Nouse.co.uk » Career protestors undermine the meaning of the cause.

Career protestors undermine the meaning of the cause.

January 23, 2009
Hugh Salway

There aren’t many issues on which I feel really strongly. It’s not that I don’t care, it’s just that, as Woody Allen bemoans in ‘Love and Death’, “My problem is that I see both sides of every issue.” However having spent a week building up anger in the comfort of my kitchen about the situation in Gaza, I felt moved to act. And so on Saturday 3rd January I found myself out in the cold, with 50,000 others, rallying for the Palestinian cause.

And what of these others? I had been mocked by my friends for attending a protest, which they saw as the sport of madmen and communists, a theory I was sure to be wrong. The train journey to Charing Cross was full of fairly normal looking people, a sign I saw as promising. However at the station they all splintered off, maybe to watch a football match, or shop in the sales, or do things that normal people do with their Saturday. I, on the other hand, made my way down to Embankment, where I was met by a forest of placards made by and advertising socialist organizations. My firm resistance to buying a copy of this month’s ‘Socialist Worker’ was met by a confused and almost insulted look. My fellow protesters were not so stubborn however, as ageing hippies and students with bags coated in badges forked out for the magazine. It seemed my friends were right. I had joined the madhouse.

How, I wondered, was the Socialist cause related to the Palestinian cause? And why did I feel like an outsider for not being a Socialist at this totally unrelated event? Of course the protest was not entirely dominated by them; there were many Muslim groups, even a few Jews showing solidarity, and several normal looking people. But I couldn’t help but feel that we were all just gatecrashers at their party.

As we marched down Whitehall, I observed my fellow protesters. They knew what they were doing. They had come prepared with placards, they knew the route, knew the tunes to the chants they were bellowing. They were career-protesters. This was further confirmed as several started throwing rocks at the policemen on guard. The logic behind using violence against English police forces at a rally promoting a ceasefire in the Middle East is almost as baffling as that of the Socialists dominating the protest. For many of those attending, it seemed the actual issue of the rally played second fiddle to the practise of protesting itself. Songs, comradeship, and hopefully a few scuffles was what they came for. To them I say, you can get all that at a football match, leave the marching to those who really care about this issue.

It is no wonder that protests are given such little regard by the government. To claim that they are the voice of the people is a joke. That is not to say that the issues protested are a joke, not at all. But until career-protesters realise that their participation is not helpful, but harmful, that they are taking rational and popular standpoints into the realm of the extreme left or right-wing, then the protest cannot function as a valid democratic activity.