davidgillon: A pair of crutches, hanging from coat hooks, reflected in a mirror (Default)
Had an interesting come-down from Saturday's excitement yesterday, a friend did warn me to beware the inevitable adrenaline crash, it just took a few hours longer to arrive than anticipated.

Thoughts:
I wish I knew if I helped or not. I certainly pulled their attention away from being solely on their victim, which was exactly what I intended to do, but I'm not sure if that helped overall, the situation certainly seemed to become more fraught once I intervened.

I may have seriously scared my friend when I did it, one moment I'm next to her, the next I've walked straight into a bunch of fascists and am yelling at them. I'll have to talk to her about it, I may owe her an apology.

I really, really, utterly loathe losing my temper. This is tied up with childhood bullying that was deliberately directed at making lose my temper, which is truly explosive when it goes (seems to be a family trait). I got it under control of my own accord, to the point even family have forgotten how bad it was, but I haven't, and even when I'm utterly justified in losing it, I hate that it happens. I think there's a balance that remains to be found. And annoyingly the loss of control means I struggle for words when verbally engaging people I could write circles around. (Of course this whole personal history thing is one of the reasons I loathe bullying with every shred of my being).

I think I was slightly too pleased with myself. I still think I did what needed doing, but a bit too pleased with the praise. More humility needed, I think.

OTOH, I do wish more people had come and stood beside her while it was happening. Half a dozen people arrived as soon as they had gone - a couple justifiably as they'd looked out of the windows of upstairs flats and had to run down to the street, but someone else said 'we were going to pile in if they touched you, but you seemed to be holding your own,' maybe she was, but that was one young, slight black woman facing down the better part of a dozen fascists, him, his mate, and the three uniformed squaddies they were drinking with standing shoulder to shoulder with her would have made a better show of standing up for what being British really means. And if people did that everywhere, then there would be no place for the fascists to peddle their hate.

And I'm absolutely not telling my mother about this, it would scare her half to death!

davidgillon: Text: You can take a heroic last stand against the forces of darkness. Or you can not die. It's entirely up to you" (Heroic Last Stand)
It's bad enough we have UKIP on the streets of Rochester because of the by-election, but today we had the fascists of BritainFirst blaring patriotic songs and waving Union Flags and the St George's Crosses in front of the War Memorial.

The friend I was with was shopping in the grocer's across the street and I was quietly seething at everything they were doing - when they started playing Jerusalem I commented that it was like Springtime for Hitler In Germany come to life and that they'd have been better off with Wagner.

They were leaving as we came out of the shop and I realised that 8-10 of them had surrounded a young black woman who was sitting on the wall. Apparently they had demanded to know if she was English. She was holding her own, but she was one small woman surrounded by 8-10 racist thugs, all but one of them male. I just though 'Oh, Hell' and walked into the middle of it, gesturing with my crutch and saying 'There's none of you ever more than 5 seconds away from becoming a minority and being attacked in the street by people like you.'  I certainly didn't calm the situation, but I diverted half of them on to me, and I had the chance to tell them that I despised them, that I particularly despised them parading in front of the memorial to people who died fighting against everything they stood for, and that if they really love everything England stands for then they should emigrate ;)

It went back and forth for about five minutes, with amongst other stuff the Britain First woman (ETA: who I've now identified as their candidate and deputy leaderr Jayda Fransen) trying to claim mosques were centres of terrorism, but a couple of them (they'd be the really dangerous ones) realised that being seen harassing a slight young woman and a disabled guy probably wasn't the image they wanted (though it's the only one they'll ever have) and they beat a retreat.

I imagine they'll claim they weren't harassing anyone, but that's belied by how upset their victim was afterwards (and kudos to her for standing up to them).

One of the people who came up afterwards (and if I have the right guy he's a local folksinger who writes some absolutely haunting stuff about social deprivation in Medway) commented that the UKIP supporters and the England First thugs had been being very pally with each other earlier - takes one to know one, I guess....

I'd been thinking about Pastor Niemoller's prayer while I was watching them, I guess I passed.

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davidgillon: A pair of crutches, hanging from coat hooks, reflected in a mirror (Default)
David Gillon

March 2025

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