/life/A day of protestations
I like protests. Obviously I think they're an important part of democracy, but my enjoyment of them is not particularly intellectual; I just like them. They're big fun parties. They have a sense of unity that you don't get very often in our society.
I took a half-day off, and headed downtown at about 1pm. On my way, I stopped at home, picked up an extra sweater, and dropped of some unnecessaries. My camera battery was charged, and off I went.
As I got into downtown, it was pretty empty.
I came up Rideau, and hit a barricade lined with cops. Basically the whole
Rideau Center was blocked off to traffic, though I think pedestrians could go
inside. I went around the building, and after asking a few people with
placards, ended up near the main throng of protests as they were nearly at
parliament hill.
I've read enough horror stories about people
suddenly being arrested that I'm pretty tentative about joining these marches.
But it seemed to be pretty calm and peaceful and fun, so I started walking
alongside, snapping photos as I went. There were certainly lots of clever
(and not-so-clever) posters and banners, but you can check out the gallery yourself.
The march hung around the
Hill for a while, then headed off towards the barricades. There was a fellow
on top of a truck with very long hair who seemed to think he was a rapper. He
rapped. He also said "we" were going over the barricades. He was right;
without much difficulty, the first layer of barricades were crossed. It was
fairly clear that this had been expected; the second layer was a criss-cross
mesh of fencing, rather than the single layer that had just been trampled.
And it had bubble-heads behind it.
The protesters were about 99.9% peaceful. Apparently the front-line cops had both gasoline and paint thrown at them, which I find reprehensible. And, according to some young teenage girls -- who insisted they were the peaceful kind of protester -- a couple guys tried to hop the real barricade, resulting in pepper spray and billy club action.
There were dozens of
messages in the posters, banners clothes, stickers, costumes and graffiti:
anti-war, anti-missile-defence, comparisons of Bush with Hitler, and the like.
A very prominent theme was a demand to arrest or try Bush for war crimes.
Many people seemed to take that very seriously, which is interesting.
Once darkness settled, there was a candle-light vigil on
parliament hill. After that, a few small fires were lit, and a couple of
American flags were burned. By the time I got back to the fence, it had been
reduced to one layer, and the bubble-heads were gone, replaced by some Toronto
cops. There was a mother, chastising the cops that it had been 12 minutes
since they said the fence would be opened in 10, but the mood was still
friendly.
The hardest thing for me about the protests is that I wasn't entirely sure why I was there; I certainly don't like Bush's policies, but he's not my president. I decided I was there to keep the pressure on him, and make sure the world continues to know that his policies are not popular.
I
was happy with what I saw. Having a helicopter
hovering just over a crowd, with three-layer fencing and cops in full riot
gear is oppressive; this is what was going on as the motorcade went by. It
makes you feel like rebelling. It made me angry. The snipers on the
rooftops also made me angry, though in retrospect I'm not completely sure
they were snipers.
The police seemed effective at defusing situations, holding the right lines, inventing lines to let go of so the protesters could have their rebelliousness sated. To the extent that this was a grand manipulation, it's distressing; both "sides" are getting more and more refined in their strategieis, tactics, and roles that when the day comes when people really protest something, as they did in Seattle, it will be fearsome indeed.
