Ash Wednesday, Charcoal and Condi Rice – pictures from Ash Wednesday in London on 6th February 2008, with an Ash Wednesday Witness and prayer against War at the Ministry of Defence and a Downing Street protest against a visit by US warmonger and then US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. A week tomorrow, on Ash Wednesday Wednesday 14th February 2024, Pax Christi together with Christian CND and others will again be meeting at 3.30pm for a similar witness against war.
Ash Wednesday Liturgy of Repentance and Resistance – Ministry of Defence, Whitehall
Pax Christi, Catholic Peace Action and Christian CND began their an annual liturgy of Repentance and Resistance around the Ministry of Defence in protest against the continued reliance on nuclear weapons on Ash Wednesday 1982, 42 years ago, and the 2008 event was their 26th.
Looking back at the pictures I made in 2008 has a particular resonance for me, in that two of those in them are people that I knew who have died in the past couple of years. One was the well-known peace campaigner Bruce Kent who I’d photographed at various events since around 1990 if not earlier and though I didn’t know him well we often exchanged a few words when I took his photograph and had a little joke in recent years. Bruce died in June 2022 and in March 2023 I photographed Jeremy Corbyn planting a memorial tree to him in Finsbury Park.
The other was a family friend who died recently and we were disappointed other appointments meant we were not be able to go to his funeral last week. He also appears in a some of my photographs of this and other peace events, sometimes singing in the Raised Voices choir.
Although the ministry and nearby buildings such as the Old War Office were surrounded by police – rather as if they were expecting a massive attack, the police made no attempt to disperse what was undoubtedly an illegal unauthorised protest under the terms of SOCPA. They did hold a couple of people they caught writing on the walls of the Old War Office, and were at least threatening to charge one of them with causing damage to the building, but otherwise watched benignly, at least until I left to catch my train shortly before the liturgy had finished.
The most moving part of the liturgy was outside the Defence Ministry, where a wooden cross was laid on sackcloth. Ashes were sprinkled on it, and then while those present chanted a ‘litany of the martyrs’, including the names of Franz Jaegerstaetter, Dorothy Day, Martin Luther King, Oscar Romero and Mary Lampard, 21 ‘Theses for today’s church’ by Philip Berrigan were read and then nailed to the cross.
A couple of hundred ‘Stop the War’ demonstrators were on the pavement facing Downing Street. They had come with a clear message to give Condoleezza Rice, that it was time for the US to get out of other people’s affairs in other countries.
However there was no sign of Condi, who had obviously avoided using the front entrance to miss the protesters, either entering by the back entrance or through another Government building, possibly making use of the extensive network of tunnels underneath Whitehall.
A large crowd of press photographers were also waiting impatiently opposite the front door of Number 10, waiting for her to appear for a press call along with Gordon Brown, but I think they were waiting until after the protesters dispersed.
I could have joined them, but although the press likes to use pictures taken in front of the famous door I find the great majority of them supremely boring. And I don’t carry the long heavy lenses you really need for the situation to take the one in a million images that has some interest. It’s been years since I bothered to go through the security check and into Downing Street.
From My London Diary for 30th January 2011, with minor amendments. You can see many more pictures with the original post.
Several thousand Shia Muslims came to Marble Arch on 30th January 2011 for the 30th annual Arbaeen (Chelum) procession in London, commemorating the sacrifice made by the grandson of Mohammed, Imam Husain, killed with his family and companions at Kerbala in 680AD. Arbaeen takes place 40 days after Ashura, the day commemorating the martyrdom and marks the end of the traditional 40 days of mourning. After prayers and recitations they paraded along Park Lane in a ceremony of mourning.
Imam Husain is seen by Shia Muslims as making a great stand against the oppression of a tyrant and representing the forces of good against evil. Husain and his small group of supporters were hugely outnumbered but chose to fight to the death for their beliefs rather than to compromise. Their stand is a symbol of freedom and dignity, and an aspiration to people and nations to strive for freedom, justice and equality.
Arbaeen is also said to commemorate the return of the wives and families of those killed – who were marched away as captives to Damascus after the massacre – to Kerbala to mourn the dead after their release around a year later.
Millions now attend the annual Arbaeen event in Kerbala (though it was banned while Saddam Hussein was in power) and the London event attracts Muslims from all over the UK, although numbers this year seemed rather fewer than in some previous years.
The Hussaini Islamic Trust UK first organised this annual procession since 1982, making it the oldest Arbaeen/Chelum Procession of Imam Husain in the west. It was the first annual Muslim procession in Central London and is still one of the larger annual Muslim processions in the UK. It is held on the Sunday closest to Arbaeen.
The procession includes several large replicas of the shrines of Karbala; known as Shabbih, these gold and silver models are over 10 feet high and the largest in Europe. There was also a decorated and blood-stained white horse or Zuljana representing the horse of Imam Husain, a cradle remembering his 6 month old child Hazrat Ali Asghar who was also murdered and a coffin.
The day started at Marble Arch with prayers and recitation which were followed by speeches in English, Arabic and Urdu before the procession set off. I missed some of this as I was busy covering another event, but returned shortly after the procession set off down Park Lane.
Groups among the men chanted and all those marching beat their chests as a token of mourning, most in a symbolic rather than very physical manner, but as the procession made its way down the road some were soon stripped to the waist and beating themselves vigorously, producing red marks and some drawing blood.
The women marched in a tightly packed separate group at the rear of the march, held back by a number of women stewards and pushing the cradle and one of the Shabbih. Like the men they chanted and made gestures of mourning. Although they were almost all dressed in black, many of them were carrying standards and flags, and some had some brightly coloured embroidery and headscarves.
After the march there are light refreshments provided, but I left before that, catching a bus along Park Lane. The procession only occupies one of the three lanes of each of the dual carriageways and traffic keeps flowing throughout, although with some slight delays.
More pictures from this event in 2011at Shia Muslims 30th Arbaeen Procession. I photographed this procession in other years from 2007 to 2012 and you can find pictures from these by entering Arbaeen in the search box on My London Diary.
As I mention in the account above, I left the march to photograph another protest, in Oxford St, a short walk away from Marble Arch. Around 50 UK Uncut activists dressed as doctors and nurses a staged a peaceful protest in Boots in Oxford St against their avoidance of UK tax, closing the store. You can read about it in UK Uncut Protest Boots Tax Scam.
Blessing the Thames London Bridge, Sunday 11th January, 2009
The Bishop of Woolwich throws a cross into the River Thames – below another cross in the sky
Fr Philip Warner was impressed by the annual Blessing of the Waters ceremony he saw in the Orthodox churches of Serbia. When he became the priest at St Magnus the Martyr at the City end of the old London Bridge he decided to begin an annual ceremony to bless the River Thames.
The procession from Southwark Cathedral
His parish and that of Southwark Cathedral meet at the centre of the current London Bridge, and in 2004 processions from both churches met there on the Sunday closest to Epiphany (January 6th) for a short service.
The procession from St Magnus the Martyr comes to join them
Prayers were said for all those who work on the river and in particular for those killed close to this point in the 1989 sinking of the Marchioness. Incense was swung around liberally, but dispersed by the breeze. The river was then blessed by throwing in a large wooden cross. Water was then sprinkled over those taking part in the ceremony before all those present were invited to process to one of the churches for a lunch.
They meet
I photographed this event in 2007 and 2008 as well as 2009, though it was only in 2008 that I was able to stay for the lunch, that year at St Magnus. By the third of these years the event had grown, with too many photographers, mainly amateurs, coming along and getting both in my way and in the way of those celebrating. I felt I had already taken enough pictures by then and crossed it off my list of annual events to cover.
The bishop prepares to throw the cross in the river
When I first began photographing events in London, both protests and cultural events, there were few photographers at most of them except the large national marches. At many smaller events I would find myself the only person with a camera, and of course everything was still on film. But in the last 15 or so years things have changed.
And we all get sprinkled with water
Back then even when there were more of us taking pictures we were all photographers and at least doing so in a professional way. We tried to respect the others and so far as possible keep out of each others way, though of course that wasn’t always possible. Sometimes there were arguments between those of us who liked to work close to our subjects with wide-angle lenses and those who carried giant, heavy, usually white, telephoto zooms and always wanted to use them from a distance. But generally we worked together.
And everyone (except me) goes back to Southwark Cathedral for lunch
Then came cheap digital cameras and camera phones. Everyone now has something that can take picture, and can readily share them on social media. And there has been huge movement from taking still images to recording video. Video leads to a different attitude, with many becoming unaware of anything outside the screen of their phone around them. At any event now I can be sure that at least one person will walk in front of my lens talking into their phone totally oblivious of my presence and blocking my view.
Of course I don’t claim any special right to take pictures, and others have the same rights as me. But unless we respect the rights of others it becomes difficult and frustrating to work; we have to work together.
In 2009 I was sorry not to have time to stay for the lunch at Southwark Cathedral, particularly as two of my friends were present, one a frequent worshipper there. But there were a couple of protests to photograph. The first was a march by Hizb ut-Tahrir Britain against the Israeli attacks on Gaza, aimed at Arab dictators who collude with Israeli terrorism and going to Egyptian, Syrian and Saudi Embassies.
And it was the 11th of January, and the anniversary of the setting up of the US torture camp at Guantanamo in 2004 was marked by a late afternoon protest at the US Embassy, still then in Grosvenor Square.
On 28th September 2013, disabled activists and supporters came to Parliament Square for ‘10,000 Cuts & Counting’, a ceremony of remembrance and solidarity for over 10,000 who died shortly after the degrading Work Capability Assessments run for the government by Atos.
The figure of 10,000 is the number who died in the 3 months following the degrading Atos-administered tests used by the government intended to assess the needs of people receiving benefits related to disability and ill health. The campaigners are not claiming that the test itself killed people, although some have been driven to commit suicide after being failed by Atos, but that such tests administered in the final days of life are unfeeling, unnecessary and persecute the sick and dying.
At the event we heard moving personal testimonies by disabled people and a mother of three disabled children, with many damning indictments of the failures of Atos and the Department of Work and Pensions, both failing to understand the needs of the disabled and not treating them with dignity and humanity, and of deliberately discriminatory policies, arbitrary decisions and bureaucratic incompetence.
Parliament Square was covered with 10,000 while flowers, one for each of the dead, and there was 2 minutes of silent remembrance for those who have suffered and died.
The silence was followed by four prayers facing the four sides of the square; prayers facing Westminster Abbey for the families of those who have suffered and disabled people still suffereing or despairing; facing the Supreme Court calling for justice and compassion for those without resources and power and for an end to discrimination and violence against the disabled; towards the Treasury calling on those in national and local government who decide on the use of resources to take into account the effect on people of what they do; and finally towards Parliament, calling for a new deal for disabled people and to put right the evident wrongs in the current system.
Unfortunately the prayers were not heard by those in power. The government’s response? They stopped issuing the figures on which this event was based.
All photographs on this and my other sites, unless otherwise stated, are taken by and copyright of Peter Marshall, and are available for reproduction or can be bought as prints.
There was a strong reason to hold the vigil for the victims of the Christchurch mosque attacks outside the offices of The Sun newspaper. Murdoch’s papers have for years led the promotion of xenophobic views on immigration, on Europe and of simplistic right-wing views around the world, along with the misogyny exemplified by its ‘page 3’.
As I wrote in My ‘London Diary’:
Increasing numbers of Islamophobic incidents are taking place in the USA, Nigeria, Palestine, China and the UK, fueled by extreme right groups who are encouraged and emboldened by Islamophobic articles in newspapers, across the whole of the right-wing UK press, but particularly The Sun and other Murdoch titles worldwide who have engaged in a long campaign of demonisation of Muslims, and on our major broadcast media as well as on social media.
You can see many more pictures from the event there.
I had taken both my Nikon D801 and the fairly newly bought Olympus E-M5MarkII with me, and began the event working mainly with the Olympus, which coped well in the fading light. But when it got really dark I began to severely underexpose with the Olympus, largely I think because I was simply unfamiliar with the camera.
Given that the viewfinder image comes from the sensor, I had assumed that if the viewfinder image looked good, the pictures recorded would be OK. But it didn’t seem to work like that, or at least not on the camera settings I was using. Even after using the camera regularly for over 3 months I still find its behaviour rather a mystery at times.
Of course almost all modern cameras are greatly over-complex, overloaded with features largely driven by the advertising departments. Even though I find using either of my two currently working Nikons generally straightforward, they can still throw in the occasional oddball when using flash. But I have much greater problems with both Olympus and Fuji mirrorless cameras, though rather different with the two makes.
But the Nikon D810 performed without problems, producing all of the usable later pictures using the available light, mainly from the candles. Part of the reason it worked better was undoubtedly that because I was using a wider lens I was also using a slower shutter speed, around 1/15s though that did mean a few images were spoiled by subject movement.
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All photographs on this and my other sites, unless otherwise stated, are taken by and copyright of Peter Marshall, and are available for reproduction or can be bought as prints.
