Grassroots Gathering Report

national | miscellaneous | news report Tuesday November 05, 2002 15:08 by Terry - AF and Glu.

Report on the Third Grassroots Gathering which took place in Belfast over the October Bank Holiday weekend.

The highly successful 3rd Grassroots Gathering brought together over one hundred environmentalists, anarchists, and other assorted troublemakers from across the island and beyond. There were almost 20 different workshops on a wide variety of topics including Gender, Direct Action, Social Centres, Reclaim the Streets, Sectarianism, and Forest Gardens.

It took place in Giros, which has been a democratically managed social centre in Belfast, with gigs, meetings, a cafe, a darkroom, a library, and in all probability much more, since back when The Cure were fashionable.

The highpoint of the workshops was for me, and many others, the “Arrest and Interrogation” one. This was introduced by a member of the Cork Anarchist Alliance, and was pretty much free of waffle, with a down to earth sharing of experiences, mistakes and lessons learned.

Apart from no comment, no comment and no comment, important points included the need to talk to arrested persons afterward, as there may be some trauma, and the importance of not bringing information providing things such as ID, notebooks, or switched on mobiles to situations where you may be arrested.

Police intelligence gathering and harassment were also talked about.

Given the international situation, unsurprisingly talk about the war took up a lot of time. One excellent workshop was introduced by the Shannon plane spotters of Refuelling Peace. The discussion following this was mostly about schemes to establish a peace camp at Shannon, creating a democratic anti-war network and a call for a further demonstration at Shannon warport.

These proposals were then taken to the Morning meeting, i.e. to all folk at Grassroots, not just attendees at one workshop (or at least everyone who had got out of bed).

The call has gone out for a demonstration at Shannon, on Sunday, December the 8th., at 2pm. There will be local meetings before this, and a meeting on the day itself to discuss tactics. A Grassroots Network for Peace is in the process of establishing itself, as a means of communication for people into direct action, democracy, and kicking Washington’s legions out of county Clare. Less a formal organisation more a way of getting people in touch with each other. For starters there’s a mailing list send a blank e-mail to
[email protected]

The next Grassroots Gathering is to be in Limerick
in March.