Gathering at Bethnal Green police station
I went to the demonstration for justice for Ian Tomlinson, as I mentioned in this post yesterday. I just felt like, you know, I had to do something. And I guessed in that sense it would be rather more cathartic – for my own benefit, to set my mind at rest – than because I thought it would actually achieve anything in particular.
The statement by the family at Bethnal Green police station, the start of the march, really was very moving, and I’m glad I took part. We needed to make a statement.
However, I think I was right on the second part – the demonstration measured (I guess) 500-600 people at most. Thankfully it got a fairly good (brief) report on the BBC News website.
But on the first part, I was wrong. It didn’t lead to a sense of catharsis for me, just a sense of hopelessness, as the demo was hijacked by various people trying to push their respective political agendas. In this case it was largely the SWP who plastered their logo and website across their banners stating “Who killed Ian Tomlinson?”. There were plenty of others there hawking their Socialist Workers and various other hard left newspapers, and several large banners were on the march for the Union of Servicemen (?), the Socialist Workers and the Stop The War Coalition.
Using this event – a solemn march to demand justice for a man who had died – to push any sort of other agenda just seems to me to be incredibly tasteless.
Marching towards Bank
This wasn’t about “the system”, or about capitalism. It was about a man who died, at least partly due to police tactics. How is that partisan? How could anyone think it appropriate to make it exclusive to their political creed?
Perhaps I am just expecting too precise a message than is possible in a group of several hundred people, and perhaps this protest was extraordinary. But it at least made me reconsider the final paragraph of this comment I wrote on Ed’s G20 post. Do protests work? (Obviously, they do sometimes.)
I’m now watching Persepolis, a really brilliant film – the original French version – apparently the English version isn’t as good (Marjane really can’t sing though.). In the Iranian Revolution, protests against the Shah’s pretty awful regime, only partly down to religious concerns, were hijacked and used to justify wholehearted support for the new theocracy.
Obviously the parallels aren’t direct (er, at all), but it’s an interesting contrast, perhaps.
Maybe I’ll feel better about it all tomorrow.
(Penny Red has another report from a different perspective and highlights an incident I had forgotten)
