Grassroots activism – time to think the unthinkable?

Yesterday, a little the worse for wear after the excellent Alabama3 gig and consequent after-party in Brixton, I joined my friend Kate at Parliament Square for some guerilla gardening. For the last couple of weeks, the square has been taken over by Democracy Village, which is a surprisingly large number of tents, even a small marquee, all pitched in the square, behind Brian Haw‘s old stamping ground. I actually lived in the area for five years in the noughties, and used to pass the protest zone several times a week. I always longed to dash across the road and have a word with them about presentation, as the same slogans and faded images of bombed children sat there for months on end, looking tattier and tattier and simply becoming part of the woodwork. You have to revamp your message every so often or people will stop noticing you.

And so with grassroots activism in general, I think. Who could forget Swampy, mid-90s hero of the protest against Newbury Bypass? He became a sort of poster boy for middle class crusty campaigning. The impact of that protest, coupled with the rise of the internet and mobile phones, ensured that this was the last time the general population could write off environmental activists as weirdos and nobodies. However, over the last decade, I have come to despair over the way some of these movements have presented themselves.

Ten years ago, back on May Day 2000, I went to a similar protest in Parliament Square, where it was assured that trees would be planted and the area ‘taken back’. On closer examination, I seem to remember a few twigs stuck in the ground, a lot of people wearing those really naff giant striped Artful Dodger hats in red and green fake fur, and the Winston Churchill statue being given a grass mohican, which I thought was rather striking. I don’t remember a riot, but google tells me there was one. In the ensuring months, rumour had it that some cannabis plants had taken root, but otherwise it was not an impressive day.

I won’t rehearse the debate over whether public demonstrations actually do anything. I went on the gigantic one in 2003 against the war in Iraq – much good it did – and popped into the Countryside Alliance one in, I think, the same year, when I was living in the area, to take photos of people wearing fox suits and waving placards saying things like ‘Hitler was a vegetarian.’ This was a very different lot from the crusty crowd, but they are actually not so far from each other.

Back to Saturday. I’m impressed that so many people have been allowed to camp in Parliament Square at all. I suspect the election had something to do with it. In some countries they would have been carted off in unmarked police vans within hours, never to return.

There was some history pinned up on a noticeboard, about the Diggers of the 17th century, and a plan for self-sustaining communities with allotments. Kate had brought a bag of seed potatoes. I figured a lot of the planting would be symbolic, as of course anything actually put in the ground would be dug up again immediately the protesters had gone, creating a rather self-defeating waste of greenlife.

The moment we arrived, as if by magic, some rather half-hearted drumming started. What is it with bloody drumming at these events? My response to it is pretty pavlovian by now, and involves either a flan or a machete, depending on what mood I’m in. Similarly, you can’t have an event like this with out a posh old lady in a turban dancing around, and sure enough, there was one.

Then someone grabbed a megaphone and announced that the planting would take place at 2pm, at the Democracy Oak, a sapling which was already in the ground and protected by metal caging. A matter of minutes later, a woman grabbed the megaphone and announced that a seminar on how to use your mobile phone for activism would be taking place in the marquee at, er, 2pm. Had no one seen The Life of Brian?

Then, a matter of minutes after that, another lady announced that the moon was in an apposite phase and therefore if any of the women present were menstruating, could they please come and use their blood to help make a banner dedicated to the goddess. If no blood was forthcoming, red cosmetics or henna would be acceptable, and this would be a radical act. She had a red mark on her cheek which looked from where I was standing like a large blemish of some sort. It was only after squinting a little that I realised that this was in fact, of course, a smear of blood. I have no idea who carries henna around with them.

The tree-planting won out and we went over at 2pm. A man with the now ubiquitous well-worn bleached dreads was directing several surprisingly posh-sounding boys to plant the plants in a circle round the oak. I admire the gesture but I truly didn’t see the point of this. Then, as if by magic, the Hare Krishnas arrived.

Kate sensed competing factions already, and started feeling annoyed with it all, and so we walked off to call a friend. By the time I looked back to the oak, a group of at least 20 people were standing in a circle holding hands, while the man with bleached dreads instructed them to make various gestures, say something three times, hug each other and then sit on the ground.

And this is when we clocked out, out of sheer irritation.

And this is when I make the terrible suggestion that movements like this really need some sober, professional ‘straights’ on board, if they are ever going to have any equal dialogue with anyone outside their own group. Get some architects in, some journalists, and, dare I say it, find some money men, to help explain your ideals.

Full-on actions such as Greenham Common and Newbury worked because of the large numbers of people involved, and their persistence. But this is something different, and the signal-to-noise ratio is woeful. Over and over again I’ve seen important messages being drowned out by at times infantile new-ageism and the whole thing needs a massive kick up the arse. I’m sad to say this because I essentially support what they do, but I have no intention of joining the Judean Peoples’ Front anytime soon.

I’ve referred to this before somewhere else, but I once went to a conference put on by Southall Black Sisters, and one of the wisest points was made by one of their older activists, who reminded everyone that, in all her years of experience, the main failing of pressure groups was their lack of understanding of finance. They simply didn’t have the wherewithal to talk numbers with the government, whose backing they desperately needed. If you need something from someone, you need to speak their language in order to get what you want from them.