The Big Brisbane Rally

If other days were the Battle of Seattle and such, yesterday, 16 Feb, 2003, was perhaps the the Battle for World Sanity. In Brisbane we did not have the biggest march in the world, but we sure as hell had it led as no other.

Up front was something out of Mad Max’s worst nightmare. A pedal powered peace machine, that probably ran downhill out of control at a rally somewhere in the future, totalled the tardis on the corner by the laundromat, and then appeared at the front of the great Brisbane march. An indeterminate, undefinable sort of thing, it was.

It was huge. It had an uncountable number of hubcaps, there for no reason, unless maybe they collected the sunlight. It had a very cool man, sweating, shirtless, pedalling and wearing a dark or deeply tanned skin. It had another man alongside, whose relatives were definitely African, or from New Guinea, or perhaps Australia, or maybe Fiji, wearing mirrors where most of us keep our eyes. It appeared to be transporting an entire rock band, but it was difficult to be sure. It was not a thing that allowed you to focus your mind and file away facts. All you could be sure of was from there came music, and it was live. It had dancers out front, dancing like an ANC unit disputing control of Soweto with the Daleks, maybe a dozen, maybe two. There was a drum on board, I think. It probably used enough oil on the various chains that went up down and everywhere to start another war, but hey, what’s perfect? When I was a kid, the best bike in the world was a Raleigh. It must have been one of them, from a parallel universe.

On top was a carousel, that had all kinds of things written on each of four sides, but what they were got away. Your on-the-spot observer was once a scientist, trained and bred, but there are limits. When you got in front of it, and if you had all sort of affinity with serious engineering, all you could do was dance. The carousel had four sides, of that I am certain, and it went around and round as the man pedalled. Maybe lots of people pedalled, all at once, but I never saw them. Behind came the people of Brisbane and of nearby towns and bushes. The exact number is a matter of religion and faith, somewhere between fifty and hundred thousand, or perhaps neither. There were speeches at the start, by the railway station. No one heard a word, but so what?

The march passed a bronze Boer War general, Billy someone, a sporting sort who had consented to hold a sign advertising the rally. Some Japanese visitors photographed him and smiled. A man hopped along on crutches. There were dogs against war. A policeman told a lady from Samford, he would have liked to confiscate her brolly. It was large, and their uniforms are not yet perfect for the climate. She walked with him for a while, to give the lad some shade. In the middle, somewhere, was a perfectly ordinary small car. The young folk inside were trying to get to the airport to catch a plane to Germany, so the police let them join for a block or two, to get through. There was chanting and clapping all along the line, all the way. And lots of drumming.

There was a concert at the end, and a man sang a fine song imploring Ned Kelly to come back from the legions of the dead, as we now needed him. As Ned was a good lad, but not an expert in peace negotiations, it was fine art but a dubious strategy. Mr Kelly politely declined. Not a third of the march could get through the narrow gate over the hill at the entrance, or hear a note, but who cared? A man walked around the amphitheatre holding up a very large photo of three of the folk currently popular with arms dealers, wearing, well, not much, and obviously greatly enjoying each other’s company. It was much filmed and photographed. A man wore a cape, an American flag, with well-known corporate logos where the stars used to be, before everything dimmed. It was beautifully done. And a thousand other things, like the injunction to make tea, not war. It was a joyous march, but slower than most. The speed was entirely controlled by the man pedalling at the front.