Authorised Vandalism
Roles:
Director, animator, writer, poet
What is vandalism?
There is vandalism that is villainised, illegal
Teens with spray cans and markers
Drunks armed with traffic cones and shattered glass
A building burning
To damage another’s property, that is vandalism
But what about vandalism through stupidity, through neglect, through apathy, through greed, through meanness or through sheer ignorance?
Because you see, one person’s improvement is another person’s van
dalism.
What about development? One person’s development could be another’s vandalism
A vampire’s development, built for the soulless
A pseudo space for all, pseudo people, pseudo rules
I have a lot of love for this country, for the hills and woodland, the rivers and streams that give so relentlessly, they are the stuff of dreams, but they sleep restlessly
Because their relatives in the city, the scarce spaces of green, are shrouded with visions of advancing concrete
I am no threat to the land, to the grass, I will love her with my full heart
But now I fear for my rights, for our rights to unite
They know that when the people stand together, we stand together with might
We are the biggest threat against the agenda of the soulless and the empty hearted
So help us, love thy neighbour, we must be free to stand with strangers and sing and chant on this captive land
These spaces of green should be our fundamental sanctuary
Don’t cut away our rights at the stem
Could this be authorised vandalism?
Poem by Rowan Hanson-Iles