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| RECLAIM THE STREETS "RTS is about creating moments"
RTS is a loose coming together of different individuals committed to anti-authoritarian and non-hierarchal organising. We're aiming for change based on our ideas of self management and sustainability in the economic, environmental and social spheres. We're not anti-globalisation, we're anti-capitalist, and stand for returning privatised space into the public area. Why do we do it? For the city, the streets are the commons, but in the hands of industry and power brokers the streets have been mere conduits for commerce and consumption ? the hero of which is of the car . The car which promises individual freedom ends up guaranteeing noise, destruction and pollution for all. For reclaim the streets the car is a focus the insanity of its system is clearly visible that leads to the questioning both the myth of the market and its corporate and institutional enforcers. To reclaim an area is to act in defence of and for everyone. And the party far from being just anti-this or anti-that is an example of enacting our ideals without looking for it from leaders. For a few hours in the whole year we try to create an autonomous zone where the best of the city and its people can be enjoyed. RTS has held parties with a purpose? for the last few years on May Bank holiday and Car Free Day (September 22nd) in Dublin city centre.Actions |
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F.A.Q. FOR RECLAIM THE STREETS
RTS is a loose coming together of different individuals committed to anti-authoritarian and non-hierarchal organising. We're aiming for change based on our ideas of self management and sustainability in the economic, environmental and social spheres. We?re not anti-globalisation, we're anti-capitalist, and stand for returning privatised space into the public area. 1.Reclaim the streets from who? From corporations and councils who determine what you can and cannot do on your own street through their money and power? Who refuse to act on the demand for more public transport. 2.What's Critical Mass? A collection of cyclist who meet once a month to use the streets en-mass and highlight cycling issues. 3.Who organises reclaim the streets? No-one person or group owns RTS, it is just an idea that a number of people contribute to atleast twice a year. You can start your own RTS in your street or town. 4.Why are buses blocked when you are in favour of public transport? For the safety of the crowd the entire road must be blocked so no cars try to nip past, although we may accomodate buses if it is safe, emergency services can be directed around any traffic blockage by their controllers before they get to it. 5.I can't get to work other then by car! By bike, bus, walk (or park and drive would be a start). Cycle (you could start with two days a week) Get your company to install a secure bike shed and showers in your workplace. 6.What about the trouble in May 2002 When police are faced with a situation they can't control they'll use aggression and violence and then blame it on the protesters to cause confusion over the real issues. Excessive force was shown to be used by a circuit court judge and video evidence. 7.Why not participate in the council's Car Free day events? We feel that council doesn't do enough to encourage change of attitudes to car use and we aren't willing to wait till they do. So we push the issues a little further. [Infact the Dublin council is doing next to nothing to participate in European Car Free Day] 8. RTS Does not represent the majorities views? We believe from much evidence it does although people do not know what to do about it. "Independent research on attitudes towards European Car Free Day in Ireland in 2001, found that 87% of those surveyed said that car use must be limited to improve the freedom of movement in towns and cities. 87% agreed that it is essential to continue to develop the public transport system, even if, to do this, motorists have to be inconvenienced. Research was commissioned by Sustainable Energy Ireland and carried out by Lansdowne Market Research." 9.What changes are RTS trying to promote? A reduction in cars in the city and increase in public transport and cycling walking etc. This would create a cleaner safer healthier living space for all. Also in general people doing things for themselves. 10.But there simply isn't enough public transport! When you vote with your feet things happen, do not accept a bad service and try to change your habits to reduce your car use; shop locally and eat local produce and then you nor the producer has to spend so much time or money using a carbon emitting vehicle. 11.How do I get involved in other RTS events or get more info about the issues we raise? Contact rts-dublin@yahoogroups.com or talk with your friends and neighbours and start your own in your area. |
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The Evolution of Reclaim the Streets (a summary) from reclaimthestreets.net The direct action group Reclaim the Streets (RTS) has developed widespread recognition over the last few years. From road blockades to street parties, from strikes on oil corporations to organising alongside striking workers. RTS was originally formed in London in Autumn 1991, around the dawn of the anti-roads movement. In their own words they were campaigning: FOR walking cycling and cheap, or free, public transport, and AGAINST cars, roads and the system that pushes them. Their work was small-scale but effective and even back then it had elements of the cheeky, surprise tactics which have moulded RTS's more recent activities. A campaign known as the "No M11 Campaign" highlighted the need to reclaim the city streets .Whilst Twyford Down was predominantly an ecological campaign - defending a 'natural' area - the urban setting of the resistance to the M11 construction embodied wider social and political issues. Beyond the anti-road and ecological arguments, a whole urban community faced the destruction of its social environment with loss of homes, degradation to its quality of life and community fragmentation. In late 1994 the UK government introduced Criminal Justice and Public Order Act. Overnight civil protesting became a criminal act, but what the government hadn't counted on was how this piece of legislation would unite and motivate the very groups it was aimed at repressing. The fight of the anti-road activists became synonymous with that of travellers, squatters and hunt saboteurs. In particular, the suddenly politicised rave scene became a communal social focus for many people. The protesters reformed themselves as Reclaim the Streets in February 1995. Streets parties were then held regularily highlights including July 1996 when there was the massive success of the M41 Street Party, where for nine hours 8,000 people took control of the M41 motorway in West London and partied and enjoyed themselves, whilst some dug up the tarmac with jack-hammers and in its place planted trees that had been rescued from the construction path of the M11. But cars are just one piece of the jigsaw and RTS is also about raising the wider questions behind the transport issue - about the political and economic forces which drive 'car culture'. Governments claim that "roads are good for the economy". More goods travelling on longer journeys, more petrol being burnt, more customers at out-of-town supermarkets - it is all about increasing "consumption", because that is an indicator of "economic growth". The greedy, short-term exploitation of dwindling resources regardless of the immediate or long-term costs. Therefore RTS's attack on cars cannot be detached from a wider attack on capitalism itself. More importantly, RTS is about encouraging more people to take part in direct action. Everyone knows the destruction which roads and cars are causing, yet the politicians still take no notice. Hardly surprising - they only care about staying in power and maintaining their 'authority' over the majority of people. Direct action is about destroying that power and authority, and people taking responsibility for themselves. Direct action is not just a tactic; it is an end in itself. It is about enabling people to unite as individuals with a common aim, to change things directly by their own actions. A carnival celebrates temporary liberation from the established order; it marks the suspension of all hierarchy, rank, privileges, norms and prohibitions. Crowds of people on the street seized by a sudden awareness of their power and unification through a celebration of their own ideas and creations. It follows then that carnivals and revolutions are not spectacles seen by other people, but the very opposite in that they involve the active participation of the crowd itself. Their very idea embraces all people, and the Street Party as an event has successfully harnessed this emotion. The power which such activities embody inevitably challenges the state's authority, and hence the police and security services' attention has increasingly been drawn to RTS. The organisation of any form of direct action by the group is closely scrutinised. In many ways the evolution of RTS has been a logical progression which reflects its roots and experiences. Equally the forms of expression which RTS have adopted are merely modern interpretations of age-old protests: direct action is not a new invention. Like their historic revolutionary counterparts, they are a group fighting for a better society at a time when many people feel alienated from, and concerned about, the current system. Their success lies in their ingenuity for empowering people, their foresight to forge common ground between issues and their ability to inspire. |