A Curious Girl: The largest protest London has ever seen

Police say that protestors in London numbered over 750 000. Organizers put the figure at 2 million. (BBC website here...)

I'm overwhelmed. I've never been part of something so big.

We got the coach at eight o'clock, arriving in London for about 1 o'clock (a lot of protesters actually started at 12, although we'd originally been told 1 o'clock by all our publicity).

There were two starting points (I think - could have been three) - we started at Gower Street - well, I say started, we followed a great horde of protesters there and we'd more than started by the time we got to the starting point. Banners and placards abounded - there were some very beautiful banners, and some very poignant ones. My personal favourites were 'Make Tea not War', 'Methodists against war' (George Bush is a Methodist, I'd rather like to e-mail the picture I took of it to him!), one with a picture of children holding hands 'It's time we all held hands to save the world' or something along those lines, and three placards held by Iraqis - 'I'm an Iraqi - we hate Saddam but don't want our people bombed' 'Thank you on behalf of Iraq', 'I'm an Iraqi, thank you'. Of course, as Matthew pointed out, in bars of Cadbury's chocolate you find some nuts, and there were some strange pro-Saddam people (huh!?!?) and lots of Socialists (I think I once called myself a socialist... what I actually meant was I'm mildly left-wing... Uni has taught me that I'm not, in fact, a socialist :) ) who seemed to be using it as an opportunity for 'Victory to the Intifada' posters (wha???).

Unfortunately, Matthew and I at least barely made it to Hyde Park in time for the rally - we had enough time to look at the hordes of people before we got the coach home. I'm sad that I missed it, but very very glad that I went.

I just hope it has an effect.

It does bother me slightly that Saddam might see the millions of people who protested yesterday as saving his skin... but as a placard aptly said, 'Children will die, not Saddam'. I don't see how we can consider that the many civilians who would die in all-out war are worth the price of getting Saddam Hussein. I can't see what divine right our nation has to completely destroy the infrastructure of a nation, to murder people who have just as much a right to live as we do, and then call it 'an act of humanity'.

Also CNN are mildly annoying me. Yesterday their homepage showed pictures of riot police in New York (London had 5 arrests, apparently, and not all of them were protesters) and today I read World antiwar rallies delight Iraq and they include this neat piece of spin - British police said at least 500,000 people converged on Hyde Park... Organizers put the number of protesters at one million. They've knocked down the numbers carefully - not everyone made it to Hyde Park for the rally, there were still protesters pouring through the streets! Yesterday they put the total figures like this - Police in London, England, said turnout Saturday was 750,000, the largest demonstration ever in the British capital. The organizers put the figure at 2 million.

On the other hand, I do like this article and this quote:

(Bianca) Jagger, ex-wife of Rolling Stone Mick Jagger, told the protesters that while she could not "condone the human rights record of Saddam, there could be no justification for war.

"There is no place in the U.N. charter that says that if a country, no matter how appalling that country is, that we can wage a war to overthrow the government," she said. "If we were to do that we will have anarchy in the world."

(Incidentally, did anyone reading this get to the Hyde Park rally? Could you tell me what happened?)

Random word for today: Placard

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