Useful Idiots
Dear friend,
This afternoon Chiara and me met Ricardo. We went into central London to join a rally in support of peace for Palestine and Israel.
It was edgier than previous demonstrations.
Small groups appeared to have been ‘brought in’ to stir things up.
To my eyes, the staging seemed obvious.
Protesters were contained within a ring of barriers and police in high-vis vests. The police line opened up for a young couple with babies in a push chair and then closed again for everyone else. Tourists with pained faces filed through the police line to queue in the cold for the National Portrait Gallery.
It was often difficult to know what was going on. Ricardo is an experienced and talented filmmaker who cut his teeth on major advertising campaigns before setting up his own creative agency. He takes amazing photos, but sometimes I could feel he had his camera trained on me. It was easy to dodge him.
I prefer people to take pictures without me knowing about them. They’re more natural that way. Otherwise, I can get too self-conscious. The world is a lot more fun when you’re more interested in it than in what you think you look like under the gaze of others.
One group at the protest, with a sign that said “Don’t be a useful idiot” and Israeli flags and Union Jacks, looked suspiciously like a ‘rent-a-crowd.’ They were shouting at the pro-peace in Palestine protesters from behind a line of day-glo coppers.
Their banners looked way too uniform in size, design, and newness. You could imagine the flags being ordered online by a clerk on minimum wage, packed into a van and given out to a handful of people. Some of them looked like a photo opportunity to capture clips and images of people shouting at each other.
One Orthodox Jewish man, in a bear skin hat and traditional dress, stood silently and faced the useful idiots’ crowd. On the back of his coat, he wore a sign professing his support for peace for Palestine.
Motionless.
He stood.
Watching.
Witnessing.
Later the useful idiot crowd mysteriously disappeared.
Perhaps the most powerful moment for me was a two-minute silence. The air becoming thick and gentle and still.
Poems were read.
Stories told.
Bloody ones.
And stories of resilience.
Someone lit smoke flares, and we watched them uncurl dramatically against the grey London skyline. Their smell acrid and strangely appealing, the way you can enjoy the smell of petrol.
Eventually, the cold and the call of nature led us out of the demonstration. We tried one exit but were made to walk back on ourselves to find a break in the police line, where, for the time being, the police were letting people through.
I felt the hand of a dramaturge or director at work. The brief? “Unsettle, aggravate, provoke.”
We went to a café and caught up with Ricardo’s news.
Then we came home to rest.
Tonight it’s dancing in town.
Tomorrow maybe a walk in the woods.
How fortunate we are.
To have such choices.
Our sisters and brothers asleep in the rubble under the same stars.
Nursing the injured and their grief.
Chiara, me, and Ricardo’s images now stored on a database someplace.
Surveilled.
To what ends.
What matters more than peace?
Till tomorrow
Love
Mikey