The Hill - October 16, 2000

The Hill - October 16, 2000

Today is the World March of Women. I wanted to include a segment in my piece about the Hill about protest. One of the significant things about Parliament Hill is that it's a place where people can go to try to make their voices heard.

I've gone to a few protests this year. Most of them happen at noon. I guess that's because it's the time when protestors have the best chance of having an MP see them. The first protest I went to was a small, maybe twenty people or so. It was a protest tied in to international World Trade Organization talks, which were happening in Latin America somewhere ... Colombia, I think. I also went a protest to pressure for labels on genetically modified foods and a rally organized by the Canadian Federation of Students to call attention to rising tuition fees, cutbacks in education, scarcity of jobs and the whole range of issues that arise when governments cut back on post-secondary education.

Today's protest is by far the largest – 10,000 women, the organizers estimate. It is part of a larger, international march. It is good to see such a large turnout. The march started down in LeBreton flats and it's circling around to the American embassy before heading back to the Hill. I've been walking alongside the marchers for part of the way. It is interesting to watch the difference in protest styles. For every two women who are vocalizing, dancing, waving banners and participating, there is one who is looking and sounding pretty shy about the whole thing. I have noticed this at all the protests I've gone to – there are many people who want to be there but are shy about participating.

But everybody has their own comfort level. It's just good to see so many people out.

I have also noticed that there are key people in each group trying to motivate the rest to keep up the noise level. This is an exercise in creativity – a concerted effort is required to get things moving again once the group runs out of steam. It's hard to sustain good yells, whoops and whistles for an extended period. Especially since the range of chants at any protest march is fairly small. 'So, so, so, soldar-i-ty' is way over-used. We need a whole repertoire of new chants to be used at demonstrations.

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