'58 - OSK is right to ask, "what is wrong with dogs?". A lot of us have dogs and when we go to a festival/event we usually take our homes and families (anybody who has or has had a dog will know that more often than not they are considered as part of the family) with us. If dogs are not allowed we can't just leave them at home because home is where we're parked. All the dogs were kept on leads and people were pretty on it with cleaning up their shit. During the entire week I only spotted two dog shits (that weren't from my dog), and of course, I picked those up too.
As for dogs being used as weapons, that is obviously wrong, and those who do that, such as the ***** you describe (and it could be argued police and security guards too) are, in my mind at least, abusing their dogs.
AK - 3x6 is right, I'm sure, that the travellers you describe are not the same culture as us. Those people have a long history, have faced much more discrimination than we have, and our values are often very different. We might all live on the road (or at least have a historical connection to living on the road) but that doesn't make us the same. One very good example of this is religion. Romany and Irish travellers are often very religious, whereas most of my lot reject religion entirely.
As I've tried to explain before, my community only has a history of about 40 odd years - we grew out of the old hippy culture and in the late 80s/early 90s kind of merged with the rave culture. We have bright colourful vehicles. We like to clean up after ourselves and leave places as we found them. We (well some of us anyway!) like to take mind bending drugs, and we definitely like to party.
The media, many years ago now, dubbed us, 'New Age Travellers'. Don't think any of us liked that term, and these days it's not even appropriate because so many of us are now old age travellers! Nevertheless, the term does at least differentiate us from other travellers. We face discrimination from many members of the public because of the actions of other travellers (I'm not going to condone or condemn those other travellers - their actions might often seem anti-social but then again, few of us will have ever had the same experience of discrimination and prejudice that they have faced, and perhaps if we had we might have developed a 'fuck 'em' attitude too). But this is as absurd and as wrong as it is to label all football supporters as thugs and hooligans. Who here remembers, during the 80s and early 90s, the way all football fans were dismissed as thugs and caged like animals, just because of the actions of a minority?
You could take that analogy a step further, because, as I said above, there are different cultures of travellers. It would be more like supporters of another sport being dismissed as hooligans just because of the actions of a few football supporters. Ok, so some football fans enjoy causing trouble and fighting. Does that mean that all football supporters are like this? Does it mean that supporters of other sports deserve to be tarred with the same brush?
As for letting you now beforehand about events, if you want me to I can send you a private message. You're right, in a way, that we don't want to advertise things too much. There are several reasons for this. One main reason is that if those who don't like us hear about it they can try to stop us (and often do). Another main reason is because part of the beauty of these things is that they are not too large. Take Glastonbury festival for example - it started as a free festival, and for many years the (New Age) travellers were a very big part of the festival and were granted free entry even after the festival had started charging for tickets. But it became so popular that it became a machine, a monster. Nowadays the only travellers who attend are those who are working at the festival.
There are other examples too, one of the free festivals that I attend, which started as just our thing, has now grown so big that we're going to have to have at least a year off because too many people now want to attend. Once something reaches a certain level of popularity we can no longer self-police it, and when that happens you have to either compromise your ideals and values or have things turn to shit. Members of the non-travelling community are welcome but only if they can behave with respect and responsibility. You can't have freedom without responsibility; unfortunately too many people who have never really tasted freedom just can't handle the responsibility when they encounter a bit of freedom..
Another world is possible, I know because I inhabit it. When I was younger I wanted to change the world. Now, although I'd love the world to change, I'm happy (and lucky) to simply live alternatively. I don't want everyone to follow us, I merely want them to leave us to our own devices. We don't need or want the state interfering with us. As for the public, I'd just like them to have a little understanding of what we're about. Those who do soon realise that we're beautiful people who live in relative freedom. Obviously the state and the media (which I believe is just another branch of the state) don't want people to know this; if too many people 'got it', well then we might just become a threat to the status quo....
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