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J2: The View from Inside

Rebel W | 03.07.2005 14:39 | G8 2005

Rather than do the sensible, informed thing and stay with the protesters who don't actually think Bob Geldof is Africa's own Jesus Christ, I joined with the rest of the march, "the world's biggest white wristband" and took a look at the inside of yesterdays momentous march.

The march itself was a bit of a mess, especially at the start. Anyone who had been talking to real people on the steets about this march knew that way more than 100,000 people would show up. From my estimates (nearer 300,000), might suspect that, not wanting to embarass Blair too much, the NGO's concerned played down the numbers.

This sort of 'playing down' did seem to be a big thing. People shouting, chanting and signing got a bad reaction, on one occaision a group of Methodist Church members starting singing fairly loudly and, as if by pure chance, the police helicopter came overhead, then, presumably realising that these were merely young people concerned about the lack of action on poverty worldwide, headed off again.

This kind of paranoia seemed to pervade the whole policing of the event. It appeared that the police were determined for a silent march (not the first time in recent months that police have redifined 'peaceful' as 'silent'). Many of the usual suspects for megaphone operation were missing from action or simply hadn't brought their equipment with them for fear of having it nicked. Apparently children shouldn't be exposed to chanting, it makes an event "unfamily-friendly".

But there certainly was hope. Many home made banners were more strongly worded that the official placards, some "Christian Aid Grannies" holding banners which read along the lines of "less words, more action", others portraying the G8 as part of the problem.

But perhaps the most interesting time came when handing out Dissent's Make History: Close the G8 leaflets, as many people swarmed to get their hands on them, causing some crowd flow problems (unfortunately, I had only 200 and ran out very quickly. Getting rid of SchNews was also relatively easy, with some folk seeming quite excited at seeing it again (presumably having seen it some time back).

So all in all, there were cracks within the facade of 'respectability' and 'family friendlyness', the rhetoric which had pervaded all the literature beforehand. Not everyone is willing to fall in line and be silenced so that Geldof can talk sweetly to Blair, and then, when Blair fails to suceed, go on supporting Blair.

But ultimately, on first impressions at least, this demonstration failed to radicalise so very many of the protesters, and there was neither the clear (but horrible) leadership shown on Stop the War marches, nor the impetus to be one's own leader. If, as expected, the G8 hob-nob sesh fails to do anything less than further Africans' Suffering, we can expect nothing more than a few vaguely harsh words and mumbles of "we did our best"; no sign of any build up for revenge against the continuing injustice we were all meant to be protesting about.

Rebel W


Comments

Hide the following 4 comments

A different perspective

03.07.2005 19:47

When I walked down the march, I found the police to be pretty friendly. I rarely found them to give anyone a problem, and people were blowing whistles and noise-makers like you wouldn't beleive. I wasn't one of the initial people marching, so maybe it was different later in the day. I'd also point out that I was a little surprised by the constituency of the protestors. When I had been to Miami for the FTAA protests, or New York for the RNC, it was all very young people, often pretty radical. In Edinburgh, while young people were still the most conspicuous group present, there were a lot of people in their 30s and 40s who had shown up. I saw a lot of families come to the protests, and marching along the route, it wasn't uncommon to see mothers wheel baby carriages. You could take this as a sign that the protest wasn't 'radicalized' or you could take it as a sign that the rallies have reached mainstream people. The first step to solving any problem is awareness, and its important that is not just one sub-group of the population, namely university students. While I don't think everyone who showed up were up on the issues, or even all that environmentally friendly (the Meadows looked liked shit by midday, and just a couple days before it was pristine), at least the rallies helped the older population identify themselves with the movement. Today (Sunday) I went to some of the counter-conventions. These seemed a lot better to help people get educated, and network. I don't think rallies are capable of doing this, nor do I think that's their purpose. Ideally, there would be more informational sessions / counter conventions / brainstorming sessions when the G8 isn't in Edinburgh, and hopefully some of the connections made here will last.

john


How dare the common people crash our activist party?

03.07.2005 22:59

I was on the march and the idea that I was going around mindlessly waiting to be 'radicalised' by Rebel W is pretty insulting. Get used to mass moblisations like this, I say (which, contrary to what is implied above, was organised long before Bob Geldof came on the scene) because this is what happens when radical ideas start to go mainstream. The systematic exploitation at the root of poverty is losing legitimacy, so activists who've been going on about this for years will have to get used to no longer being the only ones on the scene. That means being open and accepting of people - how are we going to make any progress if you can't respect people who don't dress, live, act like yourself (cf "Christian Aid grannies") and above all if you can't respect their capacity for independent thought? Also I don't understand what the issue is with 'family friendliness' - should children not be on demonstrations or what? I'm unconvinced by the evidence given for chanting being frowned upon. This is not something I encountered. If I have a criticism of the march it was that the route should have been a lot longer so that we spent more time marching and less time queueing - it felt a bit over-manipulated and I have no illusions about why that was. But not a reason to patronise and dismiss the marchers.

NK


inclusion...

03.07.2005 23:57

NK,
I also feel that 'activist' attendence at these type of mainstream mobilisation ought to be a little bit more creative. Why the necessity for huge blocs ? Surely that is a tactical coming together for a purpose, of intent, not really necessary on yesterdays march. If people were staggered over a wee bit of the march, close enough for communication, then surely the possibility of written and verbal communication exists along and between groups of people and maybe opportunities can develop to radicalise the crowd through instantaneous action/reaction.
Were talking crowd psychology and its something we can exploit, look at Football fans, footage of popular uprisings in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union to get a hint of some of the group dynamics. We will only learn from studying the subject in more depth.

hill walker


An Unusual Interpretation...

04.07.2005 16:25

I have to say that the interpretation of the MPH march offered by Rebel W is pretty selective and (sadly) prone to the same erroneous egoism that has plagued many radical discourses since Genoa, which is this assumption that the is a massive constituency out there waiting to be "anarchised" or "radicalised" in some sense. This is to preseumt to speak for the mentality and motivations of others, rather an odd (and sadly all-too typical) thing for a self-confessed "anarchist" to be engaging in.

Let us be quite clear - in the Black Bloc N30 communique, the words "you do not speak for us" featured quite prominently when discussing the bureaucratic NGO community. Well I'm afraid it works both ways. The reason Schnews and what have you was distributed widely was simply because people, being offered hundreds of placards and articles on the way to the Meadows, will simply take some of them as momentoes, and little more.

The depictions of police helicopters hovering to "silence" chanters are figments of the reporter's over-active and conspiratorially-minded imagination. I found the police to be both convivial and friendly on Saturday. This is because (again) it doesn't work to simply reduce the "police" to a depersonalised agent in thrall to capitalism.

I also thought that the Revolucion members dressed in red at the end of the log stretch leading out of the Meadows looked like the usual middle-class types turning their own rage at their own background and childhood identities into some ludicrous "the time has come to smash capitalism" nonsense. It's encouraging that people are able to analyse (and thus feel uncomfortable with)their own backgrounds, but it would be far better to simply find a way to live with that rather than disavow it by subsuming the Self in some pre-ordained mission to "radicalise" people who quite simply don't want it and find it deeply patronising to be told that we "don't really understand what's going on."

Simply my own take on the situation, I speak for myself an nobody else. Thank you.

John


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