No war but glass war!

You may have heard of masked anarchists in Huddersfield, stalking the streets and growing bold enough to venture around in daylight hours in enemy strongholds and make strategic assaults on the wrongs that capitalism has brought to our town. With a bottle and rag in one hand and a soapy bucket in the other justice was done and continues to be done.

Truth can be stranger than fiction.

Huddersfield Anarchist League has been doing some guerrilla maintenance around the town centre recently. Many buildings in Huddersfield town centre have been derelict for some time and without an organised squatters' movement in the area to keep them in good nick, they're beginning to look bloody filthy.

Some of these buildings are well and truly historic and there really are some beautiful buildings that were built with pride and love. Of course, you've got to look up to see it though. Corporations just love to knock out the whole of the shop floor and cover the whole thing with the uniform PVC and plate glass cladding. Towns like Halifax, just down the road, actually respect their architecture and the difference is massive, even though they have the same sort of buildings. To let these buildings fall into disrepair would be a crime to those people who designed and built these buildings for them to die like this, unloved.

In fact, some, like the 1930's Co-op building are due for demolition by Kirklees Council to build a new Cathedral of Consumption, like the Kingsgate Centre. The co-op movement, which has done significant good for people around the world, and such rare buildings that were part of that history, deserve preservation and appreciation. Instead, this institution of a better world is to be torn down to make way for more corporate bullshit and despair.

The council likes to use excuses like the condition of derelict buildings to pull them down, when in fact they are often directly responsible for the condition of those buildings themselves. Southgate flats and the sports centre are to be demolished next year to make way for a new super-Tesco store. How do the council get away with pulling down so much of their social housing stock without replacing them? Well, they've sabotaged them. At any point the council could have intervened at Southgate flats to improve them, for the benefit of their tenants as much as anything else. They didn't. Instead they chose to take the flats off the council housing waiting list and not put them on the Choose and Move system. As tenants moved on, or were evicted and new tenants ceased, the council began to use to argument of the flats being unpopular, because they are only half occupied. What they failed to mention was how they were directly responsible for both and still could deal with both problems at any time.

We were not going to allow places like the Co-Op building to meet the same fate. If they wanted to knock down our history then they'd be doing it without the bullshit excuses they used with Southgate. We'd maintain the building and make sure that public opinion was with us, not the corporations, come the time of its defence. That was one reason for the campaign.

The other was quite simply that they looked bloody awful. To understand how desensitised we have become to pollution, you only have to take a look at the windows of an abandoned building. Huddersfield is no longer the site of industry's belching chimneys (we pay China to do that bit of polluting for us), however there is still a massive amount of air pollution in the air, coming from cars. There are almost 4,000 car parking spaces in Huddersfield Town Centre and it shows. Even windows in the pedestrian zones such as New Street begin to get caked in thick dust in just a few weeks. You're breathing that in. So, the buildings had become an eyesore of the worst kind - the kind that's actually depressive. Again, it's down to the council, particularly with the co-op building which they own, ready for the wrecker's ball.

So, seeing as though the council refused to do the right thing and nobody else seemed in a rush to do something, then somebody had to take responsibility and bring a little justice into the world! We were going to go out there and clean those windows and whatever else we could do to make the council's plans to knock it down as hard as possible. If a job needs doing, get on with it.

We decided that with the current media vilification of black bloc tactics we'd subvert the image a little and combine bloc tactics and windows in a whole new way. So, head to toe in black, complete with masks we made our move on the co-op building. Maybe not surprisingly, especially because the cop shop is only around the corner, we were quickly challenged by a couple of PCSOs who claimed had been given reports that we were flyposting. Then we were challenged about our protective gear, but being good girls and boys, we explained that our black facemasks were to filter out the same air pollution that had stained the windows in the first place. Glad that was settled quickly. The coppers then advised us, on camera, to take a look inside of the building. We may take them up on that offer at some point.

While cleaning, we were whistling happy tunes, calling out friendly greetings to passers by and occasionally breaking out into singing. I think it's fair to say that quite a few people must have thought we were mad and most people had big grins on their faces seeing us getting on with it. A few even came up to talk to us and voice their support of what we were doing. One old fella even came up and started telling us jokes before saying goodbye and wishing us well. Very good vibe to it all.

The weird thing was that it was actually enjoyable. We were out in the sunshine, with friends, working at our own pace, on something we cared about, being appreciated by the community and all without managers barking at us. I wonder what else could become fun if you do it in a fair way?

To be honest though, we were not the best prepared for all this. The supplies situation was kind of grim. Between us, we had a few dish sponges, a bucket of soapy water and a bottle of water to rinse. For a squeegee, we had a car windscreen wiper (irony anyone?) tied onto a stick. We didn't have a ladder either. As you'd expect we did have some problems with getting the windows clean with this equipment, but at least it was an improvement and maybe it might encourage somebody to finish off what we started with better tools.

Anyway, I think the whole thing demonstrates many important anarchist concepts:
- The community needed a job doing, so somebody took responsibility and dealt with it.
- People who are blocc'd up are your best friends, not the enemy.
- Enviromental concern.
- You can't rely on corporations, or government to deal with our problems.
- That we share the interests of the community.
- Work on our own terms is actually enjoyable.

The cleaning shall continue!


Thanks goes to Takearaincoat for the pictures and having a good reach with a squeegee :P