Fear

I'm afraid. Actually I'm bloody terrified.

The police tell us that they've found the group who planted the bombs in London. They say it was four boys from Yorkshire, who inexplicably left identification at the bomb sites, which miraculously survived. It's not impossible that the police have the culprits - with all the pressure to quickly find a scapegoat, they may still have the real criminals.

Tomorrow, the Stop The War Coalition are holding a nationwide series of simultainious rallies. Two minutes silence, sandwiched by speeches about how violence and terror create only more violence and terror. I've been asked to read some short poems at the local one.

I'm afraid it's going to be fifteen frightened people in a town square amongst a hostile public. I know it will be attacked as opportunism, and I'm afraid it will appear weak and tokenistic. I know it will be willfully misunderstood by some, and I'm afraid of people who not only read The Sun and The Mail but actually believe it.

Muslims aren't being hospitalised, but they are being harassed.
-----
At tonight's meeting, there were reports back from the Edinburough protests. The night before, the police went around arresting coach drivers, detaining them for a few hours, and letting them go without charge. There is a law that coach and train drivers are forbidden to drive for 24 hours after release.

The BBC were persuaded to announce that the marches had been cancelled. Completely untrue, of course. The police set up road blocks, forcing coaches and cars to take a sixty mile detour. The gridlocking was blamed on 'anarchist sitdown protests'. They stopped cars and individuals at random, searching 'for drugs' or for nothing.

Typical police, combining nasty tricks and bursts of brutality with a surprising ineptness. Hoards of them with horses and dogs in otherwise empty fields, leaving holes in their net a mile wide.
-----
I'm not worried about being hit with a bomb. I'm nervous about making a token gesture in front of an unthinkingly hostile public. I'm afraid of what might happen next.

I don't want to be involved.