Burying talents in a muddy Finsbury Square

The camp

Last Friday, on my way to Moorgate after work, I decided to walk through the Occupy camp on Finsbury Square. I wanted to see how they were coping with the dreadful weather we've had this spring - and what I found was anything but a pleasant surprise.

The place was a mess. Some six months after being pitched, the tents looked battered. Everything seemed soggy. There were few signs of life and the din of the city was the only sound to be heard. I saw a mountain of rubbish in one corner of the square, rising from a pond made of its own garbage juice. The ground, previously healthy grass, had been reduced to liquid mud and brown puddles. At times I was unsure of what I was walking on (or worse, in).

There were a few slapdash attempts to create walkable paths. A piece of cardboard here, a plank of wood there, but these were so dispersed and slippery that even Crash Bandicoot would've found it difficult to skip through the camp unscathed. The Square, the mud, the atmosphere; it all made me think of a festival where the final act had long since finished, but the revellers still refuse to face reality, pack up, and go home.

When I finally made it through the sprawl of tents, I found the main information hub. Interestingly, compared to the fall out city that lurked behind it, this place was clean and orderly like town library. I found myself wondering: how could the people who set up this info hub, who obviously had some pride in appearances and organisational skills to boot; how could they put up with all this filth around them? How can they live with front and back yards that resemble pigsties? And why are there still, 6 months into this experiment, no concrete signs of progress or development on the site?

The inhabitants

And, then, it began to dawn on me. I had been thinking of writing a post about how governments like to live beyond their means. To a large extent, I realised, this movement and their actions reflect a very similar mindset of wanting the cake, but not being prepared to earn it. The ideological inhabitants of Finsbury Square argue for power and wealth to be distributed more evenly, but judging by the place they call home, they must either be unwilling or too lazy to work hard in order to increase their share.

Guardian photo gallery (from a sunnier day)

Polis, said Plato, is man writ large. Well, if so, this polity looked like the kind of ruffian you would find living in a cardboard box under a bridge in a run-down part of town.


Granted, they had shown some initiative by turning a bicycle into a power generator. But in terms of creating a sustainable and long term power supply, it would probably turn out somewhat impractical - unless, that is, they fancy cities powered by people in hamster wheels? 

Still, hardly a blueprint for improving the structures of our society, this camp. If this Occupy group can't even manage an acre or so without turning it into the toilet from Trainspotting, then why should we listen to them harping on about how to structure society? Just imagine the state of our infrastructure, sewage, electricity, NHS, telecoms, etc., if these Occupiers were put in charge.

There's nothing wrong per se with turning on, tuning in and dropping out, provided one doesn't become a burden or a bother to others. However, not only does the ship of fools at Finsbury Square spoil public places and ask for handouts, they also have the cheek to belittle everyone else by declaring "Why get a job? I have an Occupation." 

(Well, let's see. Jobs pay for 1) a roof, floor and four walls, 2) water for washing, 3) gas for heating, 4) electricity for entertaining and, most importantly, 5) food to sustain me. But you, on other the other hand, dear Occupier, choose to live in a tent surrounded by mud, refuse and discarded bits of dreadlocks.)

Similar wasters have of course always existed. However, from the Middle Ages up to the 17th century, before the French came up with asylums, rather than being allowed to plant themselves right bang in the centre of town, they were forced to wander the rivers and the wilderness. 

We need not be quite so strict these days, but - here's an idea - why don't these Occupiers petition the government and local businesses for a licence to use vacant properties? They could undertake a binding promise to leave the property in better shape than what they found it in. They could could do it up a bit, make it nicer. In short, they could add value.

The Guardian writes about a meeting that took place in the camp: 'In a bizarre act of protest, an older Occupier called Rob, shouting "fuck your process", left the meeting to fish a ukelele from a nearby tent, then sat strumming for the remainder of the meeting, to the annoyance of several around straining to hear.' This sentence, for me, reflects the camp and its relationship with London in microcosm.

The people being annoyed by the arrogant and selfish rogue playing the ukelele are us, the many, the real 99% who live or work around the Square. The bad apple, Rob, is analogous to the Occupy movement vis-à-vis London. He decided to unilaterally ruin it for everyone else, just like the Occupiers did with Finsbury Square. They have arbitrarily appropriated a public space and reduced it to their own private squalor in order to promote their singular political beliefs, whatever the cost to the larger community.

The malady

In "Protest and Communication", episode 6 of the sublime BBC series Civilization, Kenneth Clark looked at Drürer's famous work, "Melancholia I".

Albrecht Drürer, "Melancholia I"

He said of the engraving, created in 1514, that it was "one of the great prophetic documents of western man." It shows, Clark continued, "humanity at its most evolved. With wings to carry her upwards, she sits holding the compasses - symbols of measurement by which science will concur the world. Around her are all the elements of constructive action: a saw, a plane, pincers, and those two prime elements of solid geometry, the sphere and the dodecahedron. And yet all these aids to construction are abandoned, and she sits there brooding on the futility of human effort."


In the Late Middle Ages, according to Clark, melancolia had meant a simple combination of sloth, boredom and despondency. As radical as the "direct action" activists on Finsbury Square might fancy themselves, today's Occupy movement is actually captured perfectly by the engraving. They have in their lap the most powerful machine yet (the computer) and with it a key (the internet) to virtually every tool in history. But instead of utilizing these to make stuff with, or do things that could improve their communities, they sit down and bury their head on a table, their their talents wasting away in the muddy ground beneath their tents.

Despondency in Finsbury Square

That is no route to progress. It is the opposite, in fact. Where the civilized man develops himself and improves upon his surroundings with a view to making them permanent, the savage merely looks around haphazardly to satiate himself now. The Occupiers have grown up cushioned by the welfare state and the Western life of luxury. As a result, they have little sense of direction, and even less of a work-ethic - instead, they prefer to act on the basis of an incredible sense of entitlement. It is because of these reasons that the movement, while admirable in intent, will ultimately fail.

The alternative

I have no doubt that there are many people living in the camp who have honourable ideas and who really want to make the world a better place. Indeed, I agree with many of the Occupiers' gripes. However, the path to wilderness is filled with good intentions, while the road to progress is paved with hard work. Plumbing, hygiene, waste management, taking care of one's property, construction, gardening, education, health care... that's the stuff that really matters. And as is evidenced by the unholy state of their camp, the Occupiers unfortunately prefer to spend their time and energy on more glamorous and intellectually stimulating pursuits, like discussing the international legal dimensions of eradicating ecocide.

Instead of transforming public spaces into a health hazard, these people should use their time constructively and find something that they can make into an occupation, something with which they can add value. These would be revolutionaries could have put up tents, and then occupied themselves in a productive way by figuring out how to improve and help the area, its people and its environs.  If they had done this, they would have gained more friends, and they might have made a real difference for the better.

The last time I walked through Finsbury Square was on my way to a concert by Terje Isungset. If these Occupiers find it difficult to figure out what it is that they can give to humanity, they would do well to to ask him for some advice. Mr Isungset has made himself famous by playing music with instruments he crafted from birch, ice and stones, to name but a few novel materials. Now that's more like it - and Terje's incredible initiative contrasts glaringly with the the self-righteousness and laziness that are on display at Finsbury Square.

It is May Day after all, the day of the workers, so, guys, you really should get to work. And, please, leave our public parks just that: public.