[This is a reposting of an email that I had sent to some close friends on March 24th 2003 @ 23:56.]
| rehi, | | i have often expressed my discontent of protest marches, petitions, and | the likes of direct action such as hunger strikes, sit-ins, blockades, | chaining oneself to..., etc. | | i agree with all of them in theory, and in practise they all work great | as acts of solidarity. they bring people together. let people know that | they are not alone in their feelings. | | however, unfortunately for us, their value has been diminished over the | years. the hippies did too good a job. values and beliefs and actions so | adapted by mainstream culture, that they have no effect. | | so let's not merely walk from A to B. let's not block traffic and | achieve nothing besides annoying people and getting yourself nicked. | let's not chant mindlessly at the police -- these guys are just doing | their job, they've heard the fucking chants all day long. | | it's time to take things a step further. time to do something | constructive. and so, i would like to propose the "pedipeace movement" | -- pedestrianise for peace. | | let's choose one day, and on that day, not have cars travel through | london, and form circles at every other crossroads, and have a dialogue | about various issues. | | it doesn't even have to all be a dialogue of words. at some crossroads, | we could have wonderful music and dance. at some crossroads, we could | have beautiful men and women giving out free food. | | we could discuss nuclear disarmament at oxford circus, palestine at | cambridge circus. the idea is to have a circle at many crossroads and | people to come forward to the middle and express themselves. to have a | dialogue. | | we should practise the law of two feet, which states simply that if you | find yourself in a situation where you are neither learning nor | contributing – use your two feet and move to some place more to you | liking. maybe to another crossroad, or maybe to a park somewhere. no | matter what, don’t sit there feeling miserable. | | we could create some infrastructure to make this happen better. e.g. | let's say that people are discussing nuclear disarmament at oxford | circus. i go there and text a number (let's say 2661) "nuclear disarmament". | | and then, when someone sends a second number (let's say 2662), asking | where people are discussing "nuclear disarmament", it would send back | directions to the one at oxford circus. you could add the numbers of | your friends to the system so that people could filter the results more | effectively... | | so, in summary... we would have true dialogue. not some pompous git | standing up on stage lecturing us all, but instead dialogue between the | people. democracy. we would have achieved something constructuve. every | nite, people could go back and write up summaries of what happened... | | we would have people talking to each other. we would have people | learning more about the land around them. their geography. we could have | wonderful street parties in the night, celebrating life. | | we would be expressing our discontent by blocking off central london. | and, yet at the same time, we would be practising what we preach by | using cars less. we are all oil junkies. it's time to ease up on our | addiction. | | many people are angry. many people feel betrayed. but, let's direct that | energy into achieving something constructive. into creating the world | that we want. let's not just chant mindlessly. let's come up with solutions. | | i would appreciate everyone's thoughts and comments on this. criticism, | both positive and negative, is very welcome. i would like to give this a | serious push once we've got a solid plan in place. | | -- | peace is now, tav | tav@espians.com
