Original photo by: Heather Anne Campbell
The faint melody of music carries you down an unlit street to a little non-descript building. There’s nobody outside but you notice dozens of bikes chained to anything that doesn’t move. You take a moment to enjoy the stillness and then plunge in. The warmth of a room jammed full with people hits your face, the sweet smell of sweat and the reel of a fiddle welcomes you through the door.
Inside tattooed lanky punkers are moshing to bluegrass. The whole place vibrates with foot stomps and hollers. The music drifts though you and you dance alongside familiar faces. At the back there’s a little makeshift bar selling pay-what-you-can homebrews.
“Bring back the bottle,” says the bartender, as you walk through the back door for a little air.
Outside people are smoking and chatting in the warm summer night. You spot one of your friends from the march. They’re talking to a tall skinny punk with long dreads.
“Fuck yeah! Did you see those fuckers turn and run when we charged the alley?” says the punk with the dreads bending almost in half with laughter. “This little piggy went wee wee wee wee all the way home.”
“But what did it actually accomplish? Our friends are in jail tonight and for what? A little smashy smashy? The banks don’t even give a shit that we broke their fucking windows,” says your friend sounding somewhat bitter.
“Woah woah my pessimistic little friend. We won a great victory today. It’s time to celebrate!”
“How can you call it a victory when we gained nothing and lost so much?”
Turning suddenly serious the dready speaks “Gained nothing? Excuse me! Every single day the pigs tell us what we can and can’t do. I’m sorry that your partner is locked up right now, but at least it’s for a good cause. How many times you been arrested just for tryin to live your life huh? Well today we turned the tables on them. We showed people that despite a billion dollars spent on security, when we unite in the streets, ain’t nothing gonna stand in our way and it’s them that should be scared not us! Tonight news clips of the G20 are showing police cars burning in the streets, instead of a bunch of corrupt fucking politicians smiling and shaking hands. They try and stop us marching? We tell them we don’t care about your fucking laws that serve you and you only! We defy you!”
“Well that’s all well and good, but what do we do next? We succeeded in rebelling for one day, so what?”
“We don’t back down, we gotta keep up the heat. They got hundreds of people locked up right now, we gotta show them they can’t do this to us and not expect retaliation. There’s a prisoner solidarity march tomorrow at the cop shop. I say we fuck that place right up!”
“I think that would be playing right into their trap. We’ve got to start thinking more strategically. We can’t just keep reacting to their moves, we’ve got to take the initiative or we’ll always be one step behind”
They turn to you standing like a stone statue at the edge of the circle, it’s time for you to join in: