A good few weeks ago, after hearing about the new attempts by the council to clear the young people from the corn exchange ( http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/regions/leedsbradford/2005/12/330198.html) I and a few other people from the common place decided to go and talk to the young people and pass on the information we had. When I was younger I used to hang out there, so I was keen to offer my support. The earlier post describes what happened that day.

We then decided to call a meeting, it started ok, despite not having planned it very well. We gave out information about how to deal with the police. When it came to discussing what we could do I got stuck. I had ideas but as far as I was concerned I was there to help them (wherever I could) to do what they wanted to do, they were looking to us for ideas which was nerve racking.
Then a few latecomers arrived in a lull in the proceedings. It didn’t take long to realise these were young people from Revolution (www.worldrevolution.org.uk). They hadn’t realised who had called the meeting, but this didn’t stop them from taking the leading role in the meeting from then on. The idea of having a march came up pretty quickly, and was just as quickly agreed on. It was suggested that other ideas should be discussed before a final decision, and concerns were expressed about Revolution dominating the march without people even being told who they were. This unfortunately sparked off a big debate. I wont go into details. After things had calmed down, the meeting went a lot better and voices started being heard that had previously couldn’t get a word in.

There was a second meeting the following week to plan and make banners, this was a short meeting that was pretty uneventful although it had become apparent that this had become a Revolution campaign and was being led by a couple of their most eloquent speakers.

The march happened the week after, see other posts:  http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2006/01/332120.html,  http://www0.indymedia.org.uk/en/regions/leedsbradford/2006/01/332000.html Then the marchers were invited to a ‘reflections’ session at the common place, which was specifically to be apolitical, and not a Revo event… naive I know. The meeting was packed out and controlled by a girl in front with a megaphone (guess what organisation she belonged to) It seemed her and her friends stood at the front with her, (who to their credit weren’t originally part of revolution, and had been great at communicating and keeping previous meetings going) had had some preconceived ideas. When discussion was opened out, clever answers were provided by Revo for not carrying out other people’s suggestions. I wont go into specifics.

For me the campaign so far has been at times inspiring, but mostly frustrating. There have been failings on different fronts, the meetings could have been much better facilitated and guidelines clearly stated. The young people being directly affected by the issues should have had much more say, and this should have been the primary objective of anyone involved, because that’s the whole point isn’t it? In my opinion, the involvement Revolution has had in the proceedings so far has been undemocratic and exploitative. No-one asked the group whether they wanted to be led by Revo, and the self-appointed leaders were far too pumped full of rhetoric for anyone not trained in revolutionary public speaking to get a word in, never mind stimulate intelligent discussion. Attempts at keeping this campaign from being hijacked by anyone for political gain (be they anarchists, socialists or anyone else) weren’t enough & I’m sorry for people caught in the cross fire of that initial ‘ideological discussion’. I think its great that this campaign has got off the ground, and will continue to support it whatever happens. I have every faith in the young people to make their own decisions about who to listen to and to creatively resist this ridiculous dispersal order.