Today is the 14/10/95 and we had a rally in the city to protest
against Mc Donalds. 50-80 people, and we went to about 8 stores dumping
McRubbish and causing a ruckus. Banners bore slogans like: SAVE LIVES,
BOYCOTT MC DONALDS!!! and other stuff. It was pretty good, got the blood
pumping in our veins!! The cops tried to protect stores by standing out
the front but we were much too quick for em!!!
Now the bad news. After the main demo had finished, some of us
wanted to go to Daimaru, so maybe 20 went there. It was there that one of
us was arrested, had her arm twisted behind her back, and was bruised by
the cops gripping really tightly and dragging her along. The cops only
did this because there were not so many of us at there at the time, and
possibly because we weren't communicating with them enough {although many
people tried talking them into letting the person go.
OK: A few ways I thought the demo could have been improved:
More friendliness, communication and leafleting {ecspecially
within the Mc Donalds stores}. I think that we were intimidating and
alienating to Mc Donalds staff and customers. The up-side of this is that
hopefully many customers will come away from Mc Donalds with some
negative memory associations. E.G. I won't go to Mc Donalds because
there's scary punks etc there sometimes... This effect could well be
achieved with kiddies.
The bad-side is it was easy for people to think of us as a pack
of nasty troublemakers, but you have to take the good with the bad.
Things need to be shaken up a little, going in and making a big noise and
a mess in Mc Donald's is great, but I'd like to see it accompanied by
Public Relations stuff, attempts to unionise the workers etc. We're there
protesting about poor conditions for staff at Mc Donalds, but the workers
themselves probably saw us as just a pack of agro bastards who were there
to give them a hard time.
The arrestee was 18, and had her purse stolen by cops, as well as
a couple of bruises on her arm from where they were holding her. She's
facing up to $1000 fine. Channel 9 media showed a cop saying she was 21
which is bullshit!!!
I think next time we need to have well-thought out plans of what
to do if the cops arrest someone {force them to arrest us all?}. I also
think its a good idea to talk to the cops all the time, force em to
relate to you on a human level instead of just shouting MOVE ON or whatever.
But overall I came away on a real buzz after the rally, it was
ace, the whole spontaniety was beautiful, apart from the unorganization
which this requires. Think about it! If we ever decide to do a similar
action, the only way the cops can stop us entering is to blockade every
Mc Store in the city. Good One! By the way the arrestee was released
after about an hour and a half and is ok considering what she's been
through!!!
--SAB11356.813777654/newsgate.dircon.co.uk--