23TOPIA is dead! Long live 23TOPIA!
23TOPIA was never a place, never an organisation, never anything that could be categorised, authorised, criminalised or sanctified.
23TOPIA was an act, a beautiful act of defiance, an explosive device spraying colour shrapnel across the monotone wastelands of the great ghetto of chronic consumerism and terminal TV dependency we know as Worthing.
Our act of resistance had a beginning and an end, but for the most considered and timely acts, the end is always in fact the beginning.
An act, like 23TOPIA, can never be undone, expunged or evicted. 23TOPIA is now a reality that has forever left its imprint.
23TOPIA lives on, and will always live on, in a multiplicity of unfathomable ways.
23TOPIA lives on in every tiny act of assertion and defiance of arbitrary authority, in every momentary thought-crime that passes through the mind of the slave who knows, deep down, that freedom can never be eradicated.
23TOPIA lives on in the breeze on Cissbury Ring, in the spray of the waves at Splash Point, in the ancient woodlands of Titnore, where the birdsong even now falls silent in anticipation of the murderous violence about to be unleashed by the slavemasters and their money machines.
23TOPIA lives on in the nexus of new friendships and understandings born from its creative flash and the collective will that its alchemy has conjured from the disparate despairs and frustrations of a small army of lost souls, dreamers and champions of the human spirit against the Goliath of global greed.
23TOPIA lives on in the rising tide of certainty that another world is not just possible, but necessary.
23TOPIA has been and gone!
23TOPIA is here to stay!
It is now open from 11am to 6pm daily at what used to be Flappers/3TO in Chapel Road, offering a reading room, creative space, free tea and coffee, a free band practice area, a kids' area and various activities.
From Tuesday June 8 to Saturday June 12 it hosted a successful Festival of Resistance to coincide with the G8 summit in the USA, attracting some 150 members in a week.
On Thursday June 17 there is a discussion on What Is Anarchy? with the Worthing Anarchists at 7.45pm.
Explained a spokesperson for the group: "Next year the G8 will be meeting in the UK and our aim is to show them that they are not welcome here. The message is loud and clear - expect thousands of us to be gearing up for massive protests against the capitalist scum, everywhere from Scotland to the English South Coast."
23TOPIA is in Chapel Road, Worthing, in the spacious landmark town centre building previously housing the 3TO nightclub (previously known as Area 51 and Flappers).
Shut The G8 website is at www.freewebs.com/shuttheg8