Hey guys, I've just come back from the Stirling eco-village. I thought you guys might like to hear about it; It was a pretty incredible place, both in terms of the community it managed to set up and perpetuate, and the political actions that went on around it and as a result of the planning ability it provided.
The eco-village was set up to be a base of political action against the G8 summit - but it also turned into a very cool experimental community. The site was perhaps around 3000 - 5000 strong between monday and thursday. It was organised with a basic grounding of rules regarding safety, and a list of job roles, but beyond (and even within) these basics there was *no* centralised authority, or at least none we could actually feel. It felt like every individual was empowered to the degree he or she desired; all the 'official' positions were filled by volunteer inhabitants of the village; not only could you freely become part of the power and organisational structure, you were encouraged and asked to do so. Within these roles it seemed that nothing impeded or retarded your 'progress' (i.e. how many decisions came down to you, how many people asked your advice, etc) other than your intelligence and creativity within the task.
The site was organised into 'barrios', small self-governing communities of perhaps between 20 and 150 each. Many barrios had their own kitchen, and many offered specific aid to actions - for example, transport, food, music, etc. Information was desseminated quickly using this system - barrios would almost always have representatives at central meetings, who could then quickly and effectively relay relevant information back to the barrio. The meetings themselves were amazingly effective on the whole, if sometimes long - they used the system i'm sure lots of you are familiar with, with central facilitators who theoretically are extremely unbiased with little sense of self, providing a structure for questions and points from, generally, *any* person present. This person was generally given an incredible degree of respect and authority, simply because he or she had chosen to speak. One example was when perhaps 50 or so people were standing at the back of a meeting in a crowd; a random girl right at the back requested we sit down for audio reasons; the instant the request was made all 50 individuals (most of them anarchists too!) sat down with no dissent or question.
This combined with the apparent intelligence of a number of people present made for apparently extremely effective insurgency planning. It all felt very organic. Although I'm not an experienced activist (which is why this has made such an impact on me), basically it seemed like the actions on wednesday morning - the blockades of the M9 and A9 - were very well planned and executed, considering the context and nature of the situation.
In a certain way the camp felt like getting out into nature - the structures of power were just not there. Everybody was doing their own thing, and pretty much nobody else got pissed off about it. The only time I saw grave disagreement was when the site tried to fit into the media hole; when we tried to make a statement to release to the press regarding the attacks on London. I find this very suggestive.
Generalising is foolish but fun, so: the main groups were pretty much intellectual students who were a bit frightened of extreme actions and a bit politically confused and/or fluffy(I'm one of these), old crusties who had lived on the edge too long, middle-aged working-class english anarchists, intense europeans, and a core of extremely influential, intelligent and balanced individuals who seemed to operate on anarchist principles combined with very strong political conviction.
So yeah, it seems like everyone left the site very empowered and with lots of ideas (especially about clowns; everybody loved the clowns. they are awesome.) I was going to describe some of the blockade actions, but it felt kind of indulgent... if you're interested though...
Cool, peace, love, etc,
Daniel |
