tent city

Tent city outside St. Paul's Cathedral is doing more to energise people's thinking than any number of sermons. The crowds who wander around the tents or sit on the cathedral steps to listen to the speakers taking turns with the microphone are not just being told to oppose capitalism. Along with the cups of tea and meals for the homeless the occupiers are hosting good causes generously.
The atmosphere in the camp is friendly and intelligent and there is a "University Tent" for anyone seeking to go intellectually upmarket. The posters are large-scale and everywhere - THE REVOLUTION WILL NOT BE BRANDED, THIS IS WHAT DEMOCRACY IS ALL ABOUT, REAL DEMOCRACY NOW - are just a few. But there is also a large sign asking for the microphone not to be used, or any loud noises while services and ceremonies at St. Paul's are going on.
One large tent has made many aware for the first time of the free Kurds and their opposition to the Turks. "Didn't know about this before - it's really bad," said one City worker wandering through the camp. A poster called for the freeing from prison of dissident Abdullah Ocalam, held there since 1999, and another alleged that the Turks had dropped napalm and cluster missiles on young members of the PKK resistance army in October, killing 33 of them
Viva, the organisation trying to stop the brutalities of factory farmed animals, also had its place. "Torture Victim! This duckling could be caged, tortured and killed just for a delicacy. Dont't buy Foie-Gras Free Britain now!"
The London Catholic Workers, who have been campaigning for Julian Assange as well as for the release of Bradley Manning, held in isolation without trial for releasing secret files in the US, have a daily presence at the camp.
Anyone with a cause to fight can go along to the protest camp and find a home for their posters and speeches. It is fuller and livelier at night as workers return from their day jobs to come back to their tents, though many are there all day.
The camp is not as large as it usually looks on press pictures, occuping only about one-third of the space in front of St. Paul's The real shock comes on trying to enter St. Paul's and finding that, unlike tent city, you cannot get in unless you have a handy £34 ready for a family ticket, the cheapest way to enter. "But it's free if you come to a service," says the man at the ticket office. The campers thought Christ would have chosen to stay with them rather than among the chandeliers and rich furnishings and tinkling of money in the cathedral and, in the end, the church leaders supported them rather than their rich patrons in the City.
That is why there were resignations by the senior St. Paul's churchmen and support eventually from the Bishop of London, Dr.Richard Chartres and sympathetic backing from the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr.Rowan Williams, and plans to remove the campers by force shelved.
One of the campers was having a discussion with two men in smart suits and ties standing on the pavement, both bank workers nearby in the City. "Communism doesn't work and capitalism doesn't work either," said one of them. So what does work?
"Nothing. It's down to the people at the top and they don't change."
Occupy London in tent city claims not to have leaders and to be demonstrating what real democracy looks like, rather as the German Greens did 30 years ago. Time will tell how much success they have.
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