The obvious answer to this question is simply that I did not
think that any protest of mine would have any effect. But perhaps that is not
good enough: after all, I am a protester at heart and can demonstrate that by
two stories from the past.
At the peak of the struggle against apartheid in South
Africa I boarded a bus bound for London then joined a huge throng converging on
South Africa House. Our protest march was supposed to be peaceful but, because
our march was halted for many hours, tempers flared, stones were thrown and the
police moved in. In my rush to escape the violence I narrowly avoided being
struck by an enraged and hatless policeman whirling around within the dense
crowd whilst wielding long pole torn, no doubt, from one of our placards,. And,
as I finally emerged from the melee, I was almost trampled underfoot by a large
police horse, its rider urging it into a gallop towards the centre of the aggression.
A few years later, a small group of us attempted to take
Margaret Thatcher to court by accusing her of transgressing the Geneva
Conventions through possession of nuclear arms – which inevitably, of course, would
kill and maim non-combatants if used.
I certainly cannot claim that my contribution to those
protests changed the world, but perhaps every little bit does help. On a more
positive note I was also a keen protester for the return of real ale to the
pubs of Suffolk. This was a success and much more fun – but hardly as
important.
I do not like Trump. And I certainly do not like many of his
extreme proclamations. Nonetheless, stimulated by his coming presidency, I did
sample one of his television programmes. I was not amused or impressed by the hard
talking, the humiliation of contestants and the explicit bullying (keenly
supported, by the way, by the awful, toadying, Piers Morgan). I would not have
given Trump my vote and surmise that I would have grudgingly voted for Mrs
Clinton in order to keep him out.
But I did not have a vote, and that’s the point. The
Americans chose this man as their leader using their own democratic system of
presidential election. And that, of course, is worlds away from the situation
of South Africa in the 1960s where people could not vote solely based on the
colour of their skin. I now await with keen
interest to observe what will evolve from the USA’s choice and hope very much
that it will be good for those whom he claims to represent and also for the UK
and the world at large.
Meanwhile, I do strongly object to the conflation of Trump’s
success and the Brexit vote in the UK. The connections are tenuous to say the
least and the issues quite, quite different. Of course if you are eager to find
links in order to undermine Brexit by association with Trump, you will. I
attended an interesting lecture at Oxford University’s fine new Centre of
Governance last week. It was presented by an American professor of Indian
extraction and attempted to take a more nuanced view of the then President-elect
under the titles: Tantrumps, Trumponics and Trump over the Globe. It was interesting and thought provoking.
Afterwards I had the misfortune to exit the building with a lady who was
unmoved by the talk and thought that the election of Trump was a step towards
the end of the world (though she did not enter the debate itself). In our short
interaction she moved on to attack the outcome of the Brexit referendum at
which point I announced that I, in common with the majority of the UK, had
voted to leave. This brought an uncompromising, alarming and wholly irrational
response: “A vote for Brexit was a vote for Trump”. At which point I left.
We cannot see into the future, most predictions turn out to
be quite wrong: Trump and Brexit are outstanding proofs of that. However, there
is a possible future where Trumponics and ‘America First’ lead to world-wide
recession or, even worse, to war. How would I then respond to a question from
one of my grandchildren: “What did you do about it Rob?” My response would have
to be: “Nothing, because I could not influence it. But I did help to save real
ale.”
