Guy Smallman posted great photos after the London half a million strong Palestine march on 17 May and wrote this:
“Huge numbers on the streets of London Saturday protesting 77 years of racism, apartheid & ethnic cleansing which has now inevitably spiralled into full blown genocide. A genocide that is being live streamed to our phones and TV screens on a minute by minute basis. A genocide that has now added systematic starvation to its ever-expanding list of crimes ...they organisers really need to start thinking outside of their comfort zone. Marching from A to B to listen to the same of speakers repeating themselves is not enough. If the Palestine Solidarity Campaign is going to remain fit for purpose then it needs to up its game. It needs to be calling for nationwide graffiti campaigns and national days of peaceful disruption at the very least. Otherwise it will go down in history as doing little more than managing peoples anger on behalf of the British state. In the meantime the rest of us can proactively support the likes of Palestine Action, Youth Demand & PYM Britain (to name a but a few) as they take action without asking permission from anyone.”
I agree with him and his photos are powerful visual evidence to the strength of public feeling for the victims of this genocide. Even my own more amateur photos from the demonstration have reached more of you than anything I have posted in the past.
In his excellent book ‘We Shall Pass’, about the British volunteers who fought in the Spanish Civil War, Clifford Thurlow tells the story of a Glaswegian, Robbie Gillan, who joined a hunger march to London and, after an altercatuon with the police, continued on to Spain where he joined the British Battalion in the fight against Franco and fascism. I have learned a lot about the international brigades gfrom his book and from my partner, Anne Aylor, who has been writing a historical novel set amongst the American volunteers.
Am I alone in wondering where is the spirit of the International Brigades today? 23 years ago US citizen, Rachel Corrie, was brutally crushed by an IDF bulldozer when protesting as a member of the International Solidarity Movement. Ships attempting to carry aid into Gaza have been boarded, their crews murdered. Perhaps it is time to remember Robbie Gillan and Rachel Corrie, and at the very least, fix our attention and our marches on those who are engaging in direct action, whether it be attempting to ship in food to Gaza, obstrcting banks who fund the genocide or occupying BAE arms factories.
