Hail, Galloway!

I spent last weekend trying to become a revolutionary. In early July the sunny avenues of Bloomsbury fill up with Marxists at their annual conference. The jamboree lasts a week (it’s still going on right now) and there are lectures on a range of subjects from ‘The Roots of Gay Oppression’ to ‘Luk•cs and Class Consciousness’ and ‘The Meiji Restoration: Japan’s revolution from above’.

I passed a useful morning in a lecture hall attending a three-module course in political theory. I opened my eyes to historical materialism. I learnt with disgust about the oppression of the workers. I felt a thrilling revulsion at the vices of the ruling class. But at the end of the second hour, something unexpected happened. I grew thirsty and suddenly tired. The air in the cosy lecture hall began to bear down on my spirits. My fellow students, crouching attentively in their rows, were like a tribe that I no longer recognised. As the third speaker came to the podium, I glanced at my neighbour, a sallow boy wearing a black shirt and combat boots which were speckled with blood-red spots. He turned a fresh page in his recycled notebook and wrote a title with his bony fingers. ‘Lecture 3. Alienation’. It was a concept in which I needed no instruction. I stood up and slipped furtively from the room.

Outside in the fresh air I came across a makeshift carnival of ideas. Activists stood at trestle-tables selling pamphlets, books and T-shirts. Others sat on the grass having picnics, drinking beer and chatting. All around us angry slogans fluttered from scarlet posters. Protest …Unite …Challenge …Destroy …Enough is enough! …To the Streets! …NOW!

I engaged in the debate. My objection to Marxism is simply this: lovely design, lousy building. I quizzed my fellow Zapatistas on the practicalities of a socialist paradise.