Yes, I went marching that day. There, it´s out.
Well, not quite as bad as it sounds. I joined the quarter of a million people protesting against the huge financial cuts in the UK economy. It was a great day out – people had come from all over Britain to protest, and the atmosphere was happy and joyful, with placards and T-shirts and balloons with messages on like Cut the Cuts, Cut David Cameron, (and more risqué: Smell My Cut) union flags and firefighters who still were dressed in half of their work clothes. Some called it the Day of Rage while others were more diplomatic yet strong in their views. The UK cuts will cut down many smaller services, often affecting the poor, old or small, and in communities outside the cities it might sometimes mean the death of a place when children have to go to schools far away, or suddenly lose libraries, support services or social support.
And there were a lot of police around. Very noticeable police too. For those of you outside the UK, british police has made some phenomenal mistakes during protests the past few years, including ones as recent as this year when the students protested about the government raising their fees (from 3000 pounds a year to a possible 9000 pounds a year, which you might agree is a bit steep. In Sweden university is still free if you are a Swedish citizen [american readers start breathing again now], but Sweden added fees for overseas students for the first time ever this year).
During the student protests the police ”kettled” protesters and handled the situation quite badly – Swedish readers might remember the Gothenburg riots of a few years ago, where Swedish police made the same blunders.
Yesterday, in the clear sunlight over London with honking horns and chanting voices, I talked to volunteers for both Liberty and , who were there as legal observers – much like the witnessess who stand and watch check-points in Gaza just to have an impartial observer present who have seen what happened. They handed out little notes with legal advice if you would happen to be stopped and searched or arrested, along with numbers to pre-chosen lawyers.
Some video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eoU3kZWF4yw
And the Guardian the next day: http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2011/mar/26/anti-cuts-march-police-rioters?intcmp=239
The march continued from Westminster, where the Houses of Parliament are, past Trafalgar Square and sunlight and Nelson´s Column and rows of yellow coats of the police visible on the National Portrait Gallery´s marble steps, past small groups of green protesters who were chanting and singing and drumming, past cameras and past families and people with signs who joined the march, joined it, heading up into towards Regent Street, Oxford Street, and finally Hyde Park, where the march officially was supposed to end in a big rally.
So many people. Standing there, in front of Trafalgar Square, looking down the whole street that goes down towards Westminster, a long, long street, it was just one single sea of colours and plakards and the chanting like one, big voice.
I vanish into the march. We walk past Picadilly Circus, neon signs, a homeless woman standing by a bus stop with her fingers in her ears, the statue of Eros, and more police, more, and more hidden on the side-streets (I watch them as we pass, van upon van: this time, the police has promised not to use riot gear if they can avoid it, and if they do, to have them unload it once they´re done; it´s thought that riot-clad police might incite violence; no, really, it could?) and sunlight in the spring air and a child in one of the families under one of the union balloons shouts out a chant that all around him take up.
When I stop at a Starbucks with the longest line to the bathroom in all of recorded history, the Other Train passes by. The Other Train is made up of black-clad people in masks, carrying red and black flags. They´re the ones who make the bad headlines, they´re the ones who will be in the papers later, crushing windows, throwing paint, throwing ammonia at the police. The hard-core trouble-makers. Suddenly there´s a pop and I think oh shit oh shit grenade and the front of the store starts filling with yellow smoke. It was only a smoke grenade. Thank god, it was only a smoke grenade. But they close quickly, and the girl behind the counter starts coughing, looking scared.
In Hyde Park, the train slowly empties, all these people. But I am only in my part of it: behind me, behind us, it keeps coming. Looking down just before the park, I see that the street all down towards Regent Street is full all the way down. Full. Just packed with people.
You would think that the government might understand from the numbers that their people don´t want the cuts. Knowing governments, the cuts will probably go through as planned. Democracy is a complicated word: it takes a long time to say.
But thank the gods we live in democracies and safe countries. As I walk in the protests that Saturday, Libya is falling into civil war, a nuclear power plant is throwing radiation into the sea in Japan while workers heroic beyond belief goes in again and again to clean it up. And in so many other places people are getting killed and tortured and raped while we walk here, protesting against the financial cuts in one of the richest countries in the world.
Sunlight. Bobbing plakards, tooting horns, a man dressed up as a judge who uses a loudspeaker to say ”NO CUTS IN THE COURTS! NO CUTS IN THE COURTS!” and later that night, me and a friend are out for a pint when we watch riots in Trafalgar Square and walk over there to watch. It´s a small group of protesters and lots of police left. I talk to one of the officers, applauding that he is one of the few who don´t have a mask on too. He says he was up at 4.30 that morning, and now it´s midnight, and he thinks he still won´t get any coffee. He smiles, and it´s a good smile.
