Pushing thru the market square, so many mothers sighing
We’ve got five years, what a surprise, since the big march.
Two articles today about it stand out. The one by John Harris in the Guardian takes an optimistic tack:
In Birmingham, the march’s organisers reserved well over 100 coaches – enough to carry at least 5,000 people – and then tried to get hold of even more, only to find that every coach company for miles had been booked up. In Liverpool, the local STWC had organised its previous outings using a colour-coded system – blue coach, green coach, red coach – but this time found that they had run out of colours, and were reduced to a byzantine system of patterns, so that some people made their way to London on the “leopardskin coach”. At service stations on the M4, protesters marvelled at the great fleet of vehicles making its way from Wales and the West Country; on the morning trains into Paddington there was standing room only. It should not be forgotten, moreover, that London was not the only location for an unprecedentedly huge event. Quite apart from the events that took place overseas, 10,000 marched in Belfast, and as many as 100,000 turned out in Dublin. In Glasgow, 50,000 people pitched up outside the aforementioned Labour conference.
But I think Flying Rodent nails it better, in an excellent piece, full of the futility, the contempt the public are held in, and the need for fresh ideas…
The point I’m trying to make is that protest is going to have to change to be useful in future. Our political and economic systems are massive, impersonal behemoths that give not one shit for our opinions on their behaviour, and will press on unabashed with any deranged schemes they have in mind.
Harris wants us to ‘think of Saturday February 15 2003 as the day that politics stopped working.’ I couldn’t get to the London march – I hadn’t long since lost my job and we could barely afford to get off the sofa let alone get on a bus to the capital. But I went on quite a few marches in Brighton.
There were other things that stopped working that February as well as politics. Trust in the police must have been jammed up as well. It certainly was for me. I saw with my own eye what some policemen will do if they think nobody’s watching. It was ugly.
Watching what combat-booted policemen will do to a peaceful march having the temerity to deviate from its route put me off taking my children to protests until they’re of an age to run unassisted and fast.
Still, pepper spray in the eyes and a hard clout around the head or boot in the thigh from a cocksure copper turned out to be the least of everybody’s worries.
Posted on February 16th, 2008 at 1:32pm under Affronts to democracy, Iraq
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• 6 Comments |
I went to the 2003 and 2004 marches. The 2004 march was almost funereal. I also went to the November 2003 protest against G. W. Bush’s visit. That seemed to make more of a difference. The noise – drums and whistles mostly – must have set the window panes of Buckingham Palace and Downing Street vibrating at least a tiny bit, and the drums and whistles went on all night long. If the intention of that protest was to make its targets feel fenced in – and desperately unpopular – it succeeded. I think it was personally humiliating for Blair that his honoured guest couldn’t so much as look out the window, let alone tour the streets of London.
Before 2003, I think it was possible for a British Prime Minister to contemplate a foreign military campaign – precision bombing and the rest of it – as something with popular appeal. Victory parades to follow. I think that is off the menu for the time being. Leaders – especially bad leaders – have vanity; one of their vanities is to court popularity. Large scale protests take this possibility away.
Before 2003 think possible popular appeal …where are you from ,
Nothing anybody has done/sung/or marched about has made the slightest bit of difference to the death chaos and carnage that bush has rained down upon 100s,000
of innocent people, its not about preventing wankers like bush and his kind looking out of windows its about getting them to stop the killing which they continue to cause,
people can only and will only march so far for no change before desperation forces its hand.
… only to find that every coach company for miles had been booked up
I was at the 2003 march. I recall arriving at Hyde Park and being almost unable to breathe due to the fumes from hundreds of idling coaches. I recall thinking, “so this is why we’re going to war”. Just then, the doors opened on one of the coaches, and dozens of protesters emerged carrying “No Blood for Oil” banners. I couldn’t help but laugh.
Oh, and personally I blame all the fat-skinny people.
It’s interesting what you say about the actions of the police: my recollection of their behaviour at the London march was that they were friendly – jovial even. I was there with my mother-in-law, a veteran marcher of the 70’s and 80’s. She commented on how refreshingly different it was and recalled how on marches protesting Clause 28, the police presence had been so over-the-top that all you could see was miles of black. It sounded like a terrifying experience.
I guess all the b*stards had gone to Brighton.
Jeez, five years already? My brain indeed hurts like a warehouse. I did find the cops on the London march pretty OK, unlike the couple I met outside Downing Street on “end of Blair day” who threatened me with arrest because I was causing an obstruction.
While I was standing by myself watching, from the opposite side of the road, (the not Downing Street side) a coachload of freshly disembarked tourists. Irony? That’s made of metal isn’t it?