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Bootboy: Come the revolution

Our columnist continues to be inspired by the possibilities offered up by radical left-wing politics.

Eamonn McCann, 26 Jun 2009

I had a great evening recently at a workshop on “Queer Politics – Mainstream or Revolutionary?” held at Seomra Spraoi in Dublin. It was bizarrely nostalgic for me – although trying to explain that to the young people there was a bit odd, because of course for them, it is all wonderfully exciting and sparkly new and brave and passionate. Please don’t get old, dear reader.

Thirty years ago, as a teenager, apart from sex, politics was my main distraction as I was busy flunking my Leaving. I was hanging around squats and the Dandelion market, going to anti-nuclear protests at Carnsore Point, getting involved with Rock Against Racism, representing Dublin at the Gay Youth Movement conferences in London, hearing Petra Kelly of the German greens speak, going on TV and talking about being queer, getting argued about, and generally enjoying myself hugely.

Meeting places then tended, universally, to be makeshift, ramshackle, with dodgy wiring and cracked plasterboard. There was always some part of the building too dangerous to enter, and it was all usually held together with plastic sheeting, sellotape, and an extravagant use of brightly coloured emulsion paint. Jars left out for donations for tea and coffee, chipped mugs with tannin stains, veggie food being cooked on ancient cookers in battered pots, served on non-matching plates. Walls covered in posters: campaigns, benefits, marches, petitions. Extravagant haircuts and rollies.

So, on visiting Seomra Spraoi for the first time, I felt at home. I knew in particular that I was back in familiar territory when, on the wall of the back yard, the anarchist symbol was casually sprayed there. Except I can’t help but think that it has, like everything else, become a brand, a symbol for selling trendy t-shirts made in sweatshops in India or China.

Nevertheless, those who are responsible for introducing good ideas to the collective are not responsible for the crimes that are done in their name. Think Jesus, Karl Marx, Maeve Binchy.



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Eamonn McCann

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