tisdag, augusti 22, 2006

Reclaim the streets

Reclaim the Streets (RTS) is a term used to denote a type of political action. According to Wikipedia online, it began "in the United Kingdom in the 1990s and the idea was quickly taken up as a form of protest around the world."

Actually they call it a street party. Some others phrase this festival as an outside-of-parliament session of the Invisible Party (Osynliga Partiet), a leftist youth movement, which is said to enjoy no conventional organization. Yet members have been called up via blogging or mobile phones to start a new type of class struggle, right at the heart of the city.

This is what I witnessed in the streets of Stockholm in Sweden on the first of May, 2006. Rather a festive mood all around. Only the next day after I read the local newspaper did I know that a riot broke out somewhere else and around 130-140 persons were in police custody consequently. Two of them later were formally charged.

That the left lost in the Swedish general election of this year after having governed the country for a long period was a fairly recent event.










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