Act Of Defiance

Protesters stage ‘die-in’ to challenge climate change sceptics

There where about twenty people, maybe a few more. After a few minutes, a couple of security gaurds came and asked us to move. Apparently, the bricked area around the outside of the central market is private property! Luckily the paved area alongside the Gardening Club is still publicly owned, and also happens to be directly outside the entrance to the International Policy Network’s offices.

Phil Thornhill dressed as the Grim Reaper, and a few people had paper grave stones with various causes of death written on them. We attached a couple of posters to the columns either side of the IPN’s doorway and then lay down on the pavement with Phil standing in the middle. There where several people handing out flyers, and a couple of banners. Lots of people where walking past “whats going on?”, “dunno, some kind of protest”. After a minute or two a couple of kids came and joined in; then left, “My dad only lets me protest for a minute at a time”, “right, thats it, I’ve done my bit”.

It was quite an odd feeling lying down on the pavement there, I had to close my eyes a bit because of the sun. I tried to just relax, and look dead. But I had to ocassionally lift my head up and look around a little; even so, you can’t see much from foot level in a busy place.

A chap dressed all in black came out of the Gardening Club and told us we had to move as we where blocking his fire exit. I thought about explaining to him that we weren’t actually dead and would move fairly sharpish if a fire alarm went off, rather than letting ourselves get trampled.

“If you don’t move, I’m going to call the police, you have sixty seconds then I’m going to call the police”
“ok, go on”
“how long are we going to be here? We’ll be gone by the time they arrive”
“who is up for staying till they drag us away”
“they won’t, we are allowed to be here”

Poor guy. In the event, after another couple of minutes it started to rain quite hard. So we all stood up and huddled in the IPN’s entrance way. I got bored and left.