3 Apr 2009

Feminism and anarchism is femarchism, not manarchism!

And I must say, I WAS on those streets to protest against G20 on Wednesday! I took a long lunch from writing (1hr & 10mins, how cheeky!) and popped down to Climate Camp with a Pret (they do Charity Runs so I didn't feel too guilty). It was lovely! Healing sessions with flapjacks and such beautiful youths, someone gave me a daffodil! Not quite the same scenes later when I returned having changed out of my writing gear into a black bowler hat (irony!) stripy tights from Hallowe'en and a raunchy red coat! The poor dears had been kettled and though I tried to get in by flashing my LadiesAlone business card and claiming freedom of the press, the swine wouldn't let me! I tried to scale a wooden fence connected to a building site but was confronted by a hefty builder, which was frankly a relief as I wasn't doing very well anyway and had laddered my tights.

I sipped whisky with some Fourierists in a side alley, fascinating! Then I got into a confrontation with a policeman over a tent (You have the guy (ropes) but we have the numbers!) and bought a quick cheese sandwich before following some new comrades over to Earl Street Convergence Centre, the anarchist HQ! (It was raided at lunchtime the following day, by which time I was still safely tucked up in bed!)

It was rather dull in there as they were holding a meeting to decide how to protect the building from 'pigs'. I offered my services as a helicopter look out on the roof but they didn't seem convinced. They did give me a nice bit of flapjack though to follow on from earlier's, which was Vegan! I had no idea!

All was going fine until I left and was immediately swept upon by pigs, who used a spotlight to frighten me. I, of course was not shocked, in fact it reminded me of my youthful interventions on the stage. I was being detained under Section 44, as a TERRORIST! I told them I had merely entered the squat because I thought it might be like that scene in the Baader Meinhof Complex where they all get naked in the bath, but really it was rather dull and they should leave them alone (sticking up for comrades!) All I can say is that they found nothing but dirty tissues and Public Man, Private Woman in my handbag, and that they ticked the box on the Suspect Description Form that said I was 'Thin'. Hurrah!

Here's a picture of Ulrike Meinhoff (Feminist Icon!) from The Baader Meinhoff Complex becoming radicalised at a demonstration! She's just about to throw a brick - that's how I felt!!

THEN all hell broke loose on the way to Liverpool Street! I was innocently heading to the Tube to meet my friend Lara, who'd just been released from Climate Camp and get the Northern Line back to N1 (I had no idea, of course, but the station was full of Alsatians, which are only just worse than commuters) when I was hit full frontal by a line of battering riot police charging at a few bedraggled teenagers, including a girl so drunk her boyfriend actually had to drag her to avoid being attacked by the advancing police line!

I, of course, walked straight up to them, like a surfer stepping up to a Tsunami, and tried to explain that I just needed to get past, and the bloody swine started battering me too! My poor tights did nothing to cushion the blows. I was so cross, I might have started a *little* fire outside Pizza Express. But the nerve! Here's a picture of the scene.
Remember girls, Police Brutality + Climate Change + Power + Capitalism = Patriarchy. Fight it!

No comments:

Post a Comment