London, UK, 2001
On May Day 2001, there was a multitude of anti-capitalist protests across London, including mass cycle rides at King’s Cross and Euston, Reclaim the Streets in Elephant and Castle, and rallies at Trafalgar Square and Oxford Street, where most of the shops had been boarded up in advance. After police had penned in protesters for hours at Oxford Circus without water or toilets, a small group of anarchists broke free and advanced to nearby Tottenham Court Road. There the situation was entirely different. With a handful of police charging but soon losing control of the situation, rioters were roaming the territory unconstrained, smashing the windows of banks and shops, in a precursor to the much broader public anger that is challenging the dominant economic order since.