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This
is a personal document of the protest that took place in London,
UK on September 28th 2002 to stop the war against Iraq. I am an
artist but on this day I was one among 400,000 (or there abouts)
protesters. It seems more relevant these days, for me as an artists,
to jump in with both feet, to be in the middle of a crowd of human
beings when so much of our experience of the world is so passive
and mediated by TV and film.
The bias in the British mass news media is not necessarily political
but circumstantial, determined by the quality of the medium which
lends itself to oversimplification in its presentation of disparate
events, causes and personalities. ' The press coverage of the
recent Peace March through London indicates that nothing has changed.
While John Major's sad indiscrecretions flooded the headlines,
a protest march by close to half a million people passed by almost
unnoticed. The voice of the people cannot be heard in the press,
but on the streets. ' - Penny Rimbaud Independent on Sunday 27th
October 2002.
Before this march I had heard no discussion in the mainstream
media of the international politics of oil supply or of the long
running breaking of UN resolutions by the US and Israeli governments.
It was a new experience for me to be surrounded by such a huge
crowd of culturally mixed people, witnessing real NEWS. This march
also drew together two causes, the protest against the imminent
war against Iraq and the plight of the Palestinians and showed
how enmeshed our world conflicts are.
This document represents for me a cold bath in the historical
and contemporary complexity of human fear, hatred and despair.
We are all contaminated by these emotions. Also an awakening to
the possibilities of creating alternative historical documents
as a kind of anti-propaganda. Too complicated in their presentation
of conflicting interests and disparate justifications to stir
up the emotions in preparation for misplaced activism. The web
browser is the perfect forum for this.
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