Stop The War – 2nd March 2002. Along with many thousands of others I went to Hyde Park to join the march from there to a rally in Trafalgar Square against any British involvement in the invasion of Iraq by the USA that seemed to be increasingly inevitable.
It certainly wasn’t the first march against the Iraq War I had photographed, and not the first protest against it I had taken part in. As well as those that I photographed there were also local protests close to where I live where we stood with placards and a banner on the busy road bridge across the River Thames at rush hours each Friday.
Almost a year later came the largest protest the UK has ever seen – and I was unable to take part or photograph, having only been discharged from hospital the previous day. The operation had gone well, but I’d collapsed the following night thanks to a problem with a drug which had taken my blood pressure dangerously low, and when I came out several days later I was still weak and shaking. I was devastated to miss the protest, left alone at home while the others went, but walking more than a few yards was still a problem.
Despite the protests – and the clear indications that Tony Blair was lying and the evidence he stressed was fabricated, we went to war with Iraq, and destroyed the country. As with most if not all wars the only people to gain were the arms manufacturers – and the oil giants.
In March 2002, my My London Diary web site was in its early infancy, though I had put up a few pictures from the previous couple of years to fill a few pages. But the Stop The War protest on 2nd March was I think the first story to be covered in any real depth, with a short text and a couple of dozen pictures. I photographed the event on film in black and white and colour, but at the time my scanner could only scan in black and white so there are no colour pictures on line.
Here’s the complete text (apart from some picture captions) and this post is illustrated with a few of the pictures. On the web site these are posted three or four to a page, as internet connections then went at a snail’s pace and pages with more pictures took too long to load.
the Stop the War, Hands off Iraq demonstration on 2 march as a large sign of public opinion. people were still leaving hyde park at the start of the march when trafalgar square was full to overflowing two and a half hours later.
police estimates of the number were risible as usual – and can only reflect an attempt to marginalise the significant body of opinion opposed to the war or a complete mathematical inability on behalf of the police.
tony benn told us it wasn’t worth taking his picture – ‘it won’t get in the papers unless i go and kick a policeman’ but he didn’t and was quite right
My London Diary March 2002
Follow the link from the March 2002 page for more pictures.
Tags: invasion, Iraq, Iraq war, London, march, My London Diary, peter Marshall, protest, Stop the War