There was a five minute sit down protest at the bottom of Union Street.
There was then a rally with a number of speakers including Jim McTaggart from CND and Rose Gentile, who you may have seen at many anti-war protests and in a BBC documentary, after her son was killed in Iraq. I was of course stuck beside a bam who kept shouting, "Aye. Stop aw wars. Stop boming in Ireland tae".
On the whole it was a well organised and informative march and rally.
However I can never get 100% behind these guys. Their next course of action is trying to prevent the Israeli cricket team from playing Jersey in Glasgow next week. Though they seemed unsure why they were playing here in the first place. The reason Israel is playing Jersey at cricket in Glasgow is because the European 2nd Division Championships are being held here. Israel have been grouped with Jersey, Norway and France in Group 1. So I guess they'll be trying to disrupt all three matches.
Rally organiser and final speaker, Keir McKechnie compared the Israelis visit to the South African rugby side coming to Scotland at the height of apatheid in the 1970s. And stated that Murrayfield was ripped up by protesters. I can't see how attacking a cricket ground in Pollok serves any purpose.
South African rugby had a positive discrimination policy. The Israeli cricket team aren't coming here in defiance of anything. Nor are the cricket grounds of Scotland doing anything morally or legally wrong by allowing them to play here.
It reminds me of Doug Stanhope's bit on PETA and how people can turn you against something you should be for by being so 'tits gone' with the whole thing.
Israel isn't, as yet, an apartheid state and the sanctions that were once applied to South Africa haven't been established against Israel.
I puzzle to see what it has to do with a team of cricketers. This smacks of not being able to kick in the Big Bully, but jumping his wee brother's pal on his way home from school.
7 comments:
You have to wonder how many of these people realise or want to understand that these kinds of protests are essentially meaningless.
The Government don't give a toss about what they think or what they do.
The idea of disrupting a cricket match is so lame, it beggars belief really.
It indicates to me that a lot of these people are just career sabbers, who get off on pointlessly "sticking it to the man".
Try having an actual discussion with some of these people about how Israel are supposed to protect their citizens from terrorists and you'll soon find their interest in debate and democracy waning I would suspect.
At least they care I suppose.
Why did you actually go to the march in the first place if you think it's pointless anyway? Nice day for a walk?
:)
T
I didn't say it was pointless. Fizzy did and he didn't go on the march.
Do keep up Tommy. And find those tapes!
I didn't say I thought it was pointless either. I said I thought it was essentially meaningless. The Government don't give a toss what these people think about anything.
If they really wanted to cause problems they should be finding out how to hack and disrupt Israeli defense and Government systems.
I can't help but feel that parading around the streets is done to bolster the egos of protest leaders and speakers who are well short on effective ideas and to salve the marchers own consciences, to be able to say they "did something", when in fact they have done nothing but disrupt Glasgow traffic for a day.
I have nothing against protest, just the quality of thought behind the action.
Disrupting a cricket match will achieve nothing - anyone can see that.
I wrote something then clicked on post and didnae go in. Ha!
A good post by Tom with some good intersting points made by Fraser.
I was there and had a very interesting day.
Unfortunately im not a computer hacker.
"I can't help but feel that parading around the streets is done to bolster the egos of protest leaders and speakers who are well short on effective ideas and to salve the marchers own consciences" - I agree, for some of them yeah.
You can have a discussion with me anytime.
Scott.
ach, I don't mean to sound like a killjoy old tory, whch I seem to increasingly these days, but really disrupting a cricket match? Come on.
Like I said, at least these folk bother coming out to show they care, but the problem seems to be the same one we have at every level of any organisation, quality of leadership.
Where are the ideas and the truly inspirational characters?
I mentioned computer hacking to illustrate how outmoded and well, obsolete the protest march is these days. We need to try something new, as Blair et al just appear to totally ignore popular protest these days.
But I do stand by the remark I made about politicians and other organisations using the suffering of others to promote what is largly a seperate agenda - you see that all the time at marches like this. If it's not about that, it's often about ego.
I personally see little difference between a lot of these fringe political organisations and cults to be perfectly honest.
glad to know some people actually give a damn about what's happening to lebanon.
by the time this comment gets read, nothing much might remain of poor old lebanon. thanks for trying anyway.
keep it up guys.
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