It never ends around here! Today it was off to the sea for a taste of Brighton! And this time I've included a picture of myself there, just in case you all thought I was hiding somewhere in Ontario and paying someone to tour England and take pictures for me. Mind you, you have to have been to Brighton to know that it's a genuine photo...and with the way that digital image editing has advanced, even that's no guarantee. But I digress. I said I only got a taste for Brighton because the reason we were there was the Trade Justice March in front of the Labour Party Conference Headquarters. The Labour Party Conference is an event which is similar to the Democrat & Republican National Conventions which recently occured in the US. The Labour Party is currently the ruling party of the UK, and while they're also supposedly the most left-wing of the 3 big UK parties, they fully supported and contributed to the US invasion of Iraq (well, at least some party members did, including their leader Tony Blair... apparently Iraq is a very divisive issue within the party). I'm told that the next federal election is in May, so the purpose of this event (as I understand it, at least) was to sort of rally the party members together, and get them all back on the same page. However, as interesting as UK politics are, that's not really why I was there. The march itself was in support of Trade Justice, which means trading fairly and sustainably with countries who are less affluent then we are in the Western world; and its an issue that I believe all the First World nations need to address. One analogy that was used by a lady I was with to explain the current system was this: imagine a deer and a giraffe competing for the leaves at the top of the tree branches. Who's going to win? The giraffe of course. In fact, the deer is not even going to get anything unless the giraffe helps it in some fashion. This is the current economic situation for many countries trying trade globally, and while the systems are certainly complex and there's no simple answer, it's not fair that we should prosper while others suffer for no reason other than the fact of where we all happened to be born. But enough ranting from me. The march was organized by Christian Aid, an awesome agency here in the UK. It was cleared with the police ahead of time, and well executed by all in charge. We had "ballots on the beach," whereby we all filled out a card, "voting" for trade justice, and then put them in big glass boxes which were spaced along the road we were marching on. We also had 2 minutes of silence to acknowledge those in other countries who feel that they have no voice, and then made lots of noise outside the Bright Conference Centre to get the attention of the politicians inside.
I went with a group of 3 old ladies from our church, and it was a blast! There were people of all ages, colours and sizes there. I never did hear a final count of how many people showed up, but I'm sure the Christian Aid site will tell you (I haven't checked cuz I have limited Internet access). After the march, we went to a local Quaker meeting hall for some fair trade food and drink, and then off to a non-denominational service at another church, then sadly, home. It was great tho! In all, we were only in Brighton for 6 or 7 hours, so I definitely need to go back and spend some time looking around (Hayden is playing there on the night of Thursday October 7th, so I might try and skip down there for that...) Anyway, enjoy the pictures to the right, and await my next update with fierce anticipation ;)
Here's pictures of me at the Brighton pier, as well as the old pier that collapsed, and a couple other random shots of the city, grafitti, and the sky:
Here's a ton of shots from the march. Someone got up onto some local scaffolding and hung the sign in picture 7. At first I thought it was a shame that they misspelled it, but then I realized that it was probably a play on words, as the simple act of switching those two letters includes "Liar" in his name. Pictures 11 & 12 are of the front of the march on its way back.
And these are pics of the police guarding/scowling at/supervising the demonstration. Everyone in bright green is a cop. Picture 3 is of all the police vans ready to haul us away, and pictures 5 & 6 show that apparently we were important enough to get helicopter supervision! Of course the march was peaceful and none of this was necessary (mind you, security for the Labour Party Conference would be strong whether or not we were there).
These are the dudes whose attention we wanted to get! Tony Blair was in the building, tho I don't think he was on the balcony...
Lastly, as a bonus for Matty, Sherry, Sar, HJ and anyone else who was at Phat Factory this summer, I got some pics of the public skate park in Brighton down on the beach, near where we were protesting! A girl came around asking for donations to keep it running because apparently the city gave money to build it, but refuses to run/maintain it. Big surprise! Anyways, it certainly isn't as good as our's was, but I still donated a pound because I believe in the principle of it. Skate on, youth of Brighton!
