Another anti-war demo

So, another anti-war demonstration is over. I attended today's event more to cover it than to take part in it, because I'm becoming rather cynical about the whole situation. I always thought the war should never have been undertaken and that the UK, in particular, had no reason to get involved in it. As for today, I'm not sure whether the outcome will be good whether British troops stay or go, judging by recent events in the south of the country. The demonstration which took place before the war was massive; those after were markely less so.

Today's was rather sparse, and attracted what one might consider the standard attendees. Judging by the banners, there were the usual Socialist Workers and MAB'ers; there were trade unionists, anti-nuclear people, various other religious groups and causes. There was a refreshing shortage of windbags on the stage, what with Galloway being in the US speaking to a perhaps more sympathetic audience than he'd receive here. The speakers included Tony Benn, Jeremy Corbyn, Lindsey German, Haifa Zangana, and relatives of JC de Menezes (the Brazilian man shot dead by police at Stockwell in July), Anthony Walker (a young black man who was murdered in Liverpool), some military widows, and the Asian Gate Gourmet strikers.

Speeches weren't exactly memorable: the most memorable speaker was the relative of Anthony Walker. He was a Rasta from central casting, talking about all the "Jah people" in evidence, and talked about unity between the sons of Israel (I think he meant Christians as well as Jews) and those of Ishmael (the Muslims; peace be upon them both). He then played a rather touching song which had obviously been written for the occasion; about "giving love a try", "Mama Sarah, Hagar and Abraham" and a call to "be cool, don't play the fool, oh Liverpool" (or something like that – he had mentioned that people had suggested rioting; he also mentioned Blair and Bush in the song). At least one speaker said that they should have spent the war money on jobs and education.

I got quite a few megabytes of pictures of the event. I intend to post a few, with a few more in zipped format, rather than posting them all because the bandwidth use would soon attract the attention of my ISP! But I wanted to show the diversity of the attendees to rebut the accusation that it's just a show by Marxists and/or an unholy alliance with the "Islamofascists", and also to expose a few really dangerous communists who turn up at these rallies. Yes, I've got good pictures of Worker Communists from Iran and Iraq, the same people who want to deny Muslim women their rights, and the hammer-and-sickle brigade from Turkey. Stay tuned.