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urban75: rave and music section   Critical mess
  Trouble on the London squat party scene

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Comment by Mr S, 17th Jan 2001

The London squat party scene is today in a critical condition It is on a life support machine, the few party people keeping it alive are the odd blips amongst an otherwise stagnant lifeline on the heart monitor, a lifeline that has been attacked and assaulted, beaten and broken, in the end destroyed and defeated by the very people it was there to protect and fight for.

For a time yes, there really was "no law here, only the law of the drug and of the music" and the reaction, chemical and physical of so many different ingredients coming together every Saturday night was something that if packaged would have on its label "the way forward". However this package would not have been the property of a monopolising multinational pharmaceutical bastard.

It would have been for the people. So many people, so many different cultures, attitudes, beliefs all coming together to search for a new, different and exciting and for some, life changing experience. None of "you can�t come in with those trainers on". None of "you have to pay this extortionate amount so I can then afford to run my ozone destroying, asthma causing car".

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No blatant lying like in the late 80�s about "we are all as one, I may be a promoter of this event but I am just like you" as they count the thousands made from taking a bit of space and saying it is theirs. No rules necessary, instead of telling us what to think, feel, say, oppressing - it was instead encouraging the basic human instincts of love, happiness and respect.

What of this temporary utopia now? It lies amidst a sea of foil heroin wrappers, tin cans used for crack which are enough for an aluminium can Blue Peter recycling appeal, the only chemicals combining now are the blood from acts of violence and the shit and puke unwittingly discharged from lifeless ketamine bodies who lurch around, seeing nothing, hearing nothing � enlightened minds?

Minds not seeing anything, minds concerned with making more money than the next "competitor" who can�t scream "k, rock, brown" as loudly in that black K hole of a stairwell. Minds that are about as enlightened as that City executive closing his latest money making deal.

Minds that are about as enlightened as the one who sees something different and wants to destroy it. The party scene is no more. The definition of party does not include violence, aggression and hate. Unplug the machine nurse, this one has breathed its last.

RIP London squat parties.


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