Pure Genius eviction on BBC Newsroom Southeast

[Zardoz]

BBC Newsroom Southeast 15 October 1996
Pure Genius occupation - The Land Is Ours 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LV0Gjce2qrA

Occupation lasted from Sunday 5th May to Tuesday 15 October 1996
Evicted the day before the London Wildlife Trust were due to designate Pure Genius a nature conservation site
The stress to all of not knowing if or when we were to be evicted showed. Occasionally tempers frayed. I withdrew more from active involvement in the social life of the site. I was exhausted and only wanted to spend my time with friends. I was also increasingly unhealthy and run down. Whereas in the past I had enjoyed running around the place helping to build new things now I mainly wanted to be left alone or with friends who bounced back the energy I shared with them. I still couldn't decide if I wanted to stay or leave. I had shared so much with so many wonderful people who were still there and felt unable to leave those I cared for who had given me so much. Finally I left for a break to decide my future plans. I wasn't going to live on the site again. 

 I returned for a few days after two weeks and was glad to see friends getting on with life and to be able to view the site from a different perspective. However for me it was enough, the place felt better than I remembered but I had decided to put my efforts into somewhere that had more chance of being there in ten or a hundred years time where the weight of corporate finance was less likely to march the bailiffs in to further increase their profits. For me the site had failed to have a collective vision of its future that was strong enough to move towards. 

 Land rights and land use issues command a lot of attention when they occur in other countries. Their effects on the environment are noted and publicised. In the South American rainforests, mining, fossil fuel exploration and the actions of homeless people driven off their land into the forest by huge landowners have long been recognised by large sections of the public in Europe as damaging to the environment. People are horrified to hear of the corruption and manipulation of legal processes which goes on in the name of business and economics. 

 Why then do we allow (often the same) large wealthy organisations to control and manipulate land use in our own countries ? Maybe because the inequities in the distribution of wealth between very rich and poor are less obvious here, there are fewer very poor and there is a welfare system to assist those at the bottom of the pile which blurs the edges of the problem. Maybe because it is hundreds of years since the land here was divided and enclosed. Maybe because we have a system of strong established planning Laws and very few people know or care how they work. Maybe because developments of the scale that we have become accustomed to require the resources and expertise only available in such organisations and we are not offered and, as a society, do not yet want an alternative? 

 The protest gave me a greater insight into the social problems of our and other nations. It also gave me a still greater respect for those who spend their lives dealing with them. However I remain convinced that they are symptoms of the greater problems of greed and over consumption which have developed over centuries. 

 The future must be shaped by us all working towards ways of having satisfying, stimulating lives that respect and maintain the diversity of life on the planet and provide for our needs. This does not necessarily mean having a "job" in the traditional sense, simply to supply the money to buy our desires. A sustainable secure future is one where our education and knowledge of the interactions and processes in nature are enhanced by our skills and technology to provide for our needs and give time for the social interactions which support our sense of self and reduce our insecurities. 

 There is a beautiful world to share, not to be denied to people because they have to participate in an economic roundabout the proceeds of which are siphoned off to the financial elite before they can even start to buy their bit of it. If the pure genius occupation did nothing else it housed and fed sixty people over four months close to central London, with no more social problems than are seen on any estate, for a cost of around four thousand pounds. Or, putting it another way, less than £20 a person a month. So when we are told there simply isn't the money to educate our children or develop alternative sustainable cities maybe we will start to question supermarket profits in the hundreds of millions and developers and financiers speculating with billions of pounds worth of land whilst manipulating the planning system and forcing us all to live with the results?
http://www.tlio.org.uk/campaigns/wandsworth/purebill.html