Categories: uncategorized
Date: 16 September 2005 18:54:07
I don't know why I bother protesting - it's not as if it does any good at all. I spent the whole week practicing my right to protest, and how much media attention did it get? None. And how much good did it do? None.
Don't get me wrong, I don't protest for media coverage, but as far as I can tell, not even the Daily Mail was outraged that 300 odd anarchists descended on London. And the Daily Mail being outraged would have shown that we were at least having SOME effect. But no, no one gives a shit. Part of it is the lack of actions taking place, we could have done more, we SHOULD have done more, but we didn't. The publically called action for thursday (blockade of customs house station) failed misrably, but luckily the affinity groups actions, and the critical mass made some difference (the DLR was stopped for a couple of hours and we blocked a road). The pulicity said that 2003 was a warm up, and we were going to shut down DESi in 2005. Yeah right.
But what really gets me is the apathy. The worlds biggest arms fair is happening in London, and most people don't even know! And if they do know, they don't care. They don't seem to be even a tiny bit outraged that illegal weapons are being sold in the excel center - that millions die because of the trade that's going on inside this building surrounded by police, security guards, and fences. If anything, they are pissed off at us, or laugh at us. I don't mean the people we delay. They have every right to be pissed off at us - but the other people. The people who looked at us in disgust as we talked about plans, where we were meeting ect, the people who stared at us as we were taken off a train.
And it makes me wonder why I carry on. It makes me wonder if protesting will ever get anything done. Make Poverty History? Disarm DESi? Drop the Debt? Stop the War? Nothing has worked - we've not had any effect on those in power at all. If DESi doesn't come back to London, it won't be from our actions, it will be because Ian Blair says that policing it is a drain on resources.
And the world won't know what went on, what we did. No one will know about the people violently arrested, the cordons, the rows up on rows of police surrounding small groups of protesters, the way we were hearded like cattle, and only allowed to protest in a small pen. No one will hear the stories from the protests, no one will join us, we won't become a mass movement, we won't change anything.
A police officer put it best last night - in his words, "It looks like we're winning".
And they are.