On Thursday 31st of October- Halloween and Samhuinn, anti-war protests were also taking place in Edinburgh.
Amongst other civil disobedience actions which were happening during the day, like banner drops at the Cowgate earlier this morning, a demonstration took place later on. Organised and structured by the "Stop the War Coalition" a short and small demonstration took place during working hours in the late afternoon. Starting at Bristo Square near the main University buildings, protesters gathered and took their time for performing street theatre, distributing leaflets, have talks, show around their banners and try to juggle away or to ride a unicycle. At the High Street/ Mound junction some people actually refused to move themselves during a sit-down when asked by police and got dragged away.
Speeches were hold in front of the Church assembly which is used as the temporary parliament.
Afterwards there were antiwar film shows organised in the Forest Café, screening the "Hidden Wars of Desert Storm" and a documentary film from Indymedia Israel.
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Edinburgh Anti March
01.11.2002 11:26
BBC Scotland
realmedia video footage from BBC Scotland report:
sb
Homepage:
http://j25.org.uk
What to Do When your Voice Doesn't get heard
01.11.2002 11:44
Your ‘Votes Don’t Count... .Apathy or Action?
The unending ‘War against Terror’ - or to be more current, the ‘War Against Iraq’ or perhaps the ‘War Against Evil' itself is nothing new. These unending wars are a necessary and inevitable next step of globalisation. No country, no people, nothing can escape integration into the global marketplace and its alter-ego, the Global Empire. From Saddam Hussein and the people of Iraq (and more importantly, their oil!) to yourself and everything you care about, there are no options permitted besides death, or life as a cog in their machine. What starts as economic terrorism with prices getting ever more expensive or debt getting continually harder to deal with, can transform within a blink of an eye to military conquest and ruthless carnage. So what are your options?
You can protest by marching and chanting, hoping the State (be it Britain, the United States, or the United Nations) will hear your voice. But by definition, electoral forms of so-called “representational democracy” seize your voice; in fact the State enforces the suppression and subsequent absence of your voice. Their War Machine will only back down when it feels it can’t count on your passive compliance, a compliance they try to shove down your throat in the form of Ikea catalogues, T.V. sitcoms, choosing between Coke and Pepsi (oh wait, we meant votinq), video games, or wars that look like video games. Blair, Bush, and more importantly the corporate CEOs and military bureaucrats aren’t scared of Saddam Hussein; they’re scared of you.
So your CHOICES are just the options that you create - and only when we start creating new options do we even have a chance at surviving in this world. If we can actually make our own choices as individuals, imagine what we can do as communitiés! From community gardens to delivering medicine to dying children in Iraq...only our imaginations can limit us. With enough effort and persistence, we can even stop a war - we can even overthrow this current destructive system and replace it with an un-system...
(May we suggest anarchy? No, don’t get worried, we’re not talking mayhem for mayhem’s sake, we’re talking about you deciding for yourself, i.e., autonomous action, not majority rule politics.)
While the blood-soaked Bush, Blair & Hussein blast our world into jagged ruins, dropping
their bombs from the sky and building their castles from the bones of innocent civilians...
We, the citizens of the world, live in urgent anticipation of the day that will come when we can sleep under the stars without fear of airplanes, bombs, missiles, stock markets, civilisations, or buildings falling down...
For more information, check out:
To get involved with others interested in initiating local forms of action, come visit:
actionnotapathy
Another Edinburgh report
01.11.2002 12:15
Reports vary from 1,500 - 2,500 people but the point was that we marched to the Parliament and clearly stated that we are NOT with Bush/Blair & the war mongers. If that makes me a terrorist in the eyes of the elite - so be it!
MM
Numbers compared
01.11.2002 13:59
I think this march was a fair bit smaller than the 3000 or so
that turned out to protest the Bombing of Afghanistan.
I think many people were disappointed that this Don't bomb Iraq march was not bigger especially after being to big demo in Glasgow recently but I think it was due to people being obliged to work.
Though this gathering allowed some of us to feel a way forward to work more cohesively on causing trouble in event of a war.
sb
Homepage:
http://j25.org.uk
more media
01.11.2002 21:18
and- how embarassing- the same article in The Scotsman:
Well, The Herald apparantly does not have any article on it.
So, if the owners of Sotsman and Edinburgh News get the Herald, they could have shared this article a third time:
How cost-efficient!
Capitalism at its best!
ab
summarising feature
27.09.2003 20:37
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