Bureaucrats Bulldoze, Resistance Grows!
Bureaucrats Bulldoze, Resistance Grows!
CALL FOR PARTICIPATION
Wednesday March 31st, 2010
12 NOON
Petch Fountain at the University of Victoria (in front of MacPherson Library)
Come one, come all! Bring your selves, your friends, your communities, and your creative energy! Shovels, fencing, stakes, soil, compost, mulch, seedlings, plants, watering cans, and other supplies are welcome and will be put to good use!
On March 24th hundreds of students, faculty and community members converged at UVic for a Food Democracy Teach-out, featuring music, free tea, literature, food, and speakers on the problems we face concerning our relationships to food and land. People came together to reclaim space and began tearing up the lawn and creating a garden in front of MacPherson Library.
Within a couple of hours, a beautiful garden had been created, including raised beds with vegetables and native plants. The event showed that gardening and food security could be possible, inspiring, and fun at UVic. No leaders, political doctrines, or organizing structures: each person digging and gardening for their own reasons.
The UVic administration was terrified and outraged at this ‘destruction of private property’ and called the police. Police arrived, but eventually left after the crowds of people ignored their warnings about criminal charges and arrests. Late that night, at approximately midnight, the UVic administration came with bulldozers, Campus Security, and Saanich Police and destroyed the entire garden. Two brave people did their best to defend the gardens but were helpless in such small numbers. One was charged with “assault by trespass” for standing in front of a bulldozer.
UVic’s destructive strategy has backfired. Since then, momentum has been building towards the creation of a new convergence on March 31st. This will be an opportunity to reclaim this space from UVic and its corporate interests. There will be more people, more food, more tactics and more creativity!
Resistance is Fertile is committed to creating spaces to gather, build community, and find opportunities for engaging in immediate action to confront agribusiness and develop alternative foodways here on campus and in our broader communities.
We must reclaim our food, support local farmers, strengthen alternative foodways, respect the rights of the local Indigenous peoples and build solidarity with Indigenous struggles. It’s time to stop asking for permission from bureaucrats and administrators.
It’s time to act!
RESISTANCE IS FERTILE!
"Food Not Lawns Student Autonomous Action"
[...] the group’s blog describes it, “The event showed that gardening and food security could be possible, [...]
Hi everyone, and particularly to UVic students and alumni, regarding the demonstrations at UVic concerning the David Turpin administration midnight bulldozing assault on the community allotment garden, I will be there for the big rally at 12:00 on Wednesday. I would like to show solidarity to the demonstration and offer some institutional memory to the intransigent entrenchment of ivory-tower oppression by the Turpin administration at UVic. As a student, I participated in the 4 month UVic treesit, which was set up after the Turpin administration snuk in and bulldozed half the Cunningham Forest in order to set back the new medical building behind a hectare of lawn. The treesit prevented the destruction of the rest of the Cunningham forest, ~the final forested tract inside the UVic Ring Road. During that time, I served as elected student rep to the Board of Governors and fought the UVic Ivory Tower of Gordo appointees over its doubling of tuition fees, its gross wastage of forest products (4th largest consumer in BC), its cosmetic and insecticidal pesticide-spewing and other issues. I hope to see you all out!! Cheers, Ingmar