CND
- HYDE PARK '83
October 1983 saw CND's
much vaunted national demonstration take place in London coinciding
with other similar-sized demonstrations in West Germany, Italy,
Spain, Belgium and France. 'Oct 22 Where will you be?' asked
all the many CND posters distributed and published in newspapers and
magazines throughout the land. Come the day, over 250,000 people
answered by turning up for the start of the march at Victoria
Embankment from where they would wend their way to the mass rally in
Hyde Park.
There was no denying, it
was an impressive turnout that sent a clear message to the Thatcher
government. Not that they were ever going to listen, of course, but
if nothing else it must have taken them by surprise to actually see
the sheer amount of support that CND had garnered. If only those same
numbers had turned up for Stop The City?
For the more
clear-sighted, however, it wasn't so much about communicating any
message to those in power but more about communicating with each
other. Those out marching that day were communicating to the people
next to them, letting them as well as themselves know that they
weren't alone.
Peace and a world free
from nuclear weapons wasn't some strange, naïve notion but something
that thousands upon thousands of people from all walks of life both
believed in and sought. The problem being that the communicating and
the dialogue needed to be extended and moved up a gear because
however loud the plea for peace was, it was falling on deaf ears and
for all the marching, it was getting nowhere.
As the protesters poured
into Hyde Park, the focal point was the stage from where various
members of the CND leadership spoke, all giving each other a mutual
pat on the back for the huge and successful turnout. The overriding
message was that the nuclear madness had to end but there was no
evidence the leaders of the Western world or their counterparts in
the East would ever be swayed no matter how many people CND might
gather under their banner. Whether it be 250,000 or 500,000 people
marching on the streets, there was no tipping point in sight.
On that day it became
apparent that the solution lay not in talking to politicians and
leaders but in talking to each other; to family, to neighbours, to
the people marching next to you. Power lay sideways not upwards.
Change would come horizontally not vertically.
The keynote speaker at
the rally should really have been the Hiroshima survivor who was
there in attendance but was instead newly elected Labour leader, Neil
Kinnock, whose proffered solution to the siting of Cruise missiles
and the end of the arms race was the voting in of a Labour
government. Put your faith in him as elected leader, he advised, and
nuclear armageddon would be thwarted.
The very idea was not
only preposterous but insulting and the gathered Punks and anarchists
at the front of the stage – many of whom had been at Stop The City
– let Kinnock know it by pelting him with clumps of mud, sticks,
bottles and cans. Teams of police and CND stewards rushed forward to
protect Kinnock from the missile throwers, resulting in a
near-pitched battle between the two sides.
The missile throwers were
predictably condemned by many of the peaceniks for attacking Kinnock
though it wouldn't be too long before Kinnock not only stopped being
a signed-up CND member but also changing his stance on nuclear
weapons from outright ban to 'negotiated reductions', therefore
proving the missile throwers perfectly correct in their appraisal of
him and their hostility perfectly justified.
As first indicated by The
Apostles on their Blow It Up, Burn It Down' EP earlier in the year
and then evidenced at Stop The City, something was stirring in the
Punk ranks, underlined on that day at Hyde Park not only by the
bottling of Neil Kinnock but also by a fanzine-styled newspaper being
sold there entitled Class War; its front cover depicting a field of
crosses, emblazoned with the headline: 'We have found new homes
for the rich.'....
