More videos from Luton
Here is another video from the Luton manifestation. This is a good one. I like the intensity.
Here are all the videos in this series.
Watching it, I can't help but thinking of Tiananmen Square 1989. First of all the same demonization of decent people in our sort of tyranny as under Communism. Secondly how the police are ordinary people, not so different from the young men protesting. Eventually this would demoralize the policemen if the Luton protesters keep going. This happened in Tiananmen Square too. Remember that they had to bring in troops from outside of Beijing to brutally crush the demonstrators (well, we might see that sort of step coming in Luton too...).
Here is another video you should see, which was made before the demonstration, providing all the background, and what the movement stands for. I like it very much.
Hat tip Lionheart. There are loads of more information about this, and more videos, at his site.
5 comments:
Thanks for this great video. I have to admit I'm getting very emotional viewing this. You know, as much as I admire Tienanmen Square, you don't have to go so far in space to see the real face of freedom. The people from Luton (common, working class folks!) have so much in common with the people from Timisoara, the city in Western part of Romania who started the anti-Communist revolution in 1989.
Look at this!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BjaDBYMdDFY
It's pretty amazing! These people started as those in Luton (it's interesting: Ceausescu, before his fall, called them "hooligans"!). Yes, the ones who look like "hooligans" today will be the heroes of freedom tomorrow. The crowd you can see screaming "Libertate!" (freedom! liberty!) in the central square of Timisoara actually started as pariahs, the dissenting voices of the accepted current order.
Sawing those images from Luton, I could see the people from Timisoara on 17-22nd of December 1989. Of course, the West is much more into illusional utopia that we used to be in 1989 (strange, but true). Yet, in spite of that, you can see that freedom (real freedom, not the liberal version of it) is such a powerful force to move the masses. At some point, it will start as in Luton, it will end up as in Timisoara. Because in spite of what Western liberals might say, people still long for REAL freedom and real liberation.
Of course, it's "seeing/watching those... ", not "sawing"!
Thanks Armance for your comment. And yes this is emotional, and there is a build-up here, even though there is still a very long way to go. Timosoara is a a better comparison than Tienanmen Square. Also there the soldiers were eventually demoralized and stopped following orders, after shooting a couple of thousand people. And it ended well.
The question is how much history will repeat itself. Will we see the goons of Jacqui Smith shooting Gordon Brown in front of the cameras? And then see her and her likes declare the end of multiculturalism/PC?
OK, jokes aside. Message to the readers here: The reason why it ended well was that the military power order had gone through a total change around Romania. No Romania (under Ceausescu) was no longer literally occupied by Soviet Union. But Romania had up until 1989 belonged in the Soviet military power sphere, where they could enter as they pleased. Quite as the US today can enter any European country as they please, as they have already done in Serbia.
People who do not understand these very basic realities will never understand the conditions of change.
Anyway, speaking about intensity, if some commenters of this blog see the images from Timisoara, tell me what you think about them. I think it's a very good example of a (revolutionary) situation when people are really fed up with the current order, and when they ask for their natural rights to real freedom. Don't forget: it started as in Luton, with some people called hooligans and treated as hooligans. I think you will see similar images, in a few decades, throughout the major Western cities (a possible avant la lettre illustration of the El Ingles's essays on Gates of Vienna).
I have to admit that Muslims&their liberal allies are perhaps even worse in some aspects than their Communist counterparts, but the wonderful reaction here is that of the common people, of the "crowd", of the humiliated citizens realizing that they have nothing to lose, except dignity and freedom. It's such a reason for hope to see these images now, in 2009, 20 years after the fall of the Iron Curtain. History repeats itself, even if sometimes on a different magnitude. I revere and admire the people from Luton, because I can see in them the folks of Timisoara. Like in Timisoara, it's going to be a bloodshed and a torment, but I can see the signs of a real popular revolt and the roar of a long time suppresed dignity. Morality reemerging, as it's been said.
Actually, I have to disagree. This looks like University Square, Bucharest, 1990, not Timisoara, 1989. In 1990 we had massive protests in my city that took place since January until June and involved thousands of people - they took place every day. The people just wanted to have Iliescu barred from running, just like all the former communist apparatchiks. And well, he called the people a threat to democracy and instead of hooligans, he called them knaves. Anyway, the police couldn't crush the protests, but the Securitate with some manipulated miners(it was either 10 or 20,000, I don't recall right) did so. The president thanked them for their violence and yet didn't serve a day in jail. What is outrageous to me is that I would have been there if I was old enough and then, but I was born a month after it happened. Still, Iliescu deserves nothing but a swift and merciless execution.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RmCR2REua8g
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-zqyEigVQNs
Things were pretty much like that. And ended like this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hbHJZ4E2R80
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HSAZvilm1bU
I still remember this fool saying that the Ceausescu's tarnished the name of the Communist party and the scientific Marxism ideology. lol
By the way, I would like to thank ConSwede for the ambassador his country had in my country because he literally saved my life. I always wonder why nobody makes these movies in English too.
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