Protest!
‘Protest shines light on power; it becomes a part of history and history teaches us that heads can roll and systems can change.’
Image Credit: Robin Silas Christian
Sitting cross-legged on the carpet, my black cat, Hecuba, is lying at my feet as the TV flashes images of vast crowds.
I’ve never seen so many people gathered in one place, all of them dressed in coats, hats and scarves in the cold, winter morning.
Hundreds of thousands, the presenter says.
Later: millions.
From Scotland, Wales and Ireland they come. From North and South, East and West, old and young converge on London. Bankers and bakers; socialists, anarchists and Etonians; monarchists and republicans; veterans and pacifists; Christians, Muslims, Jews and atheists. Tony Benn, Harold Pinter and Vanessa Redgrave and other well-known names mix among the crowds.
Arm-in-arm they march.
It’s Thursday 15th February 2003 and they are here to protest.
There are here to say NO to the war in Iraq.
My cat purrs. The noise mixes with the sounds of whistles and chants, horns and drums, laughter and chatter and music. Two vast crowds set off from Thames Embankment and Gower Street – they leave early because of the sheer size of numbers.
London is gridlocked. People converge at Picadilly Circus beneath the great banners advertising Samsung, TDK, McDonalds and Coca-Cola, before trooping to the rally point at Hyde Park.
Banners are held high:
Don’t Attack Iraq.
Not in my Name.
No War.
Crude effigies of Bush and Blair dance above heads as speeches are given by Jesse Jackson, Charles Kenned, Tariq Ali and there’s music by Ms Dynamite.
It feels tectonic.
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And this isn’t just happening in London. It’s a global protest with up to ten million people across roughly sixty countries raising their voices. The largest, in Rome, brings three million people to the streets.
In Switzerland, citizens shout, “Nein zum Krieg gegen Irak – Kein Blut für Ól!” (No to war in Iraq – no blood for oil!)
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Even in Antarctica, there is protest: a group of scientists at the US McMurdo Station hold a rally on the ice at the edge of the Ross Sea.
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I’m only eleven years old, but even I can see this must change things, surely?
Hecuba, named after the mother of Hector, Paris and Cassandra, rises and stares my way, her golden eyes glint knowingly. Hecuba who saw the fall of her city, the death of her sons, and the tragic pride of men.
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Twenty-nine days later, the invasion of Iraq – led by the United States and supported by the U.K., Australia and Poland – begins.
Tony Blair, triumphant, sends a memo to George Bush, calling the protest ‘fatuous’.
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What does this teach a young person, on the cusp of comprehending the world more fully, of seeing beyond one’s small, quiet days?
Your voice does not matter.
A view that becomes entrenched—
When the U.N. resolution is ignored.
When no WMDs are found.
When the Chilcott Report confirms non-violent measures were not exhausted.
And when the violent deaths in the war-wrecked Iraq surpass 300,000.
Your voice does not matter.
Is it any wonder that I’ve never attended a protest?
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When I began writing this piece, I thought this would be the central point. Simply put: the failure of the February protests, and the knowledge that accountability only applies to the poor and powerless, irrevocably corroded trust in politicians and baked in a deep-rooted apathy within much of the public, myself included.
However, in reading, thinking and writing about protest, there sparked something else deep inside me, an antidote, as it were, to the rot.
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For starters, I was reminded that while the February protest failed to cause the earthquake people hoped, tremors were made by the hammer-march of feet:
The House of Commons were given a vote; Blair acknowledged he might have to resign; there was ‘Wobbly Tuesday’, a further UN vote, intense scrutiny of the war and rigorous search for WMDs; it turned the tide of later elections and leadership contests and arguably impacted UK involvement in Mali and Syria.
In the great churning of the news cycle, it’s easy to forget these more minor movements. It is easy to forget there were consequences.
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In reading about the history of protest, I was reminded, too, about the power of the individual, even in the face of extreme prejudice, danger, and seemingly insurmountable odds.
Whether it’s Wat Tyler, who confronted the monarchy and demanded economic and social reform, paving the way for an end to feudalism or Martin Luther’s protest against the use of indulgences which caused a schism within the Catholic Church, protest has always been an extraordinary coalescence of frustration at present injustice and optimism about future equality.
Consider:
A woman hurling herself before thundering horses. An elderly lady who refuses to give up her seat on the bus. A student who stands in the way of an advancing Type 59 tank. A brick flying through a window. A speech about dreams and the future. A young girl who removes her head covering in public.
Brave, brave people.
And there are so many more. Those who know they must fight to breathe. Those who watch the seas rise and the fires burn.
We see it and we rise.
Because to protest, to draw on history of the word and the action, is to witness. It’s to say to those in power: we are here, and we are watching.
The body itself speaks.
Protest shines light on power; it becomes a part of history and history teaches us that heads can roll and systems can change.
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And so.
I would like to go back in time to that little boy who sat watching the news while his small black cat lay near him. I would like to knowledge his sense of disbelief and anger. I would say this, too: remember and interrogate it. Memory – the act of remembering – is another form of survival and resistance against those who would silence and oppress for their convenience and gain.
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In editing these thoughts, I’m brought back to there here and now. Writing as an act of protest. Words, marching across the page. Words that say: rise up!
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We live, again, in a time of war. We live in a time of kings by other names. We live in a time of technofeudalism and religious dogmatism. We live in a time which sees he the steady erosion of our hard-worn rights. We live in a time where Golden Passports are purchased on the open market, bunkers are being built in New Zealand, and paintings worth millions are hidden in vaults from those who know the true worth of art lies only in its beholding.
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Friends, we have been here before.
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Can you feel it?
The stirring sensation of hope and anger in your gut?
I thought, perhaps, I should never know it.
But it is there.
We rise.
We rise.
We rise.
