15feb2003 Postscript.
Back home blogging at the aluminium stallion, and news reports are saying
a minimum of - not the 400K people I'd guessed, but 750,000. That means at
least a million participated in some way. I just hope Blair listens, since
with so many regular people taking part, this could hurt him the only way
he cares about - votes.
652 electoral districts in the UK, with a spread of less than
5000 votes between winner and loser in most cases. That means under 3m people
need to be influenced in their voting choices to affect Blair's chances of
re-election. (Hell, even today he's just 1% ahead of the Tories in some polls
- and the Tories today are the worst-organised, lowest-profile, most lightweight
party in the UK, with the least noteworthy messages since they were formed.)
If each of those people who came out on the streets today influences
just two other people, Blair's out of office at the next election.
15feb: Waterloo. Live blogging from a GSM dialup.
gprs is working but won't talk ftp.
I'm at the Stop the War protest march in London. Political activism
isn't usually my thing, but Dubya's blatant parlaying of a terrorist act into
an excuse to secure a few oil fields goes beyond the pale: I find it the second-most
astonishing thing in the news for years.
(The first is Blair's constant ass-kissing of the misunderestimated
Mr Bush, when over 80% of British people and most other European nations believe
there is no just cause for this war.)
So here I am - the first demonstration I've been involved in since
accidentally walking into some South Korean student riots in the 90s. (I missed
the slaughter in Indonesia of 1997 by a scant few days.) And this time, I'm
not cowering behind cars while the molotov cocktails form deadly but graceful
arcs overhead: I'm actually taking part.
[Muted cheers as the crowd
gathers - 73Kb .wav]
I join a crocodile of placard holders - mostly yellow ones, the
Liberal Democrats. There's a good-natured bottleneck as we climb the single
set of stairs that leads up to Hungerford footbridge; I sidestep and head
for the Embankment via Waterloo Bridge instead. Not even 11am, and I can see
a least a thousand placards from here.
[Everyone quiet as we
wait to march forward - 38Kb .wav] (12:15pm) Waterloo Bridge. The crowd is already
growing. There are a LOT of people here. You can practically hear Tony Blair's
voice in the air: 'Bloody hell, I'm glad I'm in Glasgow today - oops!)
I can taste that special networked flavour across the air: the hive mind,
born of shared goals and ideas. The mentality of the mob. How many at this
point? I'm guessing over 100 000 already.
It's disturbing to see anti-Israel sentiment in the crowd;
in a strange microcosm of the situation out east, the Palestinians are trying
to claim territory in the march that they feel belongs to them. Out in front,
Palestine has made unwelcome incursions into the territory where Mayor Ken
marches with the visiting Jesse Jackson; said mayor and company drop back
immediately into the crowd, for fear of being photographed with people who
may have bombs wrapped around them. The incident is resolved peacefully by
stewards.
(Snort of derision) - a charity box says 'help us stop stoning
women in iraq'.
Hey, I think, you don't need money to do that! Just stop throwing stones
at the women! Oh I see, you meant other people are doing the stoning...
1pm: The Embankment. I'm stuck between the Socialist
Workers Party and the Free Palestine Front. As we pass under the bridge the
clamour of traffic and whistles is deafening. I am part of this! Part of the
mob! I have no independent thought; I am simply a face in the crowd! Strangely
intoxicating.
Phones calls. It's strange how many people like me - i.e.. those
who don't normally take part in demonstrations - are down here that I know.
half my London address book seems to have swapped the Saturday afternnon lattes
to march alongside hairy lefties and students.
I see a placard: 'Grannies against War.' Yes, it's the same woolly-hatted
old lady I saw in the Times this morning.
[It's time to start marching!
- 111Kb .wav] 1.30: Good placard noting UN resolutions breached:
'Iraq 14. Israel 64.' Nice to see Bush & Blairs' lies about this being
honest good vs. evil put to rest.
2pm. Some interesting alternatives to the planned route are circulating
in the crowd like a indiscriminately cc'd email. One wants us to head for
the American Embassy instead and occupy it. (Let's see, that'd be the building
that's had closed-off streets for a year and a platoon of armed marines inside
its walls? Hey, these guys' homework assignment last night was to write down
twenty ways to kill you with your own placard!)
I pass a sad-looking group of anarchists Thameside. I applied to be
an anarchist once, but when I contacted them nobody seemed to be in charge.
It's surprising the depth of hatred these (mostly British) people have
for Dubya; thankfully, it's very pointedly directed at this particular American,
not Americans in general. That Saddam's a nasty little man, that's a given;
you don't see anything about his gassing-the-Kurds hobby on any placards.
A few obviously American tourists look somewhat frightened as
they try to cross the demo; we're interupting their holiday, after all. But
the contempt the demonstrators have for the average American is zero; the
separation between the people and their leaders is clear in everyone's mind.
This, I think, is why we're here: unlike, say, a demo in Baghdad,
we feel that the USA remains a reasonable and democratic country, and it's
OK to disagree with it without getting a bullet in the back of the head.
[Moving along the Embankment
- 66Kb .wav] Women. I swore that placard said 'Hot Chicks
Against War'.
It didn't. (It was 'Hotchkins against
war.') But if I were single, demonstrations would be where I'd go to find
babes. Some of the girls in the mob are hot as hell, and there's rather a
lot of them: I'd lay money females are a slight majority today.
They fall into several types: the leftist student protestor (young
and fresh-faced), the grungy hippies whose mother probably gave birth to
them on Greenham Common, even a few smartly suited professionals gingerly
lofting 'Not in my name' placards for the first time. There's a strength of
purpose and vitality about these women that makes them highly attractive:
bright eyes, glowing skin, genuine smiles. Phwooar!
3pm. Whitehall. As Big Ben chimes overhead I
find myself immersed in the placards of the Muslim Association, a knot of
marchers whose placards all carry the same message and who have no outsiders
in their ranks. Many of these marchers have brought the whole family along;
there are so many burkhas in one place it's like a Kabul second-hand clothing
store on the day the Taliban fell.
This is where the less savoury marchers attempt to co-opt the demo;
matted squatters and pockmarked failed human cloning experiments climb bins
and lampposts. Nobody minds, but nobody takes much notice.
[Heading towards Piccadilly
Circus to converge with the other route - 73Kb .wav]
4pm. CND? I didn't know they were still going. So very 80s. (A
few hopeful placards even talk about getting rid of Trident.) And everywhere,
the dear old Socialist Worker, a leftist rag that's been going for decades.
A press photographer takes my picture.
Nearing Trafalgar the music starts; plenty of
people brought drums, whistles, and even trombones for the day out, and suddenly
they all come together in a rousing chorus. The Mistresses of Grunge alongside
me - their placard is a handwritten joke along the lines of 'Blair, you're
barking up the wrong bush' - start hugging me (T shirts in February? Why didn't
they bring a coat?) I extricate myself from the unhygenic embrace.
[It doesn't get any louder than
this! - 137Kb .wav]
'Thornton Heath against the war' - wow, an entire town's turned
out! Or at least three of them. Down from Trafalgar, Piccadilly and on towards
Green Park.
And here's where I leave the march; my work is done here. (And anyway,
it's bloody cold. The revolution can wait.)
Off the main street, Protesting London is oddly quiet; a single street
away the roars and whistles seem distant. Perhaps this is why Bush and Blair
feel so free to ignore the wishes of so many people; locked away in Pennsylvania
Avenue and Downing St, they just can't hear us.
4.30pm I have a coffee in an empty Starbuck's. Wind
my way through deserted sidestreets to Bond St Station. And head for home.
