Student Protest redux

[skull_bearer]

I was a little late in coming down to this one, and only met up with the marchers at Trafalgar Square. It was probably the best weather we've had for a while, and the numbers reflected that, thousands upon thousands. It went by a bit of a weird route, down past St James' park and through to Parliament. When we arrived we discover the police had roped off most of Parliament Square, and the results of a constantly increasing crowd pushing the front runners and a strong police presence everywhere but where it was actually needed meant that the protesters were unable to back off to the park and ended up bursting through police lines and into the square, where the barriers were promptly dismantled and a portaloo was tipped over.

I heard later that the protests was meant to continue down Victoria street and the police were complaining that we weren't following the route. The press has reported this as a load of hogwash and I concur, there was a strong effort to head down the established route, only to be met by rows upon rows of barriers, horses and riot police. Once again there was a horrible crush in which those at the front were unable to back off due to pressure from those at the back. I was very close to the front and the pressure quickly mounted to the point where I was struggling to breathe and trying to keep smaller members of the crowd from being knocked over as the police tried to drive us back directly into the press of people coming up behind.
I eventually decided 'blow this for the Sudetenland' and got a nearby protester to give me a leg up, at which point I crowd-surfed out to a safer place, landing beside a medical student who was trying to patch up increasing numbers of protesters being dragged back from the front lines with bad cuts and bruises. There was one lad who'd been hit directly in the face, and another with a deep scalp wound which was bleeding everywhere.

The protesters then turned and made for the northern exit past the cathedral, but that was blocked off too. Barriers were carried along (braining a few protesters along the way) and an attempt was made to use them as a fence against the police attacks, unfortunately they were quickly taken away, and horses charged the crowd, driving them back. I had those around me link arms to avoid being knocked over as the press tightened again, but fortunately I was able to fight my way out.

The tension relax a little then: we had been kettled, but then again we were in front of Parliament, and that was where to wanted to be anyway. Fires were made from placards and the occasional bench, and everything was quiet for a while before the people at the aforementioned northern exit warned that the police were charging their horses against and trying to tighten the kettle. More barriers were dragged up, and a solid wall of people kept the police from kettling us further.

The time passed with more fires being lit as night closed in the temperatures dropped, and the protest calmed somewhat. The police were letting people out towards Trafalgar Square, but as I had no interest in leaving just yet, I remained inside and sat with a group of others around a fire beside Westminster Abbey. It was right beside police lines, but no one was attacking or charging and the atmosphere began to improve, with a lot of chatting and improvising revolutionary Christmas carols (I attempted a few numbers from A Very Scary Solstice', but unfortunately no one got the joke).

Night had pretty much fallen when our attention was called back up the square to where some people had set fire to the fallen portaloo. I don't know who, as it was already blazing by the time my camping companions and I arrived, but it was going up incredibly fast and letting off a pall of extraordinarily thick black smoke which at the height of the blaze hid Big Ben and the Houses of Parliament. It was of course the centre of attention and all the press were gathered around it, so no prizes about what's going to be on the front covers (or so I thought at the time, not it looks like it's going to be the royals' car being smashed... oh les aristocrats a la lanterne...)

After that I wandered off to see what else was happening. Someone had painted a giant red 'NO' on the grass, some of the remaining barriers and their tarpaulins had been rigged into a crude shade and were being used as toilets, and the protesters had managed to do what ten years worth of police effort had failed to do, and completely wreck the climate camp. I'd feel bad, but I've met those guys and they're wankers, so fuck them.

A large group had congregated close to Houses of Parliament, and had set up a beatbox, playing all sorts of rather good music (I managed to identify 'Highway to Hell' and 'How Soon is Now' only, as the sound was a bit weird). A gentlemen dressed as a pink stormtrooper climbed onto one of the climate camp's cabins and preformed a striptease to the delight of all. By this point I was checking my phone every few minutes, as it was close to the time when the vote inside the House of Pigs would be taken and the decision made. Paramour had remained at home and was sending me messages by mobile of what was on TV, while I repeatedly assured him I was safe. There was chaos when the decision was finally made, and a great many arguments of what it meant. I had those around me all phone home to confirm what was becoming clear: We'd lost. Be a measly 21 votes. The cunts. I fought my way out and borrowed a loudspeaker to announce the news (and inadvertently ended up in the papers again as 'a woman with a loudspeaker'. What, no scary feminist this time?).

As this now seemed to mark the end of the protest, and I was getting pretty tired (I'd had nothing to eat all day save a handful of peanuts, and while I cope pretty well on no food, I was starting to flag). I headed out to see the police line and try to talk my way out, but no ball. At the very end of the protest, at the very time when everyone, tired and dispirited, wanted to go home. We weren't being able to leave. I heard that the police are trying to say it was due to attacks on them by protesters, but I say again, hogwash. I was there, I saw no attacks at that end. It was only after I'd done the rounds of the possible exits, found all of them blocked, sometimes violently, and returned, that the violence was starting to break out as those with shorter fuses than I found themselves unable to leave. I saw one of the statues in the square covered in cloth and set on fire, and some yahoo smashing windows and destroying a telephone box.

I went back to the Trafalgar Square exit, and found my way to the front of what seemed to be the calmest part of street (which wasn't saying much, the barriers had been taken up again and missiles were flying). I joined a group of unarmed protesters with their hands in t he air trying to explain that they just wanted to go home. The police were waving their batons but hadn't hit anyone yet. I joined in trying to explain, which suddenly we were charged from the rear by a group of riot police, who kept us crushed between them and the police in front. We kept our hands up and screamed at that 'What did they want' 'How could we move back when we were being crushed at both ends?' The line buckled and some people tried to climb over the wall onto the grating of the building beside us to escape, only to be dragged out by the police.
The police waded in hitting out at everyone within reach. I managed to escape being hurt, and we staggered into an open space, only to be shoved back again as we were charged by three police horses. We managed to get out of the way and not get trampled, and the result was twenty or so of us enclosed by police on all sides, some hurt, with three police horses barring the way onward and for all we knew preparing to charge again. It was a strange surreal bit of piece, and a fellow beside me asked us to look through his back to where he had a carrot for the horses. We fed the horse in front of us (a big white one), and I patted its nose, it was foaming at the mouth where the bit was digging into its mouth. "Poor horse," I said to the lad with a carrot "Just think, a big piece of metal in its mouth and a cock on its back". It was a silly joke, but it got people laughing.

And then, quite suddenly, we were let out. Just us twenty. I have no idea what the police were thinking with that little manoeuvre. I think (and I may be being charitable here', that it was their original intention to isolate a group of us from the main scrum, and then let us out, thus avoiding having the crowd surge and break the lines, and the protest go off in all directions as it did last time. Unfortunately it would have been much easier to just tell us this instead of hammering everyone and hurting a great many people.

I was pretty shaken then, and retired to the Sherlock Holmes pub for a double brandy before heading home.

I've said this before, and I'll say it now. Of the violence and destruction in this protest, a great deal of it (and all the bad parts) could have been avoided had the police not kettled us from the get go. I have no problem with them barring off some of the roads, but the breaking up of the protest route, and the closing of every road just made people angry, particularly at the end when the violence really started. Kettling is a sure-fire way of getting people angry, and angry people break stuff. I'm not sure when this will get through their tiny minds, but it has happened every time. In the third fees protest, everything was fine for most of it, because people weren't being kettled and kept moving. It was only once the police had penned them in at Trafalgar Square that the violence started. This combined with some completely bald-faced lies by the police, make me wonder if we shouldn't draft in the girl scouts or something to keep the peace, because London's finest are only making things worse.