Anti-Racist Rally in Cork, Ireland 04/03/2023

Some thoughts about the Anti-Racist Rally in Cork on Saturday, 4 March 2023. New experience for me, coming from Greece, where things are different.

I will first mention what you did NOT have to worry about in this demonstration.

No need to be wearing black – and only black – to mingle with the crowd (for obvious reasons). No need to leave your smart phone at home, before calling your mother to tell her where you are going – making her worried sick all day long, though a necessary sacrifice in case you end up in a police station and she has to get you out. No need to write on your arm, with a permanent marker, the name, surname, and phone number of your lawyer. No need to count heads afterwards to see if everyone is there. No tear gas; so no need for Maalox. No need to break pavements for ammunition. No wooden clubs disguised as flags. No full-face masks. No gas masks. No helmets. No empties and all the other necessary ingredients. No fireworks. No slings. No innocent garbage bins on fire for barricades. No broken ribs noses heads and other fragile necessary body parts. No kids and elderly at home because the centre has become a battlefield once again. No women harmed in any way. No fifteen-year-old kids dead by the guns of cops. No men dead by the knives of Nazis.

Instead of that: colourful clothes, music, singing, clapping, smiling faces, witty placards (especially the one about Father Ted), kids, elderly people, people with special needs; the police were only a handful, unarmed, and seemed to be guarding us instead of the others; and the horrible thing is that, this kind of demonstration struck me as absurd in the beginning; that, from being so used to violence, and that’s another discussion.

Even the people from the other side did not seem very threatening, in comparison always to the ogres back home.

I hope, I really hope, that demonstrations here will stay that way. A celebration of life and difference (and a bit of swearing).

The most violent thing I noticed was a guy taking out an egg from his pocket and showing it to his friends, conveying to them, with a nasty smile, his intentions. (oh, the slow spreading of the yoke and the white after the cracking of the shell on a cleanly shaven round empty head).

Anyway, to tell you the truth, the initial reason for going to the demonstration was to meet a girl. It was when I realized the purpose of the demonstration that I ended up in the front row tearing my vocal cords apart for a good purpose. Spotted her amidst the crowd; she is lovely.

Proud of being part of this city.