May 11, 2012
At-Bristol
David Harvey at the Bristol Festival of Ideas
Cities have long been the pivotal sites of political revolutions, where deeper currents of social and political change are fleshed out. Consequently, they have been the subject of much utopian thinking about alternatives. But at the same time, they are also the centres of capital accumulation, and therefore the frontline for struggles over who has the right to the city, and who dictates the quality and organization of daily life. Is it the developers and financiers, or the people? David Harvey's Rebel Cities places the city at the heart of both capital and class struggles, looking at locations ranging from Johannesburg to Mumbai, and from New York City to Sao Paulo. By exploring how cities might be reorganized in more socially just and ecologically sane ways, Harvey argues that cities can become the focus for anti-capitalist resistance.
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An interesting debate about the role of cities as sites of poltical revolutions. Wigan in Lancashire has seen more than its fair share of revolution. Wiganers engaged in bloody battles with the Parliamentarians during the English Civil War and produced its own radical reformer Gerrard Winstanley.
Winstanley had a vision from God who directed him and his followers the "True Levellers" to occupy Georges Hill in Surrey. There they took over the common land and supported themselves by the labour of their own hands, growing food and building shelters. Winstanley was one of the Worlds' first comunists and to that effect there is a monument in Moscow with his name enscribed upon it along with the names of other great reformers such as Lenin and Trotsky.
To keep the traditon alive and to raise awareness of land reform initiatives from the time of the English Civil War Wiganers are holding a "Diggers Festival". Winstanley's radical ideas on land and equality still have some relevance in the 21st Centurey.