mk->> So, I'd like to ask you, what kind of world are you fighting for? And then, we can maybe talk about what kind of practical tactics or protests, in terms of the actions you've been involved in, you think have worked well toward moving towards that kind of world.

JB->> Well, for me I think it's about diversity. I think what really inspires me about new social movements, I kind of look at it as an ecological model. Harry Cleaver uses this kind of water model as well, which I think is very inspiring. What is an ecology? Well, an ecological system works because of its diversity, it's destroyed by monoculture. We look at the new social movements and the way that they're networking, and enormous diversity. Yesterday [J18] was a classic example, Bangladeshi garment workers, Autonomous Astronauts, anarchists, feminists, Nigerians. Yeah, so the diversity, like an ecosystem. The other thing about ecosystems is the fact that they're incredibly locally specific, but globally connected. So, a certain shrub that is in the savanna, you take it to England it's gonna die, yet it's connected because of weather and so on. And again I think these movements work best locally, but yet have this connection. So that ecological model I find very strong. The idea of an ecology on the edges, where different ecological systems overlap, where the greatest creativity happens in an ecosystem, where more evolution happens fastest. And again, I think where these social movements overlap, like when the Dockers started working with us, then that's where things really begin to move. So for me, that ecological model as a process is really important. I don't have a vision of the world I want to live in, beyond knowing that it's a world of mutual aid and ecologically free. It's a slogan really. I don't think I have a specific vision of the world that I want to live in. But I know that it's gonna be a diverse one. I'm not interested in any social movements that try and create one way of thinking, that try and create one text, one way of life, one world, one vision of one world. I think there will be many worlds. But it's certainly a world where money will be abolished, it's certainly a world where we'll return to a sense of locality and community and ecological sustainability. I think it's very difficult to imagine that world when we're living in this one. We'll imagine it through the process of destroying this one. But, my dream is that in the next five years I really want to try and think about how do we create practical alternatives in the moments of struggle? I mean that is the model, it's really, how do you that? Even if they have a certain symbolism. Yesterday, what would've been fantastic was to get into the London International Futures Exchange and dig it up and occupy it and turn it into a permaculture garden. To try and present an alternate type of model, so that when they say, "They wrecked the Futures Exchange," they couldn't say that.

mp->> They couldn't stop there, right.

JB->> "And created this." Even if it's just symbolic at that level. In a sense even Claremont Road, OK, it was there for six months, it's still really symbolic. We didn't create a sustainable living community. But for six months there was a free autonomous space, self-policed, where they had a certain economy, very unstructured, but you know, it created, again, for me, one of the important things is how do you create spaces of freedom? How do you create spaces where people are free to participate, are free to bring their own creative energies into it? And June the 18th was a classic example yesterday, and a street party always is that. It always amazes me how people will be working up to something and bring something on the day. They're not involved in the movement, they're not organizers or anything, but they'll be on their own and they know that here's a free space where anything can happen. And Claremont Road was like that for six months. I'm waffling.

mp->> No, you've made the point definitely.

mk->> Yeah, you're talking about the tactics that you think have worked towards that.

mp->> And that is when you can actually create the world you want in the same moment that you're opposing the existing one.

JB->> And the trees, at the M41, it's become a kind of iconic image. They had these big carnivalesque figures, women with big skirts. And under the skirts people were drilling holes in the tarmac, and planting trees. That's extraordinary, because you've got the carnival, but you've got the alternatives: a motorway, with trees in it! Says it all. It's symbolic, but I think we're working on those levels anyway. I mean, yesterday, J18, that was symbolic. We didn't affect the shares, the stock market went up yesterday thirty-four points. I think we cost them a lot of money, and I think it'll be interesting to see the level of work that went on. I'm sure the market would have gone higher on a normal day. I'm sure it did have an effect, but pretty minuscule. You know, you could be very critical. I was thinking of writing an article on how GDP is increased through protest. Through that level of protest, through destructive, so-called criminal damage, which I'm not against at all. But it's interesting that GDP will go up. We've done big business. The glaziers, gonna have a lovely time. On a deep ecology level you could be very critical. We're using more resources to mend this stuff.

mp->> And also that the people who have to clean up the mess are the people on the shit end of the stick anyway.

JB->> Absolutely.

 

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