RAMP-AGE Statement on the Black Bloc.

Revolutionary politics is an adventure or it is nothing. Standing in Trafalgar Square last Saturday and watching the Black Bloc streaming past, banners fluttering in the breeze, I had no doubt that they were having an adventure. As we get older, and yes more timid, there's a temptation to dismiss the incendiary flair of youth as being in some way not proper politics. Rubbish! To who else but adventurous youth can the task of changing life be entrusted? During the student protests last year I shouted, "the pensioners support the students" until my throat was sore. I warmed my hands on their bonfires; and my heart was warmed too.

We have been hearing a lot about violence recently. As if the violence of a bit of broken glass and some paint splashed around could in any way compare with the violence of any alienated city centre weekend, the endless abuse that is a part of every hierarchical relationship and the ever present threat of violence that keeps the state in power. The tanks aren't on the streets because they are not needed; not yet.

The Black Bloc won't always get it right of course, they are bound to make mistakes, but they are surely having an adventure. There's a statement about the trashing of Ann Summers on the Indymedia site. It's a bit wordy. The authors clearly want to be situationists. Nothing wrong with that. I wanted to be one myself when young. But in publishing under the names of the Famous Five they have hit the nail right on the head. It's an adventure or nothing.

RAMP-AGE SUPPORTS THE BLACK BLOC.