Hands Joined in Hope: Citizens Surround Parliament, Pleading for Gaza
On the hottest day of the year people went into town and joined hands, some of them with strangers, to demand that UK MPs take action to end Israel’s genocide in Gaza.
You could go for years in London without bumping into any one who you know randomly - then you go to a protest and meet half a dozen people who you do.
All of the familiar faces that I saw at yesterday’s event at Westminster, where we formed a human chain around the Parliament to demand that MPs take action to end Israel’s genocide in Gaza, stop arming it and support international courts to hold Israel to account, were Assange campaigners. That’s not surprising given that they have a strong sense of social justice. (One of the Assange protesters I saw there even told me that he was one of only two people to go to Sweden to protest when Julian was facing sexual assault allegations there which were later dropped).
But all of them seemed to have gone there on their own, along with many others I met who were also alone, on a balmy Thursday night when they could have just gone to the pub. The human chain was similar to the one that people formed around Parliament in 2022 to raise awareness of Julian, sparked by activist Matt O Branain although there was then said to be about 7,000 involved in that event which is probably not a surprise given that it was on a weekend.
Palestine is still getting people out and onto the street in large numbers.
Two of the Assange supporters who I bumped into had both been up in Blackburn with me for the campaign for Craig Murray - Naila who was one of the managers and artist Daniel Fooks, who is also an activist and a keen supporter of Julian and Craig.
“Why did you come here?” asked a guy to one of the other Assange supporters as Naila and I were walking along Westminster bridge past the chain. He was collecting answers for social media.
“Because I’m human, that’s all you need to know,” he said.
I’d spent the weekend watching the series The Lobby by Al Jazeera. Yesterday’s event, organised by Palestine Solidarity Campaign, came one day before the ruling by the International Court of Justice (ICJ) ordering Israel to end its occupation of Palestinian territories.
Before I bumped into Naila I'd been standing next to a South African-born woman. It was across the road from St. Stephen's pub and the smell of fish and chips from it drifted over to us. We talked about South Africa and Andrew Feinstein, a South African and a former ANC MP who had unsuccessfully run against Keir Starmer, came up in the conversation.
This woman told me that she had seen elderly people with walkers and crutches at some of the marches and that it amazed her.
Westminster was now surrounded by people wearing keffiyehs. One woman had hears slung it over the shoulder of a blazer. She topped it off with a purple dress underneath and sandals but carried a pair of wedge heels given that summer was now finally here after weeks of rain. Others had them spread right across both shoulders and another had one wrapped across her head.
There were also plenty of watermelons of course. One was hanging off a woman’s purse, there were earrings and a golden retriever had a watermelon on his collar.
I had been running in the canals in east London earlier this week and seen a watermelon on the window of a boat there.