The eviction of Occupy
Symon Hill reflects on his experience at St Paul’s cathedral
‘The Great Creator… made the Earth to be a common treasury,’ wrote Gerrard Winstanley in 1649, shortly before his Digger community was evicted from common land. ‘Not one word was spoken in the beginning that one branch of mankind should rule over another.’
I quoted Winstanley’s words, loudly, as I was dragged by police from the steps of St Paul’s Cathedral on 28 February. I had been kneeling in prayer. Around me, occupiers were crying as they watched their tents casually dumped in skips. Sam Walton, of North London Area Meeting, was hauled away as he called out the Lord’s Prayer. I was fighting back tears.
Earlier, a few of us had knelt to pray as hundreds of police poured into the camp. Siobhan Grimes, an Anglican activist, joined me in reading passages from the Bible, puzzling bailiffs.
I was in danger of being overwhelmed by chaos, violence and noise. Police shouted orders, people cried, television reporters struggled to make themselves heard. Protesters chanted.
At times, the desire to be somewhere else was very powerful. Four months previously, I had committed myself to being present during the eviction. I wanted occupiers to know that many Christians back their cause, despite hostility from the cathedral. Quakers, Anglicans and others turned up to pray at the camp.
‘Why can’t you pray at home?’ I remembered being asked this as the night went on. I knew that many people were doing just that. My prayers were no better than theirs. Personally, I had for months felt a strong inward pull to pray in person during the eviction. The Holy Spirit’s leadings are often unclear, but physical presence seemed to be important for me.
The last tents were cleared and people retreated to the cathedral steps. They thought they were safe. The eviction order applied only to corporation land.
Riot police arrived on the steps and told us to leave. There were confused conversations. Police said they needed to ‘clean the steps’. I had an incongruous image of riot police with mops.
‘The church don’t want you here,’ said a policeman. ‘What do you mean by the church?’ I asked; I am as much part of the church as the authorities at St Paul’s. It was the sort of question we discussed in seminars when I was a theology student. A debate on ecclesiology was not on the officer’s agenda. The removals began.
I was removed three times, eventually as far as the road. I continued to pray. This seemed to discomfort the policeman closest to me, who kept glancing around and shuffling.
Quakers have always refused to separate the spiritual from the political and the personal. Quaker testimony is about testifying to our experience of God, whether in everyday life or dramatic moments. Prayers during the eviction witnessed to a God of love and justice, with a different sort of power to the idols of violence and money.
Arriving home, exhausted, at 6am, it was hard to believe I had been arguing with police a few hours before. That felt like some other person, with more faith than me. My faith in the power of love was shaken by a night in which brute force had dominated.
Thankfully, the Holy Spirit finds creative ways to work. Shortly after the Digger eviction, Gerrard Winstanley became one of the first Quakers. He urged Friends to continue the work Diggers had begun. With bleak metal fences around the former camp area outside St Paul’s, are Quakers prepared to respond to a similar challenge today? Will we let ourselves be inspired by Occupy? And what will that lead us to do?
