong tendency in the Green movement to simply offer a “Green New Deal” of increased state power. Nationalisation, taxation, austerity, surveillance and social control are offered as solutions to the ecological crisis rather than working-class self activity for a democratic, equal society. This may seem “sensible” but is just offering more power to a small minority above society — the same bastards who got us into this mess in the first place! As anarchists have been pointing out at the Climate Camp, the authoritarian solutions offered by influential figures in the Green movement (in Friends of the Earth, GreenPeace, Green Party, etc.) are not real solutions. Fear of impending ecological doom may lead us into a highly authoritarian society. Its not even as if relying on the state is realistic — its simply niave. In the ecological crisis the class war well and truly becomes a matter of “Us or Them” — the ruling class will NEVER voluntarily give up their privilege or power. The only options in front of us are revolution and working-class self-empowerment or a fascistic-fuedal system as the ruling class hordes the remaining resources and tries to escape the holocaust of climate chaos.

We cannot make up our minds if anarchists should stay within Climate Camp and argue for the politics of freedom, self-empowerment and social revolution or just leave. After all the people we need to be talking to are Sun readers, not Guardian readers, and ultimately Climate Camp may just be a giant lobbying spectacle. What we do know is we definitely want to focus on organising in our workplaces and communities. We need a anarchist movement that is relevant to the everyday lives of working-class people.

Despite our misgivings we hope to enjoy an action-packed last few days of Climate Camp!

Cambridge Anarchists
- e-mail: cambridge.anarchists@googlemail.com
- Homepage: http://cambridgeanarchists.wordpress.com

Comments

Hide the following 7 comments

Just Saying...

04.09.2009 13:20

...I find all of this a bit depressing.

Maybe I'm being unfair. It's true that the climate camp is a kind of confused stab at mass movement building. It seems to boil down to a desire to do liberal climate change lobbying stuff (as if there is an alternative) with a good dose of 'radical chic' so that everyone still feels like they're part of something exciting and 'cool'. It's difficult because while on one hand the possibilities of stopping climate change teeter around nil (even if you plan symbolic attempts to 'shut down' power stations) accepting that would rob a lot of people of their reason for being.

However, if the alternative method of stopping (or 'confronting') climate change is, like, making attempts to intimidate people in pubs and photographing people, which basically amounts to a sort of exclusive bit of macho idiocy and chest-beating, it makes climate camp look pretty good.

Just Saying...


Agreed

04.09.2009 15:02

Well written and points well made. I personally thought this from last years camp, but I think people were too worried about expressing their opinion. I remeber saying that I thought things were 'getting' liberal to a friend and I was criticised for criticising! A simple example of this is the 06/07 camps day of action were based on direct action and in 08 it was primarily a "fluffy-media-circus-march", with an option to take direct action (that few people unfortunately took).

Yes this year was about lots of protests, not a fluffy march, but there was barely any direct action compared to in 2007 when there were lockons throughout London. The main aim used to be about disrupting capitalism, now its clearly about gaining public support, which isn't going to bring about change. The camp is now collectively advocating a different priority.

My point is its not this year things starting going wrong, but a while before. Anyone criticising the camp would do well to point out when it started, and more importantly why. The root problem here is the organising structure, that's what's clearly caused this.

veg@n


Good points

04.09.2009 17:27

There has been a lot of focus on the 'liberalisation' of climate camp in the past year or so and I feel moved to comment at a stage where it seems like the project is gathering steam. Some very valid points made here - especially about reaching out to Sun readers rather than Guardian ones. I wasn't at the CC this week but did visit the camp in London when taking part in the G20 demos. I have also tried to keep up with what's been happening at the most recent camp.

CC rightly comes under scrutiny suspicious of it imploding into a right-on mainstream lobbying group. It is neccessary to remain critical in order to guard against this. However, I feel like as far as I can see the camp has always kept an anti-capitalist agenda at the heart of its campaign. It needs to do a bit of a balancing act between articulating this and ensuring its overall message reaches a wide audience - of course I am not implying that the two contradict each other, only that it has to choose its approach carefully. It is not only intensely annoying but also a bit confusing that the overtly anarchist presence at CC is constantly referred to by all sections of the media in just the terms you yourselves were labelled with, considering that one of the aims of the camp,a long with its DIY roots, seems to be organisation based on anarchist, or at least non-hierarchical, principles - a fact that not only attracts many people to the camp in the first place but also, I am sure, serves to change prejudiced opinions held by more conservative elements of the green movement who attend as well.

I sympathise totally with the frustration with the 'media scrum'. At the G20 actions we were actually prevented from de-arresting people at points because as soon as the cops grabbed someone they were immediately surrounded by a ring of snap-happy idiots, stopping friends coming in to pull them back. Itis important that we don't just serve to boost grauniad circulation - It is essential that word about CC is spread further, both through challenging media traditionally hostile to direct action (though not neccessarily evironmentalism) and at the grassroots.

At the same time, I don't have a problem per se with liberal journos being about - we can't forget that if it wasn't for the grauniad Ian Tomlinson's death would probably have been blamed on bottle-throwing protesters or at best consigned to the depths of the Met's files. They've also been active in highlighting FIT misbehaviour -
 http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/jun/21/kingsnorth-protester-arrests-video-complaint

What's important is that information about the camp and its actions are getting out in a much wider way too. And in all cases, that it's the people in the camp, and not the journos, that are setting the agenda and leading the stories as much as possible.

I'm glad that CC seems to be making the idea of direct action acceptable to a wide and varied body of people. If there's not enough bold and effective actions taking place, you're right to highlight this, and the dangers of fluffy elements taking over. But CC seems to have a good future ahead of it, and the potential of mass actions such as the one being planned for October is great.

One of CC's main goals should indeed be to make people feel self-empowered. I'm sure public opinion is fairly aware of at least some of the threats posed by climate change, and feels at a loss over what to do about it. CC has already gone some way to show that it's pointless to sit around waiting for the numpties in power to do anything about it, and has the potential to spread this message a lot further. It's important to be alert to the possibility of the project's priorities and organising principles being sabotaged - can't believe those idiots thought they could just let the filth in for a chat (which, to be fair to CC, goes against its stated position  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7gKRl5lsPOA).

I agree with your worries and criticisms of the camp but still think it offers positive opportunities for change. Your last paragraph is pretty spot-on - but I would urge anarchists to stay in the camp and argue their corner. The camp is not too far gone yet - and it's a lot better than shouting at "stricken" toffs.

greenhenry


interesting mode of transport

04.09.2009 21:02

this line at the beginning of your piece made me laugh so much i struggled to continue reading: "we arrived at the camp in rental vans". and you see fit to criticise others? where were you when all the hard work of organisation and planning was happening?
you come from cambridge, hardly far away really is it, what was wrong with the train or a bus to london? and why should you feel you have the right to disrupt others' activities, ie with the cops, no matter what you personally feel about it that was the vibe of the camp and you would have done well to respect that.
as it happens i share your views on cops and on the camp as a whole, in a general sense, but i would have more respect for an attempt by people to make an event safe for all (eg. people who cannot risk arrest for immigration or other reasons, people who are physically or mentally vulnerable, etc etc).
next time you don't understand or like what other activists are doing try talking to them instead of attacking in such an arrogant macho way.
or just leave, doubt you'd be missed much.

giggler


@ giggler

04.09.2009 21:46

What are you on about dissing rental vans? Why would bus or train would be better? Or am I right in assuming that you know fuck all about Cambridge Anarchists and their involvement in or around the Camp, or even why rental vans were used?
Also, the issue with the cops was a fuck up by the Camps police liason, who afterwards stated that they were wrong to allow the police on site and that it was actually an accident.
Stop chatting shit.
Anyways, big up to the Cambridge crew!

Boi


@ giggler

05.09.2009 12:06

I don't really think you are being fair on Cambridge Anarchists after Climate Camp put out that open letter to the Met it was fair to assume cops would not be allowed on camp. Cops put everyone at risk in the camp. If cops get on site then they should be removed as soon as possible regardless of the views of the 'officials' of the camp.

I should assume that a van was cheaper than the train, not all of us have endless streams of cash you know.

Cambridge but not Anarchist


rental vans

06.09.2009 13:22

i believe Cambridge Anarchists took rental vans because they were involved in taking the site and were transporting tat onto it... numpty.

sort it out frosty


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