When a local community loses its heart, it’s inevitable that it will die. Local communities can be built around many things; a church, a pub, a cricket club. In Friern Barnet, it is the local library which is the focus of the community. It is situated on the village green, and […]
“Shut Down Wall Street” still has a certain ring to it, even one year on. But #S17 was never going to succeed in matching the occupation that came to define last year’s movement, despite a four-figure turnout and a well publicised, wide-reaching plan of action. (Transparency in planning may be […]
When we arrived at 7.30am, the NYPD had already locked down much of the centre of New York’s financial district. This prevented some of the more set-piece actions from taking place, such as the “human wall” to block off access to the New York Stock Exchange. Many of us were kettled […]
In the 39th episode of “Star Trek: The Next Generation”, Jean-Luc Picard, the captain of the starship Enterprise, finds himself in the unique situation of having to confront his future self. Through a recovered video log, this future Picard is shown to have arrived from a few hours ahead in time, […]
When Tahrir Square was occupied as part of the struggle against President Mubarak in Egypt, it became the iconic image of what was dubbed the ‘Arab Spring’. Inspired by events in the Middle East, when US activists set up tents in New York’s financial district it began the global phenomenon […]
There’s a song by Stephen Sondheim, in the only musical about local government I can think of, that goes: “Everybody says don’t, Everybody says don’t walk on the grass, Don’t disturb the peace, Don’t skate on the ice…” This seems to be the kind of Britain we have now, where the […]
Occupiers organised assemblies and discussions, music jams and poetry slams, talks, workshops, films and livestreaming at The Green Gathering, a small festival held near Chepstow in early August. The Green Gathering’s Occupy camp consisted of an Info Tent and archive gallery housed in a bespoke geodesic dome, freshly-painted ‘Occupy’ and […]
London’s Free University (LFU) was inaugurated at the Bank of Ideas in November 2011. The aim was to provide free education in free spaces; free in the sense that nobody would have to pay but also free from the restrictions of contemporary institutionalised learning. Many people at that first and subsequent meetings were […]
What was born in a tent, died in a tent. Worn like the skin of one of Buffalo Bill’s victims in exactly the kind of enclosed corporate space it was built to dismantle, Occupy London’s Tent City University (TCU) was recently taken to a branded woodland glade in Suffolk where it was […]
Nearly one year after OLSX set up camp outside St Paul’s, we are preparing for a hot autumn, with strikes, a Trade Union Congress and student demonstrations. Inasmuch as the situation is pregnant with new opportunities, we must not forget where we came from. We have come a long way from the anti-capitalist […]