ARRROOOGA

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ARRROOOGA!!!!
A Brief History of the Anti-Roads Movement with a
focus on the UK
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"'Land is the only thing that amounts to
anything, for 'tis the only thing in this world
that lasts, and don't you be forgetting it! 'Tis
the only thing worth working for, worth fighting
for- worth dying for" - Gerald O'Hara, 'Gone With
the Wind'
Before and after picture of the Minnehaha Free
State/ No-I-55 Protest Site
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Pre-history
Throughout the 1970s and 80s groups like
Friends of the Earth contested road building
projects with an emphasis on meetings, lobbying,
and fundraising.
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The tactics and fundraising of FoE left many
people disillusioned and led to the start of
Earth First! UK and a number of other regionally
based eco-defense groups.
In the mid-1990s the Labour Party adopted
Thatchers multi-billion pound road building
scheme. This plan would be targeted and destroyed
by anti-roads protestors well before the end of
the decade.
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The Beginning Of The Anti-Roads Protests
"Over two thirds of the population believe that
there are times when breaking the law is
justifiable"
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Twyford Downs saw the first coming together of
local citizens' anti-road construction
campaigning groups and direct action activists in
1992. It was an important meeting space for
rural travellers and early EF!ers. The setting
was rural and the actions were galvanizing but
also isolated.
Twyford Downs set in place the local and national
ties and the support from the traveller culture
that would be a defining point in the British
anti-roads movement.
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No M-11 Road
The No M11 campaign in the London area came
together in 1993 and 1994. Issues went beyond
purely ecological concerns to the social costs of
car culture and the eviction of dozens of
families. An entire urban street was squatted
and fortified to resist the road. The eviction
required hundreds of cops.
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The protest involved many story high scaffolding
and hundreds of feet of netting going over the
roadway connecting the houses.
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Newbury Bypass Road Protest
The second fight against the Newbury bypass in 95
and 96 eventually led to the creation of 30
separate camps across the 18 miles of
construction.
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Spreading Resistance
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Girls and boys come out to play - Reclaim the
Streets is here today! Bring your spraycan and
bring your brew And come and trash the Cenotaph
Reclaim the Streets helped channel energy from
anti-roads occupations to offensive actions that
were celebratory in taking back public space from
car culture.
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Energy from anti-roads struggles also fuelled
other efforts, such as solidarity campaigns with
locked-out dockworkers in Liverpool and against
mining and other capitalist infrastructure
projects.
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Eco-Defense and Anti-Road Camps have spread
throughout the world
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from Guatemala
..to Russia
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..from Israel
to Honduras
to elsewhere
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and the Minnehaha Free State in Minneapolis
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A tree house. A free house. A secret you
and me house. A high up in the leafy
branches. A happy as can be house. A
street house. A neat house. A be sure to
wipe your feet house, is not the kind of
house for me. Let's go and live in a
treehouse
"If you hate 'progress' so much why don't you go
back to living in trees, motherfuckers!" - US
Offroader.
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Freedom lies in revolt! Security lies in the land!
No Compromise!