May Day 2001

A womble’s perspective: Disguising sofa cushions and banners as rubbish and dodging cops, a few wombles eventually emerged from a small dark alley. As they chanted, shouted and unfurled banners free money began to fly and cheers and shouts in Oxford Street greeted them.

Banners were used in the front and to the sides of the crowd to form a block some padding was handed out and other wombles joined. As the block advanced up Great Portland Street it became more raucous, it was really working, a line of riot cops retreated. Then onto John Lewis, where came the first real confrontation.

The blows rained down but the padding held and again the cops retreated. Next an attempt at the lines guarding those trapped at Oxford Circus. The cops struck back their lines being 2 deep. At one point they were pushed back and surrounded on both sides by the crowd.

On New Bond St, numbers swelled to about 1000. Then whilst leaving Soho, cops stood 3 deep and were extremely heavy. A decision to retreat was made to prevent the crowd being trapped. Outmanoeuvring the cops, people dispersed to avoid arrest.

Hopefully more wombles will be encouraged to form and help facilitate crowd movement to effectively oppose the cops, creating better mass street gatherings.

Bristol: Critical mass started at 8am with music, banners, and leaflets about May Day. Later people paraded towards Broadmead to the rhythm of samba drumming but one unlucky woman was arrested for criminal damage after touching a police camera with a swiss roll!! An army recruitment office was postered with ‘To kill or to be killed, RAF jobs'.

Traffic was stopped at Bridewell police station but they had no intentions of releasing comrades.

The carnival continued onto REED job agency where demonstrators entered with drums & banners and stuck ‘On strike’ and ‘1st of May - No jobs today’ posters to windows. At REEDs accountancy branch, a parody of exploitation was performed a boss whipped a worker whilst sucking her blood to fulfil his greed.

Job centre staff were entertained by drumming until many job seeking police officers appeared.

Outside MacDonalds, where police had been waiting since 8am, Nobby Nobody performed some anti-capitalist songs dedicated to the pigs and the corporations. The day ended at the cop shop where the one arrestee was released at 4.30pm.

Birmingham: The police stopped any sizeable protest occurring when first arrivals were immediately surrounded and penned in. About 40 people were in this group and 100+ more were outside police lines. After being read section 14j they were told to take the protest to an underpass. The crowd, tightly surrounded moved off whilst individuals were targeted and arrested. 14 people were arrested; one for having a 4 letter word on his trousers; 9 were charged. However this has not dampened spirits and a campaign to defend the right to protest is now being launched! s26brum@hotmail.com

Norwich: A few hundred gathered in the heart of the city to spontaneously play dance and be merry on a sunny day. The decorated pole provided as much entertainment as the free tea & cake stall though not nearly as much as the police turning up with and installing toilets for everyone!

Glasgow: Over 1200 people participated in peaceful demos.

Dublin: a successful and well-attended demonstration forced the Dublin Stock Exchange to shut early.

Greece: Thousands protested plans by the government to reform social security payments, as well as the threat of globalisation.

Poland: In Warsaw over 1200 anarchists marched, stopping at government offices and the US embassy to have a chat.

Slovakia: In the capital, Bratislava hundreds gathered from several revolutionary groups and were visited by many other people who showed interest in ideas of revolutionary anarchism.

Czech Republic: Hundreds gathered in Prague with anarchist literature magazines and stickers and a sound system with free vegan burgers. Nazis shouted nationalistic slogans, so the cops protected them and then attacked other protesters with batons and horses.

Pittsburgh, USA: 200 costumed people celebrated with chants, cheers, flags and a mobile maypole. The police seemed unsure of what was going on and eventually 150 riot cops tried to direct the march. 6-10 arrests were made and police used pepper spray and physically beat several demonstrators.

Long Beach, USA: Cops outnumbered protesters & unsurprising there were over 60 arrests. People were shot at, at close range with rubber bullets.

Confused bystanders were alarmed at the cops shooting kids for no reason.

Australia: Thousands of May Day protesters took to the streets in Australia on Tuesday, burning political effigies and blockading stock exchange buildings. Protesters linked arms to block the Australian Stock Exchange (ASX) buildings in Sydney and Melbourne chanting “No One In, No One Out”. Police warned they would not tolerate violence and even welded shut metal manhole covers to prevent them being used as missiles. Stock traders were forced to go to work in the dark through underground carparks so the buildings could be closed, an ASX spokesperson stated “...we’ve made arrangements to suit staff but not at the expense of running the market properly.’’

In Melbourne, protesters waving flowers played volleyball to disrupt traffic. A MacDonalds restaurant was forced to close after protesters splashed it with paint and slogans such as “McFilth” & “McCrap”. Australian Workplace Relations Minister Tony Abbott said of the protests “Its pretty mindless activity and what the protesters need to understand is that capitalism is just a fancy word for freedom”.

New Zealand: Hundreds of peaceful demonstrators held the Carnival against Capitalism in Wellington, with several well organized groups protesting against privatisation of NZ’s water services, free trade and globalisation.

Costa Rica: Over 10,000 took to the streets of San Jose: from banana workers to housewives. All were demonstrating with their usual spirit of militancy, unity and solidarity. This unity of workers is growing and all feel confident of new victories.