Parallel Protests

I haven't written for quite some time, but I have A LOT of thoughts about yesterday's protest rally against our government's involvement and complicity in America's war on Iran, on the harbourside of my home city Bristol, and I need to put them somewhere. My gorgeous girlfriend is always a loving and listening ear and sharing it all with her will always be a healthy and happy way of processing the mental and emotional weight, but getting it straight in my brain to share means writing it all down in straight lines, so, here we are and thanks for being here.

For reasons ranging from - depending on whose social media you watch - wanting oil, Islamophobia, or distracting the world from abuse accusations against the rich and powerful, to trying to kick off the war talked about in their bible's book of Revelation; USA, with the complicity and collaboration of UK, are waging war on Iran.

And "leftie social justice warriors and woke activists" in Bristol don't like when our government does that without consent or mandate, and are really good at organising community solidarity events. Especially ones that vastly outnumber the dozen-or-so flag-wavers and sweary-football-chanters on the side of Islamophobia in the name of patriotism, singing tunelessly along to, inexplicably, YMCA through a fuzzy mike and bluetooth speaker, to try and drown out the actual Iranian people passionately and intelligently addressing out crowd of five times as many people.

That was a very long sentence, with a lot of the information I needed to get in here all spilling out one word after another. So let me lay out more detail, more spaced out for thought.

There were enough speakers given the mike to address us for 5 minutes each, and my foggy brain had already had a long enough day, that I'm sorry but I'm not going to be able to remember anyone's names. What I m going to share as the most memorable, is the contrast between two speakers:

One, an Iranian woman, shared with us pretty passionately the better understanding of Iran's situation that she has than the view our local or national news will give us: That, although the 1979 revolution is publicised as an Islamic takeover imposing a theocratic regime, many stereotypes and trademarks of it that we're shown - like the Hijab - are actually pre-Islamic traditions; the current administration has widespread public support especially among women; and regardless, they don't want western imperialist interference that will cost lives and actively impede any political progress they're trying to make.

The other, a white man representing Your Party - whom I had great hopes for but, after listening to who representing them here, am very disappointed - tried to say that he stands in solidarity with the Iranian people's right to make their own choices free of western imperialist interference... even if he completely disagrees with what they do with their freedom. Unfortunately in the process of pushing the last point he completely undermined and overshadowed the first, carrying on talking through complaints from us in the crowd that he, as a white man who had no firsthand experience, was talking over and invalidating an Iranian woman who did.

The highlight, even though I share little to no common ground with his beliefs, was the invitation to be included in the sunset call to prayer and breaking of the Ramadan fast by a Muslim city councillor.

The lowlight was the fact that, as we went home having been inspired by the speeches we'd been given, the fewer of us there were the more the fake patriots felt emboldened by being less outnumbered, more protected by local police, and a lot more drunk. And since myself and a Palestinian woman - joining me in waving the Palestinian flag with one arm and my Progress Pride flag with the other - were the last ones to leave, since we both with a nod agreed to outlast their ever-more-abusive football-chanting; the chanting patriots seemed to have forgotten even the small handful of Iranian people right next to them, and decided to switch from their racist and sexist chants to homophobic and transphobic chants instead. When they could get whole coherent phrases out, that is.

To the lady police officer who'd (a) decided it was best to have her whole team facing to protect that little mob from us and our pacifism, rather than facing to protect our majority crowd from their blatant hate speech; and (b) decided to chastise me for giving the middle finger to their hate speech, rather than chastising them for the hate speech: (a) Why? and (b) Why?

To the lady who gave me a high five and a hug after we outlasted them and they drifted off home, leaving us as representatives of the pro freedom and passivist activist side as the last people standing, with our Palestinian and Progress Pride flags being the last sign the event had happened: Thank you.

Despite the lack of legal and medical support; and the false impression that transphobia is the majority mob opinion, that you'll get from both mainstream media and social media; I've been privileged to never actually have to face off in person against any transphobes in public and in daylight. Like every other aspect of gender transition, it's draining but it's worth it.

Palestinian freedom, Iranian independence, and protecting and providing for transgender people, are parallel fights, with flags more often raised parallel than apart.

All of them are majorities despite the media; each of them have support and solidarity with the others; and all of them are worth it, no matter how much energy they drain.