The English and their love affair with strikes, protests, and general unrest

Saturday began as a normal Saturday in London does: I went to Portobello Road with my friend Ashley, got annoyed by the hordes of tourists (as if I wasn’t one myself three short months ago, and probably would still be considered one), and we headed to Oxford Street to search for a maxi dress. There were hordes of people there, too, but instead of wielding cameras and fanny-packs (okay, okay: I didn’t actually see anyone wearing a fanny pack at Portobello), they had signs and chants. We had run into part of the strike.

Londoners (and people from all over England) were protesting about government cuts in the public sector, and they planned to march from Victoria Station through the city, ending in Hyde Park. But the mood at Oxford Circus, where Ashley and I eventually drifted to, was a little tenser. It was mostly younger people, and they weren’t marching—they were standing in a huge clump in the center of Oxford Circus, waving signs that read “We Are Fucking Angry” and “Globalise Resistance.” They were chanting at the police; they were climbing on traffic lights and the entrance to the Tube. Although Ashley and I didn’t witness it, they had also thrown paint and smashed windows at Topshop, who they accused of dodging taxes and therefore contributing to the need to cut public sector jobs.

Eventually, we made our way down Regent Street, and things got a little heavier. A bunch of police vans (at least 12, probably) lined one side of the street; as the vans moved, the mass of people moved to block them from continuing, chanting “Our streets!” When the riot police got out of the vans, the crowd quickly conceded that these were, in fact, the police’s streets too, and the crowd broke up. A scuffle and some cheering broke out outside a shop on the other side of the street; I turned around to see a cop draw his billy club and enter the fray. (I don’t think he probably used it, but it was still surprising to see.) Ashley and I, cameras drawn, continued toward the main march. We saw Fortnum and Mason, a London-owned specialty food store, get its windows smashed, and saw where protesters had earlier smashed windows at the Ritz.

Much later in the night, after I’d met Lisa and her sister, we were coming back into central from Lisa’s flat in south London, and we got off at Charing Cross station. We exited the station via the rail station instead of the usual exit into Trafalgar Square. We were trying to get our bearings when we looked to our left; across the entire street, a line of police with riot shields were standing, ready to hold their ground. A man came up to us and handed us papers that, in intimidating letters, read “BUST CARD”, detailing what rights we had in court and jail. “In case you get arrested tonight,” he said.

Even the most level-headed of ex-pats would’ve been paranoid, especially considering the rumors we all heard about abroad students’ run-ins with police. (“They’ll deport you on sight if you’re caught at a protest!” our overly cautious program coordinators had told us.) I was certainly in a frenzy, and we high-tailed it out of the area. But I went to bed that night with a sense of energy and love for the city I hadn’t had before. Don’t get me wrong: I’m thrilled that I didn’t end up in jail…but I certainly gained a newfound respect for Londoner’s love of civil unrest.