The Battle of the Beanfield, 18 yrs on

[tliouk]

Apologies for sending the last article to the list without an intro 

yes this was a veiled party-political from the BNP, which I didn't 
realise until after I'd just copied and pasted it from Indymedia (and 
btw, THE AUTHOR OF THE PIECE WASN'T TASH, rather he was quoted as a 
source of info for the piece by whoever wrote it).  
It is of course laughable that the BNP see themselves as supporters 
of travellers! Unbelievable! Their sophisticated craft here in using 
a story like the Battle of the Beanfield, an historic instance of 
state brutality in the history of these islands, to weave together a 
tenous argument about loss of soveriegnty to the EU and state 
repression, whilst disguising their rabid, racist ideology with a 
veneer of legitimisation shows that they self-justify themselves with 
this tokenistic opportunistic stab at comradeship with a past 
instance in the people's struggle against state brutality which at 
the time I'm sure none of their members had any contact with 
whatsoever.
Reference to the article and other comments to the article posted to 
Indymedia, go to:
http://uk.indymedia.org/front.php3?article_id=70220&group=webcast


- In diggers350 at yahoogroups.com, "tliouk" <office at t...> wrote:
> The battle of beanfield, 18 yrs on 
> author: tash
> 
> 18 years on and some still remember. 
> 
> A small, albeit one sided, battle took place on June 1st 1985 
between 
> what the then, Tory media called "New Age travellers" and the 
> enforcers of "law and order" in the vicinity of the 
> Hampshire/Wiltshire border, close to the ancient stones of a 
national 
> treasure - Stonehenge. 
> 
> The details make very uncomfortable reading, even more so when read 
> today, 18 years later, and sit ill at ease with the idea that 
> the "ordinary people" have liberty in their own land, free from 
> Government repression just because of their non-conformist beliefs. 
> 
> When elected to Government the BNP is going to be tough on crime, 
but 
> we also have a very clear idea about the definition of "crime". 
> 
> Real crime as opposed to repression 
> 
> Since 1973 when we had the misfortune to be shackled to the (then) 
> Common Market, which has evolved into today's EU, over 100,000 new 
> pieces of legislation have been incorporated into the UK law books! 
> Almost every aspect of daily life is subject to criminalisation. 
With 
> each new law that is passed, thousands of new criminals are 
instantly 
> created. 
> 
> A BNP Government will not only reverse such intrusive legislation, 
> but will also ensure that the most basic of liberties are upheld 
and 
> also the many that have been lost are returned to the people. For 
the 
> past 30 years or so, many basic freedoms, which had previously been 
> sacred to dozens of generations of our ancestors, have become 
subject 
> to the same unwelcome and unnecessary scrutiny of the bureaucrats 
in 
> Whitehall and Brussels. 
> 
> The "Battle of the Bean Field" which this story is about to relate 
> would never have happened under a BNP Government. It was a small 
> victory for the repressive regime of Thatcher with its eyes towards 
> the big Global business donors to the Tory Party. It was also a 
huge 
> blow to the very people who valued the real things that makes Life 
> worth living: personal liberty, freedom of belief, humans as 
stewards 
> of the countryside, choice of how to live, where to live, and how 
to 
> raise one's offspring. 
> 
> Here is a summary of what occurred June 1st 1985: 
> 
> A convoy of over 100 buses and other vehicles carrying mostly 
young, 
> professional British couples who had made a conscious choice to 
bring 
> up their children in an alternative lifestyle made its way through 
> Hampshire. Those young couples had decided that their children 
would 
> be free from the psychological bonds of the TV channels, State 
> schooling and the very real physical chains of monetary debt. They 
> were halted at the Hampshire/Wiltshire border by lines of Police. 
> 
> Discussions which took place over the next few hours between the 
> convoy leaders and senior Policemen broke down in the early 
evening. 
> 
> Within minutes of the ending of the meeting, over 1,600 Policemen 
and 
> (allegedly) British soldiers in Police uniform attacked the vehicle 
> convoy. 
> 
> "All of us were shocked by what we saw: police tactics which seemed 
> to break new grounds in the scale and intensity of its violence. We 
> saw police throw hammers, stones and other missiles through the 
> windscreens of advancing vehicles; a woman dragged away by the 
hair; 
> young men beaten over the head with truncheons as they tried to 
> surrender; police using sledgehammers to smash up the interiors of 
> the hippies' coaches." 
> 
> Even the ITV news crew said on camera at the event: 
> 
> "What we - the ITN camera crew and myself as a reporter - have seen 
> in the last 30 minutes here in this field has been some of the most 
> brutal police treatment of people that I've witnessed in my entire 
> career as a journalist. The number of people who have been hit by 
> policemen, who have been clubbed whilst holding babies in their 
arms 
> in coaches around this field, is yet to be counted...There must 
> surely be an enquiry after what has happened today". 
> 
> 
> 
> Paramedics attend to a victim of Thatcher's Police brutality in 
> 1985 . 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Also Lord Cardigan, a prominent member of the Conservative Party 
and 
> wealthy landowner in Hampshire, whose land many of the convoy had 
set 
> out from, said of the events: 
> 
> "I hadn't realised that anybody that appeared to be supporting 
> elements that stood against the establishment would be savaged by 
> establishment newspapers. Now one thinks about it, nothing could be 
> more natural. I hadn't realised that I would be considered a class 
> traitor; if I see a policeman truncheoning a woman I feel I'm 
> entitled to say that it is not a good thing you should be doing. I 
> went along, saw an episode in British history and reported what I 
> saw." 
> 
> A Government as hideous as the Thatcher regime which sent in the 
> uniformed forces of law and order to smash the "different" homes of 
> young professional couples who choose to do something with their 
> lives, other than watch five hours of television a day, who refused 
> to sign up to credit and store cards they couldn't afford and who 
> refused to send their children to schools which would curtail, not 
> encourage their emotional and physical development, is a Government 
> that should have been openly and vehemently opposed, not tacitly 
> supported! 
> 
> More information about the misuse of the Police Force by the 
> Government of the day to smash this kind of low level dissent can 
be 
> found at: 
> 
> Stonehenge and the `Battle of the Beanfield': 
> http://tash.gn.apc.org/sh_bean.htm