Tag: March in March

  • my favourite moments of the May Day march

    The people dancing on bus stop rooves.

    The leggy punk marching in ugg boots.

    The giant skinhead I followed for several blocks who had a gentle face, was six foot eight or nine, and had a dolphin tattoo round the back of his skull.

    The raddled Australian surfer turning steaks on his roadside barbecue and serving, in Strine, with ginger hair falling all over his face. Hours later I saw him propping up the corner of a pub, huge beer in his hand, giant smile on his face; he toasted us wildly, no splashing.

    The fact that 25,000 people marched and the roar from the crowd that went up when this was announced.

    The fast pace! Australian marches are often rather leisurely. At March in March last year we spent much of the route actually dancing. This was like 12,000 people running for a bus, for miles: actually three hours. A kind of political marathon.

    The old dude, late into his seventies, who had modified a bicycle trailer with boombox speakers and was blaring the deepest, darkest old school hip hop for everybody’s edification.

    The young guy who having accidentally kicked over a bottle someone had left standing in the street scooped up all the broken pieces and carried them to the side of the road to stash neatly under an overflowing bin.

    The fact that people were marching with beers in their hands but there was very little broken glass.

    The line of police officers blackened and bulky in head to toe riot gear, boots tapping to the music as they stood otherwise impassive with arms folded.

    The smart punk who was combining politics with business by dragging a very narrow steel apparatus on wheels, strung with four large stripey airport bags, into which he harvested other people’s discarded bottles, choosing those with the highest deposit.

    The stupid punk sitting in the middle of the road with his mates who refused to get up when an ambulance came sweeping towards him, and the ambulance driver who simply sped round him without bothering to swerve.

    The pink blossoms fallen like tissues all along the centre strip of Kottbusserdam.

    The blue, blue sky and the green, green trees and the river of black in between.

    The people watching and waving from their windows along the route.

    The bumper stickers people seemed to have clapped onto parked cars as they marched by, or which perhaps drove in on them, like: Sure. You can be a Nazi. It just makes you really crapola.

    The hand painted sign two well-dressed women were carrying which said Out of the way, capitalism, the next decisions will be made by all of us.

    The City rubbish collectors clad in hi-vis orange who were dancing as they swept up, dragging a wheeled trash can.

    The piles of rubbish people had built after the bins were filled, in planter pots and around the bases of trees.

    The intense conversations later that night sitting outside our friend’s photography studio and the various people who kept trying to come in because in Kreuzberg, a wide-open living room resembles a bar.

    The songs that kept dragging me at a run back down to the milling square just when I got settled, for more dancing.

    The raised cobbled square at the end of the march were everybody was dancing to a really good DJ. The silent disco that transpired when it came time to switch the music off and the DJ started handing out headphones for a 20 quid deposit.

    The moon that came up as the sun finally went down.

    The headphones, and the song whose name I didn’t know that pierced my waters as I skated under the fizzing trees in silence.

    The dancing.

  • we want our country back

    Most joyous demo/march I’ve ever been involved in. There was a sense of colourful exultation, a kind of rejoicing, a feeling of laughing at each others’ placards and of coming together to ridicule the ridiculous. So many intelligent, open facial expressions, so many cool handmade signs. Someone had made extra signs, proper ones on poles, and left them leaning on the corner of the old Treasury building for people to pick up: one of those said: YOU WORK FOR US. There was HOW DARE YOU, ABBOTT, HANDS OFF OUR WORLD HERITAGE. There was a family of three solemnly crossing the road every time the traffic stopped, holding high their placards so the waiting drivers could read them. Before the march, joyous reefs of cheers rose up during the distant speeches. The square was teeming and people stood thickly on the sidewalks on all sides, holding their signs. When we set off, an upper storey of more drunken Australians leaned over from the balcony of the Irish pub, cheering and clapping and unfurling huge flags. My friend dropped out to get a bit of shade and when we ran into each other again, she was exultant: there were people going past me for ten minutes!

    I fell back, attracted by the band. They had struck up a spurling tumultuous din and I boogied and jittered my way down shady Adelaide Street and back into the sun. I’ve never seen so many people lining the route of a march holding up their own signs: LET THEM LAND, LET THEM STAY, and HANDS OFF OUR COUNTRY. A guy up a tree rattled his sign and whistled and waved. A man propped against a light post held: WHAT HAPPENED TO THE CARING, SHARING AUSTRALIA? I ARRIVED AS A REFUGEE 26 YEARS BACK.

    Everywhere evidence of people’s sincerity and generosity. Four girls in front of us had on boat hats folded from newspaper. A bikie with a creamy white beard stood in front of his motorbike on his head and his big boots did the splits up in the air – his friends either side held up placards and everybody hooted and hollered. An eight year old boy had made his own fiercely vehement, illegibly penciled sign on a folded piece of paper studded with exclamation points and was wearing it paperclipped to his visor.

    Now, I hate marches. I’m shy and I don’t enjoy crowds. I find it mildly traumatic to be around mobs of angry people, even when I agree with them. But this was delicious from start to end. We rounded the corner back into the shade, there were colourful people filling the street as far forward and as far back as I could see. A man marched on crutches. A plump guy held a gigantic placard saying YOU KNOW THINGS ARE BAD WHEN EVEN I GET OFF THE COUCH. The feeling that ran through the whole gathering, for me, was that reasonable, kind, humane, open, curious-minded people have mobilized and sat up and said, man, this is an outrage, we’re putting a stop to it. Before all the dancing I was marching in hot aching tears: for my country, beloved and troubled occupation that has yet to face its own history. For the goodness and generosity in our hearts. For the inexplicable bold kind tyranny that fearless truth-telling and balanced perspective have over shady dealings, and dire manipulations, and all the kinds of politics that sink us into the stupidest and most destructive, dangerous kind of animal.

    “If this was in Germany,” my companion pointed out, “the entire route would be thickly lined with riot police in riot gear.” Instead, our friend told him, the Queensland police have been really supportive of this gathering. I could feel joy and celebration in the air and I felt we were all on the same page, same rambunctious rampage. A bewilderness of thrumming democracy, an entire array of people, a luscious diversity, a beautiful thing.