When I got to Kensington High Street at about 3.30, BS 280 was hassling the handful of attendees to cross the road to the 'designated area'. "Perhaps you can help me out," I said. "For years I've been trying to find out what law you use to dictate where we can practice our freedom of expression, and now you're about to tell me". Strangely enough, he couldn't. BS were very appropriate letters for his epaulettes. It wasn't very plausible -the side of the road he was trying to send us to has a narrower pavement and lots of shop doorways. Where we were, there was a railing behind our backs. He tried for a bit longer and then gave up.
Having got over the habitual hassle from cops, I reflected that irritating as the nursery school teacher persona that British bobbies habitually don at political events can be, they pale into insignificance when compared to the hassle that demonstrators face in other parts of the world. Like Ni'lin with its weekly protests against the wall, which has had four of its young people killed since July 2008, and where fellow IMCista and ISMer Tristan Anderson was hit in the face with a gas cannister on Friday March 13th. Tristan is now in a critical condition in an Israeli hospital, and it was in solidarity with him and the people of Palestine that we were stood around the corner from the Israeli Embassy.
Banner
Placard
Another placard
The unmoved vigil
The unused 'designated free expression zone'
A North American guy stopped to chat to us. He had been in Ni'lin a few weeks back and had seen Israeli soldiers susing these new gas cannisters. He commented that they didn't make a loud noise like the old ones, and this made them unsuitable for crowd control. From everything I've read about the shooting of Tristan, there wasn't even a need for crowd control when it happened. Someone else reflected that before using these new cannisters, the Israeli soldiers had been using stink gas - he had heard rumours that their usage was stopped after the base where they stored became unbearable because of the smell, and soldiers had complained of side effects. I was reminded of the Naomi Klein article which details how Israel uses Palestine as a laboratory for it's new weapons. Tristan, an American activist was hit by this experimental weapon - I wonder if America will be buying it in the near future.
As time went by, people came and went, leaflets were handed out and a collection was taken so more could be photocopied. Most of the cops left and BS 280 and his mate stood some distance away and left us alone. I left after a few hours, wondering how long it will be before I am back on that patch having the same argument with some other cop.
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