 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||
 |
 |
 |
||
|
Bye Bye Buy Buy - Mayday Mayhem in Manchester from Manchester Earth First! 11th May 2000 May 1st Chronology: morning - The seaside came to the city, with sticks of red, black and green rock, with Resistance is Sweet running through the middle, a direct action planetary tarot reader, a coconut shy where people got to 'knock politicans' blocks off', a revolutionary seaside band, saucy seaside political postcards, and a cut-out copper to stick your head through for a seaside photo. The SWP (Mayday 2000 crowd) came to visit, shouting out their latest campaign slogans about Asylum Seekers, having moved swiftly from their May Day campaign plans, and got penned in by police. afternoon - 2pm, crowds began to gather at Piccadilly Gardens, with banners, music and colour, plus the usual police helicopter, mounted police, evidence gathers etc. By 3pm, up to 20 small autonomous groups had slipped away from the 500-strong crowd for Challenge Anarchy, a 'treasure hunt' each facilitated by an Anarchy Rice, targetting many places with their action pack of leaflets, flyposters, paste, chalk and spray cans. "Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to go forth into our city, and create, change, act, make people think, and spread an atmosphere of resitance." A huge number of actions happened, see below. 
This left the main crowd for a roving RTS through the city centre, followed by the cops and free food. Crowds divided up and rushed through police lines, defending themselves with wheelie-bin obstacles from horse charges, finding ways out, dividing and recombining, reoccupying briefly the Mancunian (motor)Way, closing down other city centre roads, until they were penned in near the Oxford Road McDonalds. 40 people entered the adjacent Amec construction site (the crane was scaled exactly a month ago on the April Fools Day Anti-Terrorism Bill Parade), to climb up scaffolding above the police and crowd, as the Inspector announces "You'll be allowed to leave in small groups after giving your details, w.., HOLD THAT LINE!" as people surged through the lines of riot cops.
Evening- Out-foxed Pigs Caught in Spiders Web People dispersed to rest up before the night's entertainment.. A couple of dozen police in vans staked out the free party meeting point, but didn't notice dribs and drabs of people being led off. A little later, a mass of over 200 set off by the classiest route ever, silently snaking over land where their vans couldn't follow, in the darkness, together, to Mayday's secret free party celebration. Somehow the 200-300 party people arrived at the Hacienda, unnoticed by police, despite the CCTV just outside the world famous ex-club, to party the night away. While the cops were probably still sat at the meeting point (he he he). Graffiti inside from the first time we squatted it was updated to "People - 2, Police - 0". Some people were arrested when they left, they unfortunately hadn't had a legal briefing (oops) others left en masse walked free. Thursday 4th Hacienda still Occupied. After another night's party, the police have left the site well alone and huge banners cover the front of the building proclaiming "Anarchy", "Hac the System", "Resist", "We are Everywhere - "www.capitalismsucks.co.uk/" and "Police Mutiny Now". Banners are currently going up - "Don't vote, just do it", & "Voting Changes Nothing". Yesterday two coppers guarding the entrance were heard from the inside: one copper) "Yer always fuckin' whinging you. Listen to you" another copper) "I'm not. They run round town like madmen all day, then settle down in Hulme. And half an hour later they've taken the fuckin' Hacienda!" one copper) "You are, yer whinging. Yer fucking whinging. You'd have done it if you could have done."
Scores on the doors so far that we know about: Arrests - 35, mainly various minor charges. Police impounded a van, and imposed a Section 60 (CJA extra stop and search powers) on the whole city centre (Salford police hadn't been knew nothing till actions started there!). Crap arrest of the week: for rolling around on the floor saying "What's the crack, have you got any?" A few Shell blockades; many McDonalds occupied, leafleted or shut down; supermarkets targetted for genetics (food and GM cotton) and general nastiness; fake £20 notes dished out, with slogans included; cash machines 'melted'; a 'slave auction'; Disney (sweat and child labour), Starbucks (sponsoring globalisation), Reed and other employment agencies (casualisation and resultant insecurity and deaths) and NatWest (investment in animal abuse and general banking) visited; seeds and saplings guerilla gardened; spoof TV show making people spend exactly their £10 asylum-seeker voucher; anti-mass media 'The Lies' newspaper mock-up and actions; Fidelity Investments (investing in Occidental's attack on the Columbian U'Wa people) 'muralised'; Stagecoach buses stopped, leafletted and rolled under by disabled activists and others (Clause 28- support, few buses accessible, and anti-worker, rural routes, high fares etc Stagecoach monopolisation); general anti-consumerist, -advertising and -CCTV propaganda and shops closed down; plus "Unite, Resist, Celebrate" Mayday leaflets, and much chalking, stickering, subvertising and painting. Love to all Mayday revellers all over the world - Manchester. "the desire to play has returned to destroy the hierarchical society which banished it" Further information from: Manchester Earth First! Dept.29 255 Wilmslow Road, Manchester M14 5LW 0161-226 6814 mancef@nematode.freeserve.co.uk www.capitalismsucks.co.uk Disclaimer: this information is reproduced for information purposes only. Urban75 has no connection whatsoever with any of the groups |
 |
 |
|