Snapshot of Occupy London Stock Exchange
By Katherine Wedell
The library tent, the media tent, the late night tranquillity team, the university tent, the Occupy Poetry group, the land group (mapping public and private space in London), the direct action working group, a full schedule of speakers, solidarity actions with other groups (tomorrow morning at 6.30am it’s with the electricians who are taking industrial action nearby) and twice daily general assemblies – a snapshot of the vibrant and creative culture in the tent city of Occupy London Stock Exchange outside St Paul’s.
Fifty or so tents are pitched to the side of the front steps of St Paul’s, around fifty more down part of one side of the building. Access is clear across every entrance to the cathedral, the front steps, the forecourt, and on three-and-a-half sides. Along a wide walkway on the far side of the tents, the front pillars of the neighbouring building are plastered with posters and information.
Everywhere there are people talking and listening to each other: organised talks, small informal groups of diverse people standing around talking to each other, people with film cameras, people giving interviews, one man just talking by himself into a microphone. There are vast numbers of people here, listening, discussing, and learning. And they are diverse: all ages, some in suits, some passersby, some visiting, curious.
While I was there it began to rain heavily. With little shelter from the elements in the camp, I took shelter with lots of other people in the vast marble-floored portico of St Paul’s. I saw people moving around in the offices over the road. Are they listening to the discussions going on over here?
Dominating the city of London are office blocks. The monoliths of corporate power – literally set in stone. And here in the midst of them is a fragile tent city.
One man being interviewed said one weekend was ok, but an ongoing ‘shanty town’ (his words) was not ok. I thought it’s not the first time a shanty town has sprung up because of corporate greed.
On the way home I went briefly into another church. Over the altar were the Ten Commandments. In the Bible, weren’t these gifts of divine wisdom given to those who had rejected the bastions of power and who, dwelling in tents, were trying to discover a new and better way of living?
