Sack Parliament Protest

Sunday night, my flatmate and I were cleaning dishes when I suddenly noticed a red cup with Karl Marx's visage printed on it. "Brendan, are you a Marxist?", I quizzed him. Brendan, wearing a Rage Against the Machine t-shirt replied, "No mate, but I am sort of radical - interested in the revolution, you know. In fact, if you are as well, come by ... there is this huge protest outside the Parliament tomorrow." Now, being the sort who labels his political views on Facebook as Left-liberal, I decided it was my primary duty to protest. But protest what, I quietly asked him. "The War, old chap, what else?" pat came Brendan's reply.

So there I was, protesting outside the British Parliament the next day, well attired for the occasion in a Che Guevara t-shirt (Lets not get into the irony of commodification of the poor guy as part of capitalist production) with Brendan in tow. Correction, we were watching the protest because we arrived late and this whole demonstration was already encircled by the police. Now, I must mention here that there seemed to be five times the number of fluorescent jacket wearing policemen than punks with fluorescent colored hair engaging in the protest. The situation's seriousness was done no favours by Chinese tourists who were merrily clicking away pictures on their mobile phones, digital cameras and whatever new Chinese device which takes pictures. Yet, in the midst of all this absurdity which would have done Beckett and Camus proud, was some startling imagery. Baby clothes with blood stains on them hung on a line. A black man covered in a black sheet, with his duct tape sealing his mouth. A huge banner which said, "100,000 Iraqis murdered by us" (or US, if you're virulently anti-American). And an Iraqi man speaking to those who cared to listen about how his country had been devastated.

Yes, this was laughable compared to the crowd of a million which took to the London streets on 16 February, 2003 with slogans like 'Make Tea, Not War'. But this was also a sheer indictment of how run-of-the-mill, mundane and normal the War has become. The death toll in Iraq, Darfur and Lebanon competes (and often loses out) for inch and eyeball space with stock market indices on TV news channels. But who cares - leave it to seminars on World Peace in Washington to solve our problems. Maybe the 40 odd teenagers protesting outside the British parliament would not solve the world's protracted conflicts, but at least they remind us that there is something drastically wronf with it. While the rest of us stand outside the circle (literally and metaphorically) and write blog entries about them.

Photographs: http://www.flickr.com/photos/james_2005/265301770/in/set-72157594320314605/