I had imagined the train journey to Bristol would be a comfortable, relaxed two hours of uninterrupted reading, but I hadn’t factored-in bumping into a couple of fellow protestors at the station. They were friends of my Other Half, dressed for the event – labelled and stickered – and they carried partly-assembled banners. There was no mistaking their intent, whereas I had taken care to look anonymous and had concealed my cunningly devised banners in a rucksack. On the train, we chose a table for four, but I excused myself to sit apart and read when it became evident that the sole topic of conversation, loud and uninhibited, was to be the business of protest past, present and future. Compared with these seasoned demonstrators, I am a rookie with little to add. I hid behind my book and behind my tactic (naïve, as it turned out) to keep my powder dry for the big event.
I’m still not sure who ‘organised’ the demonstration – a loose coalition of loosely convened bodies it seems – but I had determined that, in any case, I would swell the ranks of the outraged in the common cause of defending the right to protest against proposed legislation to curtail it. This, I argued (to whoever would listen), is the mother of all causes: even standing in front of your local library to save it from closure could land you in jail if the government’s proposed, deliberately ill-defined constraints should become law. Perhaps my recent reading of How Democracies Die* had alerted me to be wary of governments such as ours, that camouflage their tyrannical leanings with populist slogans, patriotic jingoism and sly, incremental legislation designed to cancel opposition. Martin Niemöller’s words still ring true: First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out – because I was not a socialist….
I had been advised to wear warm clothing as there is a lot of hanging around at street protests (the TV footage we see of turmoil and activity being the edited highlights) and so it turned out. We arrived at noon, early for the advertised one p.m. start, but timely for a spot of lunch. But we need not have arrived until three p.m. (which is when the two p.m. speeches began) or later, if we had chosen, since the speeches were inaudible to all but those at the front of the crowd and we, being of the opinion that preaching to the converted is unnecessary, chose to hover beyond the range of the loudspeakers, comparing banners and engaging with passers-by instead. This part of the proceedings may well have been my most impactful. My banners, witty and succinct though they were, proved to be unwieldy (just as my OH had predicted) so I found myself a park bench, where I could sit and comfortably display them. Here, I was photographed innumerable times, complimented on my slogans several times and interviewed twice – once by two anonymous blokes with recording equipment, then by a young woman from HITS radio.
Eventually, just as my feet were turning to ice, the drummers started up and the crowd formed a disorderly line behind them and began to move towards the road. Our moment of glory had come. We disrupted the traffic along the high street for a while. Now, it is not easy to explain to disgruntled drivers – or anyone else who feels inconvenienced or outraged – that temporary loss of freedom-of-passage on the streets is preferable to permanent loss of freedom to take to the streets: it’s a lot to fit on a banner, for one thing. On reflection, I should have used that train journey to better effect, arguing the case vociferously and at length for the benefit of fellow passengers, whether or not they were looking forward to a quiet read.
*Levitsky & Ziblatt
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