Categories: uncategorized
Date: 27 July 2005 18:29:23
Sorry about the delay in typing up my journal - I'm actually very large problems re typing out my journal entries as the whole time was very emotional, and in some ways I'm still feeling the effects of the week.
So, instead of typing up my entries here, I'm gonna try to get to the present, and how being in Stirling has affected me, my faith, my health and my friends.
I returned home from Glasgow having been searched twice, having seen rows and rows of police, having met with anarchists and shared bottles of wine around a fire early in the morning whilst doing gate duty and having been woken up in the early hours of the morning with the news that the police were about to raid the site, the first thing I saw when I returned was police on York Station. I'm not really ashamed to say that I paniced, and walked very quickly away from them. It's humiliating being searched at the best of times, being asked questions, being treated as a criminal just for standing up for your beliefs - or worse - wearing a rucksac, looking slightly scruffy and crossing a square in glasgow at the wrong time. Above all, it was a terrifying week - I get intimidated by normal people very easily so row up on row of police, the threat of being searched every time I left the campsite really freaked me out.
The key moment for me was when I sat on a grass verge on wednesday, with 4 others, sitting and praying through the litany of resistance and singing taize chants. As a coach full of about 30 CIRCA clowns were searched by about 150 police officers, and we were videoed, photographed and questioned. We carried on singing and praying, the cameras kept rolling and we were surrounded by police.
I don't know how wimpy it is to say that at many times during the week I was scared, but I was. Aside from anything, the fact that from 2am Thursday morning we were under a blockade, we were unable to leave the campsite. As news about London filtered through the police lines, and the few radios that were on site were relaying garbled messages of what had happened, and who was to blame, the londoners amongst us were trying to contact home.
In the end I can say with total conviction that it was worth it. The nights spent worrying about the police, the fear, the times I freaked out and hid in my tent, the sleepless nights, and the panic that I felt throught out the week was all worth it. I learnt so much during the week, about stepping out of my comfort zone, about standing up for who I was, and for my beliefs, and about how far I would go during protests.
And right now, I'm sat listening to David Rovics - a guy I last heard at Dungaval Refugee Center, singing in front of hundreds of peaceful protesters and hundreds of riot police standing in lines.
And the best bit of the week is that I made up with God, I worshipped for the first time in months - and it was the time when the police were shoving cameras in my face.
"Here's to love and solidarity and a kiss behind the baricades"