|
I did not. I saw the smoke when the South African embassy was set on fire - or a little part of it anyway.
This is an interesting section in wiki. And it brings to my mind something I'd kind of half forgotten about that time - the total disconnect between what was being reported and said about the riot - both on tv and in general conversation was completely at odds with what I had just experienced.
Judah and I were there as SWP members. We were on one of the SWP coaches - we knew the people that were being characterised in the press as rabble-rousing anarchists, tantamount to terrorists and criminals - the names they were printiing were people whose talks we'd listened to at the SWP gathering in Scunthorpe.
The SWP, for all its radical politics and presence within various instances of civil disobedience and industrial action, was a small-minded, rulesy grouping of people whose idea of political activity primarily rested in deep conversations at the bar of the social club, selling newspapers outside a pasty shop in town an writing interesting books for the left wing press whilst chowing down on kale and cous cous/pie and peas depending whether proudly working class or shame-faced middle class.
When I left the SWP it was after a ridiculous argument, in a pub, about the limits and definition of democratic centralism.
After the demo, people's attitude to it, to the people demonstrating and the 'poor police' who faced down the uncontrollable, angry mob, who had been riled into action by black flag waving anarchists and militant lefties, and against whom the police had been forced to use harsh tactics - was very dispiriting.
It was a few years before the narrative started to shift and the police take ownership of how they had mishandled that demonstration and were the primary aggressors in it.
One of my other memories of that day is that all the way along the first part of the route (can't give specifics it all just merged into one big crowd in a city I had never walked around in before - I was pretty much just following Jude) the police were so friendly. It was a carnival atmosphere - everypne was in a good mood. It was sunny and warm - there were people playing drums and pipes and some were juggling. There were parents with kids on their shoulders - a group of elderly women with a big banner saying 'Grannies Against the Poll Tax'
We laughed and joked with the police lining the route and they laughed and joked back. The stewards were keeping everything orderly and getting the crowd going with chants and songs.
I remember getting nearer to Downing Street and Judah saying to me' Look, no numbers' and pointed to the police - none of the police near the contested areas, seemed to have numbers on their collars. Most of these were in some sort of body armour. But we hadn't got to the full riot gear yet. But, they weren't smiling - there wasn't much of a carnival atmosphere then:P
|