Well we made it - there and back again. It was a great day. It was a long day. We left Stevenage about 11.45pm and got to Berwick for 7am, where we shown marvellous hospitality by the parents of Hilary (a member at Bunyan), including a cooked breakfast. Katherine and Henry are special people - Hannah and I are already considering our next trip to Berwick. We were on the train to Edinburgh at 9.39am and arrived soon after 10.30am. We then made the walk up to the Meadows where everything was happening.
The day had a real festival atmosphere, with two stages, stalls from all the organistations supporting. We wandered round and listened to what was going on. We joined the march at about 2.15pm, but by 3pm (the minute's silence) we had moved only a few yards. So we didn't end up marching.
Reflecting on the day, you saw how it was hijacked by the socialists and anti-war protesters, with their messages. The day was about 'making poverty history' - trade justice. drop the debt. more and better aid. I also wonder whether day ended up being overshadowed by events in London. As Simon Jenkins wrote in The Sunday Times yesterday: 'Geldof is to fast politics what McDonald's is to fast food. He is simply good at it. How can you do nothing, he screams, "watching people live on TV, dying on our screens!". Fill up on McCartney and Madonna and you will feel much better.' For me a minute silence wasn't long enough, it felt too easy to give a minute silence. I supposed the day lacked a spirituality (for myself) what with contrasting messages and our inability to march.
Having said that, it felt right to be there, to make the journey, to take a stand, to say the way we run the world is unjust.
Hannah: We had been queuing to do so for about an hour with little progress when the minute’s silence took place. I was feeling quite tired and getting quite impatient at this point. I felt trapped, as there was no other known way out of the venue. That minute reminded me why we were really there. It was not for our own personal gain. I thought of those who are imprisoned by poverty and have no escape. Parents struggling to feed their children and doing anything possible to earn the little money they can. Those people are tired; those people have something to be restless about. (Read more here).
Helen: I wasn't expecting any sort of spiritual experience going on the rally. I was just fed up of myself, along with a lot of other people, sitting around moaning about the state of the world and not doing anything about it. I know that some say marching around Edinburgh won't help much, but I knew I'd rather do that than sit at home watching the entire Live8 and hoping. I had to put my money (or my feet) where my mouth was. Personally it was a shame that we didn't get to march around the route, but when I think that the reason was that 230,000 people were all trying to do it, over double the number anticipated, then it feels OK! I got so much out of the whole 'adventure', including the demonstration of what 'being church' means from my fellow passengers and Hilary's parents.
Ashley: What did touch me, though, was that there were more "normal" people there than there normally are at protests. Aside from the protest regulars and the odd few people that decided to go along because it was a nice day and all the shops were shut anyway, there were about 200,000 everyday folk. People that don't protest. People that have never been to a rally. People that don't spend their spare time tie-dying shirts and selling Ban the Bomb badges at car-boot sales.
These people were, for the most part, there because they've had enough of the global injustice that is extreme poverty. And, to me, this was amazing. (Read more here).
it was good to have met you, albeit for a short time
Posted by: Brodie | July 06, 2005 at 09:26 AM