Why was the Big Green Gathering Cancelled?
There are may be two broad reasons that the Big Green Gathering has been cancelled this year: 1) organisational disharmony, and [if there was, it pales beside] 2) the overt political agenda of the event meant there was little will in the police or the council to facilitate a solution.
In a climate of reduced tolerance of dissent, an event that presents alternative polities to those currently dominant is not going to be warmly embraced by the adherents to the dominant order.
For evidence of 1) read the forums here:
http://www.efestivals.co.uk/forums/index.php?showtopic=118860&st=20
And, the Corporate Watch report here:
http://www.corporatewatch.org.uk/?lid=3398
I have no direct evidence for 2). It is speculation based on the trends in policing dissent which we have seen recently; see:
* Kumi Naidoo in Open Democracy, http://www.opendemocracy.net/blog/ourkingdom-theme/kumi-naidoo/2009/07/18/the-marginalisation-of-dissent
* Guy Atcheson's open letter to the BBC: http://www.opendemocracy.net/blog/ourkingdom-theme/guy-aitchison/2009/05/21/an-open-letter-to-the-bbc
* Beth McGrath in the Guardian: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/libertycentral/2009/apr/02/g20-protest-climate-camp
... and the policing of last year's climate camp at Kingsnorth, the preemptive raid on protesters in Nottingham this April: the list grows longer.
The Big Green Gathering was political, even to some extent party political, although the Green Party distances itself from the deeper green activism that may also be present at the BGG. The BGG is - or was - not just a consumerist piss-up in a field where the waving of mobile phones has come to replace the obligatory disposable lighters. It is a question posed to our world.
