Anarchy in the UK

Last night I went to an anarchist party and found it surprisingly well organized.

My friend Michelle is friends with a lot of very interesting people, lots of artist and activists so it came as no surprise when she asked if I wanted to go to a squat party with her. I’d been to one other squat with her before, in a basement of some rundown office type building around Waterloo. But this squat surpassed any expectations I had for activist living, and I mean that in a good way. This building was some sort of old hall or school in East London (somewhere around Lime House, I think) and if the building had been abandoned this group was keeping it in good shape.

You had to be on the guest list to get in which gave this party a special feeling of importance. They may be anarchists but they weren’t just going to let anyone in. As we entered up the large staircase there was a family photo of the Anarchist family that ran the space in the centre of a large stain glassed window above the stairs. They looked like clean, happy, fun people. Not what I remember of Anarchists back in my day of all ages punk rock shows.

When we got to the main dance hall, a giant room with a vaulted ceiling there was a DJ playing house techno meets kelzmer music. I suppose there was a theme to the night because everyone was in fancy dress ‘the law’: most people were dressed as cops (sure cops with short shorts) or lawyers and judges. There was one woman who paraded around in black tights, panties, heels and a smile; her tiny breasts bouncing to the beat. I was expecting to be judged in my bright yellow t-shirt and black jeans, like some sort of infiltrator from the ‘normal world,’ but it was anything but. Hardly anyone talked to my friend and I, which confirmed that all the English are shy, even the anarchists.

After the party’s appeal of cheap drinks and fun dancing wore off it I had to take the night bus home. While waiting for my bus (for almost an hour despite the fact that it’s supposed to run every 20 min) I saw much more chaos on Shoreditch High Street than at the squat. Most of the bars had closed and the bus stops were overflowing with dozens of drunken blokes, chavs and wankers who liked to run out into the streets suicidally.

While waiting for the bus I did make a friend bonding over the chilliness of the London summer night (it felt like +4), of course he was a foreigner, like me.