An introduction of sorts

LEARNING TO SAY NO

No, we won't be ruled - No, we won't be governed - No, we won't be told what to do

AN INTRODUCTION OF SORTS

There's a story that's still not been fully told and it needs to be as it's an important one that involves many people's lives, my own included. There's no real beginning to it and no real end, just a series of snapshots that when joined together create a bigger picture. The bigger picture is called 'history'.

To the victor goes the spoils of war and that includes the power to record history as the victor would have it. And if history teaches us anything, it's that history is always written from above though it's almost always made from below. War, however, can never really be won and history is always in the making and can be constantly wrestled to and throe between different versions. This story I'm about to tell is just another version based on information received at the time; from records, pamphlets, magazines, fanzines and newspapers. The most important source, however, is from records and there's a reason for this that anyone aware of how life was before the Internet would understand.

I don't pretend that this is in any way a definitive version. It's not based on any insider's knowledge or on in-depth interviews with main players. Neither is it a complete history as some of the snapshots that go to create the bigger picture are missing because there were times when I wasn't in possession of a camera and I was certainly never in possession of a microscope, if that makes sense? Nor a telescope either, come to that.

But no more apologies or fumbling explanations because really there's nothing to apologise for and in fact there's everything to be proud of. And as it goes along, I'm sure the story will explain itself.

So I'll begin properly with a very simple quote from Penny Rimbaud, founder member of Crass, from an interview that took place once upon a time on BBC Radio One:

"The world is a mess. It's a very cruel and barbaric earth to live on and we want to say 'No'. We don't agree with what's happening to the world. We won't be ruled, we won't be governed, we won't be told what to do. It's our life, we've only got one of them. It's our planet, we've only got one of them. And we want to reclaim it. We want to say it's ours. And the more people who individually say that, the more individual people can live. It doesn't matter at all about the government, they can get on with their rules and regulations. We've got to learn to step outside of that and form our own rules, for ourselves, for each individual. And if that comes at odds with the status quo - then we must oppose the status quo."

Happy reading. And see you soon, maybe... somewhere over the rainbow.

John Serpico.