Part of the my reason for creating Ink/Paper has been the wave of protests we've seen in the UK since the rushing through of the current coalition government's austerity budget - plans to cut/cut/cut from the public sector: education, healthcare, transport, the arts....
Ink/Paper is a small contribution in solidarity with those who have taken direct action. For activists who are not only making their own voices heard, but are acting for the public good, educating those around them, raising awareness, daring to break the complacency, the anti-intellectualism of a culture that commands us to obey, to follow orders without questioning. A culture that embeds a belief in the authority of so-called 'superiors', even when we find the basis of their superiority to be deeply flawed, or rotten to the core.
In reaction: write, paint, draw, dance, march, stamp, shout....protest.
Since the events at Millbank on the 10th November 2010, I have read obsessively (using Tory relatives as debating practise...) on the politics of 'the cuts', the economy, neo-liberalism and so on. I have spend hours talking to people working in the public sector, to teachers, lectures, children, teenagers, children and even Tories...I have painted banners, followed local activist groups and even occupied a couple of buildings. I have be heart-warmed by public support, and international solidarity. I do this because I believe that what we are doing is not only 'right', it is necessary. It is necessary to stop this joy ride of power-high elites crashing before they've looked at the road in front of them. It is necessary to save lives. It is necessary in order to unite, to reach out the bonds of solidarity, of humanity, of compassion and form a social, political and economic order that does not crush and exploit. The car may be in the ditch but we can fight the flames.
We've seen the smoke on the streets, we feel the fire in our belly. We hold the power to burn this place down, we'll learn to roar.
Whose streets?
Our streets.
'Rise like Lions after slumber
In unvanquishable number -
Shake your chains to earth like dew
Which in sleep had fallen on you -
