Calmness and Madness - the story of The Mischief Makers

The Next Eco Warriors

'Lack of joy should be taken seriously, especially among so-called responsible people furthering a good cause' - Arne Naess, philosopher and ecologist

I put on my shoes and grab my bag. As I open the front door the cold winter air blows in my face. Doing up the buttons on my coat I walk down the steps and make my way to the bus stop. Looking up at the clear, star-filled sky, my thoughts are on the news that the world leaders, assembled in the group of the eight most powerful economies, will be holding their annual summit in Scotland in a few months. The meeting will take place behind closed doors and no real details of what is discussed will ever be made public, despite the fact that their decisions affect many aspects of our lives. With Africa's debt to Western nations growing and an escalating climate crisis, many are calling on the G8 to take responsiblity for the inevitable effects of their policies. But will it really ever come to that?

My thoughts are interrupted by the squeaky brakes of a double decker bus. I step inside. "Single please. There you go. Cheers mate." As the bus makes its way towards the city I contemplate more on well-to-do politicians sitting down for exclusive dinners in extravagant hotels, wearing top hats and cleaning their whiskers. I get excited about the prospect of going up to Scotland, running through the highlands and making life difficult for the delegates attending the summit. If we can raise enough hell, the message should get across that things can't carry on as they are. The G8 stands for everything I have despised from a young age; the destructiveness with which this free market economy raids the world's resources, destroys its natural beauty and treats its animals. I'm ashamed to even live in a so called 'civilised' nation where people seem to care more about sports, soaps and never-ending celebrity gossip. Is anyone paying any attention to the real things that are happening? I get off the bus and follow the stream of people heading into town for a night out.

Crossing the road, my eye catches something happening outside one of the art galleries. I walk towards it and as I stand among the small group of people I can see two girls in huge white dresses, handing out what looks like copied banknotes. "We're asking people to write on this money what they would do if the world economy was in their hands." With pen and paper in my hand I consider the question. Other notes are pinned to the white dresses: 'I would make sure everyone has a home to live in', 'Take from the poor give to the rich', 'Double taxes for the corporations and free tea for everyone else'. Some of them make me laugh, others stand out as the sore reality of the way things currently stand; how unfairly the resources are divided, how the current economy is a world turned upside down. I scribble something about justice and abolishing money on my fake banknote and pin it to the dress. I'm thinking to myself what a clever and fun way this is to get people engaged with an issue. Instead of giving someone a leaflet with facts and figures, this approach gets people to ask questions themselves, come up with answers and exchange their ideas with others by leaving the notes on the dress, as a kind of 'conversation'. We talk some more, exchange contact details and I head off.

I later meet up with the two girls I had met dressed up in the Geisha like outfits. It was inspiring to see people getting active on issues that lay close to their hearts, even if in a small way. We talk about the upcoming G8 summit and about their performance piece outside the gallery. "It's really empowering to give people a pen in the street and ask them to write about their feeling on an issue. It makes them think for themselves. When they pin their note onto our dresses, they were reading other peoples' and in the dialogue that followed they would be enriching their knowledge about the subject. But it is the moment when they could either walk away or decide to talk to us which is most important." Over the next few weeks we continue to meet up, hang out, go for drinks and talk about plans for the mobilisation in Scotland. I had been involved in activism for a while and I guess a little set in my ways on how to go about making stuff happen. It was good to meet new people with different views who were eager to put their thoughts and beliefs into action.

After a few phone calls and chat in the pub, a small group was formed. We decided to organise a workshop and make more of the same costumes worn at the performance I first witnessed that chilly winter evening. The idea of the Geisha outfits, decorated with themes representing different G8 policies, was to make something that looked peaceful for the inevitable stand-offs with police, while still delivering a message. So this wasn't a meeting or an info-night to go to. It wasn't a form to fill in or a donation to make. This was something creative and low key and easy for people to jump into and help out. Sure, it was just some people making costumes to dress up and walk around the G8 protests in, but something much larger was happening. You could see people with little interest in traditional methods of activism becoming involved, talking about the issues and learning what's at stake. So we held costume-making workshops and dressed as beautiful Geishas, and a group of about 20 people made their way up to Edinburgh, the Scottish capital.

Once in Edinburgh, I split off from my Geisha friends as I went to work on other things during a crazy fortnight of meetings, discussions, blockades, protests, riots and celebrations. I didn't see any of them until our return to Nottingham about two weeks later. Everyone was exhausted but it had been a life changing experience for some. The stories went on for weeks; how brutal the police had been, how people had come up with creative ideas, how fun it had been hanging out at the protest camp. I listened intently.

"Well, we decided on a really soft approach because we were feeling quite fearful of what could happen." For almost everyone in the group it had been the first time they had joined in some kind of protest, let alone civil disobedience or direct action.
"Remember that day we went to the demo where they keep the Trident warships? It was such a powerful image when we stood there as a line of Geishas, opposite the police, who were looking scary and terrifying defending the weapons of mass destruction."
"Yeah, with those people in the lock-ons and we just slid between them and the police, keeping the blockaders safe."
"It was calmness and madness"

I was so happy. I almost felt proud. Here was a bunch of young artists who were excited about taking collective action against a major global financial institution partly responsible for the problems facing our planet today. They had informed and organised themselves and managed to devise their own tactics, instead of melting in with the masses of protesters that decended upon Scotland during those epic weeks. In the weeks that followed we continued to meet up and make more plans. Not long after that we became known as 'The Mischief Makers'.

The idea of The Mischief Makers was to have a collective that supports campaign and action groups by adding a more creative element to their activities. From the beginning we focused on street performances, costume making, puppets and banners. We were big on recycling, cycling and vegan cakes. We joined a protest calling on rights for migrants. We decorated our bikes with flags and streamers to join Critcal Mass. Some went along to the 60th Hiroshima and Nagasaki commemoration dressed as Geishas. For me, used to more traditional ways of protesting and direct action, it was a steep learning curve. I started seeing the benefits of this different approach. The power of doing something creative, whether it's dressing up in costumes or doing a performance, is that it is something people aren't used to seeing. It makes passersby stop and think and wonder what's going on and, perhaps, engage you in conversation. For me an important question has always been "what is the best way to engage people, inform them and get them active?" It seemed like we had come up with an answer. We were building a bridge. A bridge with all the heavy, political, inaccessible academic stuff on one end and a bunch of uninformed or uninspired people on the other. We were hoping to create an inviting way for people to get involved. We always made sure that, wherever we were we created an open, accessible and friendly environment for people to be in. It is so much easier to come to your own conclusions and develop new ideas when you're not feeling like someone is in your face or preaching to you. Just as crucially, we never pretended to have all the answers. We listened to people just as much as we talked about our own experiences and ideas.

Inspired by the idea to think globally and act locally we mostly worked with local groups and campaigns in Nottingham, where we lived. One of the emerging issues was an application lodged by a waste company to expand an incinerator facility in the city. The incinerator which was built in the 1960's, was already very dated and had been responsible for breaching its emission quotas time and time again. Expanding the facility meant more waste would be imported from nearby counties and, as a result, more emissions would be belched up into the air to be 'dispersed'. Adding to that the noise pollution, increased traffic and planning issues and the expansion proposal didn't go down so well with nearby residents, environmental groups and some local councillors. To top it all off, Nottingham had one of the worst recycling rates of any city in the UK. We were burning tonnes of waste that could be recycled and reused. It was time for action to ensure that the expansion would be denied and the local waste situation improved.

We helped the local group NAIL (Nottingham Against Incineration and Landfill) organise a public meeting, we planned for a large community day to raise awareness and dropped a huge banner across a street in Sneinton, the area most effected by the incinerator. We also distributed leaflets and posters to spread the word and held a protest rally at the town hall. Within a few months we had helped the campaign go from small to unignorable. Local councillors started to consider their positions and the media was noticing what was happening. One of our main purposes was to make people understand what was happening to their waste. If you buy a sandwich and throw away the wrapper, that gets burned and as the emissions are belched out of the incinerator, you are breathing in the particals that used to be that very bit of packaging. By helping people understand the impacts of their behaviour and change their habits they in turn would hopefully turn to the council and the waste companies to hold them responsible for their behaviour.

As the incinerator campaign continued, so did we. Whatever we did, it was visual and had a clear message. We promoted recycling by making wallets, art and costumes out of waste, working with the local community most affected by the incinerator's emissions. We made numerous banners and even special cakes to get the message out. One of the most important things about it is that we had fun. Having fun and enjoying whatever you do is so important. With activism it can be hard to see results straight away. It can be disheartening at times. By having fun one can hopefully stay inspired and active. We went on to organise more community events, banner drops and presented the council with a petition calling on them to refuse permission for the facility to be built. One of us made a short film, someone organised a benefit gig and we helped to promote 'Greenweeks', a week of activities to promote environmental issues with a focus on local sustainability.

Over the years people came and went from the group. Some had kids, others moved to far away places. Some went on to work in theatre and others to focus on more specific campaigns. The case of the incinerator expansion is ongoing and the G8 still thinks it can make decisions for us. The original Mischief Makers aren't working as a collective anymore but they continue to use similar ideas and tactics. My work with The Mischief Makers showed me that being creative as an activist is an effective, fun and inspiring way to get people aware of an issue and active themselves. We might not have done anything that spectacular, but it all added up. We were just a bunch of friends who did some stuff together on issues we found important. In doing so we learned to use creativity to communicate our ideas and beliefs beyond the activist community: to inspire each other and the people we worked with. And that, if anything, is a worthwhile achievement.

For more information about The Mischief Makers please see: www.mischiefmakers.org.uk