Party Vibe

never went on RTS marches but an effect of the CJA the govt didn’t expect was to radicalise a lot of UK ravers. Previously, many were fairly happy-go-lucky middle class kids & perhaps even conservative – until the CJA came along & they started getting the rough end of the stick (quite literally, when the local bobby suddenly became a riot cop…)

this meant a lot of ravers in the mid 90s started getting interested in environmental campaigns and the like; and many still have that social conciousness.

I have to say I don’t personally think marching in the streets achieves anything apart from ending up on an old bill evidence tape; but stuff like product boycotts, informed purchasing, infoshops and web campaigns are still effective. Although the protest movements gained some ground they also entrenched views amongst their opposition; particularly in Britain there is a view “you get things done through the proper channels” and direct action is often seen as anti-social or criminal activity!

As for RESPECT I think they made a big mistake by planning to stand against the Greens and losing the support of George Monbiot amongst others. This sort of rift just shows a lack of unity amongst progressive movements 🙁

i’ve been on a couple of protest marches & been supportive (unsurprisingly!) of the critical mass type of protest (a mass cycle ride through a city at rush hour, to show solidarity amongst cyclists) – but have sadly come away with the impression there is a lot of “new age machismo” present there; a large number of young (and not so young) males attend these with the hope of a confrontation with the old bill or those with opposing views and do not particularly care about the causes involved! Rather like football (soccer) hooliganism; but with less hierarchies and you can grow your hair….

I will admit though my views are coloured by personal experience of such phenomena amongst the activist movement – there is a lot of testosterone even there; which often overrides cooperation and consenus. I have seen some horrendous things as well, such as a sexual predator who infiltrated our local road protesting groups partly in order to ensnare the young idealistic teenage girls drawn to such movements, some of who suffered abuse at his hands. He was found out and run out of town (after serving prison time!) but things like this make me as mistrusting of so-called “radical” movements as much as any “career politician”…

also I feel these events are good one-off publicity stunts ; but carried out too often are very counter-productive. British people especially do not appreciate being held up or inconvenienced by protest actions of any kind [its interesting how any attempt by a conservative group to protest falls apart as soon as middle england complains about disruption!] and it seems to create an automatic backlash against the protesters rather than furthering their cause.

As an example, the critical mass rides in Reading and elsewhere were supposed to encourage councils to provide better facilities for cyclists. They may have encouraged a few more to join the local cycling campaign but the certainly did not encourage the councils to spend more on facilities; in some cases the councils alleged that they had diverted money which would have been spent on facilities to the Police Authority as extra costs to police these protest events.

I also feel although there is some crossover between party and protest movements there isn’t as much synergy as one may expect; many party people just want to rave and don’t particularly care about the political aspects (until they encounter unfriendly police officers….); also the party movement itself is still full of a lot of consumerist hedonism; any alliances and friendships formed at parties are sometimes also strained during the midweek comedowns; a proper social change movement needs rather more real unity than that.

That said, I do think parties are an effective and potentially a very powerful form of direct action which can lead to bigger projects…