through europe - london

Occupied London... For Real

John Barker — Mon, 23 Jul 2012 08:49:10 +0000

Today went down for a 'walk' starting at Stratford Station through the Carpenter estate organized by tenants under siege from Newham Council and the Corporate Olympics and felt sick with anger. Remembered that had been on a 'walk' some 6 years ago when the Olympic Committee came to 'see' London and its suitability for the Olympics to say that we didn't want it. We were far too few so that if it was noticed at all on a very cold day, it would have been counter-productive. But we did see what some of its implications would be -existing sports grounds being mashed up and Hackney marshes encroached on. That time it didn't take in the Carpenters estate.
Processes of class-cleansing have taken place in Hackney and been understood as such. Knowing too that Global Sporting Spectaculars in Beijing, Delhi and South Africa have been used to give a boost to this process in other cities and that it is already happening in Brazil where both the next Football World Cup and Olympics are due. Today though could see how comprehensively strategic the process is, how planned and how 'in your face' it is. First thing we see is that down the side walls of two oldish high rises in which people live there are huge (100 feet tall?) and aggressive advertisements for Gillette. This in addition to the ubiquitous Coca Cola and McDonalds flim-flam.
On the estate there are hundreds of empty flats.On the Council waiting list there are 32,000 and there will be many thousand more who can't even get on it. The council say they are unfit and have steel shutters over them. Our tenant guides say this is not true and even if they had not said it we could see it with our own eyes, how in the same two storey blocks some were lived in and others shuttered up. Lots of them. And the function of this we see as we pass one shop that is open, is to MAKE THE PLACE LOOK RUN-DOWN and therefore in need of regeneration.
How sick is this!

Landscapes of the Underground

Federico Campagna — Wed, 13 Jun 2012 11:35:39 +0000

In the morning, in the trains running underground, we sit as still as tools in a box. Most of us keep our eyes closed. Some yawn and stretch, preparing their lungs and muscles for another day. Others look into the screen of their smartphones, and turn into birds crashing into scaffolding, brightly coloured bricks stacking up in puzzles. I look at my fellow travellers, as if they were a landscape. Scientists tell us that we all belong to the same species, that we all are one thing. But around me I see foxes, rocks, rivers, trees. Our clothes are the same, our haircuts, our artificial smells. But to each other, we are as foreign as planets orbiting in the same galaxy. Yet, we are all here together. Ready to be employed, just outside the gates of the tube station. To become something else from what we are. Something bigger than ourselves, something ‘useful’. Citizens, workers, customers, spectators. When we will be out of here, in the dim daylight of Northern Europe, we will fit together within the frame of the mosaics of which we are fragments. We will have names, and our names will lock together into the bigger names of the machines of which we are parts. We will create companies, networks, Nations, markets. We will create everything, and will turn into nothing.

But not yet.

Radical Atheism

Federico Campagna — Wed, 11 Jan 2012 11:17:08 +0000

in loving memory of Pierre Clastres and Max Stirner

Few places in the world are more secular than the United Kingdom. The laughable origins of the Anglican church, mixed with the centuries-old hegemony of capitalist ethics seem to have finally killed the religious spirit of the people of Albion. Religion, in the UK, is a mark of underdevelopment usually reserved for impoverished ethnic minorities or for the inhabitants of rural areas.

As a migrant from Catholic Italy, when I first arrived in the UK I thought I couldn't have asked for more. Not only were the remnants of the church so liberal and progressive that even homosexuals were allowed to be priests, but also people did not feel the need to fight off the presence of the church by indulging in God-oriented swearing, as is the common habit in Italy. God seemed to have finally disappeared, both as an unrequested father figure and as the millenarian oppressor of all living creatures. Back then, I thought I had arrived in the promised land of ‘really existing atheism’. And yet, I couldn’t have been more mistaken.

London Jacquerie

Federico Campagna — Tue, 09 Aug 2011 17:59:20 +0000

Sono quasi quattrocento anni che una rivolta di queste dimensioni non si verifica a Londra. Quest’inverno, durante le manifestazioni degli studenti inglesi, la stampa internazionale aveva parlato di ‘riots’, di subbugli, di insurrezione. Un tipico caso di esagerazione giornalistica. Stavolta no. Ma stavolta è diverso.

Le riots di questi giorni, iniziate sabato 7 agosto durante una manifestazione di protesta per l’uccisione di un giovane da parte della polizia, hanno un tono che ricorda più le banlieues parigine che la guerriglia urbana dei black bloc. Da tre giorni la capitale Britannica è attraversata da un’ondata di jacquerie semi-fantascientifiche, in cui i moti di folla da ancien regime si incontrano con i messaggi istantanei lanciati dai BlackBerries.

Street-Fightin' Press? - Dal "Trojan Journalism" al disprezzo di classe

Paolo Mossetti — Tue, 17 May 2011 22:18:44 +0000

Qualche settimana fa, nella sezione “culturale” dell’Evening Standard, pubblicarono una foto: erano ritratti otto ragazzi, sui venti anni, seduti su una scalinata di un palazzo medievale. Erano vestiti, da buoni londinesi “intellettuali”, in uno stile fintamente casual-sciatto; erano tutti sorridenti; due di loro maneggiavano un cellulare; una giovinetta aveva un pc sulle ginocchia: «Stiamo parlando di tecnologia», sembrava dire. Chi erano costoro? Erano loro quelli che lo Standard chiamava, con un bel titolone, Clicktivists, attivisti del “click”. Ecco i volti nuovi della protesta di questi mesi: coloro che usano i social network come Facebook o Twitter per organizzare manifestazioni, coordinarsi, promuovere scioperi. [1]

Bestiame da protesta: che cos'è il 'kettling'

Paolo Mossetti — Tue, 14 Dec 2010 01:39:16 +0000

When hit by boredom, let yourself be crushed by it; submerge, hit bottom.

- Joseph Brodsky.

Un albero lo si conosce dai suoi frutti, e una democrazia la si conosce dalle tecniche che adopera per affrontare il dissenso. La pratica del kettle (letteralmente ‘bollitore per il tè’) è forse la più rappresentativa di tutte le inquietanti forme di controllo che la legislazione inglese sta praticando, durante queste prime rivolte post-crisi. Sperimentata già negli anni Ottanta in Germania Ovest e poi rispolverata da qualche lustro in mezza Europa, essa è un modo subdolo e astuto per portare le folle all’inoffensività, senza lasciare segni duraturi sulla pelle, o quasi; soprattutto, per risucchiare in un le folle in un vero e proprio «buco nero» del territorio urbano.

L'avant-garde danse le dubstep

Federico Campagna — Sat, 11 Dec 2010 19:25:03 +0000

Londres, 9 décembre.

Les étudiants ont manifesté massivement, en un nombre tel qu’on le voyait pas depuis des années. Oui, c’est vrai, mais ce n’est pas cela la nouvelle. La foule a encerclé la voiture de Charles et Camilla en la frappant à coup de pieds. Cela est vrai aussi, mais ce n’est pas la nouvelle. Les étudiants ont commencé à répondre à la violence policière avec la violence. Ils ont attaqué le siège du Ministère du Trésor et l’ont saccagé et transformé en chiottes. Tout cela est vrai, mais ce n’est toujours pas la nouvelle.

L'avanguardia balla il Dubstep

Federico Campagna — Fri, 10 Dec 2010 18:38:47 +0000

La notizia del giorno é che gli studenti sono scesi in massa, con numeri che non si vedevano da anni? Vero, ma no, non è questa. Forse è che la folla ha accerchiato la macchina del Principe Carlo e di Camilla e l’ha presa a calci fino a che non è riuscita a fuggire? Anche questo è vero, ma ancora no. E allora la notizia è che gli studenti hanno smesso di farsi bastonare e hanno risposto alle cariche a cavallo della polizia con attacchi altrettanto violenti? Oppure che hanno assaltato la sede del Tesoro e l’hanno trasformata in una latrina? Tutto vero, ma di nuovo acqua.

Activism Mania (and Depression)

Federico Campagna — Wed, 08 Dec 2010 01:45:50 +0000

Days, in London, always pass fast. This city embodies the very essence of late capitalism. Its illness. Working over-time, running along underground platforms, eating late at night, pills, kebabs, sleeping drunk on buses, waking up at the last stop or already late for work.
There couldn’t possibly be a better city for activism.

Merry Crisis and a Happy New Fear

Federico Campagna — Sat, 13 Nov 2010 23:00:00 +0000

Di questi tempi, in Inghilterra, sembra di vivere premuti sotto le palpebre chiuse di un’intera nazione. Il colpo inferto dal governo conservatore è stato tremendo, e l’isola sta assorbendo il trauma in silenzio, perduta nei sogni di politeness e di gloria di una Grande Bretagna che fu. A due passi dalla veglia frenetica della Francia, l’Inghilterra continua a dormire, camminando sonnambula sotto l’effetto di un mantra da seconda guerra mondiale, che ancora ordina ‘Keep Calm and Carry On’.