[originally an email to the morgueatlarge list, sent February 2003]
I just shared a bus into town with a classic rambling friendly drunk, clutching a 2 litre soft drink bottle full of cider (“good cider, pal”). I pretended to be asleep. He talked to the wall instead. This is the middle of Tuesday afternoon, mind.
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Politics Dept.
The March: 15 February, Glasgow
I joined Neil at the Salisbury Centre and he drove a small party of us out in the a.m. Blair came, as did two other Salisbury-connected women whose names I forget now. There were a lot of other people coming.
The assembly point, Glasgow Green, was crowded and getting towards packed. Hundreds of people became thousands became tens of thousands before our eyes.
The march started. Our chunk of people didn’t start moving for two hours afterwards. We were a long way from the back of the line. It was that big an assembly. (Independent on Sunday said 25,000; Scotsman on Monday said 90,000; BBC on Monday night said 70 to 80,000. London got somewhere in the vicinity of 1,000,000 people.)
We gathered outside the centre where the Labour Party conference was going on. Well, some did – the gathering space was absolutely full and most of the marchers couldn’t get near it. From about halfway on the march we were passing those who had completed the journey, lingered at the end, found there was no room and started back to the beginning.
It was an amazing day. Two key things:
* diversity – the media spin was ‘not just the usual suspects’, which is a bit of a back-handed compliment but still valid. All ages, all backgrounds, even all political persuasions. This gave the march a lot of its character – it was destined to be peaceful, destined to avoid the excesses of sloganism and hysteria, because almost all of the participants were just normal folk.
* political sophistication – Saddam Hussein is a cartoon villain. He even has the big moustache. There would not be more than a tiny minority of marchers who are not aware of Saddam’s venal and vicious nature and the appalling things he and his regime have done. But the marchers want to spare this man and his cohorts from war.
These are important. The traditional ways of dismissing public opposition to political acts – claiming a lack of information or understanding, or branding opposers a small minority of ideologues – are both taken away from the body in power. Tony Blair chose Saturday to unveil a new justification for war on humanitarian grounds – a foolish strategy. The marchers already know the humanitarian case, and they have already dismissed it.
It felt like the birth of a movement. It seems even more so in hindsight. The ball, I feel, is in Tony Blair’s court – and there is every sign he is unmoved by the display of doubt in the drive to war. This will have immense political consequences, and soon. And this doesn’t even mention what’s happening in Europe, in the Middle East, in the USA. The global wave of peace demonstration will be, I hope and expect, a significant moment in history.
Plus I got to see Glasgow.
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A few days ago Brad and I went to a gallery opening. More precisely, it was the opening of a refurbishment to a gallery, and we were there because of Brad’s connection with the crafters who did the floor. It was a very nice floor.
Highlight of the evening, just one of those transcendent moments, was the floor getting christened before Sven and Betsy’s eyes as an attendee dropped his glass which shattered into tiny, tiny pieces and sprayed white wine everywhere. The waitress collected as much of the glass as she could and disappeared. Suddenly I found myself with a wonderful view of Sven and Betsy, dressed to the nines, crouched over the precious floor picking up the glass shard by shard, while beyond them the party continued – dinner suits, snazzy dresses, glasses of wine.
I told Sven it was a baptism but he didn’t see fit to name it.
(Actually, Sven’s name is not Sven but something like Sveynin but, well, I dunno.)
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The weather is very nice at the moment. Sunshine. Lovely.
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I have been offered a job. I applied for lots of interesting things but it was the universities that wanted to see me, thanks to my university experience. It looks like a pretty good thing – the stuff I enjoyed at my old job, only that’s the whole job instead of part of it. More details when I know more, hopefully delivered in amusing fashion. Anyway, it’s a good feeling, and it seems like possibilities are starting to widen out again.
The video store is fine, since you asked. Blair and I watched Hong Kong actioner ‘Beast Cops’ after the march. Weirdest thing I’ve seen in a long, long time. Is to other Hong Kong actioners like ‘Scream’ is to ‘Halloween’, sort of. Fun, though.
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Shout outs:
to Matt E and Lesley T, referees – huzzah and cheers
to Cal, for sending me issues of the Listener and general moral support
to Mary Grace ‘the other MG’, for working out how to get a shout
to Mallika, who got the pineapple
to Miri, my not-baby sister, just because
and to Judith – thinking of you
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Peace, love.
morgue