Tales Of Rebellion

History Of Now

“In the time when the earth lies dying there will come a generation with the courage, the goodness and the strength of will to overcome the oppressors who enslave all things. Today that generation lives.” – Native American Lore

I grew up in a time of prosperity… and war. Every Christmas the high streets overflowed like swollen rivers as frantic consumers trampled one another underfoot- the less scrupulous you were, the higher upon that mountain of writhing bodies you could climb. Many chose to stand apart and observe with weary cynicism. The bait dangled before us; the Xbox, the BMW, the pre-packaged holiday; seemed unappealing, wrong somehow. In school we did well, with our clarity of thought and our thirst for truth, but when asked what we wanted to do we often drew a blank. A sales representative? Selling false joy to the joyless and empty. A business analyst? Further grease for the machines we despised. A tax evasion specialist? A slaughterhouse manager? A Tesco checkout drone? A factory worker? None of these addressed our deep-seated fears that amidst this material paradise something was very wrong.

As we grew older we became aware that the prosperity of our times carried a hidden cost. The trainers on our feet were made by children whose conditions differed little from the slaves of a previous century. The beef burger failed to satisfy our hunger for nature and the rainforest burned a little faster with every bite we took. The youthful freedom of owning a car was tainted by the creeping doom of climate change. Many of us could not live in such a world and escaped into the alternatives of drugs, television and computer games.

The 11th of September was a wake-up call, the end of a false dream. But it was replaced by a nightmare. Afganistan took us by surprise, but for the invasion of Iraq we were ready. For every kid they sent off to die in the desert, ten more marched in the streets of London. We naively thought that such cries of peace, emerging deep from the lungs of millions could not be ignored. But ignored they were. In a few short years the hypocrisy was laid bare. Though we had never believed the politicians everyone seethed at these brazen lies. We were told that to maintain our security, we had to attack countries on the flimsiest basis. We were told that to ensure our freedoms, we had to demonise Muslims. We were told that to live a peaceful life we had to maintain a constant state of fear. Now the world consumed more, not less, bullied into a state of obedience and terror. And as we cowered terrified, who were the terrorists, Muslims? The same Muslims that were themselves terrified of the midnight raid, the detention without trial, the one way trip to Guantanamo Bay? The ones spreading terror were the same as the ones pointing the finger; the newspapers, the politicians and the police.

The exodus from society had begun. If we read the papers, we no longer believed them. Many of us disappeared across the horizon to wind up later in South America or Asia, places we could make a difference. We squatted the inner cities and set up societies based on our own ideals. Protest camps and intentional communities sprang up across Europe. We had long ago lost faith in mainstream politics or ineffectual marches from A to B. The wars dragged on and new ones threatened.

The end of the world loomed large in the form of global warming. Company paid experts bickered about the causes rather than advising action. Gordon Brown made gestures. Al Gore presented slideshows. We were told that we would be the generation to suffer from the excesses of the previous, that we had inherited a dying earth. With creative protest, environmentalist gatherings and direct actions we upped our game. With nothing left to lose, many faced prison, we were not afraid to break the law to save the earth. Were those brave men and women who risked all cheered on by society as heroes? No, rather they were scorned as leftists and crusties or demonised as extremists and outlaws. Despite this the eco-warriors grew in numbers, commitment and organisation.      

But for the complacent consumers still glued to their TV sets the imminent and irreversible destruction of civilisation was to take second place to a loss of material wealth. The house of cards fell and the boom went bust. Over the coming years the cost of bail outs would reach into 29 trillions for the United States and an as yet uncounted number for the globe.

And it is the youth, those who have the least say of all, and our unborn children and grandchildren, who will suffer because of this. When we are ill, there will be no hospital. When our children need education, there will be no school. There will be no jobs, not even of the soul-destroying type. And as bankers and CEO’s award themselves vast mountains of cash we dare to ask, are we suffering because we need the banks? Or are we suffering because the fat cats wished to remain in the style to which they were accustomed? Rich and powerful men look after their friends, and we pay the price, and that price is slavery.

Riding it out and waiting for things to get better was never an option. We have taken to the streets. Student riots, demonised by the media were just the beginning of the uprising. A spontaneous but inarticulate rebellion. On campuses we found our voices, on blogs, twitter and facebook our views fermented. In the spring, we felt hope as our Arab brothers and sisters expelled their dictators. The media and the politicians tried to pretend that the uprising was confined to the Middle East. They refrained from stating the obvious, that the student riots and the revolutions were part of one and the same global uprising. The media talked about ‘anarchists’ demonising revolutionaries in the same way that Muslims had been demonised with the word ‘terrorist’. On the streets of London police vans were shattered, the Ritz was trashed and symbols of wealth, authority and power toppled left, right and centre.

In Spain the Indignados filled town squares and began to legislate for a new society. Inspired by this a global network emerged, whispering a word ‘Occupy’ and a date ‘October the 15th’. By the 15th, 95 occupations in 82 countries burst forth into city centres, not demanding change but being change. The occupation. The permanent protest. Dissidence is never again to be a brief display but is now a continuous state. As of October 15th 2011 the world is in a permanent state of (R)evolution.

Despite the icy cold of winter in the northern cities, the occupiers still occupy. Our presence is a continuous reminder that the people do exist and are ever willing to resist oppression. We are a generation; cold and tired, hungry and sleep deprived but no longer docile, no longer numb, now that we can see change happening before our very eyes. We have arisen and we are rousing up the earth, to fulfil a prophecy, to reclaim a birthright, to restore justice to the world and to discover the power within ourselves that makes all this possible.

What you read here will be repeated in one form or another for centuries to come because now, as ever, history is written by the victors.