Editor's Blog

 

Ctrl.Alt.Shift blog specialist Bibi van der Zee once wrote how activists can get ‘lethargic’ and chillaxed over the summer period, as whatever beaming sun the UK provides is seized upon with tanning lotion and the shortest of short shorts. In hindsight, I dare not disagree, as my summer of potential love and rays was reduced to tears and sweat behind the confines of my office lap top, bitching at the cries of laughter coming from the happy-go-luckies outside. Call me bitter? Hell no, I love this job.

Minor self-sympathy put aside, the activism season is well and truly back in motion. Amped students are back in school and making movements, we all gear towards a vital time in the climate change battle (click here for more Road To Copenhagen [1] info), and I’m pitching a FOR SALE sign on the House of Lords… okay, let me explain that last one.

The Lords have been the most unholy of creatures, in particular Lord Truscott and Lord Taylor. Earlier this year, the naughty boys got caught out by Sunday Times reporters posing as lobbyists seeking amendments to government legislation in return for cash. The Lords graciously agreed to help, putting the whole integrity of our legal system in jeopardy, and tainting any faith left that our government is a finely oiled democratic machine.

 

The punishment for such exploitation of power? On Monday (October 11th), the bad boys (still talking about Truscott and Harper here, not Will Smith and Martin Lawrence) just strolled back into parliament. Their six-month ban was over, but the distaste in my mouth was still there.

Please click here for more on the Lords scandal  [2]story...

So, what do activists do when the distraction of the summer sun disappears? Geared up by Don’t Panic’s Heydon Prowse and joined by fellow Ctrl.Alt.Shift star James Prosho, we all headed to the frontline, with a polished FOR SALE sign (also stating ‘F**king Corrupt’), and pitched it up right in front of the House of Lords gates. We all hoped the message would be read by the guilty parties, but who knows, as it took little more than eight minutes before the Met’s finest tore it down.

Nevertheless, just down the street Greenpeace youth activists were scaling the Houses of Parliament, fighting their own climate change cause (click here [3] for that story). Whilst across the street, at Parliament Square, anti Iraq war activists continued to hand out leaflets, just outside their tent homes (which haven’t moved since winter 2008).

Please click here for info on the Parliament Square peace activists [4].

This London hot pot of activism gave the police and the press a run for their money; explaining why it took a whole eight minutes for our gorgeous sign to be removed. Pity and shameful too that the po po’s most affirmative action was to interrogate and warn off poor pasta-eating James and I BEFORE we even began our stunt… another golden moment for our boys in blue as we received our first official police warnings.

Now, skip forward to last night (Thursday October 15th), and we’re causing another ruckus, this time in quiet old Dagenham East. The occasion: An official British National Party (BNP) meeting. The objective: To test the BNP’s old ‘non-whites not welcome’ policy given that they JUST got encouraged (some would say cornered in) to amend their rules following a legal battle with the Equality and Human Rights Comission this summer. Check out the full story here [5].

The result of our stunt: another man-handling off the premises and police sirens galore.

What a shocker it must’ve been for various BNP supporters to see an oriental, Mauritian, eye-brow pierced boy (that’s me!), one scrawny Nick Griffin t-shirt-wearing black boy (my colleague Mervin), one muscle-bound Jamaican photographer (Mr Mann-Ray), plus a host of fellow ethnic buddies bowling through the doors unannounced… “Where’s the meeting? We want to join…” we asked.

Yes, us alongside Heydon and James again, made a very weird bunch of potential members but we did all have one thing in common - our British passports; and therefore one right in common, to be a part of that meeting. After all, we definitely support the BNP’s ‘More British jobs for British people’ - so being rejected was quite a heartbreaking moment.

God bless Councillor Robert Bailey, who tried to explain that we simply couldn’t participate due to the fact we weren’t official BNP members (we needed cards apparently), and couldn’t be until January 2010 as recruitment had been frozen until then (ahhh, sneaky move). Fair enough, despite the fact our pack included a Swedish benefit-claiming girl named Kaiser who had been allowed to join the BNP just a week earlier (loop-hole in the system indeed), and this dejection, despite the fact one of Bailey’s fellow BNP supporters being caught out confirming there were a few non-members in the meeting… the lies of the Lords is spreading like Swine this week.

Bailey struggled to answer our questions, and tried to take the brunt for his more so beer-guzzled friends, one of which said outright: “We don’t want you! You should find another party to join!” Though I must admit, I did sympathise with Bailey by the end of the night, as he said the BNP are a “largely misunderstood group” who had been “tainted by the media and the government.” No doubt this is true - not everyone in the party is stereotypically a white supremacist Nazi looking to attack us ethnic beauties. But if Bailey wants better understanding of his party, especially in time for their slot on Question Time next week, him and Nick Griffin will have to vouch for those BNP supporters who do still shout “We don’t want you!” at British ethnic outsiders merely wanting to spectate at the back of one of their standard meetings. What was said in that room…? Curiosity kills.

So that’s it, never a dull day at Ctrl.Alt.ShiftHQ [6]. Activists gear up, get your placards prepped and winter coats on, because there’s never enough to do. Apathy and laziness is no excuse. And I didn’t even get to focus on my mid-week interviews with Ctrl ambassadors, actor/ MC Riz Ahmed and singer VV Brown. Oh, maybe next time…

See y'all in a bit - live for the weekend!

Dwain Lucky Lucktung

Photos: James Prosho and Mann-Ray Powell

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