Here in Britain we are generally proud to flaunt our freedom and encourage others to do so. This was never quite as obvious as it was during the mass protests in Iran following Mahmoud Ahmedinejad’s election. Let us not discuss his politics or controversial demeanor or even whether he merits the presidency, this is about double standards. When the Iranian people spilled into the streets to protest what they believed to be a crime or an unjust event, call it what you will, you could not walk ten paces without hearing or reading praise and support for these Iranians for mobilizing and standing up for what they believe. It is true, resolution and commitment to one’s beliefs are admiral traits and should be praised. Taking such a notion out of this situation, I would argue that more dangerous than the racists are those who are apathetic. Those who are unmoved by politics or society and therefore consider indifference to be high company are a far superior menace to the general societal well-being. Such characters are the ones who are susceptible to brainwashing by the racists and are the ones who go along for the ride because nothing compels them to speak up. The point is that surely we must commend people with spine for being upfront about their opinions? Whether they are beliefs with which we agree is not the point. It is this standard, coupled no doubt with a perennial smog of dubiousness that follows Ahmedinejad around that led to the public and individual support of the Iranian protests here in Britain. It’s an overused slogan of mine but the whole beauty of freedom is that it is universal. This means that when the discontented Britons take to the streets to stand up for what they believe in they should be held with the same regard. This does not mean that we support any and every protest, that we support the notion of a government’s accountability to its citizens and that we acknowledge the right to demonstrate as long as it does not infringe upon the rights of other citizens. Public support should matter throughout a Prime Minister’s term, not just once every four years at election time. Indeed it is not only our right as citizens to demonstrate and mobilize, it is our patriotic duty to ensure that our country is being run in a way that is representative of it citizens. It is for this reason that my knickers are in such a twist. Every time the “lefties†(and I use this term begrudgingly) mobilise to express their dissatisfaction they are branded with a stigma reserved for those of us who dare to challenge what we are told to think. During the Israeli offensive in Gaza last winter, thousands of Brits took to the streets in a gesture to show solidarity with the Palestinian people as well as an attempt to get the British government to get off its particularly wide arse and do something positive as opposed to sending more weapons to perpetuate the violence; isn’t that the whole point of having a British Foreign Office? Nevertheless, protesters in the largely peaceful (although inevitably there was some violence) were kettled by the British media as being almost entirely violent, with the Daily Mail reporting that “Violent clashes occurred between police and around 20,000 protesters outside the Israeli Embassy.†There were most certainly not 20,000 violent protesters. Indeed none of the British mainstream papers chose to report the fact that the violence was almost universally (at least in every case of violence that I witnessed there) triggered by police action. In fact, at one point during the aforementioned protests, the police charged a crowd of roughly 500 people directly into a barrier, causing it to fall onto the women and children at the rear of the protest. Other officers called for the protesters to stop pushing, unawares that it was, in fact, their own forces that had caused the chaos. On the 10th January of this year, I was monitoring one of the Gaza war protests in London when I, along with several thousand other demonstrators, was penned in for a total of about four hours as we were prohibited from leaving. The BBC published continuing updates on the situation, reporting that a small crowd of “brutal†protesters had been denied exit from the protest. I was there and far from being brutal, attempted to prevent the few who were throwing stones from doing so. They have justice on their side and do not need sticks and stones because words really will harm their message. We must recognize that the right to protest is one that we should recognize universally. So, Britons, support the protesters of the world; just don’t forget that often your fellow citizens are striving for the very same thing as those in an exotic-sounding country. BM
