Reclaim the night

Just got back in from post event pubbing. The Ipswich Reclaim the Night event was really impressive and I'm full of admiration for the organisers. A small contingent of Cambridgoids made the journey like many others. London, Birmingham, Portsmouth and other places from all round the country were all represented.

I'm putting the attendance between two and three hundred, which for a Friday night the week of Christmas in a small Suffolk town is pretty bloody impressive in my view and it was good to see the TV, radio and papers all there reporting the news for a change. It was chilly but thankfully it didn't start raining until it was well and truly over, so we were lucky in that respect.

The event started with two really interesting speeches. The first was by Socialist Party stalwart and all round good egg Theresa (pictured) who gave a thorough discussion of the problems of the official policy towards prostitution and connected it with a number of other "women's issues" (I'm not a particular fan of that phrase but am three quarters cut so may well come back to it tomorrow).

"We will not accept the advice that women must not go out alone at night, for this stigmatises those who are attacked as somehow responsible and makes women who are out alone more of a target. Instead we believe safety must come from the community banding together and looking out for each other. Staying safe is not just an individual's responsibility, it is the responsibility of every single one of us to protect and care for those around us - our friends, family members and community members. We will not let the media hype scare and divide us, destroying our sense of community when we need it the most."

The second speech was by Sarah from the English Collective of Prostitutes. She congratulated the organisers for making this an event for both men and women and said it was only through coming together that we would be able to address the issues.

She also said "some people argue that prostitution is in and of itself abuse - we don't agree..." she went on to say shifting the onus away from the worker was not enough "by targeting the clients it's the women who pay the price... zero tolerance and crackdowns... label women as undesirable" and leave them extremely vulnerable.

She also touched on the history of reclaim the night events and was rather critical of some of the politics around them in the past where a particular version of feminism had branded prostitutes as part of the problem, insisting on women only events, splitting the community, when we should be bringing people together. I thought that was interesting, but as this is the first RtN event I've been to don't feel qualified to comment further (please do in the comments box).

One slight niggle, which is probably just me, but when she said they have plenty of money for war so why can't they afford decent social programmes she got a rousing cheer (the first and only of the event). I'm sorry but the war can't pay for everything and frankly it is not the cost of the war that is the problem - if the war was right then so was the price, in both folding money and young lives, but it wasn't. I'm a bit fed up of this argument, which gets photocopied into every issue, as if the war is the only thing happening in the world. Hmpf.

The fact that these were the only two speakers was absolutely spot on as far as I'm concerned, we weren't there for long speeches but as an act of solidarity, coming together in the wake of terrible events, whose impact has only been exasperated by the actions of the tabloid press. Although having said that I should note the more 'serious' press, even on the right, has been notably progressive on the issue, I've been reading The Times which has had some particularly sensible articles (and possible some rubbish too).

After twenty minutes of speeches we set off across town to what we're now calling the "red light area" which I will continue to think of as "by the football ground". It is Ipswich you know, not Amsterdam.

It was also good to see the Green Party there serving up free soup and bread. Apparently the Ipswich branch is pretty young so it's good to see them playing such a positive roll and nice to see a few old faces, although I was surprised at the number of people I know from the area that weren't there that I had simply assumed would be attending. Just one SWPer... that's a bit odd isn't it?

Oh and before I forget - if you're reading this Sarah Sandford - hello!

For updates and official report go to Cambridge Indymedia (plus really good pics)