Towards May Day 2007 : Melbourne Indymedia

I well remember the first May Day I attended as a member of Monash Anarchists back....ooh...1977. Or it may have been 1978. In any case this was the year of the "Third Platform". The first platform was the property of the old Communist Party (CPA) and the more hardlins stalinist Socialist Party of Australia (SPA) The Maoists had set up a second platform to better express their views, all draped in Eureka flags. Maoists generally operated through their front organization the Australian Independence Movement which took the Eureka flag as its symbol. In those days the march ended on the Yarra Bank where the Tennis Centre is now, in a sizeable field which was yet not so sizeable that the crowd seemed lost in it. The Anarchists and trotskyists were of course excluded from both platforms, so someone in Anarchist camp had the bright idea of bringing a third platform, a small open-tray truck. The march was large and noisy as was then the norm, and the truck (driven by Monash Anarchist Red Bingham) encountered some harassment already on the march. Which should have been some preparation for what happened when we got to the Yarra Bank; members of (as I understood then) the stalinist Socialist Party of Australia organised to park vehicles in front of the gateway to the field in such a way that our truck couldn't get in. "Don't let those splittin' bastards in" they said to everyone with a car. I suppose they would have liked to have treated the Maoists likewise, but did not dare. The Maoists had some tough numbers among their supporters and no exaggerated horror of physical violence.

So what were we to do? I regret to record, but must record, that one of our number thoughtlessly asked an attending cop to help. ( A girl from Monash, middle-class conditioning isn't shaken off just by wearing a badge) The cop pretended to take the request seriously for a minute or two and then, fortunately, just shrugged. We were lucky that he had no sense of humour.

What we did was pull down part of the fence and so the 1977 or as it may be 1978 May Day was graced with a Third Platform after all from which Anarchist and feminist speeches were made , and a syndicalist associated with the building industry spoke. ( All I recall from the feminist speech is an ad for the feminist food stall, "Women have always been supported by men in return for feeding them or fucking them, and we'd much rather feed you than fuck you".) Some trots from the Spartacist League spoke to say they 'solidarized' with the platform....and then left. Various other passing indivuals spoke. Also on that day some of the people got together who were to be active in the Melbourne IWW group of the end of the 70s but that is a whole other story....

Well, I reminisce not just for the pleasure of it but to give some idea of the vitality that May Day once had in this city. Anarchists and others have always been dissatisfied with celebrating May Day on the first Sunday in Mayinstead of the "real" day, and from time to time organize May 1st marches; but the real cause of the decline of May Day is not to do with placing it on a weekend. At one time it was vital enough in spite of not being a strike day. The noise and colour is hard to describe, the pipe bands and the various ethnic bands all doing their thing at full volume along with the traditional english and irish songs
coming from all directions at once. And of course the shouting and quarrelling between factions occasionally erupting into minor violence. And everyone who had a costume was wearing it.

In Melbourne the Sunday May Day has its own history. The Melbourne May Day of 1901 took place on the first Sunday but was nevertheless banned. A small group of marchers defied the ban which was broken up by force. The core events of 1886 in Chicago which gave rise to the modern May Day were spread over four days....the eight hour march on Saturday May First building up to the fatal confrontation between strikers and police and strike breakers on Monday May Third and the consequent public meeting at the Haymarket on the evening of Tuesday May 4, where the bomb was thrown which lead to the hanging of the Haymarket Martyrs. Sunday must have been a pivotal day in the developemnt of events. There is a place for remembering May Day Sunday.

And then...there is the clutch of other events in April. April 21 is the anniversary of the world's first Labour Day as introduced by Australian unionists back in 1856. 25 April is Anzac Day which due to the IWW has a special connection with May Day in Australia. April 29 is now Workers Memorial Day, commemmorating those who dies at work for the bosses profit.

All these fit together. What they don't fit in with all that well is May Day's traditional character as the Spring festival. In Australia May Day is of course an Autumn festival, in the seasonal position of Hallowe-en. An excellent date for remembering the dead, which is one reason why Anzac Day is doing so well. If May Day is to revive in Australia I think it has to get with its seasonal character, it is do with remembering the honoured dead. It is interesting that Walpurgis Night, a kind of Germanic Hallowe-en is on May Day eve, and we might to much worse than start celebrating Walpurgis Night as a cultural festival and merging that with May Day, in much the way the Northern Hemisphere Spring carvical was merged with May Day.

What I'd like people to think about for next year is a "May Day Period" starting on April 21, taking in Anzac and Workers Memorial Days, and if possible Walpurgis Night, nad May 1 and ending on the first sunday in May. We need a festival at this time of year.

-jeremy