Cat spotted it first. The broad stretch of the meadows was strewn with litter, spots of white like the starfield that we didn’t have above because the sky was getting light even at half three in the morning. One constellation had been carefully arranged, the CND logo assembled from discarded posters and placards and water bottles. Peace.<\/p>\n
Fifteen hours before the ground beneath our feet had been bearing the weight of 225 thousand bodies. White-shirted families, young teenagers in groups, socialist party members in bright red and singing French activists and dancing alternofolk and resolute senior citizens and us, by the thousand, a teeming throng of smiling, forgiving, hopeful people. The tree-lined walkways of the meadows were packed with patient souls waiting their turn to march, some waiting three or more hours before beginning the one-hour route. Music played from the stage, the giant screens played short documentaries, everything stayed on message except the marchers who showed up with Palestine flags and George Bush Terrorist signs. The sun took part as well. It was a glorious day.<\/p>\n
I snapped dozens of photos as we went around the route, through the bottleneck exit from the meadows, down the mound, along Princes St where innocuous High Street retailers had covered their picture windows with boards and chipper signs, ‘open for business’. She-Boom, an all-women drummer group from Glasgow, ended up accompanying us the entire circuit, and we danced as we went. People waved from windows.<\/p>\n
Make trade fair. Drop the debt. More and better aid. Whatever else its failures and limitations, the Make Poverty History campaign has mainstreamed ideas that were radical only five years ago. Essentially they amount to public acknowledgement that we in the developed world exploit those without, and we bear responsibility for their misfortunes. The message was repeated time and again – this is not about charity, this is about justice.<\/p>\n
After the circuit we went to local pub the Pear Tree House for a bite to eat, making our way down Buccleugh St and ending up at ground zero of the police confrontation with the Black Bloc. Clown-faced people taunted and played with the rows of silent police, beyond which a hundred or so Black Bloc people stood together and weighed their options. One guy, about twenty or so, stood inches from a policeman and stared insolently into his eyes while brushing his teeth. I’ve never seen teeth brushed with such menace. We didn’t stay to watch things unfold, but no violence seemed to take place. Whatever might have happened was off the agenda with that many uniforms on the scene.<\/p>\n
Music in the park, more speeches, and Billy Bragg slipping the Internationale in to finish off the Edinburgh event. Everyone cheered.<\/p>\n
Crossing back through the meadows in the early hours of the morning and seeing empty stages and hollow tents, I experienced again a sensation I used to have wandering night landscapes as a teenager, a truth just beyond words. The silent world asking a question and in me a responsibility to answer. Thoughts spinning out from the meadows to the beat of protest drums and dancing, and we walked on from the CND circle, over shining refuse stars, and around us the night moved on into day.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Cat spotted it first. The broad stretch of the meadows was strewn with litter, spots of white like the starfield that we didn’t have above because the sky was getting light even at half three in the morning. One constellation had been carefully arranged, the CND logo assembled from discarded posters and placards and water … Continue reading G8: After the Make Poverty History rally<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-257","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8D9ZE-49","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/morgue.isprettyawesome.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/257","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/morgue.isprettyawesome.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/morgue.isprettyawesome.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/morgue.isprettyawesome.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/morgue.isprettyawesome.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=257"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/morgue.isprettyawesome.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/257\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6045,"href":"https:\/\/morgue.isprettyawesome.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/257\/revisions\/6045"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/morgue.isprettyawesome.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=257"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/morgue.isprettyawesome.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=257"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/morgue.isprettyawesome.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=257"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}