The end of the beginning

These are the words of George Barda, a member of Occupy London, who along with dozens of others, was thrown out of the encampment outside St Paul’s in the early hours of this morning.

Riot police and bailiffs, carrying out a court order secured by the City of London Corporation, wrecked the neat cluster of tents at the foot of the Cathedral into debris and rubble. The occupiers who had made the camp their home struggled to retrieve their meagre possessions. Some were made instantly homeless. Others were kneeling in prayer on the imposing steps going up to the Cathedral entrance. No matter - police still dragged them away. Some 20 arrests took place.

Rev Giles Fraser, whose early intervention as Canon Chancellor at St Paul’s had split the church elders, was prevented by police from reaching the protesters. Meanwhile a mile or so away, the occupied School of Ideas was also evicted despite their case still going through the courts.

By occupying a space bang in the very heart of the City of London, Occupy London constituted a challenge to the status quo that could not be ignored. The Church of England hierarchy, the City of London and the Metropolitan Police have been itching to evict them from the word go.

Physically, the occupiers endured a harsh winter, constant noise and frequent harassment. Through Tent University and hundreds of sister sites around the country, Occupy London, inspired by movements in Egypt and the United States, pioneered the freeing of spaces for political debate where none had existed before.

The issues they sought to address are more burning than ever. They sought to highlight the need to address the social, economic and political injustices of the system in a democratic way. How this is to be done is being hotly debated. There are no easy answers, but one thing is clear: the “solutions” put forward by the existing political parties serve only the interests of the 1%.

The general assembly at 7pm tonight on the steps of St Paul’s will be discussing the next steps for Occupy London, including plans for a long walk around the metropolis in May.

A World to Win salutes all those who took part in Occupy London. Doing what you have done is a bold and courageous move in the right direction. It is indeed right to reflect on what has been achieved and develop ways to extend and expand the original aims of the movement. Finding economic and political alternatives to the rule of the 1% is the way to go.

Corinna Lotz
A World to Win secretary

All out for the Climate Camp!

Climate Camp 2009 will “swoop” on a site near the hated City of London, on August 26 and the camp’s website sets out 10 good reasons for choosing this location.

One reason is that there are more branches and subsidiaries of international banks in London than in any other city in the world. “The Royal Bank of Scotland, Britain’s high street bank most closely associated with financing fossil fuel projects, has received billions of pounds of public money and is now more than 70% owned by the UK government.

“Yet despite this research shows that, since October 2008, RBS has financed loans to companies involved in the oil, coal and gas industry worth almost £10 billion. And yet renewable energy projects, like the Isle of Wight wind turbine blade factory, are being abandoned,” says Climate Camp 2009.

Top of the list for being in the City, however, is the fact that “London is currently the natural habitat of the transnational corporation, one of today’s most powerful causes of social and ecological injustice. Unaccountable, undemocratic and causing catastrophic climate change, these creatures need to driven into extinction.”

How to achieve this excellent goal will be the focus of the workshop that A World to Win is hosting on Saturday, August 29

The title of our workshop is “Composting Capitalism”, and we will argue that it is the capitalist state that stands between us and a sustainable future for humanity and other species and eco-systems.

The transnational corporations do not maintain their rule over us directly. For that they rely on the state - parliament, local government, education, the police, the army and of course, the monarchy. This network of control maintains the rights of private property and the right of the transnationals to exploit the planet for the extraction of profit.

Whether we like it or not, we can’t ignore the state, jump over it, or opt out of it. And experience shows that it is impossible to reform it, either. We must not rely on these structures to act to halt climate change.

We cannot start to tackle the devastation wrought by the capitalist drive for profit until we liberate the resources, talents and technologies created by humanity as a whole from their power and control.

We need to overcome what Marx called the “metabolic rift” that capitalism has imposed between humans and nature. Only in this way can we defend our own society, other species and eco-systems.

Therefore, creating a new democratic, transitional state is the key to liberating nature from corporate pillaging. We need to start now by organising local, regional and national Conventions that bring together people whose lives and livelihoods are being destroyed by the capitalist crisis.

As more and more people reject parliamentary politics and parties and start looking for new democratic solutions, we have a window of opportunity. We should not hesitate to establish our own parallel structures as test beds for democracy.

Direct actions along these lines would amount to a sustained challenge for power.

We look forward to seeing you at Climate Camp, and hearing your views!

Penny Cole
Environment editor