sat 11 nov
Sat 11 Nov
Where’re your poppies? Where’re your fucking poppies?”
The 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month. A minutes silence interrupted and corrupted.
Racist thugs storm the police and surround the cenotaph - summoned by Suella Braverman and enabled by a political and media class who called this - one of the biggest marches in the history of Britain - a ‘hate march’.
If you can’t call for an Armistice on Armistice day then when the hell can you?
“Here’s what happened today. The Government and much of the media whipped up a thuggish far right mob. On the other hand, hundreds of thousands - Muslims, Christians, Jews, non-believers - took to the streets against the mass slaughter of thousands of civilians.” Owen Jones.
I cycled to join the PEACE march today weaving in and out and behind the scenes of the vast flow of people from Hyde Park to Vauxhall Bridge. This perspective afforded a view of millions – from Trade Union and Jewish blocks and banners to families with pushchairs and tiny children, dogs and elderly couples. All walking in peace. On the edges: Multiple police vans. Horses. Reinforcements. Actively blocking drunk and violent ‘Englishmen’ come ready to ‘defend their country and this day.’ I am stopped from entering a side street. “You don’t want to go down there madam – not with that” pointing at the signs tied to my bike basket ‘cease fire now’ ‘armistice’ - apparently provocations to attack on this Armistice day.
In a crowd of almost a million people, of course there will be those who don’t have the same motivations, but, as even Winston Churchill’s grandson acknowledged in arguing the case for the march to happen despite ‘free speech’ warriors/authoritarians like Nigel Farage attempting to ban, condemn and demonise those taking part, the overwhelming majority are there because of a strong belief - in justice and humanity. This is not antisemitism whatever the ongoing efforts to conflate anti Zionism as such. It is not hate. It is a basic humanitarian impulse – marching in disgust at Israel’s bombardment of hospitals, the murder of thousands of children - the lies and excuses for ethnic cleansing are just increasingly obvious and inexcusable.
Interviewed for Double Down Media, former soldier and author Joe Glenton states “All sorts of people are there because they don’t want to see children get blown up. It’s not hard lads.” He counters the common fallback argument that these protests are a place Jewish people are not welcome. “Anyone who is 1.intellectually honest and 2.has actually been to one, knows that Jewish people are at the forefront of this and the idea that all Jewish people define themselves by an allegiance to Israel is itself antisemitic.”
This is a day that takes its name from a truce, a ceasefire, a cessation of hostilities. “There is nothing more appropriate than marching for a ceasefire on the day a ceasefire was signed. The real people desecrating armistice are those who will be laying wreaths in Whitehall whilst leading us into potentially another global war. The ultimate hypocrites. Shame on all of you.” As a veteran of Afghanistan he knows horror. He turns to the words of Harry Patch, survivor of the trench warfare of World War 1. “War is organised murder. War is a calculated and a condoned slaughter of human beings. War is no use to anyone.” And what is currently happening is not happening on battlefields with armed combatants, it is attack after attack on a population denied escape or infrastructure. It is murder. It is genocide.
There is a predictable roll call of psychopaths at the cenotaph. A ‘rogues gallery of former prime ministers’ lining up to lay wreaths with solemn faces. Harry Patch’s words: ‘Remembrance is nothing more than showbusiness’ rings out loud and clear across history, highlighting the hypocrisy of those who “claim to be deeply invested in the memory of our troops [but] are perfectly happy to cynically instrumentalise our own war dead to ensure that Israel can keep massacring civilians.” (Joe Glenton) Remembrance should be a moment of serious reflection, remembering those dead, remembering the horror so as never to repeat it. To say never again and work to make that a truth. “The way you honour the dead in my mind is by keeping their number to an absolute minimum.“
The cenotaph is still off limits as I wind my way back through London. Whitehall guarded by mounted police. Parliament Square shut down as England flags and a variety of thugs crowd around the statue of Winston Churchill, ‘defending’ glorifying and misunderstanding ‘history’ in the service of dangerous stupidity. Trying to find a way home, I check my route and the map of Central London is a mass of road closures marked by red lines. So many red lines are being crossed internationally and no one seems equipped to guard against this.
BBC news interview self-described ‘old soldier’ Reverend Tim Daplyn:
“We owe it to those who went before that we do better. We will hear read ‘In Flanders fields the poppies grow.’ Everybody remembers the first verse, very few people remember the last verse. It’s a challenge from the dead to the living: ‘To you, from failing hands, we throw the torch, be yours to hold it high, if you break faith with us who die, we shan’t sleep, though poppies grow in Flanders field’ So we’re carrying the torch, we’re answering the call to do better.”
And beyond words and marches there are those answering this call.
Anti-militarist youth organisations block entry to Boing’s manufacturing plant in the US.
BAE factory in Kent is shut down by 400+ trade unionists chanting ‘BAE what do you say, how many kids have you killed today?’
Palestine Action occupy the roof of UAV Engines Ltd and blockade the private road leading to weapon’s manufacturer Elbit’s HQ.
Calls for arms embargos on Israel increase.
A BDS (boycott, divest, sanction) movement ramps up.
#Ceasefirenow. #Stoparmingisrael.
Shut down the war machine.
