IT WAS a quintessentially British event. The march on Saturday in Central
London may have been revolutionary in numbers, but, on the ground, it was a
rather restrained affair.
The bulk of the people had come straight from Middle England and, as such, had
no intention of doing anything embarrassing like singing or shouting or
chanting. Instead, they chatted. They drank tea. Periodically, they opened
plastic containers that held hearty cheese and pickle sandwiches. And then
they munched as they marched (well, shuffled) in the freezing cold for
peace.
At the start, of course, no one knew what the day would hold. The train into
London was standing-room only, but it was impossible to figure out if these
families were going to the march or for a day out at the Natural History
Museum (the rugby types going to Twickenham were much more obvious).
At 11am on the Embankment, Angela Vokes, 18, from Farnborough, on her first
protest with 19 others from her sixth form, watched the beginning of what
would be a river of people. “I know I am going to get emotional today,” she
said. “It is becoming more believable now. Tony Blair is not dealing with
us. He is not listening. No one is listening.”
The helicopters whirred overhead. It would have been wonderful to have been up
there to see the big picture. On the ground, it was like the slightly
awkward beginning of a cocktail party as people complimented each other on
their banners. The black-and-gold extravaganza that said “Bury St Edmunds
Against the War” was particularly gorgeous. Three coaches holding 150 people
were here from Bury. Had they been on a march before? “Not since Vietnam,”
one woman with a handsome haircut said.
At 11.45am, people started to move. The mood was convivial, the pace
tortoise-like. Here and there you could spot the usual suspects, the
anarchists who love to snarl and spit violence, but they were completely
sidelined by the overwhelming garden-centre ordinariness of the crowd. It
took an hour to get to Downing Street, the people moving along quietly
except for shrill blasts from whistles being sold for £1 each.
Occasional attempts to get a chant going were not encouraged. As we went up
Whitehall, a man whose face was painted green and who was holding a sign
saying “The End is Die” started to shout “Lack-ey Blair, lack-ey Blair”.
People around him began to look at each other, giving that British wide-eyed
look of ironic amusement. No one spoke, but we all knew: he was the loony on
the bus. Marching alongside, the good people of Bridgend (they had a sign)
pretended that he didn’t exist.
We came to a halt just before Piccadilly Circus. So far the atmosphere had
been one of stalwart good cheer, but the physical experience was not unlike
that of commuting where you often find yourself shuffling along en masse.
But now, as we waited, I realised that we were, in fact, queuing. It was
1.47pm, the sign gave the temperature as 2C (35F), and we were surrounded by
thousands of stationary people. The only thing we needed was a banner saying
“Queue Against the War”.
Eventually the march stuttered forward. Arthur Meate, 70, and his wife, Ivy,
said that they had come along with a church group from Enfield because “we
want someone to listen to us because we don’t want a war”. Were they
anti-American? They looked appalled at the very question. No, they said,
just anti-war.
Brian Dobson, 60, from Canterbury said that the war just seems wrong. And
because no one seemed to be listening, he and other “ordinary people” had to
“come out for a walk”. He then talked about UN resolutions, revealing a
sophisticated grasp on the issues.
We linked up with the other leg of the march, coming in from Gower Street. The
atmosphere quickened. An occasional roar of voices and whistles would come
up from behind, a Mexican wave of sound that made you tingle at the hidden
power of these people. No one yet thought it was an historic day. There was
no clue as to whether the march was tens or hundreds of thousands and the
word “million” seemed quite fantastical.
A magical huge kite-like puppet floated over us now. It showed, the artists
said, a crying Iraqi woman. We shuffled down Piccadilly, past the sumptuous
windows of Fortnum & Mason. Some protesters said they were going to nip
in for a pee. Others popped in to McDonald’s and Starbucks. Clearly the
anti-globalisation theme was not exactly solid.
We got to Hyde Park at 2.30pm and the crowd spread out until it seemed a
horde. In true British style, some people were pretending it was summer and
had put out a picnic from the up-market Paxton & Whitfield
(Cheesemongers since 1797) on the notoriously delicate grass. Others got out
the plastic boxes for one last time. One couple headed off to the Dorchester
for tea.
The rally itself was a rather stiff affair, like a pop concert without any
dancing, not least because it was so cold. But everyone stood around gamely
because, by now, they knew that the power of this day lay in the numbers.
The two huge television screens showed speakers such as Tony Benn, Bianca
Jagger and Ken Livingstone talking about Palestine, the UN and working
people. “This is the riskiest moment for Britain since Suez,” Charles
Kennedy said, but, then, the people in the park already knew that.
Harold Pinter provided a moment of outrageous drama when he boomed in his
authoritative foghorn of a voice: “The United States is a monster out of
control!” The Rev Jesse Jackson, the American political evangelist, chanted
some mystifying slogans. The crowd, on the whole, did not chant back. He
then asked everyone to pray.
“Take the hand of the person standing next to you,” he said. Everyone stared
straight ahead and clamped their hands to their side.
Finally, just after 4.30pm, came Ms Dynamite’s beau- tiful and at times
quavering voice. “Mr Prime Minister, you are just a Prime Minister, you are
not God,” she sang.
It took some time to get out of the park and, as people inched along, you
could see and hear the tens of thousands of marchers still coming in from
Piccadilly.
But the crowd did not stick around to congratulate itself. They were cold and
hungry and it was time to go home.
No one has any idea if the Prime Minister and the House of Commons will
understand that, on this day, some- thing happened in Central London.
This was not politics as usual. This was the British people saying, politely
but firmly, that they want someone to listen.
For me, as a journalist, what had been a protest march became, as the day
progressed, a chance to see democracy in action and that is a rare and
powerful thing.
The count
At London’s anti-war march on Saturday the police based their estimate of
crowd numbers of “in excess of 750,000” mainly on images from CCTV and
helicopter cameras. By calculating the square footage of the area covered,
and estimating one person per three sq ft, they can get an idea of numbers.
They adjust this figure by comparing the density of the crowd to previous
marches. The organisers of the march said the figure was closer to two
million, an “educated guess” from the density of marchers and the time taken
for them to clear the route.
