Protest & Survive

Truly, the crunch has come. Cast out all feeling of futility. There is a time for every purpose. And a richer range of responses available than mainstream opinion dares acknowledge.

A court order tells you to get out of your house because it is no longer worth the mortgage and you can’t afford the payments now anyway? Don’t go. Tell the bench and the bank and the building society – Naff off! Rally neighbours and friends. Make plain that bailiffs will be given the bum’s rush. Put up barricades if needs be. Encourage others to follow suit.
Informed you’re redundant? Call your workmates together, argue for occupation. Let it be known there won’t be a washer leaves the premises without a deal that the workers are satisfied with. Pay no heed to politicians or union officials urging, “Leave it to us.” Just do it.
Your college has hiked up the fees? Take over, boot the administration out, invite lecturers to continue teaching, organise your own if they won’t. Probably be more relevant anyway.
Farm being driven under by a government unwilling to stand up to vested interests? Pump the nearest TD’s office full of slurry.
The banks are made of marble, There’s a guard on every door, The vaults are filled with silver that the workers sweated for.
Maura Harrington is in Mountjoy for standing up to Shell. But Bertie Ahern is still roaming the streets. Where’s the justice?
Calculate, coordinate, move together, and there is no force in the State to withstand us.

The most impressive sight at Glasgowbury was the compression of bands: people front and centre for The Mighty Stef at the Spurs of Rock Stage. Shouldering my way through, I discovered that the chant for ‘Sail The Boats‘ was being led by Here Comes The Landed Gentry, backing vocals from the Inisowen Gospel Choir. “Now that,” murmured a former member of the once and future Schtum, “that’s a real rock’n’roll band.” Quite.
Sacrilegiously missed the second coming of Mantic, We Are Resistance. And too late for Paddy Nash and the Happy Enchiladas. Hope I’ll be let in next year.
But did catch the Jane Bradfords in the Small But Massive arena, light and glowering, with, I think, a detectable touch of the Arcade Fire. Skruff did a mighty job on the same stage in a downpour that their crowd disdained with dance. The Q levitated the G Session tent, proclaiming with rapt and rational euphoria: “Cheaper than Oxegen, sweeter than Oxegen, more bottle than Oxegen!” They seemed younger than last year. Maybe it’s me. Keith Harkin at Eagle’s Rock, stardusted with glittery songs and luminous charisma, invited up seven-year-old Kim who turned out the best seven-year-old dancer seen in the Sperrins since the Draperstown Feis. Made the acquaintance of Clown Parlour in the same space, neat, intense, sassy, sartorially-coordinated seven-piece featuring cello and good-time joanna-bashing, the best-looking band of the day. Main stagers In Case Of Fire set the mountains atremble and the blood athrob. Henry McCullough’s 11-minute ‘Failed Christian’ was a masterclass: I once saw Henry do a 15-minute ‘See You Later Alligator’ at Sandino’s, to moans of disappointment when he stopped. On the main stage again, as night spread itself languid across the olive and purple of the sturdy hills, North coast punk instrumentalists And So I Watch You From Afar brought the shuddering day to thunderclap closure with music to peel the mind’s cover, sounds that will blare from hell at the end of all.
Sometime soon around these parts Paddy Glasgow, as creator, will be declared a god.
At 11pm the toilets were clean. My partner tells me this must be mentioned.
The next time someone tells you that there are two cultures in Northern Ireland into one or other of which the entire population might fairly be allocated, shout “Glasgowbury” and suggest they fuck off.

Here’s an email just to hand in response to my last little joust at Bono and Sir Geldof. It’s from Eritrea, a small, desperately poor and murderously misused country on the Horn of Africa, its mineral wealth and strategic position having cursed it with attention from global and regional powers.
“I thought you might be interested to know that in researching the history of aid to our region, especially the infamous (in our part of the world) ‘We are the World’ famine debacle in 1985, I interviewed reps of the Eritrean Relief Agency and the Tigrayan Relief Agency, who represented some 90% of the victims of the drought... They estimated that at best only 5% of the money intended for the starving people of Tigray and Eritrea actually reached those that needed it...
“The money was turned over to the Red Terror regime of Haile Mariam Mengistu, who used it to feed and fund his army in their genocidal campaign to crush the resistance in Tigray and Eritrea.
“My wife is llan ex-fighter for the Eritrean Peoples Liberation Front, from 1977 to liberation in 1991, when they actually chased Mengistu out of Ethiopia, and she personally witnessed massive amounts of western aid sitting in Ethiopian trenches and military depots. Much of the aid was in cash and used to buy Soviet arms that were used to kill civilians and freedom fighters...
“The bottom line is that Geldof et al made matters worse for Africans...
Keep up the good work,
Thomas C Mountain,
Asmara,Eritrea.”
You too, Thomas.