Demanding the impossible is very possible!!!
Date: 4 August 2015
Last week I attended an event at the University of East London (UEL) in Stratford designed to inspire young people to change the world. Many of these people (including myself) came without prior knowledge of politics and activism. At the end however, I left a room full of young people with the desire and the skills to take back their city of London.
Demand the Impossible is a five day course which teaches 15-25 year olds to do just that, Demand the Impossible. The course allows them to learn new ways of looking at the world from experts and seasoned activists from universities and social movements and to share ideas with like-minded young people from across London. They also get to share and discuss their ideas on a wide range of issues from capitalism, feminism, race and racism and alternative economic systems to policing, education and social control.
The day I attended began with brain storming and exploration of individual ideas of action and culminated with everyone participating in a flash mob drama piece with the message that young lives matter. The young people worked together in different groups to create the different elements of the flash mob, including placards and signs explaining to the public what they were protesting for and about.
The flash mob took about an hour to rehearse and fine tune. But when it was ready they expressed what they wanted the public to know beautifully. As they went down to Westfield shopping centre they used the stairs as their stage. Each tier of stairs had something different to say as they tried to show how unfair the world is using the pyramid structure with the working class at the bottom, the middle class in the middle and the 1% super-rich on the top. Shouting from the top of their voices as they were so fired up, the working classes said “we were evicted from our homes”. Then the middle class shouting with their newspaper covering their faces not paying any attention to the lower class said “and they’re still empty”. The 1% shouted “stop complaining, stop complaining, stop claiming” the response from lowest rung on the stairs was “but we are reclaiming, what you’ve taken”. It ended with a poetry piece where all the different layers on the stairs came together to make one group, showing that only through unity will equality have room to grow. All of this was a very interactive way to allow the participants and the people at Westfield to hear what is going on. And they did it without the pressure of having to learn the inaccessible facts attached to politics that can often put people off. Protest through drama is like letting a picture tell a thousand words. Passers-by even joined in by stopping and taking pictures videoing and asking questions.
Sadly the security of Westfield shopping centre came to issue a warning and pressured the students to leave or else, they said the police will be called.
But overall the day was a success! Lots of chanting rang through the halls of the shopping centre; “united we stand”; “power to the people” “fighting for our rights” and “reclaim our communities” (such as Brixton, Hackney, Croydon, and Newham) showing the energy and newfound convictions of the young people on the course.
