The forced eviction of the Mainshill Solidarity Camp ended on 29 January, with over 70 people resisting the eviction, 45 arrests and a huge number of defences that kept the National Eviction Team busy for five days. At the same time digger-diving shut down the nearby Ravenstruther coal terminal for the third time in a year.
Mainshill Solidarity Camp was set up in June 2009, acting with local groups against proposed open-cast mining and its detrimental effects on public health. All five days of the eviction saw violence inflicted by the state on those who try to create positive change, and collusion between the courts, police and corporations.
But they also saw heroic acts of defiance, with people fighting off bailiffs until their hands and feet were cable-tied together, and a round-the-clock supporters’ vigil. This huge show of resistance came after seven months of intense activity in the area.
South Lanarkshire in Scotland has played host to at least 30 different blockades, digger dives and acts of sabotage against machinery on open-cast coal mines, bringing attention to the fact that Scotland bears the brunt of new coal developments in the UK. Unlike a lot of environmental direct action over the last decade, which has focused on one-off spectacular mass actions, Mainshill Solidarity has been targeted and continuous, building momentum over time.
A focus of the Mainshill campaign has been the physical defence of a community from the greed of Scottish Coal and aristocratic landowner Lord Home. With the failure of the so-called democratic system that disregarded the strong objections of the community, locals were very supportive of the camp, providing vital support during Scotland’s freezing winter with recent temperatures going down to -20 °C.
One of the strengths of the campaign is the connection of action against heavy industry and climate change with the people who suffer immediately from its causes. Instead of the carbon reductionism currently being proffered as a solution at the global political table, the campaign at Mainshill seeks to build an alternative of community self-determination and genuinely participatory democratic processes. New beginnings
The campaign against a new open-cast mine at Mainshill is by no means over – pressure is expected to be put on the contractors operating at the site, the details of which can be found on the “Kick out the Contractors” section of the Mainshill website. But the campaign will also begin looking to other Scottish communities affected by coal projects, with protest site skill-shares, gatherings to link community environmental struggles, and the occupation of more sites.
This eviction is being seen not as an end, but as the beginning of a campaign of community-based radical direct action currently sweeping Scotland’s central belt. If the vast expansion of the coal industry in the UK is to be stopped, it will require more places like the Mainshill Solidarity Camp.