London, Alone - Part 3 - "A Tour of London, with 100,000 People"

pics here!

I got started a little late Saturday morning, and decided the trip to the library probably wouldn't be worth it. I'm going to Liverpool on Monday, and I can spend all day in the library Tuesday, so I should be all right. Meanwhile, I had a protest to get to. I stopped by the stationer to pick up a posterboard and a thick marker, and made my sign on the Tube. Here is a picture of me with it later in the day. I added the finishing touches on a bench in the Hyde Park Corner station. A tiny Lebanese-looking girl asked, "Are you going to the demo?" I thought about what she meant for a moment, then said yes, I was. We were both afraid we?d be late, but I had to finish my sign, so she and her crew moved along.

Outside the gates of Hyde Park, a group of volunteers from Socialist Worker newspaper were handing out signs with a picture of Bush and the words "#1 Terrorist." There were a few other popular pre-generated placards: "Against All Wars"; "Troops Out Now"; "End the Occupation." None of those were really for me, since I don't quite support any of those goals. My real sentiment was something like, "Now that we're in Iraq please don't screw things up too badly and I hope we can leave as soon as possible but I would also rather not create a civil war and by the way I support Israel's right to exist and I want the Palestinian Authority to clean up its act before Palestine becomes an independent country, more for the Palestinians' sake than the Israelis, and while we're on the subject I completely oppose any sort of violation of human rights or racism, and yet I think there might be extreme cases where torture and the death penalty are justified, but I'm not sure if I trust the state with the power to administer them oh and also regarding American hegemony I don't think we can really get around it in a world where economic power matters most but I think there's a right way and a wrong way -- your advice as the previous hegemon would be appreciated." Whew. But you can't fit all that on a placard.

You can fit some of it in a discussion, though, and this was the first chance I really got to have them. To get to the march's launching point, we had to walk across the north side of Hyde Park, which is quite a hike. The park was amazing, by the way -- I had hoped to get down there earlier in the day and explore a bit, but I didn't want to miss the demo. I'll likely go back to see the museums that are down there. Anyway, I had a few fellow travelers across the park. One was a veteran organizer from Brighton; looked like an old Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament type (there were there in force, by the way). He told me about his trip up and made fun of the bobbies lining the edge of the park. "Probably going to spray us with sewage or something," he said.

I wanted to keep talking to him, but we were interrupted by a socialist who objected to my sign. "Kerry! Kerry was just as bad!" He looked around, trying to draw a crowd from the people rushing to catch up with the rest of the marchers. "We should be protesting against this fellow! He should be tarred and feathered!" I had to stop for that -- I explained that my sign was kind of a joke, that I wanted to show the futility of the American voter. He told me I should have voted for a real opposition, though he didn't seem to know what he meant by that (besides, if I had cast a third-party vote, it probably would have been for the libertarians). We came to something of a consensus in the end -- I told him that I thought voting was just one form of political expression, probably the minimum form, and I didn't consider it a real reflection of my principles. He seemed to like that, but kept wanting to go on about how the Democrats had purposefully lost, or something along those lines. I told him I had to catch up with the marchers, which was true.

Things moved pretty slowly from there on out, but it was okay, because I had a good chance to take pictures. I had seen massive protests in the United States, though I've never been in one, so I can't tell what aspects of what I saw were uniquely British. I saw some of the same guerilla theater stuff you see in the States... always entertaining. The police line probably interested me the most. About a third of them weren't even police -- they were observers or "stewards" from some of the organizing groups. I think they were both there to watch the bobbies and to keep the crowd moving. When we stood still -- which was often, at first -- representatives from various groups worked the crowd, distributing literature. A few of them got caught up in discussions, often about who to vote for in the upcoming elections. There was a strong "Labour Against the War" contingent, some Liberal Democrats... I think most of the march represented the entire city's socialist vote, though. We'll see in (I think) May.

We soon approached our first target, the American Embassy. I held my sign so the people looking out the windows could see. The chanting began: "Bush, Blair, CIA: how many kids have you killed today?" "George Bush? TERRORIST! Tony Blair? TERRORIST!" And, occasionally: "Shaaa-ron? TERRORIST!" I asked one of the yell leaders if she knew "We Shall Overcome" and was promptly ignored. The only group I wanted to sing with was a church choir who seemed to have brought books of hymns for peace, but I'd lost them in Hyde Park.

"You can?t have a protest without embassies!" remarked an older fellow who had fallen in beside me. He noticed my sign and started asking me questions about American politics. I explained a little about the Democratic primary, speculated about how other candidates might have fared against Bush. He asked me if I thought Bush was really wearing a wire during the first debate -- I told him the White House could surely have developed a better technology. I did explain, though, that it was a good analogy, because I thought Bush wasn't the evil genius that radicals and anti-war protesters make him out to be. I told him I bought Al Gore's explanation of the man-- he's a coward who will never say no to anyone who helped him get elected. He seemed to like that line, thought it could be applied to Blair. I wasn't so sure. I also told him about the Jeff Guckert/Jeff Gannon story, which apparently hasn't broken over here.

As we approached Piccadilly Circus, he pointed out a few sites to me. "That's the Duke of Wellington's house," he said. "One Piccadilly Circus." He seemed as congenial as a tour guide. I thanked him, then fell off to the side to take some pictures -- things were really beginning to heat up. During another congested moment, I talked to a student from Portugal who was studying somewhere further north and had come down just for this. His opinions seemed somewhat conflicted, like mine. I had a feeling he was there for the girls -- he spent the rest of the walk with a few radical-chic types. Not that there's anything wrong with that. I left him as we entered Trafalgar Square.

The moment I saw Trafalgar is probably a good metaphor for my experience in London so far. When you associate a place with the past, with buildings and monuments, you start to think of it as empty. We had a nice little discussion about this in my Technology and Colonialism class... why colonial governments would always portray the monumental architecture of India or Africa or Southeast Asia as empty. One theory says they wanted them to become symbols of the government, not the people who lived there (though nationalist movements were quickly able to adopt them -- that's why Zimbabwe is called Zimbabwe).

Anyway, I couldn't help thinking of that discussion when I saw Trafalgar filled with people. The base of Nelson's Column was covered in posters. A black woman rode one of the bronze lions, swaying her arms to the music. A woman wearing sunglasses and a T-shirt that just said "peace" splashed around in one of the fountains, soaking her black skirt. The steps of the National Gallery were packed with bodies. There was some milling about, but most people focused on the speakers: a labor leader, a Green Party MP, a Muslim feminist, a rapper. I gave up with my sign at this point and walked around, taking more pictures. The Green Party was also nice enough to sell me some tea and a brownie (no, not special brownies). I stayed around long enough to take photos of the cleanup crew, then headed for the Tube.

For a first protest experience, it wasn't so bad. I agree those who say that this form of political expression is probably dying -- the fact that so many millions of people all over the world were unable to prevent the Iraq war is a sign of that. I think any sort of popular movement that emerges over the next few decades will need to be smarter than crowds yelling at the American Embassy. But I loved the sort of discussions that took place that day. Even though none of the speakers really disagreed with each other, they did focus on different issues, they had different priorities. And there was great discussion in the crowd about where Britain (and the world) ought to be going. I don't know if that happens at these sort of things in Chicago or New York or Berkeley, but I'm glad it happened here.

More things happened that day, but I?m just about written out. Hope you enjoy the pictures!