I know it's not the said thing if you're of the bleeding-heart liberal persuasion (and I am), but I find myself agreeing with the judgement in Court yesterday that the Occupy London encampment at St Paul's can be removed. It's not that I disagree with their reasons for being there, of course, rather that I genuinely don't believe they'll achieve anything with this action except make a historic and important site look terrible and inconvenience people who have nothing to do with the problems they're seeking to address.
The financial institutions of Threadneedle Street have, needless to say, gone about their business utterly unconcerned and entirely unaffected by it. Not so St Paul's, which may be an icon of a Church I don't like, but is certainly not to blame for the world's financial ills. It has found itself forced to close its doors for the first time in ages, has had resignations among its senior clergy as they wrestle with the conflict between their Christian consciences and the huge problems the camp is causing them, and has generally been buggered about considerably.
The same goes for the camps in Parliament Square. They've been there for years, and they've achieved absolutely nothing except forcing huge expenditure on repairing damage to the green at a time when the money would be better spent on addressing some of the problems they're protesting about. Look at Brian Haw - the man gave up his life, his family, everything, but died having achieved nothing more than a bit of publicity and having had his placards mimicked in art. To me it seems a waste of a good man's energy and altruism, qualities which could have been directed into forms of protest which actually achieve something.
I also don't believe that removing the camps is stamping down on the right to protest. Marches still happen, protest can still be made, just not permanent forms of it stuck on the city's streets like a limpet. But as I've said before on these pages, the forms of protest which work best these days are much better organised and focused, and take a different form. Look at what 38 Degrees have achieved, or the petition to have the Hillsborough disaster Cabinet discussions made public, among many other such petitions. With our vote, with large numbers organised and focused over the internet, and most importantly with the withdrawal of our custom from organisations we see causing these problems in the first place, we can have much more effect than by sitting in a tent on a London pavement for months at a time. You have to play the system to change it, regrettably.
You also have to have a clear idea of what it is you want, not just what you don't want, if you're going to be taken seriously. A similar camp was set up on the Old Steine in Brighton, until it was blown away by the pre-Christmas gales. During its stay, the local paper interviewed one of those responsible for it. When they asked him what the aims of the Occupy movement were, in a response reminiscent of the aims of Life of Brian's People's Front of Judea, it was the complete dismantling of the capitalist system and dominance of corporate interest. When asked what he'd replace it with, the answer? "Something else."
I realise that this is but one member of a diverse and extremely loose group with a wide range of interests and ambitions and a worldwide reach, and that he does not necessarily reflect the group as a whole, but their very form and lack of structure is part of the Occupy Movement's problem – if they want to be taken more seriously by the people they seek to influence, if they want to actually change things, they need to think, speak and focus themselves a bit more intelligently than that.
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