THE three most dreaded words for anyone at a rally held prior to the start of a demonstration must be: “Our next speaker”. ONS always begins with: “The reason we are all here today is …” and tells us why we’ve turned up. How much of a surprise is this going to be? Do we see people turning to each other and saying: “Blimey! Yes, that’s it. I was wondering why I’m standing here in Hyde Park in the freezing cold on a Saturday afternoon.”So it was last weekend. Several tens of thousands of us showed up at the appointed hour of 12.30pm. We collectively jogged on the spot as we strained to move, take over the streets and make our protest. The organisers, however, were of a different mind. They first required penance, or perhaps concrete evidence of our fervent attachment to the cause. This took the form of paying mandatory attention while every orator in the land explained the reason for our geographical position. It honestly strikes me as unnecessary. If we hadn’t known why we were there, we wouldn’t have come. It began to remind me of the interminable Unions Today speech-fests where the list of speakers is highly reminiscent of the Thomson Local phone directory.
At the Gaza demonstration, Andrew Murray got the longest groan of the day when he announced to the shivering assembled: “We’ll just have about an hour of speeches and then we’ll head off on the march.” The chap next to me suggested a division of labour. “Why don’t they make the speeches and we could set off on the march?” he enquired.
We wouldn’t have missed much, to be honest. There are not many variables to be found concerning the brutal murder of trapped non-combatants. We didn’t need to be told it is a war crime any more than we required to be informed that our feet were numb. At one point, I was approached by a serious-looking fellow with a scrap of paper that, he said, would explain to me the Respect position on the Gaza massacres. “Are you for or against?” I enquired. Apart from a desire not to remove my hands from my pockets, I felt I could live without the proffered information. Even in his wildest dreams, he can’t have expected me to say: “Yes! I would most certainly like to read and digest so vital and engaging a document. I wonder if I could take a spare copy for my neighbour? Oh – and do you have a membership application form available?”
Michael Rosen and Annie Lennox were entertaining because they are performers. The rest consisted of a mantra of speech segments from my youth, bursting with “barbaric”, “inhuman”, “imperialism”, “solidarity”, “ left group of MEPs”, “condemn”, “call on the UN”, “boycott” and “withdraw ambassador”. In my numbed mind, reflective of my feet, it all began to mingle with the soothing tones of the Hari Krishna group, whose banjo player sported a high-visibility vest with the motif “Security” on the back. I like the idea of a Hari Krishna security service much more than I like the Israeli government’s version.
Demonstrating used to be a weekly event in my calendar. Most Saturdays, I’d pop the girls into the push-chair and set off to the Embankment. By the time they went to school, they’d protested about a wide selection of nation states, levels of pay, interference in industrial relations and even one week, by accident, in favour of fox-hunting. It was a social as much as a political event.
The social side is still very much to the fore. We Brits tend to do a lot of chatting, because we’re never comfortable with chanting slogans. We feel rather self-conscious about shouting “Maggie Maggie Maggie”, “Ho Ho” or “Free Free” more than three or four times, and as the noise subsides, the chatter begins. Although my primary purpose last weekend was to show my anger and disgust at an irresponsible and brutish rogue state, I did manage to have conversations on the march about dentistry in Sweden, a photographic exhibition at the Barbican, the football transfer window, schools in Brixton, woolly hats and work.
Incidentally, I was disappointed with the service offered by the National Union of Journalists. I was speaking to Tim Gopsill, the editor of the NUJ magazine, as we approached the Israeli embassy. A good number of our fellow travellers were engaged in hurling shoes into Palace Green, so I asked the official to give me his footwear. I am disappointed to say that he refused outright. If Jeremy Dear wasn’t a fellow Tribune contributor, I may have reconsidered my membership.
At the end of the march, I was horrified to discover that the pre-march speakers had re-assembled and were on the point of starting again. They must have taken a short cut and dashed over the park to ambush us, but fortunately by this time we weren’t corralled. They had even erected a large screen so they would be seen at the back. Given the proximity of Gloucester Road tube station, the screens proved an unnecessary expense.
Chris Proctor
