Cav's Place

Yesterday was the Global Frackdown day of action, so a protest was organized here as well and I decided to take part. After all, it certainly didn’t sound like there would be any problems, as the whole thing was organized by the Green Institute, which is sort of the NGO branch of the Green Party, and it also had the approvals that may be required for such events. In addition, seeing as the Green Party itself promoted it rather heavily, I was expecting them to also bring some people there to add to the numbers, so there won’t just be the 20 or so people who generally gather at such protests.
The approval was valid between 11 AM and 1 PM, so I made sure I woke up at 9 AM, ate something, checked once more to make sure that I knew how to get there on foot and was out the door at 10 AM, wearing just a t-shirt when pretty much everyone else I saw at the time had jackets on. The sky was admittedly completely overcast and it was quite chilly, but the forecast was for a maximum of 23°C and mostly clear skies later, so I thought I might as well stick to what I had in my room, expecially since I wasn’t quite sure that I’ll get there in one hour at a normal pace and therefore planned to go as fast as I possibly could.
The problem with that was that I rather felt the chill on the way and I already had a slight cold, so I woke up at 8:45 AM today with a very stuffy nose and eventually had to get up because otherwise I couldn’t seem to stop sneezing, but that got better after I made and drank a cup of lime (or linden) tea. Still feeling slightly feverish, so those who had jackets on, which were all but a few even at the protest, probably made the better choice, but the clouds did clear completely right when the protest was starting and it was perfectly sunny and quite warm after that.
Unfortunately, that sun apparently turned out to be a problem as well, because I seem to have managed to get a rather serious sunburn. Yes, I somehow got the right side of my face, my nose, the back and right side of my neck and an area around my right elbow quite badly sunburned on a late September day with a temperature in the low 20s. It didn’t even cross my mind that it’d happen, but after I got back at 2 PM I started to feel it and when I went to the bathroom and looked in the mirror I was left staring in surprise for a moment. Perhaps the fence that had been erected around the protest area and some of the banners had something to do with it by reflecting the sunlight, and in fact a cameraman who was there kept asking people to move certain banners away while he filmed because they reflected too much light into the camera, but it’s quite weird either way you look at it…

About the protest itself, it had some 50 participants and was a generally sedate affair, with the exception of the times when Alex, as in the leader of the “hardcore” protesters from the University Square, took up the loudspeaker, the second time in particular, seeing as by then he was quite angry because people were largely just sitting around and perhaps gathering in small groups and taking to each other instead chanting or visibly protesting in any other way. It would need to be said, however, that those most guilty of simply sitting around and talking to each other were the members of the Green Party. There were a few notable exceptions, including a couple of people from the Green Institute, also Green Party members, who have been very active throughout this year’s protests, and even the party’s president, who made a short speech “as a simple citizen” at one point despite some grumbles from the “activist” side and also tried to take part in what little chanting there was, but nearly all the others simply gathered in one place and chatted away, apparently very unhappy with the recent merger, until Alex’s second speech made them come closer and stay silent.
As such, it could have been much better, but at the same time it could have been much worse, so I’m certainly not going to complain. If you exclude the Green Party members and a few others who came as representatives of other NGOs or action groups, there were perhaps some 25 or so people who came on their own, as simple activists, and most of them were regulars to this sort of events. And when you organize a protest in a city of two million and only have this many people who even bother to show up, I don’t think it’s a good move to demand that they get even more involved when they don’t appear comfortable with that idea, or at least certainly not with the sort of anger and ferocity that Alex musters when he notices that he’s more or less the only one making more of an effort. I mean, it’s probably in good part thanks to him that this core group stayed together, but it’s probably also because of him that many potentially occasional participants decided to stop attending any such events long ago.
As for the politicians, as far as I could tell they made up about a third of those who attended. Now the regular activists wouldn’t have taken well to them even if they’d have actually participated instead of staying well out of it as most of them did, and in fact most speakers did make sure to trash all politicians indiscriminately, but personally I only hold such a grudge against those from the three major parties and their long-term allies, so I can actually see it as a good thing that members of a party that should support such a protest at least bothered to show up and think that the activists should try to work with them to find solutions to the problems at hand. Obviously purely on a case-by-case basis, not implying any long-term agreement whatsoever, but if we can be allies on a certain number of issues, why shouldn’t we be?

Anyway, the race is about to start, so I’ll leave it at that. It was only supposed to be a personal post, after all, so that rant I started above would perhaps better be saved for another time. Should make note of the fact that the id number of this post is 1000, though. It’s far from the 1000th post, actually being only the 693rd, but the id numbers will have four digits from now on, so it’s something to note either way.