GB No. 4(19)/95
The International Motor Fair '95 took place in Poznan at the end of April. We decided to organise anti-car and anti-motorway actions there.
We started on Friday, 28th April, with a concert of three groups illustrated with slides on motorway transport (nature, cars in cities, the alternative transport, anti-motorway actions in Great Britain) with a relevant commentary. We are planing to add a musical background to the slides and to show them at concerts and meetings. The concert did not attract crowds because of insufficient advertising and the great number of other events happening at the same time. We had a deficit of ZL 2 million.
Next day at 10 a.m. another action started in front of the gates to the International Poznan Fair. For a start we distributed handbills. The text they included was read through loudspeakers. We were dressed in "bibs" with the "Autostrada Stop" ("Motorway Stop") inscription on them and a drawing (based on the "Cry" by Munch). We also had a few banners which we hung on the fence of the Fair. A happening started an hour later: we arranged cardboard trees, houses and animals so that they represented an average Polish village. Then, using a cloth 20m long that stood for a motorway, we destroyed all the cardboard village assisted by a businessman, a builder, the police and the representatives of the World Bank. The accompaniment was babbling about the necessity of motorways: "We must build new roads, all the West has the motorways, they are token of prosperity", etc. During the road construction "protesting environmentalists" turned up but they got run over. In the meantime two people entered the grounds of the Fair, climbed up a spire and hung a large banner AUTOSTRADA - STOP. It was long and badly weighted so it was hard to read but the media noticed it and the banner was shown it the local tv. All would be just fine, unless one of the people was arrested for climbing the spire (the other one ran away). To our surprise the punishment was only a ZL 100 thousand fine, although the case could have ended with a trial.
Summing up, the action was as eventful as possible, having in mind lack of funds, staff, an office and other things. There were some shortcomings, like
However, there were also some accomplishments:
We are grateful to all the people who helped us in the action, and our special thanks to the Rozbrat group who paid the fine for the arrested one.
Jacek Polewski
reprinted from Zielone Brygady, 12/95
translated by M. Maciejewska