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localfreakWell the Local Lurgy continues - Mum has got it, Nanny has got it, it continues to linger mostly quietly-but-painfully in my tonsils which is copeable provided it DOES NOT GO ANYWHERE ELSE OR GET ANY WORSE. Seriously. Curtain up on Thursday for our three-day theatre run of Hamlet and I do not need to be sicker for that.
Yesterday I went to Liverpool to participate in the Liverpool Stands With American Women march and kind of spammed my social media about it. I actually know the organiser, who spoke on Radio 4 yesterday(!). I've just been re-watching the speeches I recorded and I really am so glad I went. I hadn't been sure I'd be able to get there in time. People came for many reasons- many of the speakers touched on their own causes and local concerns- the effects of Brexit on women's rights in the workplace and employment, the possible closure of the local Women's hospital, issues about Local Authority cuts outsourcing rape and emergency services to bad-rep companies like G4S, but ultimately their reasons were the same as mine. I went because I have friends in America, and they are scared right now. There are people young and old who are scared for what this regime means for themselves and their loved ones, who are scared at what this symbolises- an erosion of human rights and human safety and of bigots, triumphantly feeling they have the right to victimise, assault and hurt others and The Law- or at least The President- would back them up, is on their side. I went because I wanted to stand there so that all of those people can see that they have friends in other countries- in their own country- and all over the world and we want to help them, we want to be there for them and we want them to know THEY ARE NOT ALONE.
We have of late experienced some of that fear, on a smaller scale, when Brexit and the Farages and UKIP twats of this world won the vote- creating a climate of fear and racism and bigotry on a scale that I have never before seen in my real life. A friend of mine tells me when she goes out running her parents now warn her "be careful, don't go out in the dark, there are immigrants around" - never mind THE WHOLE TOWN has always been 'full of immigrants'- it was formed, not even that long ago, for and with migrant workers from Ireland, Poland, Greece... *sigh*
I hope that anyone who saw our march understood that. I hope that anyone seeing the tweets, particularly those who were too scared to march or their communities to unsafe for them to do so, saw an embrace the whole world was offering. It is sympathy. It is empathy. It is resistance and- I hope- it is hope.
Yesterday I went to Liverpool to participate in the Liverpool Stands With American Women march and kind of spammed my social media about it. I actually know the organiser, who spoke on Radio 4 yesterday(!). I've just been re-watching the speeches I recorded and I really am so glad I went. I hadn't been sure I'd be able to get there in time. People came for many reasons- many of the speakers touched on their own causes and local concerns- the effects of Brexit on women's rights in the workplace and employment, the possible closure of the local Women's hospital, issues about Local Authority cuts outsourcing rape and emergency services to bad-rep companies like G4S, but ultimately their reasons were the same as mine. I went because I have friends in America, and they are scared right now. There are people young and old who are scared for what this regime means for themselves and their loved ones, who are scared at what this symbolises- an erosion of human rights and human safety and of bigots, triumphantly feeling they have the right to victimise, assault and hurt others and The Law- or at least The President- would back them up, is on their side. I went because I wanted to stand there so that all of those people can see that they have friends in other countries- in their own country- and all over the world and we want to help them, we want to be there for them and we want them to know THEY ARE NOT ALONE.
We have of late experienced some of that fear, on a smaller scale, when Brexit and the Farages and UKIP twats of this world won the vote- creating a climate of fear and racism and bigotry on a scale that I have never before seen in my real life. A friend of mine tells me when she goes out running her parents now warn her "be careful, don't go out in the dark, there are immigrants around" - never mind THE WHOLE TOWN has always been 'full of immigrants'- it was formed, not even that long ago, for and with migrant workers from Ireland, Poland, Greece... *sigh*
I hope that anyone who saw our march understood that. I hope that anyone seeing the tweets, particularly those who were too scared to march or their communities to unsafe for them to do so, saw an embrace the whole world was offering. It is sympathy. It is empathy. It is resistance and- I hope- it is hope.
no subject
Date: 2017-02-02 07:47 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2017-02-04 08:53 pm (UTC)