Where’s the bottle throwing?
There was a lot of chanting coming from the window, almost drowning out the voice of Julius Caesar himself. Drawn by suspicions of local uprising, I pulled back the windows and pressed my ear to crack in the window. Punctuated by horns and whistles was some kind of mantra… It sounded like they were saying something about pink. So we decided to creep down and find out where all the bonfires were lit.
B lives near the UMP headquarters so he’s used to the cops. But I’m not. Tonight they’re in a straight line before us, facing something I can’t quite make out behind the plastic shields. Are those people or tentacles? Impossible to breach those stony face automatons so we wander around slip behind the arch. Now we’re on the side of the tentacles, strings of people wandering and huddling, some with wine bottles. Closer in the throng grows thicker. Finally piercing from behind four bespectacles large-scarf wearers, the image becomes clear. It’s a regular sit down.
Bodies are strewn up and down the street, all prone and misshapen. Sometimes heads turn but the sea of people lying down in the street remains quite static. Floating above is a banner, something about flowers, sequins and Sarkozy. Thoughtful and thoughtless, young and middle-aged, all those armed with cameras old and digital are flashing away. I’m almost run over by a floppy fringed blond teenager armed with some old plastic dinky point and shoot. He must be in artschool. Then, everyone stands up and starts chanting again.
I guess it’s kind of a nice protest but it reminds me of some dippy multi-scarved freaks I kept seeing creeping off the plane in Kathmandu, their doe-eyed henna glance hiding a frightening yearning for conformity. The election and its accompanying protests bore me to tears. Makes me yearn for the days of bottle throwing and banlieue bastards.
I’m deep into that Sloterdijk critique you recommended. It might do you some good to give it a reread.
trophycase said
I get cynical about protests too…although, I should be more supportive. BUT what drives me out of my tree is the tam-tam drums playing (and of course the people tapping away are white and have dread-locks..) and “Ernesto Rafael Guevara”: Le Che, is present in some way shape or form at everrrrrrry protest around the world.
delphine
delphine said
What’s wrong with white people having dreadlocks, considering the first dreadlocks originated from Celtic Ireland and Scotland…………???
Truth said