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အတိုချုံးပြောရရင်
In 1999 New Yorkers turned the tables on the mayor’s attempt to auction off hundreds of their beloved community gardens by turning the streets themselves into gardens and staging a “festival of resistance.”
In the spring of 1999, real estate values in New York’s East Village and Lower East Side neighbourhoods were skyrocketing, in no small part due to the beautiful network of community gardens in the area. In a massive giveaway to corporate developers, then-Mayor Rudolph Giuliani announced he would auction off 198 community gardens. Gardeners and their supporters began organizing to stop it from happening.
On a gray and quiet Saturday afternoon weeks before the auction, two teams of nonviolent blockaders and their “tripods” (blockade tech composed of three tall poles and a harness) were anxiously milling about on Avenue A in the East Village, anticipating the arrival of a boisterous crowd assembling several blocks away. The tripod, along with several flower boxes and other sundry items, had been stashed in strategic and discrete locations along the sidewalk.
“If they’re going to pave over the places where we play, then we will play in the places they’ve paved over.”
Meanwhile, the diverse and growing crowd was in the garden finishing its face-painting, elf-costuming, and other preparations. Lace-winged children and leaf-adorned stilt-walkers made their way into the street. The brass notes of trombones, tubas, and saxophones rang out as the throng of garden protectors proceeded westward along 7th Street and turned the corner onto Avenue A. When the crowd arrived, the teams quickly erected the tripods.
The designated “perchers” quickly ascended the rope that hung from the center of the the tripods and installed themselves in the cradle formed at the top. Traffic was thus effectively and immediately shut down (see: TACTIC: Blockade). Marchers dragged the flower boxes into the street, gave packages of seeds to the children, and began teaching them how to make roses grow. With a bit of rope and some ingenuity, others were able to turn several misplaced police barricades into a seesaw. Beautifully wrapped packages were opened to the delight of all as the crowd, which had been asked to bring gifts to share, bestowed one another with presents. A sound crew wheeled a massive set of speakers into the street and began broadcasting a pirate radio signal that was transmitting from a nearby apartment. Dancing began in earnest, and the crowd soon swelled to 300, then 400, then 500.
For the next several hours, a city block became the sort of public space that Giuliani was planning to eliminate by selling the gardens. One banner above all others summed up the logic driving the action: “If they’re going to pave over the places where we play, then we will play in the places they’ve paved over.” The frame stuck, and was repeated in the mainstream media that night and the next day. By the time the auction was scheduled to take place, public sentiment had shifted strongly against the mayor on this issue. He was ultimately forced to stop the auction and sell the gardens to private land trusts instead of greedy developers. All of the gardens were preserved in perpetuity.
Originally published in Beautiful Trouble.
အဓိကသီအိုရီ
The utopian edge of this action is a world that values human relationships and community life over profits and losses. For an afternoon, participants created that world in the street. People gave gifts instead of exchanging money, sang and laughed, and talked instead of passively consuming. It was prefigurative politics at its best.
အဓိကနည်းဗျူဟာ
This action was a “festival of resistance” or a carnival-protest, and it certainly benefited from the use of this tactic in the expected ways: The protest didn’t feature a long list of speakers, it didn’t insist on using angry chants to drive its message, it was participatory, and it was fun! People from around the neighbourhood actually joined in the action and stayed in the street with the demonstrators. The carnival protest tactic was especially well suited to the action, which was all about maintaining and protecting public spaces that are themselves sites of celebration and community participation.
အဓိကအခြေခံမူ
Although saving the 198 gardens that were up for auction was an uphill climb, we always felt the fight was winnable. There was wide support for community gardens throughout the city, including allies on the city council and within the mainstream media. Our action was one part of a broad and powerful campaign that was well organized and well connected. We were not shocked that we won, but it was a big enough win to warrant widespread celebration.