Camp it up!

It’s taken a few days for those of us who were lucky enough to be at Camp Secret Squirrel 2010 to get ourselves together enough to write about it. SSY’s annual summer camp this year was a huge success, and hopefully those of you who couldn’t make it this year will see from our photos that you need to clear your schedule for next August NOW so you don’t miss out again.

Politics-wise, we had workshops on issues such as football and the impact of capitalism on the game; what is fascism; as well as the struggle for Scottish independence.

The opening workshop was really interesting, as we tried out a role playing exercise where those taking part were divided into two groups, representing two different companies, and then divided into workers and bosses. The bosses then had to make their workers work as hard as possible for as little as possible (their companies owned paper plane making factories). The bosses received an initial amount of capital in the form of the imaginary currency of squirrels, and then had to maximise the production of their workers in order to make enough to pay them and make a profit.

The workers meanwhile went on strike to demand better wages, in both factories. However, without needing to be told by the workshop organisers, they realised that only by uniting the two groups of workers could they win, and so I’m sure you’ll be delighted to learn that the paper plane workers led a victorious revolution, overthrew their oppressive bosses (notorious capitalists such as James N) and established socialism!

We were particularly honoured to have with us four comrades from the Basque pro-independence left. They are part of the Basque internationalist group Askapena, and are on a brigade to Scotland to learn more about our struggle for an independent socialist Scotland, and to forge stronger links between us and the Basque country.

The Basque comrades spoke to the whole camp about the tremendous repression they face at the hands of the Spanish and French states, and the politics they use to try and defeat it. We were really pleased to have about 40 folk at CSS, but were put to shame to learn that an equivalent event organised by the Basque youth movement can attract 20,000! As we’ve reported before, the youth movement in the Basque country is illegal, and the organisers of these camps are in prison.

Another important aspect of the weekend was that SSY reaffirmed its commitment to the self-organisation for liberation of young women. The SSY women’s group held a meeting to discuss feminist ideas in a women’s only space (maybe someone who was at it can comment more on how it went), whilst the men held a workshop where we discussed points from the male privilege checklist as a way of stimulating discussion about the ways patriarchal society gives men systematic advantages over women that often we don’t even realise are there. As one participant put it: “This has been really great for me, because I’ve never really had the chance to talk with guys about how these things affect us, it can be difficult to bring it up, so the workshop is really important.”

SWIMMING!

The site where we were was fantastic, and we’d like to thank the folk that run the place for all their help and letting us use their lovely space. We cooked tasty, healthy meals over an open fire, swam in a pond, enjoyed beautiful sunshine, and were privileged to be able to see the Perseids meteor shower in some of the clearest skies anywhere in Scotland. The place where were is a piece of pristine ground where life is much as it would have been throughout Scotland just after the last ice age, before humans transformed the landscape through agriculture and towns, and we met all kinds of wildlife, from rare butterflies to frogs, toads and fish, to the most immense and terrifying (but cool) wasp like thing you will ever see in your life.

Each night we also collectively provided music that managed to keep people on their feet to the small hours, and a diverse mix that was suitable for all tastes.

We’d also like to send a shout out to the cops for bowling up randomly on Sunday to “check we’re all ok”, i.e. let us know that they know about us. I suppose it means we must be doing something right if the police feel the need to regularly check our site and keep tabs on us. To the cop whose job it is to read this article: how’s it going?

We hope this has made the people who couldn’t make it this year even more green with envy, if you feel like you missed out now you know there’s only one solution: BE THERE NEXT YEAR!

Don't look now: Shortly before we discovered the SSY organiser is a murderous dwarf

Sarah and Jack prove that being SSY organiser is a surefire way TO BECOME COOL

Are you ready for CSS 2011? Just remember . . .