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Date: Wed, 23 Apr 1997 22:03:41 +0100
From: Road Alert!
To: roadalert@gn.apc.org
Subject: 'Big Issue' article on the 'March For Social Justice'

>
> Article from the Big Issue; 21st April 97
> (http://www.mcspotlight.org/media/press/bigissue_21apr97.html)
>
> A n   u n h o l y   a l l i a n c e
>
> When the dockers' march ended in violence the police blamed Reclaim
> the Streets. Strangely, the press agreed. Jane Cassidy reports
>
> Did you hear about the huge March for Social Justice, the one where
> thousands of people turned out to support the sacked Liverpool dockers
> and had a party? No? Then you must have been relying on your
> newspaper to report the news.
>
> [photo of press photographers clamoring to capture scenes of violence]
>
> Anyone who wasn't on the April 12 march from London's Kennington Park
> to Trafalgar Square could be forgiven for thinking the entire afternoon
> was devoted to pitched battles between police and a bunch of
> dreadlocked anarchists who had spoilt the poor striking dockers' day.
>
> Scotland Yard's press office put out a statement and, it seems, the
> mainstream media swallowed it whole. Three 'rioters' were charged
> with attempted murder, they said (these charges had been dropped by
> the time the papers hit the stands). A bus was 'hijacked' in the
> fray, apparently (other witnesses claim the bus was actually boarded
> by petrified marchers chased by police). Most disturbing, though,
> were the reports of a 'rift' between dockers and Reclaim the
> Streets (RTS).
>
> The dockers were upset, police and press agreed, that this unruly mob
> had hijacked their day. This was immediately rubbished by the direct
> action group and the dockers themselves, who decried "irresponsible
> journalism". No one reported that.
>
> So how did the March for Social Justice go down in history as a
> Reclaim the Streets riot? Sacked Liverpool docker Jim Davies said
> the march was being billed as another Poll Tax riot by press and
> police before he and his family even arrived in London:
> "What happened was an absolute disgrace. We've built up good links
> with Reclaim the Streets. The trade unionists may have abandoned us
> but RTS never have, and the dockers are disgusted with the attempt
> to totally undermine it."
>
> What struck some who were actually there, rather than pounding
> telephones in distant newsrooms, was an absence in the press coverage
> of any discussion of what the march really represented.
>
> "There was a misrepresentation of the relationship between the
> Liverpool dockers and RTS, along with a misrepresentation of the
> importance of the day as a social justice march, which included
> pensioners, the unemployed, the homeless, a lot of groups in
> society who feel they've had a raw deal," says Big Issue
> editor-inchief A. John Bird, who spoke on the day. "It did represent
> something positive and none of the media wanted to talk about that,
> they lazily wanted to talk about a few incidents involving the police.
>
> "The reason I spoke," continues Bird, "is because the way forward is
> an alliance of groups that take responsibility for their own actions
> rather than leaving it to the politicians."
>
> The dockers complain of a media blackout in their 18-month struggle
> for reinstatement, after 329 were sacked for refusing to cross a
> picket line in a dispute involving overtime. They were replaced by
> a casual work force.
>
> Mainstream media disinterest stems, perhaps, from a view that
> the dockers' struggle is an outmoded one, a dinosaur, 'workers
> against bosses' fight. What has been missed is a recognition of
> the joint concerns bonding older trade unionists with young green
> activists, and the fact that their experiences affect us all.
>
> "If this alliance is about the past it's also about the future,"
> says Bird. "There is a widespread sense of unease about the
> future, the sense that there is no security, no ability to build
> anything firm. We're in this ever-changing world with signs of
> social collapse are all around. This community-based alliance
> counters that sense of not belonging anywhere, having no job,
> no community, no home."
>
> Many column inches have been devoted to agonising about youth voter
> apathy. But those who marginalise the dockers and their supporters
> underestimate the discontent of a generation growing up in an era
> in which employees' rights have been whittled away to the extent
> that many people live in the shadow of redundancy.
>
> [photo of party in Trafalgar Square and the McSpotlight banner]
>
> - END -
>
> Also see eyewitness report by McSpotlight activist on
> http://www.mcspotlight.org/campaigns/current/mcspotlight/rts_apr97.html
>

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