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<P><FONT size=2>Ok everyone, have spent an evening or two putting together this little document of my personal experience from last week- and believe me, after reading it, you'll see i'm quite a hapless activist, but hopefully it'll be quite amusing and compared to some of the stuff you recieve on this list, quite light-reading... ! First part only here, am going to have a think about the second part, because as everyone present will understand, the mood changed quite perceptively on the Thursday onwards...</FONT></P>
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<P><STRONG><FONT size=3>Gleneagles G8 Summit 2005 : A personal account of a week spent at the G8 protests in Scotland.</FONT></STRONG></P>
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<P><FONT size=2>This is a personal account of the dates 4<SUP>th</SUP> – 9<SUP>th</SUP> July 2005 which I spent at the rural convergence centre set up in Stirling, Scotland, near the location of the 2005 G8 summit, Gleneagles. The rural convergence centre was set up as a space at which various action groups from around the country could gather and participate in a counter conference, planning protests and other actions to take place on the week in which the G8 was held. The centre was divided into distinct neighbourhoods, or barrios, representing different countries or cities, each of which was sufficient in the sense that it had it’s own kitchen facilities, although mixing and sharing was encouraged (at least until the epidemic came along, that is). I was present with the Sheffield barrio, who for this occasion had joined up with the Leeds crew in order to create the ‘Common Matilda
Place’ an amalgamation of the names of our two social centres. I was present at only a handful of the actions which occurred throughout the week, so my account is necessarily incomplete, and I’m sure the gaps can be filled in by others who will have had equally, probably more, exciting experiences over that week, and from observing the many articles and features to be found on Indymedia.</FONT></P>
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<P><FONT size=2>First, though, I feel that any account of this nature cannot be written at this time without some recognition and expression of sadness first for the terrible events which occurred in London during the week I spent at the Horizone; bombings in which at least 52 people (according to the most recent reports) were killed. I write a lot about the multiplicity of people present at the G8 protests and other summit protests whose struggle is essential to the movement, the other worlds, we are trying to create. From the Black Bloc to the local church holding high Make Poverty History banners, even, yes, the SWP, they are all comrades to some degree, and as far as I am concerned. However any group or individual who feels it is right to deliberately damage or destroy life, even it I was to understand their ends and their motivations, is instantly not a comrade of mine.
Indeed it makes our struggles futile and pointless. That goes to all who have the will to drop bombs on innocent civilians. </FONT></P>
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<P>Day One, Monday </B>Leeds heart Sheffield heart Leeds<B>.</P></B></FONT><FONT size=2></FONT><FONT face=Arial size=2>
<P>This is the message that greeted me when I arrived at the Leeds/Sheffield Barrio for the first time, scribbled onto a hastily painted banner announcing this little part of the rural convergence centre to be ours, cities conjoined in their resistance, huddled together in now what seemed like the centre of everything. A message particularly heart-warming to me, who has lived in both cities and feels a sense of home in both.</P>
<P>My journey had been relatively smooth. The minibus (with the words Sunshine Variety Club Coach written along the sides in merry, bright orange lettering) had been full of Sheffield Punk kids, off on their way to give the leaders of the world’s richest countries a good kicking, while picking their way through a copy of Zoo magazine. Barely half an hour into the journey had seen someone shouting out for a toilet stop, an event which then occurred regularly, usually just as were about to set off from a rest stop, up until our destination. Now I know what school coach drivers felt like. Oh, and before anybody decides to go on a rant about me patronising anybody, let me just say now that I constantly look out for and am aware of the absurdities of any situation and quite simply would not be interested in taking part in activism if I did not have the space to spot the many absurdities present in it. This, for me, was an absurd journey. So get over it.</P>
<P>The mountains. This is the first thing that would have struck anybody first entering the convergence camp. Tantalisingly placed, I would have liked to have stayed a day or two longer than I did in order to explore those hills. Ever intriguing, the mountains, with the William Morris monument perched on top, and Stirling Castle and town which became drenched in amber light when night fell, provided a flawless backdrop to the weeks many hundreds of meetings. And a meeting is what, unsurprisingly, awaited us upon our arrival. By the time I arrived at the camp, early on Monday evening, most anarchists worth their salt had already formed themselves into affinity groups and were sat around having very secret chats. It was thus one of the purposes of this particular meeting to get people into affinity groups who were not already so, though I didn’t realise the importance of even this at the time- I am a complete novice at this kind of thing you know.</P>
<P>The plan to form affinity groups out of people not with it enough to be engaged in the little secret groups as aforementioned went like this: we were asked questions by our facillitator, the answer to which we sympathised with lying somewhere between the two extremes of strongly agree and strongly disagree- we would then stand somewhere along a stretch of ground whose sides would represent the two extremes of this spectrum. Most of the questions were of the usual violence or non-violence variety which saw people taking up pretty much every conceivable space in the spectrum, but with most people bunched up in the middle, and with some folk like me unhelpfully bobbling about a few inches either way from the centre line for each and every question. But then our facilitator came up with a stroke of genius, and asked outright the pressing question, something along the lines of : You have
been in a blockade, linking hands, for some time, and find you need to take a piss. Would you be prepared to piss your pants rather than let down the blockade… Strongly agree or strongly disagree? Or something like this. Amazingly, this question saw three distinct groups emerging from the chaos. My group? Well, the unhelpful bobblers of course. Meanwhile, the strongly agree group trotted off to start making their nappies.</P>
<P>Of course, on this very day alone I’d already missed two of the weeks most memorable actions, Faslane and The Carnival for Full Enjoyment in Edinburgh (also the weeks most incriminating action), so energy and spirits were already racing high, and newspapers sporting their own versions of the days events were sprawled out on laps, and cans of Tennents were being hauled back to camp, and folk as yet undiminished by the night of wild camping which was soon to come were laying back on the many comfy cushions laid about in the Common Matilda Place. I, though, was just pleasantly pleased to see the return of the socially inept guy I know as the Iron-Bru man who had accompanied us at the Sheffield G8 actions (and who indeed, we almost could not get out of the place at the end of it all); once again he managed to successfully manoeuvre his sleeping bag from one bit of the marquee to a
slightly different part of the marquee about 500 times in one day. I hope he comes and joins us for a lie in at other actions in the future!</P>
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<P>Day Two, Tuesday</B> ‘The little affinity group that could…’</P></FONT><FONT face=Arial size=2>
<P>All good affinity groups stick together. Ours, on the other hand, had trouble finding each other in one place at the same time, when the morning came to Stirling. The affinity we had with each other was that we wanted to take part in blockades come the Wednesday morning, but only in a supporting role, and as part of a larger blockade; none of us felt experienced enough to get out there and hang onto our few feet of the road come wind, rain or indiscriminately swinging truncheons (isn’t the British weather a real bugger?)</P>
<P>The big plan was set; affinity groups from all over the site would leave camp throughout the day (outwitting inevitable police strategies to block us in come the Wednesday morning) and camp out in the woods on the hills surrounding the A9, the main road leading north-eastwards to Gleneagles. Hiding in the woods, these bold and fearless and focused guerrilla groups, would descend upon the road en-masse, kind of, at some point in the morning, at some place along that road… and do something… Oh well, it doesn’t really matter because chaos works on our side and it is of course at that critical point at which chaos verges on some semblance of structure and we can run rings around the authorities so set in their rigid, crystallised ways, that we are at our strongest. Anyhow, it was in this bold fashion that we pulled together our affinity group and set off to those hills. I am sure that
each and every one of us had an uneasy feeling of apprehension and uncertainty hanging heavy in our hearts. And, considering the conviction which had brought us together as an affinity group in the first place, had completely emptied our bladders beforehand.</P>
<P>We had our first stop and search experience on that drive up to the hills, in our trusty Sunshine Club coach (I wonder what those Sunshine Variety Clubbers, on their way to a Blackpool weekender, would have though if they’d known just what their delightful, innocent little mini-bus would one day be used for- ferrying hardcore anarchists to insurgent stand-offs with riot police?), by a van load of police harking from a variety of forces, who then followed us for a way, but whom we outfoxed by turning into the car park of a pub that was closed. Yes, closed, goddamn it. Still pretending we were simply hill-walkers without much of an idea of appropriate walking apparel (nobody brought along those folding walking poles, or bobble hats or gaiters, or anything to maintain that convincing rationalisation, or did they?) we went forth into the conifer plantations. We walked slowly in
single-file, alert and conscious of every unexpected movement. An unbroken chain of unspoken communication lay between every one of us. Suddenly, members of the group at the front of the pack darted into the forest for no discernible reason, obviously they had seen a threat approaching, a squad of cops charging and brandishing machine guns and mad dogs, perhaps. As it transpires they were avoiding some mud on the path. But as it happens I and my comrade behind me spotted the unmistakable yellow fluorescent jackets of the police behind us. They were onto us!</P>
<P>Next came a rush and a blur of dark conifer undergrowth, with dry brittle fingers scratching my face and arms, the ground undulating beneath me, rows upon rows of dim, lifeless plantation stretching out before me. I was aware of people rushing into the woods in different directions. Four of us, me and three guys slightly younger then myself who had come up from York Uni, darted into the depth of the woods. Eventually we came to a standstill. Stooping low (we had to stoop because of the low, thickly sprouting conifer branches) we got ourselves into the trenches between which the clone-like trees, mimicking soldiers in themselves, grew in strict conforming lines. We listened. Coming from the direction of the path we could hear the faint, regular blip of a police radio. Then the voices of our comrades speaking to the police, even the odd muffled laugh. Obviously they had stepped straight
back onto the path after the mud-alert was all clear. We sat stock still. A hushed but adrenaline-filled voice wafted over to me from the adjacent trench: "Psst! Hey… I haven’t done anything like this before" My heart fell. I was scared that we would lose the rest of our affinity group after about only 10 minutes on the go, and I would be left here in this dark perplexing forest with these three innocent lads who, like, didn’t spend every weekend playing guerrilla tactics with police in conifer woods in an attempt to get near a meeting of the eight most powerful men in the world. I mean, <I>bloody hell</I>, some people live a sheltered life, don’t they?</P>
<P>My fears were needless, a few badly performed <I>whoops</I> through the undergrowth later and the group was once again reformed. Many hours were to follow of walking through woods and across fields, tackling collectively an array of ditches and barbed wire fences, which although not likely to leave Ray Mears stumped, nevertheless felt like the contents of some outdoor survival course, certificates not forthcoming sadly… After some hours of walking, and nearing our proposed destination for the night, we chanced upon another affinity group scouting about near the path, a group from our very own barrio. They invited us to join them in the beautiful, enchanting, very Lord of the Rings - esque spot which they had found. A woodland grotto, with a stream of fresh running water cutting down the hillside, and a fallen log which had been surely designed for seating a band of scheming, dissident
elves. We quickly shared knowledge and stories, it turned out that these new people had heard from some source back at base that the main actions had been moved to the M9 rather than an A9, a factor, that if true, would really muck things up for us considering we had spent several hours walking in altogether the other direction. A really serious meeting amongst affinity groups ensued, in which fractions which had built up amongst our own group became exposed, and we split there- with four brave lads deciding to stick it out and go for the A9 whatever, and the rest of us going along with our groups original principle of supporting whichever action, according to the information we had, seemed to be the biggest. Not that we chose the easy route- a long walk back from whence we had come (across more charitable terrain this time though) lay ahead of us.</P>
<P>So it was that our new reshuffled affinity group set off once more, leaving the charming little woodland grotto that I had become very fond of behind us. As the week went on I would slowly be adopted by that affinity group which we had met in the woods, finding their approach to the whole thing most palatable to mine. Which is how it should be. Our bonds are not created in the end merely by our readiness to piss ourselves for justice, but by the experiences we encounter together and the ways we come together to deal with them. I encountered some really sound people in this group; one girl in particular, notable by her unfortunate singular allure for the local midges which resulted in some very visible bites in the following days (you know who you are) was one of those people who I meet every now again who brings a real ray of sunshine into my life, a good start, surely, for the
beginnings of any affinity group. But these things really were not foremost in my mind at the moment; more pressing was the need to find a place close to the road to get our head down for at least a few hours before the next days actions. We walked for a long while after darkness had fallen down a long and lonely road. Then into more woods, this time damp and bountiful, a far cry from the dry lifeless interior of the conifer forest, these woods were on the slope of a vast cut in the landscape, at the bottom of which lay a fast-flowing river circling the town of Dunblane.</P>
<P>It was here, next to this quiet town which was once on the news for the deplorable, horrific events which occurred there, that we settled for a few hours. On a bridge. Sleeping bags lining the sides, us, the ‘<I>little affinity group that could’</I>, tucked deep inside…</P>
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<P>Day Three, Wednesday</B> Cold, tired and very, very wet! (or Is This What Democracy Looks Like?)</P></FONT><FONT face=Arial size=2>
<P>…To awake less than an hour later to realise that the heavens had opened and that we were being drenched by uncompromising, ruthless, torrential rain. It’s funny how my mind operates at times like this. I awake suspecting that something is amiss. I then gradually suss out that I am currently being rained upon very heavily. I remember how far we’ve walked and then how early we have to be on the move again today. I vaguely balance the two thoughts in my head. Then just think ‘fuck it’ and crawl further into the sleeping bag which is providing me, to say the very least, minimal resistance against the rain. As far as I can make out, everybody else did the same, though I do realise that I fared better than others in my group, mostly down to the fact that I was the possessor of a lovely Gore-Tex jacket. In fact, the downpour left a significant number of my affinity group feeling
dishevelled, poorly, and wanting to go home. Feeling defeated again by the Scottish weather, I promised myself that next time I was involved in a summit protest, I would make sure it was to be found in a more hospitable climate.</P>
<P>We never did make it to a blockade. I will use this opportunity to say well done to all those hardy, courageous souls who did. You succeeded on that morning to run circles around the police, and I understand that the bike action went particularly well, slowing down traffic for a number of hours (I also hear of the outrageous and menacing tactics the Manchester police used to get you out of the way) Contrast, if you will, that image with that of our sad and unkempt crew, heads held low, trudging along dejectedly and badly in need of a good duvet and a cup of soup trough a dewy, early morning Dunblane. Towards the train station we headed. From where we had quietly and collectively decided we would catch a train to Gleneagles and join in Geldof’s phantasmal army of millions (mirroring his equally spectral fleet of cross-channel sailing boats) and the G8 alternatives. There we sat in our
cold damp garments looking slightly sorry for ourselves, as neatly groomed men in shirts and ties eyed us from the business class compartment. I bet they wish they were having as much fun as us, really.</P>
<P>Gleneagles station was ‘guarded’ by a solitary policeman who was been ridiculously accomodating; he was very likely surprised to see anarchists so keen and eager as to arrive in town at about half six in the morning, a full five and a half hours before the demo was supposed to start. He allowed us to use the full length of the station forecourt to lay about, hang our sleeping bags, jumpers and damp socks out to dry and generally looking somewhat like refugees we commenced to recuperate ourselves after the nights ordeals. Police and station security staff alike were very eager to get us shuttled off to Auchterader, where the official demo was starting, as quickly as possible, and we soon found ourselves in a coach shared by just a few more early-bird activists and a couple of blokes from the media. Of course, the coach wasn’t allowed to set off immediately- a growing police presence
saw us all unloading and going through a stop-and-search procedure, where the men in yellow had the privileged job of sorting through our unpleasant, dampened belongings. When this was done, the bus went on a twenty minute detour, skirting the perimeter security fence of Gleneagles, and on the way saw a couple of different blockades, whom cheered and waved at us as we went past and whom we, though I may speak for myself here, suddenly feeling suddenly quite oppressed in the metal box we were being shuttled in, waved back at. The CIRCA clowns too, which instantly drew a smile from us all, were out in force, at the start of a long days work in which they would assist the police in keeping us and the rest of the world safe from those eight men trapped behind the security fence.</P>
<P>Auchterader was generally welcoming in it’s attitude. We went straight to a traditional olde English tea-room and had a good breakfast and a hot drink, the waitress and her manager gave us lots of homely smiles and even provided us each with a free bottle of water for the coming demo. The police and local residents were clearly conspiring here to make us feel so dreamily and charitably welcomed that we wouldn’t at all feel like making a ruckus and instead perhaps want to spend the day drinking tea in tea-shops like this while intermittently popping out to look for a post-card, a nice tartan scarf, or the delightful ceramic model of a Scottie dog to take back home. This clearly was not to happen. Indeed, it was the feeling amongst many of us that we had already got this far, and that we should plan some shrewd, autonomous action rather than just fit in blandly with the rest of this
protest. When we heard the rumour that the march had been called off because of the blockade trouble earlier (which was of course more than just a rumour, it had been brought up on the news, and was reported of as more of the same ‘good protester / bad protester’ crap which has followed all of the G8 actions) we decided that we would, whatever happened, make a brake for it and march anyhow. Importantly, we would march with a set of ten demands to make to the G8 leaders, ten demands, five positives and five negatives, which we would carry in both a hastily written letter, and on placards, which were actually G8 alternatives placards which we deconstructed and put back together again for ourselves.</P>
<P>So the ten placards were made, using alternate black and red marker pens, and carrying one each we milled in the park, the sound of the speakers on the stage reduced to nothing more than a stifled drone with periodic pauses filled with cheers and frantic placard waving, from where we were standing. Waiting for something to happen. Something had to happen soon- we’d been sleeping rough on a bridge in the pouring rain all night in order to be here, after all! Slowly, with more of a shuffle than a march, the crowd did begin to march. For a while we attempted to stay in line, our winding trail of earnestly scribbled messages held high amongst a crowd of thousands, inevitably swamped by the hoards of colourful banners present, from so many different affinity groups, workers unions and WDM groups, environmental groups, feminist groups and the rest; the hundreds of identical placards
provided by the Scottish Socialist Party, most ‘customised’, on which Bush had been defaced by permanent marker in a multitude of unoriginal ways. Along the way, slow moving as we were, we enjoyed the accompaniment of The Infernal Noise Brigade, as well as an entire troop of clowns who kept us entertained and in good order.</P>
<P>Having grown bored of standing still for some time, we decided to push onwards through the crowds towards the front of the demo, to see what was happening up there. As we arrived, much of the security fence which toppled was already on the ground, the street ahead blockaded by a mass of armed riot police and horses facing directly back at us. A handful of the black bloc were making their presence felt, beating down what ever was left of the security fence here, while the demo stewards urged us to keep moving, keep moving… It wouldn’t be until I saw the video taken at this action, shown the following night back at the Horizone, that I would appreciate how much had gone on at this particular spot- by this time the action had already begun to move around the corner. We moved on. Here, one side of the road was populated by some bland looking suburban housing, the other side gave way to an
expanse of field, one edge of which was fringed by a wide stretch of this tough security fence, and a tall look-out tower. Already, hundreds of activists were straying from the main route of the march and were crossing this field, towards the fence. For anybody who wasn’t present at this action, then please look at all the photos and film footage that was taken here- because it really was a striking image. So many impassioned and daring individuals making their way towards that fence, and behind the state amassing their own forces together with equal, but darker, more ominous zeal. Chinook helicopters brought more and more heavily armoured police to the scene... The atmospheric noise of the Infernal Noise Brigade drifed across the field... folk continued to wander into the field... We were looking set for a standoff with the police...</P>
<P>But sadly, my ability to write this all down has unfortunately all but evaporated, so I'll have to leave it at this Dr. Who style cliffhanger away and come back to it in a few days, hopefully the memories will still be clear in my head, and I will be able to put a bit more life into my words.</P></FONT></DIV></DIV></div></html>