15th February 2003 - I was there. The biggest mass protest in british history. And did they listen? Blair prances around the world as a peace envoy these days. Nice one! Blair is to peace as Ian Paisley is to whispering. Mind you, it looks as though Burlesconi is going to have time in the near future to take up a UN role. I wonder what he will take?
I'm proud to have been part of it. Also glad that my children had the opportunity to take part in such a massive peaceful protest.
ReplyDeleteI think it achieved something. It showed politicians that in the age of the internet, the people are capable of self organisation, that even the jam-making ladies of Sutton Green are prepared to protest, and that the people can't be taken for granted any longer.
You'll notice that since then the state has put some effort into creating high-publicity cases of police brutality (the Evening Standard news vendor who was killed), the arrests for just being there, the kettling. They want to convince people that they could get into serious trouble just for protesting.
I too was there, with Emma. For many people it was a 'stop the war protest'. Me and Emma made a 'stop the bushsh*t' packard, which proved very popular and even prompted chants. It was popular because people who were there were already enlightened and not surprised by later 'revelations' that the precepts for war were false and probably corrupt.
ReplyDeleteOne of our failures was not to get active earlier and oppose the crippling sanctions which had already brought the majority of people to its knees (not Saddam), caused 100's of thousands of infant deaths and caused isolation that contributed to our lack of understanding of a people that had nothing to do with the problems the west perceived.