Something Happened

A report on the Saturday 2 March ‘Stop the War’ demonstration in central London.


Yes, something happened. A group of people, apparently uncontaminated by the institutional inertia of ‘No War But The Class War’ or the disinterested analysis of professional communists, sat down in Piccadilly Circus and stopped the traffic on Saturday’s demonstration.

The sit-down lasted for about half an hour and the numbers fluctuated from anywhere between 10 and 100. Those involved were mainly very young, but there were some not so young (The last to stand up were two middle-aged women who waited until a policeman threatened to arrest them “for their own safety” before doing so). Some were anarchists -others may have been SWP aligned but were too excited to toe the party line.

Most freaked out by the sit-down were the stewards who continually and systematically harangued every person on the ground, using all the arguments in the book. As usual they didn’t like ‘their’ demonstration being hijacked. Some people engaged in argument with the stewards, others ignored them. Often they were drowned out with chants of “One, Two, Three, Four , Everybody on the floor!”

When eventually everyone moved off together, accompanied by a drum beat, one of the previously haranguing stewards started dancing, maybe out of relief that we were finally moving, but perhaps also because he wanted in on the fun too.