Nigel Williamson in London
LOUD, arrogant and high on Ecstasy, British clubbers are exploiting poor communities, wrecking the environment and terrifying locals. They’ve done Spain, India and Thailand – now they’re heading for Cape Town.
Indian police have issued an uncompromising warning that young British music fans planning to join all-night parties on the beaches of Goa this summer face a minimum of 10 years in prison if caught in possession of drugs.
Their words are addressed to the thousands of clubbers seeking ever more exotic destinations for rave parties in some of the world’s most undeveloped countries.
According to a study commissioned by BBC Radio 1, hordes of Ecstasy-taking dance music followers are invading faraway beaches, destroying the environment and coming into conflict with local cultures.
The global clubbing trend has emerged from Britain’s burgeoning dance music scene. At first fans flocked to Ibiza and Majorca as London clubs such as the Ministry of Sound organised weekend parties. They moved on to Goa with the develoment of “trance”, a swirling, psychedelic-influenced breed of house music.
Goa’s beaches have become increasingly polluted and local police have instigated a clampdown, prompting many clubbers to try new locations such as Thailand and South Africa.
Britain is selling house culture to nations that can afford it, and imposing it on nations that can’t. Does the freedom to party mean the freedom to wreck a peaceful environment?
Goa residents also complain about nudity and noise. Alvares said: “Noise pollution disturbs children who have to study and people who have to get up to work.”
Clubbers and local people both report that naked Western women on the beaches are turning Goa into a “peep show” as Indian men arrive with binoculars and cameras.
Jawaharlal Henriques, a promoter of all- night parties in Goa, claimed the raves were “a source of income for poor people in the villages”. But there is little evidence of this.
This attitude has already put one fashionable location on the road to ruin. The palm-fringed island of KoPha-Ngan, off Thailand, with pure white sand and turquoise seas, hosts a full-moon beach party every month for thousands of ravers, many of them British.
The newest location is Cape Town in South Africa, which has a strong indigenous club scene and a healthy supply of venues. A British clubber attended a party in a jungle clearing surrounded by mountains, with a crystal-clear stream, metres from the dance area, for revellers who got overheated. It is doubtful how long such scenes will remain unspoilt.