Another Normal Quiet Weekend in London Town
[London] anon@indymedia.org (Joe Blogs (maqui's edit)) | 22.06.2010 20:24 | London
The streets of London are always in a constant flux, and so are the people of this town that choose to engage in grass-roots political activism. The past few days have seen a flurry of activity around town that has meant it wasn't just a "normal quiet weekend".
It all started on Friday night with an impromptu street party in Old Street that began at the newly occupied Fury Squat, aka The Foundry, and which then moved through the streets of Shoreditch. And on Sunday hundreds of local people, and activists that followed a call by the Whitechapel Anarchist Group, took to the streets of Whitechapel to defend the community from the threat of an EDL march in the area.
Read a personal account of the weekend's activities, and WAG's reflections on the anti-EDL mobilisations.
Another Normal Quiet Weekend in London Town, by Joe Blogs
Cor blimey! that was another boting weekend! Street raves in Shoredtich, and looney Socialist Workers in Whitechapel causing more problems than the EDL ever could.
The Tories are cunts, they're cutting back everything! It makes me think "Come back Tony all is forgiven!" (Thats a joke ok), so its good to see people get hyperactive in the streets in a positive non-violent way, but sort of "WTF?" sort of way.
The highlight of the week was the Fury Squat, aka The Foundry, the former art venue recently closed down by our friends at Park Plaza hotels.
The Foundry's squatters are a responsible group of anarcho-vegans who had been having a nice skillshare and vegan cafe through out the evening, when it got last they closed the doors, and the crowd went out into the street... and out in the street there was a random bloke with a 12-volt soundsystem.
Me being old i've seen this before... many times... but this being Old Street at 11pm, a hoarde of revellers and clubbers swamped the soundsystem, which at this point was heading towards Shoreditch, the mob picked up strength and soon had 350 people dancing to drum n bass and a load of dubstep.
Amazing!
If your a Daily Mail reader your proberly scared at the idea of people enjoying themselves in public without sponsourship, luckily Old Bill soon stepped in, and realised he wasn't getting paid enough and decided to step back and wait for backup and listen to the chants of that old classic "Who's Streets? Our Streets!"
We only bothered chanting when the 12-volt rig stopped working, but it was Class-A mental, like imagine Criticial Mass, but everyone's had their bikes stolen.
Clubbers, football hooligans and "normal civilians" joined in the party, no violence at all! perfect!
At the Junction of Shoreditch High Street, we went off down Commerical Street, then the first attempt of police inferrence appeared, but some Essex lad's quick thinking sent us (all 350 of us) all down an alleyway toward the back of the Truman brewery, where the Meat Waggon shot round the block and tried to block our exit, which led to a quick u-turn, and some local hoodies leaving some rubbish bins in the street to slow them down (good work lads!) and out on to Brick Lane, we then ended up sitting down near that car-wash near Great Eastern Street, and the Police (by now we counted 40 of them) looked just as confused as when they started!
Here's a video...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TPVvCc27jJ4
Bloody hell!
Sunday sadly wasn't such a success, despite a really good banner drop in Whitechapel by the "noble and courageous" WAG, the "looser" SWP and their mates the "geeky" UAF, are always desperate to use Muslims for their own political gain, even though the "Evil" EDL had cancelled their plans of getting crucified by Whitechapel's locals, the SWP will do anything to whip up a mob.
We're hanging in Whitechapel park this afternoon, and then I see the march arrive, well in 3 seperate groups, basically every five minutes some paranoid person would spread a rumor that the EDL was somewhere in London and a chunk of the march would brake off with the sole purpose of violence.
Hmmn! Me smell a wild goose-step! (thats a really good pun.)
The first group had broken off and decided to find the EDL (all ten of them) and shot off to Whitehall on foot... yeah I know what your thinking... thats miles away!
I feel sorry for the Old Bill who decided to kettle that mob all the way to Whitehall, they we not expecting such a long walk down Embankment.
Each group consisted of about 150-200 local muslim teenage boys, who had been armed with SWP placards and hoodies, and each group was heavily surrounded by police, not too many UAF or SWP/commie types, it was a pure hornets nest of pissed off local teens who shouldn't have these sorts of ideas put into their heads.
As the three other surviving groups arrived in Whitechapel park, it great to hear the multi-cultural chant of "ALLAH ACKBAR!" to really pull the crowd together!
Yeah I love that one! The closest thing I think that compares to that is maybe "Happy Easter!" in English, but anyway...
It was also really nice to hear Big Brother contestant and King of Tower Hamlets George Galloway in the park rattle on about threating to "spill the blood of the EDL if they dare touch his mosque or a hijab of muslim woman!" what a prick! As always trying to get votes without sorting out actualy problems in the area!
My favourite moment of George in Big Brother was when he met Saddam Hussein!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IIy_GmvUElE
So, the marches are over, I decided to go find the first group who had gone off to find the EDL, and I found them down on Embankment, and followed them up to Whitehall, via Westminster Square.
Ten of the "Evil" EDL and the "slightly reasonable but pointless" One Law for All (Anti-Shariah group) had been at Whitehall countering a protest of the really extremist Muslims Against Crusades, or MAC outside the Ministry of Defence.
MAC were blabbering on about how evil us westerners are. Truth is, that I don't find "stupid" MAC a problem, cause they look so stupid, completely at odds with the rest of the world, and are more like the characters in that film Four Lions than you could ever imagine.
The EDL were carted off by the old bill to avoid a crucifixion infront of the tourists, as that would dent the UK's already sturggling tourist industry.
At this point "handsome" Tony Neil Williams of the "crap" FIT appeared and some other police photo-sniper, an old fella "Name not known", and together they looked like Steptoe and Son.
http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_cKgHIR4I9E8/SpLxHrjA0RI/AAAAAAAAASU/kOQDAwaNAjk/s1600-h/photogs.jpg
The "Anti EDL" Muslim bloc was forced down Whitehall with a little bit of police agro and few arrests, and kept opposite the MAC group. The MAC then started saying some messages in arabic, and the "Anti EDL" lot started going "Allah Ackbar!" etc.
Then one of the MAC said "My Muslim brothers you can join us... but first you must put down your Kaffir ("non-muslim") signs and placards, and stand under the Shahada! Inshallah" (or those words sort of).
Which led to the sad, inevitable conclusion of thus:
The impressionable kids were then allowed across the street to 'mingle' with a bunch of violatile hate-preachers! At this point I'm thinking "I'm giving up on this one... I'm off down the pub!"
Good one SWP! You couldn't of done a better job of f***king it up Whitechapel!
[London] anon@indymedia.org (Joe Blogs (maqui's edit))
Original article on IMC London:
http://london.indymedia.org/articles/5039