NUTS IN MAY

Lloyd Evans on the mediaeval

madness of the anti-capitalist riots in London on Monday

MAY DAY 2000. As dawn broke across London, the wage slaves dozed in their Ikea bedrooms and the fat cats breakfasted on oysters and caviare — and all was well with the world. Or rather, all was rotten with the world. Global greed reigned supreme.

London's position as a centre of world- wide racketeering went unchallenged and the system of exploitation (which kills one baby every three seconds) maintained its baleful stranglehold on the planet, support- ed by greedy politicians, a corrupt press and a heavily armed gang of corrupt, greedy paramilitaries known as Babylon (or the Metropolitan Police).

But things were about to change. The revolution was at hand. Like many another rebel I awoke, flung aside my hand-woven yak's-wool blanket, and dressed for a happi- er future. My clothes themselves were already helping to change the world: my cruelty-free sneakers, my organic cotton trousers, my non-polluting Rajasthani T- shirt and my vegetarian shoulder-bag. Even the gas-mask which would disguise my appearance had been reclaimed from an army-surplus shop, rather than ending up on a landfill site where it would poison Mother Earth for millions and millions of years.

I pedalled to the Strand through the toxic effluent of the military-industrial complex. As I chained up my beloved Raleigh Explorer, I shed a silent tear that such an act was necessary. I cursed the sys- tem that had forced me to become one of them — a captor. A key-jangling guard! Why couldn't my bicycle enjoy the day in freedom like the birds and the butterflies? It was all so wrong!

There was a low-key protest going on outside McDonald's. 'Don't eat McShit', a leaflet explained to me in stylish and good- humoured prose. I'd been told that free veggie breakfasts were being handed out by the Animal Liberation Front and I asked Babylon if he'd seen the nut-cutlet stall.

`All gone, I'm afraid. You've just missed them,' the bully-boy copper answered politely. Yeah, right, I thought. A sneaky attempt to put me off my guard by feigning good manners. Typical.

Parliament Square was packed with protesters. It was a party. Drums playing; everyone in costumes — dancing, drinking, smoking, breastfeeding. People clambering up lampposts and statues; banners every- where: 'Cars murder trees', 'Let London sprout', 'Chant down Babylon'. It was great. Eco-warriors with trowels were translocating the imperialist topsoil and planting seeds that would bloom sponta- neously and make us all live in peace and harmony. Smiling women were strolling around topless with stickers over their nip- ples that read 'Hurry Up And Die Queen Mother'. Legal observers were handing out bust-cards containing advice on what to do if Babylon abducted you. 'You are entitled to see a lawyer of your choice, free of charge,' they said. Magic, I thought. If I get nicked enforce that to the letter. I want to be defended by Lord Irvine.

Someone gave me a vegan fig-roll and I offered a donation in return. 'Sorry?' he said. I realised he couldn't understand me through the gas-mask. I took it off and asked him if he was there to witness the downfall of capitalism. 'I'm here to witness the downfall of everything that annoys me,' he said. Without my mask I felt exposed. My adopted persona as a rebel was suddenly replaced by the real me. He was suspicious when I asked what he did for a living, 'Are you the police?' And I realised I'd blown my cover. I would have to proceed cautiously because journalists are not regarded kindly by the peace-lov- ing enemies of greed.

I collected every leaflet and newspaper I There's never a gun-toting maniac around when you need one.' was offered and soon my bag was an ency- clopaedia of discontented idealism: the Socialist Party; the Socialist Workers' Party; the Socialist Alternative; the Work- ers' Hammer; the Spartacist League; the Right To Be Naked in Public; the People Against Chimpanzee Experiments; Say No To Tube Privatisation; NatWest Funds Animal Torture; Save Richmond Park; and even, at the outer limit of optimistic insani- ty, Frank Dobson For Mayor.

A twit wearing a beard offered me a four- page magazine that looked as if it had been printed on recycled toilet paper — Green Anarchy. 'One pound?' he offered. A woman from the catchily titled Internation- al Wages for Housework Campaign thrust a leaflet at me explaining how women are going to stop the world with a series of global strikes. `So you're against capital- ism?' I asked. 'Oh, sure, I mean, you can't demand wages for housework and not be against capitalism."Eh? So you want wages and an end to capitalism?"Urn, we want all kinds of things,' she said and reeled off a list. 'Protection from violence, paid breastfeeding breaks, cookers, fridges, computers, washing-machines. . . . "Micro- waves? Trouser presses?' I suggested. She gave me a funny look, so I changed tack. `Do you think capitalism has got a future?'

`It's going to collapse,' she said. 'It's bound to. It's unsustainable."Well, that's good, isn't it?' I said. 'Urn — when, roughly?' She scratched her head. 'Well, I mean. When people do something to bring the system down.' I heard this sentiment countless times during the day. Everyone was con- vinced that capitalism would disintegrate. No one knew how, or when or what would replace it.

The protest had swollen by now and the north side of Parliament Square was blocked by a mob of dancing, drum-playing, lager-drinking anarchists. Not everyone was looking for trouble. A maypole had been set up. Children were chalking pictures on the road. People were laughing at their com- rades who were making speeches. But there was something simmering just below the surface: a palpable tension.

When the police dragged a man down from a lamppost, a threatening chorus of jeers rose from the crowd. They let him go.

The first bottle was thrown at 12.49 p.m. Sensibly the police ignored it, as they ignored those digging up the grass and defacing Churchill's statue. Why did the police not act sooner? They might well have rounded up the guerrilla gardeners at midday — but it would have sparked a full- scale riot. There was chaos in the air.

By mid-afternoon the crowd was drifting up Whitehall. Earl Haig had the accolade War Criminal' scrawled across his pedestal in red paint. Geraniums bloomed at Monty's feet. The ever-graceful Sir Walter Raleigh was sporting a traffic cone. Field Marshal the Viscount Alanbrooke KG, GCB, OM, GCVO, DSO glowered imperi- ously into the middle distance with a bright-red spade attached between his legs, cocked suggestively upwards. It rather suit- ed him. And Field Marshal the Viscount Slim's new title was 'Fat Boy'.

As we approached Trafalgar Square a line of riot police blocked our path. After the attack on McDonald's the mob was being divided into two. For the next 90 minutes there was what is called 'an uneasy stand-off'. Several hundred protesters stood around taunting the police lines. The mood was threatening but susceptible to sudden changes. There were occasional jokes thrown from the police to the protesters accompanied by eruptions of laughter. The noise was constant whistles, drums, jeering, cheering. A trum- peter played ironic versions of 'God Save The Queen'. Overhead the perpetual clat- ter of the police helicopter added to the eerie, unsettling mood. Aggressive groups of young women aimed choruses of abuse at the police, knowing that their sex effec- tively protected them from retaliation. The odd protester would launch into a speech while the crowd shouted approvingly. For such people this was a kind of fulfilment, a chance to yell insults at the oppressor. To stand up for the freedom to . . . well, take your pick: be naked in public, end the fur trade, ban cars, stop the fat cats murdering babies, save Richmond Park.

A couple of anarchists discussed tactics: `Stay away from the front, 'cos when the bottles start going we'll get hit and we ain't got helmets.' A vinyl LP was flung towards the police and it smashed harmlessly on the pavement. (Later, I checked the title. It was This Ole House by Shakin' Stevens). Then, without warning, something hap- pened behind the riot-police phalanx. A line of mounted officers calmly trotted out from a sidestreet and lined up facing us directly. It was terrifying. The hugeness of the horses and the awesome calm with which they manoeuvred into a neat row caused instant panic. I rushed backwards along with everyone else. Several people stumbled and fell. The cavalry were going to charge. I was certain I was running for my life, but after a few seconds people stopped. They looked round. The horses were standing still. We were safe. People started laughing. They regrouped. They went back to carry on the jeering and taunting. Everyone else seemed to be enjoying it, but I felt sick. I'm a coward. I hate feeling scared. I slipped away down a sidestreet as the whooping and drumming continued.

What was all this about? The crowd were youngsters, mostly under 30, and mostly white. Hardly any Afro-Caribbeans or Asians. With their pale faces and dun- coloured clothes, their pointy hoods and shapeless combat trousers, they looked like the bonded serfs you see moping about in the paintings of Pieter Brueghel. They feel powerless and dislocated from our democ- racy. A meaningless jumble of grievances spurs them to focus their hatred against the common enemy. Sometimes it's argued that they're demonstrating traditional English virtues — independence, bloody-minded- ness, eccentricity, standing up for the under- dog. (Actually, I don't believe these are specifically English virtues. Every nation on earth prides itself on its rebellious streak.) Anyone who hankers for a return to Merrie England should bear in mind that we had a glimpse of it on May Day: a throng of resentful drunks spoiling for a fight with armoured men on horseback. The scene was mediaeval. As was the mood — rustic, combative, bestially malicious.

Oddly enough, the protesters see them- selves as highly evolved and blessed with a special awareness. Though discontented, they are also starry-eyed and optimistic. I heard so much relentless cheeriness I felt like booking into a ward full of manic depressives. With a rucksack full of leaflets and a brain full of grudges, the May Day anarchist would regard himself as being a million miles from, say, the football hooli- gan. And I would agree. The here-we-go England supporter who smashes his way through a town centre at least doesn't believe he's doing it to make the world a happier place; he's doing it to make the world an unhappier place. Compared with an anarchist a football hooligan is a model of integrity.

At sunset I was back in the Strand where a shop selling wallpaper had had its win- dows smashed. Why wallpaper? I won- dered. 'Well, like, wallpaper, it's like, part of the cover-up, isn't it, like, hiding the cracks in the system, you know what I mean?' I asked a protester in his mid-40s if it had been a good day. Undoubtedly, he told me, it was the beginning of the end of oppression. He quoted the much-used statistic, that capitalism kills one baby every three seconds. So when capitalism collapses, I asked, what will we use for money? 'Nothing,' he said. 'There will be enough of everything for everyone.' I couldn't be bothered arguing with him.

I went home and watched the news reports. Thankfully I'd missed the day's ugliest event, the Storming of the Chicken McMuffins. A short piece of footage showed a different scuffle in a sidestreet — a man being knocked to the ground, a capitalist of course. His job was to oper- ate a TV camera and that made him a target. Protesters in black clothes were kicking him repeatedly. You could see their boots pounding into his body with as much force as you'd expect someone to use against a locked door if they were escaping from a fire. Why were they doing that? Because capitalism kills one baby every three seconds.