Occupy London, NYE 2011

A night out in Brixton fell through unexpectedly so I thought it would be a good opportunity to do something different this year.  I’ve been following developments with the Occupy movement the last few months and visited the encampment during the autumn. My recent fortnight in Sri Lanka gave me plenty of time to read up and reflect on the enormity of the protests and resultant change that has taken place throughout the world over the year or so.   Time magazine for instance have named their “Person of the Year” as The Protester – meaning the collective rather than the individual.  It’s worth reading their article here.

It looks like 2012 is set to be similarly important, if not more so.  One of my few new year’s resolutions (make ‘em count) is to be more actively engaged with what’s going on, so I kicked off the year in that spirit and headed down to St Paul’s with a couple of mates for the NYE line up that I knew Occupy had planned.

We didn’t get there til late evening but managed to arrive in time for some banging dubstep courtesy of the DJ’s, singers and live acts that Occupy had arranged plus speakers reminding everyone of the reason for all of this.  There was a decent crowd, an eclectic mix of protesters of all ages/classes and some randoms who had walked by and joined the throng.  A bit of drizzle didn’t put people off, good vibes conquer all and it beat seeing 2012 in doing shots in a rammed bar.