A view from an occupier.

Visitors to the muddy village we call home drop by to show solidarity, support and occasionally contempt. Sometimes they can expect a greeting by a group of intoxicated people holding cans of Special Brew sitting around a fire, regardless of whether they come at 9am or 9pm. I’m not going to lie, camp in the middle of a city that provides food, shelter, warmth and welcoming conversation attracts not just the politically active, but also the drunks, the addicts, the homeless and the youth with nowhere else to go. We identify ourselves as the marginalised, the 99%, and in doing so attract the genuinely
marginalised of our society.

Arriving on the Green with my tent ready to pitch up I can’t say I wasn’t put off by the drunken folk around the fire. They were nice enough, slurred greetings and toothless smiles, but certainly not the image of hard working change makers I had in my head. Over the weeks that followed, however, I saw how hard work and substance abuse are not mutually exclusive. I worked with these people in the kitchen, I cooked with them, I cleaned with them. They stay up on night watch, they liaise with the public, they have amazing ideas, they inspire others. They are me, I am them.

It’s hard not to judge at first sight. I, for one, was taught, conditioned, to believe that the
homeless/drunk/addicted of our society are nothing but a drain on our public services, people that mustn’t want to help themselves because otherwise they would. We forget that we, as a whole, are an addicted society; addicted to ego, to consumption, to being right, to attention, to instant gratification, to stimulation, to nicotine, to caffeine, to alcohol, to drugs. All of these addictions need to be addressed. It is easy to forget that empowerment is a gift. A gift to those brought up being told you can do anything, change anything, you are powerful. Without that supportive upbringing perhaps our beliefs would be different. Perhaps if we were brought up being told there is no hope for us, we would have believed that. Perhaps if we weren’t told anything, but witnessed and experienced domestic, emotional and/or substance abuse we would believe that.

College Green has long been a site for under age drinking and drug use so although Occupy Bristol agreed by consensus to be a drug and alcohol free site, this is impossible for us to personally enforce. We encourage discreetness, but that is also hard to enforce. Visitors to the site, public and media, are quick to jump on these issues as though caused by the Occupation. But the issues are not the fault of the Occupation, they are the fault of the society that we have all created and it’s inability to cope with the issues it created. And as cuts in public spending are imposed it is clear that those with money and power have no interest in mending their broken society, merely to suck the pennies out of it and watch it’s people suffer. Unlike the NHS, we welcome everyone straight into our camp; no waiting list, no need to jump through hoops. We ask people for an honest day’s work in exchange for the food, shelter and education we can offer. And we have enough to go around. This is an opportunity to help people in the way the NHS does not have the resources to, and we do it for free. Seeing everyone as an equal human being takes no formal training (though it is something many of us need to learn). To address this properly, however, we need the help of professional services.

Bristol Drugs Project are running a weekly drop in service from 5:30pm – 7:30pm every Tuesday to link people to the services they offer. We openly invite people from other social and health services to come down and offer your support. We genuinely believe that we can be a source of social change, and while our fast-paced lifestyles want the answers yesterday  the answers are still emerging. And the answers will come from ALL of us, if we let them.

Occupation is an idea, a tactic. It cannot be intimidated or evicted. We welcome bold, fresh ideas on how to build our movement and advance our arguments 

photo: Lanre Fehintola

This afternoon in support of National Move Your Money Day protesters from the Occupy Bristol camp moved on from their last action in Clifton and took the campaign to the city centre. Wearing Guy Fawkes masks they took signs and flyers with slogans such as “Its a robbery, the bankers are stealing from you” and “no money, no bonuses” to branches of Lloyds, Barclays and Natwest, entertaining shoppers as they went.

One protester said “some people were confused, other people thought it was funny but everyone was interested and wanted to know what we’re doing which is really good, there’s definitely a growing interest in our Move Your Money campaign”

To find out more about National Move Your Money Day visit the website or the facebook event.

At today’s meeting with the Council and the Dean we were disappointed to learn that the Council are not going to make a room available for our public meeting. The reasons that this is not possible remain unclear, it seems to us somewhat disengenious that they cannot offer us; The people of Bristol, a space to discuss this important issue.

We were pleased therefore that the Dean, David Hoyle indicated he would look into the possibility of using part of the Cathedral building to host this meeting. We thank the Dean for being open to this possibility.

We also discussed a number of other local issues with the council, particularly whether their community asset transfer process is fit for purpose given that 200 council properties remain empty.

We also brought to their attention the actions of Edinburgh City council in voting to publicly support the aims and sentiments of global occupy movement.

We are pleased that the global occupy movement continues to build momentum towards a more equitable political and economic system.

We have become increasingly aware of a small but vocal number of Bristolians who are raising questions about our tactic of camping on College Green.

It is interesting for us to note that a large number of our critics do in fact agree with us; that the working class and the most vulnerable should not be forced to pay for the reckless mistakes of the banks, either through government cuts or recession-related redundancies.

It seems that the main criticisms we face regard our tactics rather than our message.

We would like therefore to invite the people of Bristol to a public consultation on our tactic of camping on college green.

We will invite the general public & representatves from a number of important institutions and movements to address the meeting including:

The Conservative party, The Green Party, The Church of England, The Socialists, The Liberal Democrats, Those who can speak from a Anarchist perspective, The Labour party, The Muslims, The Voluntary sector, The Trade Union movement and all other significant movements within our city.

We hope that, at least in part, the meeting can be facilitated using the consensus decision making process that we use.

Clearly there are some that believe that camping on College Green continues to be a useful tactic for growing our movement.

We however hope to send a clear message that we are listening, and that we welcome bold, fresh ideas on how we can continue to build our movement and advance our arguments without continuing to camp on College Green.

We hope that this meeting will take place in the Council building so that it can be accessible to the largest possible number of people. We await confirmation that this is possible. We will announce the finalised location and date of this meeting within the next few days. This position was agreed at our general assembly meeting 23/11/11

My name is Peter, I speak only for myself, I do not represent the camp

As most of you already know, occupy Bristol is due to enter its 6th week. The aim from the very start has been to raise awareness of the political and economic corruption which has hijacked our democracy and forced millions into unemployment, poverty and desperation. 10’s of 1000’s of us throughout Bristol continue to experience the daily reality of London and Wall Street’s economic incompetence and criminality. They crashed the economy, robbed us of our future and in some cases destroyed our family life, all for the sake of defending an economic system based on exploitation, criminality and greed.

Personally speaking I now despise Labour as much as I do the Tory party and Liberal Democrats. Labour repeatedly turned its back on the working class of this country through seeking to build an alliance with corporate power. Through prostituting themselves and our country to American imperialism, they showed us all their true colours. If I had my way, I would have Blair and half of the Labour opposition thrown in jail on charges of war crimes and abuse of public office.

Today we find ourselves yet again again at the mercy of another undemocratic National Government. In my opinion the ConDem coalition is illegitimate, they have no clear mandate to do what they are doing, yet we are supposed to sit back, shut up and accept everything they throw at us.

All across Bristol our public services are being butchered for the sake of keeping our undemocratic and ineffective local Councillors in power. I sincerely hope they find the wording of this statement offensive. Day services for the disabled as well as homes for the elderly are closing down. Services to enable the unemployed have a better chance of re entering the workplace have already gone, along with funding to assist organisations helping those with mental health difficulties. Bristol has grave social issues boiling under the surface, which have only been further exacerbated by the lack of representation and political accountability.

Its time to say enough is enough! I would like to call upon everyone throughout Bristol to stand with us and unite in our fight to save our city’s public services. Together we can bring an end to the surge of political opportunism which has plagued our democracy for years. If Bristol City Council won’t fight to defend your future, I’m sure we will. If those elected to represent us won’t do the job they are elected to do, we should take their power back and throw them to rot on the dole.

The time has come for us all to unite in one voice and bring down the council leadership if need be. Together we can bring about a true democratic movement of the people, a movement that both Bristol and our country so desperately needs. Only through exercising our democratic freedoms will we understand the true power we possess.

Occupation is an idea, a tactic. It cannot be intimidated or evicted.

We welcome bold, fresh ideas on how to build our movement and advance our arguments 

Photo courtesy of noise of art

“My name is Henry. I am 18 years old. I am a university student in Wales. I speak only for myself, I do not represent the camp.

I stay here part of the time, commuting from Wales and my university commitments there. I am here because I want to oppose the uneven distribution of wealth and freedom in our society. There is one law for powerful corporations, banks and the elite 1% while the rest of us have little say or legal redress. Everyone knows the globalized financial system is run by billionaires who have got away with theft on an unimaginable scale, but not only have they escaped prison, their placemen are being put in charge of countries like Greece and Italy. This globalisation of criminality also means that we are all forced to live at the expense of poor people in the Third World who are working in slave/sweatshop conditions. This power elite that controls our lives is also degrading the natural sustainability of the earth we rely upon, with their selfishness and greed. I believe a better world is possible and am prepared to work hard to create it.”

Occupation is an idea, a tactic. It cannot be intimidated or evicted.

We welcome bold, fresh ideas on how to build our movement and advance our arguments 

We recognise that the production of iPhones alongside many other consumer trinkets is unsustainable and damages both the environment and people.

We would not encourage anyone to buy a new iPhone. 

It remains a fact however there are lot’s of iPhones out there and in  pragmatic way we might as well use them to get our message out.

We have made a simple iphone application to keep you up to date with  Occupy Bristol. With this app you will be given access to Occupy Bristol’s RSS feed, Twtter feed, Facebook page and blog. You can also email Occupy Bristol from the app.

The designated air ambulance landing site for the BRI is the Downs. College Green is not designated as a primary landing site.

The Council were initially given incorrect information on this and had been led to believe that College Green is used more frequently than is actually the case. The council have apologised to us for spreading this untrue information and will be issuing an apology via the Evening Post (at least they said they would in our meeting).

The helicopter does occasionally land at college green. It happens every couple of years. The last recorded time was in 2009  it was such a notable event that the local media described people as ‘shocked‘ Our understanding is that a exceptional set of circumstances needs to take place before College Green is needed.

However in these exceptional circumstances the Occupy Bristol camp leaves 100ft diameter of space which is adequate for landing. It is marked out here

We have contacted Great Western Air ambulance to get them to confirm that they are happy with the landing space available. We await their reply.

In addition we are pleased to support the ongoing campaign to get proper landing sites funded, including one at BRI. We also hope that the NHS cuts do not stop this from going ahead

Photo courtesy of noise of art

Long live the Occupation.

Tonight at around 7pm Bristol’s second Occupation camp was trashed and I was threatened to have my face bit off, by a male whom I presume was a member of Bristol’s EDL firm. I was handed a note by a middle aged woman reading “people of Bristol eviction notice get off our green”. It was obvious from early on who they were so I attempted to engage with them. Nevertheless, I was told they have launched a campaign against Occupy Bristol, this wasn’t news to me as its been acknowledged by us for several weeks. Several Occupations around the country have had repeated problems with EDL members. However, ironically the harder the EDL try to defeat the Occupy Movement, the stronger we grow in numbers, power and support.

If trashing a few tents and issuing threats of violence is supposed to scare us into going back home, they sadly don’t know the resolve, determination and outrage we share as an international movement. I’ve been screwed by this system of injustice and corruption since I was a kid and so long as this body of mine draws breath, I can guarantee I’ll fight with every ounce of determination and faith I can muster to bring it to an end. We don’t have enough people at the moment to defend the second camp so its been temporarily disbanded. However, the actions of those who visited me tonight have made me determined without question to do what ever it takes, to inspire, promote, strengthen and spread Occupy Bristol to every corner of this city and beyond. I may be a pacifist but I promise you this, I will have justice for both myself and my family regardless of your ineffectual threats and attempts at intimidation.

Long live the Occupation.

Occupation is an idea, a tactic. It  cannot be evicted, or intimidated.