Where in the World is Joe... San Diego: Another thing that I could never have observed in China

Sunday, October 16, 2011

Another thing that I could never have observed in China

A few days ago I found out from Foro-Ciudad that there would be a protest in Albacete on Friday, October 15th. It was considerably bigger than I expected. It also seemed to lack a clear goal or purpose. From chatting with an Italian lady I met there I discovered that it was part of a broader movement in many different countries. Perusing the website for this broader movement I also did not find any specific goals, aside from the amorphous "uniting the people." There is some retoric there about equality and justice, real democracy, etc., but it seems that this is more of a party, which a revolution is not. Indeed, the entire protest march here in Albacete had a very festive feel to it. There was a percussion band, some crazy costumes, and lots of singing and jumping. Granted the songs were protest songs rather than dancing songs, but I still considered it to be fairly festive. The one part I severely disliked was when people started chanting "revolution, revolution," which made them seem (to me) as childish and unthoughtful. Revolutions involve blood, pain, suffering, and actual fighting, rather than just making use of rights well within that the political system grants you.

Another observation is how accommodating the police were: apparently it had been cleared with them before, because there was a police van in front of the march slowly moving forward, and farther ahead the police were clearing the way, making sure that the roads we were to march on were cleared off from traffic. I found this an interesting contrast to the reaction of police in the United States to (peaceful) crowds shouting "revolution" and "the people united will never be defeated."

Even though I haven't much more thought to write down, I took a bunch of pictures, so I will share some of them here, with the full collection going to my picasa album.