Difference between revisions of "Anarchy 66/Day trip to Amsterdam"
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| previous = [[../Appeal to the international provotariat|Appeal to the inter­na­tional provo­tariat]] | | previous = [[../Appeal to the international provotariat|Appeal to the inter­na­tional provo­tariat]] | ||
| next = [[../Observations on Anarchy 62|Observations on {{sc|anarchy}} 62]] | | next = [[../Observations on Anarchy 62|Observations on {{sc|anarchy}} 62]] | ||
| − | | notes = ''CHARLES RADCLIFFE{{s}} ac­count of his fly­ing visit to {{w|Amster­dam|Amsterdam}}, which con­veys much more of the atmo­sphere of the city in June than all the thou­sands of ex­plan­at­ory words which ap­peared in the British press, is re­pro­duced from the first number of'' {{w|Heat­wave|Heatwave_(magazine)}}, ''the suc­cessor to the Brit­ish edi­tion of the'' {{w|Rebel Worker|Rebel_Worker}}. (''See [[../#ad|inside back cover]].'') | + | | notes = ''[[Author:Charles Radcliffe|CHARLES RADCLIFFE]]{{s}} ac­count of his fly­ing visit to {{w|Amster­dam|Amsterdam}}, which con­veys much more of the atmo­sphere of the city in June than all the thou­sands of ex­plan­at­ory words which ap­peared in the British press, is re­pro­duced from the first number of'' {{w|Heat­wave|Heatwave_(magazine)}}, ''the suc­cessor to the Brit­ish edi­tion of the'' {{w|Rebel Worker|Rebel_Worker}}. (''See [[../#ad|inside back cover]].'') |
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{{sc|Immigra­tion offi­cials eye long hair suspi­ciously:}} they want to check my ticket to en­sure that I will fly out again to­night. They tell me I must be on the 10 o{{a}}clock flight, as booked. Un­fortun­ately I have no choice anyway. | {{sc|Immigra­tion offi­cials eye long hair suspi­ciously:}} they want to check my ticket to en­sure that I will fly out again to­night. They tell me I must be on the 10 o{{a}}clock flight, as booked. Un­fortun­ately I have no choice anyway. | ||
| − | {{tab}}Everyone talks of {{w|provos|Provo_(movement)}} and riots. The air­port is dull and provin­cial and it is dif­fi­cult to be­lieve any­thing can ever really have hap­pened here. I take a coach into the city | + | {{tab}}Everyone talks of {{w|provos|Provo_(movement)}} and riots. The air­port is dull and provin­cial and it is dif­fi­cult to be­lieve any­thing can ever really have hap­pened here. I take a coach into the city centre—curi­ously all the notices in the coach are in English. The city is flat but beau­ti­ful, fan­ning out from the centre with {{qq|islands}} of houses and narrow streets, linked across the frame­work of narrow canals by narrow bridges. The houses are old, beau­ti­ful and some­how airy. (I am al­ready af­fected by roman­ti­cism.) |
| − | {{tab}}The re­cent riots add a curi­ously ambi­gu­ous touch to {{w|Amster­dam|Amsterdam}}{{s}} es­sen­tially placid, pa­tient na­ture. The town seems full of kids, police and promen­aders. To a {{w|Londoner|London}} every­thing seems to move at half- | + | {{tab}}The re­cent riots add a curi­ously ambi­gu­ous touch to {{w|Amster­dam|Amsterdam}}{{s}} es­sen­tially placid, pa­tient na­ture. The town seems full of kids, police and promen­aders. To a {{w|Londoner|London}} every­thing seems to move at half-speed; people have time to walk and talk in the streets. It is a city still small enough for people to live within the centre: the provos talk of urban crisis, smoke control, de­pop­ula­tion of the city centre. They are en­tirely right, of course, but they obvi­ously have acute en­viron­mental con­scious­ness. (In London we have al­ready toler­ated the almost total de­pop­ula­tion of the city centre, the con­struc­tion of giant, com­mun­ity-destroy­ing high­ways into the city centre and an air of breath­tak­ing poison­ous filthi­ness, with­out ap­par­ently even noti­cing. If the very na­ture of Amster­dam, built on water and with only very narrow streets, pro­hib­its the grot­esque ir­re­spon­si­bil­ity which has marked London {{w|plan­ning|Urban_planning}} and secured for London its place among the truly in­human struc­tures of the world, it is never­the­less abso­lutely right that the provos should worry about such prob­lems now, before it is too late. Even if they have no­thing else to tell the world the saving of Amster­dam would be enough to just­ify them.) |
| − | {{tab}}I walk into a book­shop sell­ing English paper­backs, {{w|China}}-friend­ship liter­ature, pamph­lets on {{w|Viet­nam|Vietnam}}, books on {{w|sur­real­ism|Surrealism}} and a few {{p|238}}{{w|New Direc­tions|New_Directions_Publishing}} books. The guy behind the counter has a head covered in {{w|band- | + | {{tab}}I walk into a book­shop sell­ing English paper­backs, {{w|China}}-friend­ship liter­ature, pamph­lets on {{w|Viet­nam|Vietnam}}, books on {{w|sur­real­ism|Surrealism}} and a few {{p|238}}{{w|New Direc­tions|New_Directions_Publishing}} books. The guy behind the counter has a head covered in {{w|band-aid|Band-Aid}}. |
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| − | In the street out­side a kid, dressed pre­domin­antly in white, came up to me after see­ing my London {{w|nuclear dis­arma­ment|Campaign_for_Nuclear_Disarmament}} pin and asked whether I was an English provo? Rather than con­fuse the issue I said yes. He asked a lot of ques­tions about the anarch­ists, {{w|CND|Campaign_for_Nuclear_Disarmament}}, the {{w|Com­mit­tee of 100|Committee_of_100_(United_Kingdom)}}. I told him the anarch­ists, as such, were largely ir­rel­ev­ant, CND ab­sorbed into all that is wrong and the Com­mit­tee of 100 with­out the money to bury itself. I asked him about the provos and, in par­tic­u­lar, their pub­lic dis­soci­a­tion from last week{{s}} riot­ing. (This worried me a great deal when I read about it in the English press, seem­ing to be a classic ex­ample of {{qq|intel­lec­tu­als}} behav­ing ir­re­spons­ibly, isol­at­ing them­selves from the phys­ical con­se­quences of their ef­fect­ive in­tel­li­gence and, in this case, in­cite­ment of youth.) He thought that per­haps the issue was too simple for the | + | In the street out­side a kid, dressed pre­domin­antly in white, came up to me after see­ing my London {{w|nuclear dis­arma­ment|Campaign_for_Nuclear_Disarmament}} pin and asked whether I was an English provo? Rather than con­fuse the issue I said yes. He asked a lot of ques­tions about the anarch­ists, {{w|CND|Campaign_for_Nuclear_Disarmament}}, the {{w|Com­mit­tee of 100|Committee_of_100_(United_Kingdom)}}. I told him the anarch­ists, as such, were largely ir­rel­ev­ant, CND ab­sorbed into all that is wrong and the Com­mit­tee of 100 with­out the money to bury itself. I asked him about the provos and, in par­tic­u­lar, their pub­lic dis­soci­a­tion from last week{{s}} riot­ing. (This worried me a great deal when I read about it in the English press, seem­ing to be a classic ex­ample of {{qq|intel­lec­tu­als}} behav­ing ir­re­spons­ibly, isol­at­ing them­selves from the phys­ical con­se­quences of their ef­fect­ive in­tel­li­gence and, in this case, in­cite­ment of youth.) He thought that per­haps the issue was too simple for the provos—{{qq|the real provos were in the riots}}. It was simply a case of Amster­dam{{s}} youth against author­ity. The provos dis­ap­proved be­cause they did not want viol­ence which made author­ity stronger. I said I con­sidered that many of the provo{{s|r}} state­ments had viol­ent over­tones and viol­ent im­plica­tions. He agreed but said the provos were not very con­sist­ent. Were the provos who demon­stra­ted with build­ing work­ers on Monday {{qq|of­fi­cial}} or {{qq|Un­of­fi­cial}}? He said they were {{qq|of­fi­cial}} but that their ac­tions were the di­rect in­spira­tion of the later {{qq|un­of­fi­cial}} youth riots. Was the provo­tar­iat dis­il­lu­sioned with the provos? He did not think so; most of the provo­tar­iat acted with lim­ited under­stand­ing of the provo{{s|r}} actual posi­tion. |
Latest revision as of 11:02, 30 September 2021
Day trip to
Amsterdam
Immigration officials eye long hair suspiciously: they want to check my ticket to ensure that I will fly out again tonight. They tell me I must be on the 10 o’clock flight, as booked. Unfortunately I have no choice anyway.
Everyone talks of provos and riots. The airport is dull and provincial and it is difficult to believe anything can ever really have happened here. I take a coach into the city centre—curiously all the notices in the coach are in English. The city is flat but beautiful, fanning out from the centre with “islands” of houses and narrow streets, linked across the framework of narrow canals by narrow bridges. The houses are old, beautiful and somehow airy. (I am already affected by romanticism.)
The recent riots add a curiously ambiguous touch to Amsterdam’s essentially placid, patient nature. The town seems full of kids, police and promenaders. To a Londoner everything seems to move at half-speed; people have time to walk and talk in the streets. It is a city still small enough for people to live within the centre: the provos talk of urban crisis, smoke control, depopulation of the city centre. They are entirely right, of course, but they obviously have acute environmental consciousness. (In London we have already tolerated the almost total depopulation of the city centre, the construction of giant, community-destroying highways into the city centre and an air of breathtaking poisonous filthiness, without apparently even noticing. If the very nature of Amsterdam, built on water and with only very narrow streets, prohibits the grotesque irresponsibility which has marked London planning and secured for London its place among the truly inhuman structures of the world, it is nevertheless absolutely right that the provos should worry about such problems now, before it is too late. Even if they have nothing else to tell the world the saving of Amsterdam would be enough to justify them.)
I walk into a bookshop selling English paperbacks, China-friendship literature, pamphlets on Vietnam, books on surrealism and a few
In the street outside a kid, dressed predominantly in white, came up to me after seeing my London nuclear disarmament pin and asked whether I was an English provo? Rather than confuse the issue I said yes. He asked a lot of questions about the anarchists, CND, the Committee of 100. I told him the anarchists, as such, were largely irrelevant, CND absorbed into all that is wrong and the Committee of 100 without the money to bury itself. I asked him about the provos and, in particular, their public dissociation from last week’s rioting. (This worried me a great deal when I read about it in the English press, seeming to be a classic example of “intellectuals” behaving irresponsibly, isolating themselves from the physical consequences of their effective intelligence and, in this case, incitement of youth.) He thought that perhaps the issue was too simple for the provos—“the real provos were in the riots”. It was simply a case of Amsterdam’s youth against authority. The provos disapproved because they did not want violence which made authority stronger. I said I considered that many of the provos’ statements had violent overtones and violent implications. He agreed but said the provos were not very consistent. Were the provos who demonstrated with building workers on Monday “official” or “Unofficial”? He said they were “official” but that their actions were the direct inspiration of the later “unofficial” youth riots. Was the provotariat disillusioned with the provos? He did not think so; most of the provotariat acted with limited understanding of the provos’ actual position.
