Don't just say something, stand there!

I was on a CND march once, a long time ago, and with me was an 80 year old woman. Someone watching the march go by called out that there was no point in us demonstrating; the government wasn't going to abandon its nuclear deterrant, no matter how many worthies like us wanted them to. The lady was quick with her response: "I demand my right as a citizen to protest, and that's what I'm doing".


This is what I and about 2000 other people decided to do in Cardiff on Saturday as we processed through the streets of the city demanding that Israel lift its blockade of Gaza. You might say our protest was as impotent as was CND's all those years ago. Israel has been selling the lie around the world that in the Palestinian people we have an entire population of terrorists, and that lifting the blockade would allow them to flood out into Israel reeking death and destruction on the Israeli people, armed with all the weaponry and other hardware of murder they could now obtain through the open border. The American people have taken these lies to their hearts and now it is very hard to find anyone in that benighted and misled country who supports their demands for freedom of movement and other civil rights enjoyed by their Israeli neighbours. And President Obama, may shame be upon him, has actually encouraged this lie.


We were not without dissent on our march either. At one point a bunch of drunken, racist scumbags sitting outside a bar began to throw glasses at the marchers as they passed the bar, provoking a furious response from some Arabs in the demonstration, who, showing remarkable courage, waded into those louts, swinging fists and throwing chairs at them. Good for them. Racist hatred must always be opposed, by violence if necessary, as I believe it was in this case. I actually picked up a shot glass and took it home as a souvenir (I'm not brave enough for violent direct action myself, though I did shout "racist scum!" at them, to the horror of some people standing near me). But the incident illustrated how big a mountain the Palestinian people still have to climb before they are free.