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Another Saturday in Trafalgar Square

The second demonstration against the Danish cartoons took place in Trafalgar Square today. It was called by the Muslim Action Committee and the slogans on the leaflet were “demonstrate your love for the prophet Mohamed” and “expose the hypocrisy of freedom of speech”. I wasn’t greatly inclined to do either but there is an ugly…

Liam
1–2 minutes

The second demonstration against the Danish cartoons took place in Trafalgar Square today. It was called by the Muslim Action Committee and the slogans on the leaflet were “demonstrate your love for the prophet Mohamed” and “expose the hypocrisy of freedom of speech”. I wasn’t greatly inclined to do either but there is an ugly racist thrust behind the cartoons and some of the apologies for them and that was the point of attending the demo.

It was a weird one. Like last week’s it was tightly stewarded with only official placards visible. My favourite was “don’t they teach mannners in Denmark?” The men were all in the square itself and the women stayed in the area above it. It was 99.99% Muslim and overwhelmingly Asian. I have no idea who the speakers were.

CPGB

Mark from the CPGB collared me enquiring if it is true that their members and supporters are prohibited from joining the Respect Party Platform. I explained to him that this had been proposed at the last meeting in view of their negative way of working in Respect. I also had to break it to him that this had come from non Socialist Resistance people and that it was a unamimous opinion. I couldn’t even oblige him with a copy of the minutes. That probably guarantees me a full page spread with an unflattering photo. Still when you have a weekly paper to fill a five minute chat with a man with a hangover is always useful for a bit of copy.

2 responses to “Another Saturday in Trafalgar Square”

  1. badmatthew Avatar
    badmatthew

    I’m glad you were there. No matter how much we might disagree with the slogans and demands of the demo, it is important not to leave Muslims isolated. But did you get much dialgue with the Muslims who were there?I’d also be interested to see how big you thought it was and as the non-Muslim presence was so small even after Respect issued a call to support it, what does that say about the ability of the lef tto mobilise?

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  2. Liam Mac Uaid Avatar
    Liam Mac Uaid

    The demo was very sharply divided. For example no one seemed to want to walk through the square selling papers, even though there was no hostility. A few people did stop at the stalls. We got talking to a bus driver who had been asked to be the Respect candidate in Ilford last year. He was there with his kids.My guess, and it’s no more than that, is that there were about 8000 in the square. The organisers had made no attempt to broaden the demo. If they had wanted I’m sure they could have got some MPs or even a bishop and a rabbi. Instead they focussed it very narrowly on Islam and the speeches were about religion.As for what it says about the left. The SWP had quite a high profile. Respect had no intervention there that we could see. There were some Respect leaflets on the SR stall and that was it. In any case lots of people on the left had trouble seeing beyond the organisers’ very limiting slogans.

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