[mobglob-discuss] MAY DAY

[martin william fournier]

Direct Action all day starting at 7am at Victory Square (Hastings and 
Cambie)

March and Rally 4:30 pm at Victory Square to VAG

Article in Guardian on May Day:

Return to action

After a period of relative inactivity, direct action is once again beginning 
to make its presence felt, writes Gideon Burrows

Wednesday April 30, 2003

As this year's May Day approaches, there is a palpable change in atmosphere 
within the UK protest movement. The attack on Iraq, as well as the organised 
left's attempt to command and control opposition to it, seems to have woken 
direct activists from a gentle slumber they have enjoyed for nearly two 
years.

The year 2001 was not a good one for activism. That May, police all but 
closed down the anti-capitalist protest along London's Oxford Street, caging 
thousands of people for more than six hours. The crowd was so tightly packed 
that many could not even sit. It was so strictly cordoned that women and 
children were forced to pee in the street. Many went home frustrated and 
powerless.

Just two months later, at the anti-capitalist protests against the G8 in 
Genoa, Italian carabinieri broke into accommodation, violently attacking 
protesters in their sleeping bags. During street clashes, one protester was 
killed. Many returned from Italy, hurt and powerless, wondering if it was 
all worth it.

And then, during the huge arms exhibition at London Docklands of September 
2001, terrorists flew passenger jets into the two towers of the World Trade 
Centre. While conferences and events across the world were cancelled out of 
respect, the arms buyers and sellers continued their deals for a further 
three days. Their wilful inability to make any connection between what had 
happened and their bloody business left many of us mourning for justice and 
humanity.

"I think you're sick for continuing to protest after what has happened," one 
police officer told me.

The government used the event to introduce draconian laws, in the name of 
national security, which the police were only too happy to use to prevent 
peaceful protest from taking place. I was stopped three-times last year 
under the Prevention of Terrorism Act, and I just write about this stuff.

But the UK government's support for an attack on Iraq, even in the face of 
more than a million protesters on the streets of London, has awoken direct 
action from its disillusioned snooze.

"I'm tired of ineffectual marches and peace vigils," is the complaint now 
frequently heard, even from those who have never done direct action before. 
Others feel cheated by the Stop the War coalition, which on the surface 
looked like a grassroots, people-led movement, but which quickly revealed 
itself as a recruitment platform for the Socialist Workers' Party (SWP) and 
other left evangelicals.

"I've broken through dozens of police lines, I'm not going to be told by the 
SWP how and where to march," one activist told me. We are now entering what 
could emerge as a summer of discontent, with direct action and protests 
being launched against the companies directly responsible for fuelling wars 
or creating the unjust circumstances which lead to them.

Last Thursday, shareholders attending the annual general meeting of oil 
giant BP had to walk through a crowd of angry protesters. Inside the heavily 
protected meeting, the executive board faced challenging questions about 
their intentions in Iraq, as well as support for violent paramilitaries 
protecting pipelines in the developing world.

Yesterday I joined protesters at the annual general meeting of one of the 
world's biggest arms companies, BAE Systems. "Token" shareholders, as well 
as activists outside, attempted to bring the arms dealers to account for the 
role they play in creating and sustaining conflict, poverty and even 
terrorism around the world.

The protest movement finally appears to be answering the often levelled 
charge that their issues are too disparate, their messages too wide and 
confused.

The arms business and big oil companies have been made the focus of this 
year's May Day protests. The addresses of dozens of oil and arms firms have 
been posted on the internet. Protesters are meeting outside the offices of 
the world's biggest arms firm, Lockheed Martin, and one of the world's 
biggest oil companies, Shell.

Another target will be ITEC 2003 - "Europe's largest military training and 
simulation show" - which has been carelessly planned for this week. There 
are dozens of other targets in London which haven't been published on the 
web - from arms companies' advertisers to oil firms' accountants.

Once May Day is over, direct activists are to turn their attentions to a 
huge arms exhibition at the end of the summer. Defence Systems Equipment 
International (DSEi), at London Docklands from 6 - 12 September, will be the 
biggest ever European fair for dealing in weapons, fighter aircraft, guns, 
bombs and military electronics.

DSEi has been targeted precisely because the exhibition, and the arms 
business in general, demonstrates the hypocrisy and blindness of the UK's 
role in the attacks on Iraq and Afghanistan. It has been often repeated that 
the UK and US armed Saddam in the first place. Yet we're currently arming 
the tyrants of the future.

On the day of the World Trade Centre attacks, delegates from the US, UK and 
Israel were more than happy to shop side-by-side with delegates from 14 
different Arab nations, many of which we now blame for supporting terrorism. 
Even Syria, next in line on the US terrorism hit-list, was invited to shop 
for arms at DSEi 2001.

The arms fair could see the biggest protests ever to take place against a 
single event in the UK. Some are already calling it the "UK's Genoa", and 
many are going to the anti-G8 protests in France next month to encourage 
international protesters to come to London for the exhibition.

The World Trade Organisation, nemesis of the anti-capitalist movement, is 
meeting in Mexico during the same week as the arms fair. It is hoped that 
those European protesters unable to make the flight to across the Atlantic 
will come to London instead.

The message is clear. arms companies and big oil help to fuel conflict and 
create poverty around the world and they play a major role in the unjust 
capitalist system.

By campaigning against them tomorrow and throughout the summer, we are 
protesting not just the slaughter in Iraq and Afghanistan, but attempting to 
prevent the wars and injustices of the future.






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