Remember, Remember, the 5th of november. Yes, that’s all about that. Every year the 5th of november is one of those days where in central London around Trafalgar Square there is a big demonstration, a lot of Police, people wearing V for Vendetta Masks and at the end the Met arrests some of them. It’s the Million Mask March.
We have been reporting about that last year, and so we did yesterday. The protest has been running since 2012 and since then has been growing pretty fast. But what is actually asking the people of the #MillionMaskMarch? They are protesting against capitalism and social inequality, just to mention few of the main subjects about this march. The 5th of November is the Guy Fawkes night:
*Its history begins with the events of 5 November 1605, when Guy Fawkes, a member of the Gunpowder Plot, was arrested while guarding explosives the plotters had placed beneath the House of Lords. Celebrating the fact that King James I had survived the attempt on his life, people lit bonfires around London, and months later the introduction of the Observance of 5th November Act enforced an annual public day of thanksgiving for the plot’s failure. *Wikipedia
Every year this demonstrations ends with arrests, police abuse of force, riots, some police car burned and other things like that. This year the police, trying to avoid what happened in the past announced some limitations to the protesters. But obviously it did not work and a part of the protests tried to move out of the designated area, walking fast directed to the Parliament and the headquarter of the Conservative Party. The demonstration started at Trafalgar Square in the heart of London in the late afternoon and as the Guardian reported at least between 2 and 4 thousand people have been joining the march.
If at the beginning everything was quite, after an hour something changed: a group of masked guys started the “dance” and they tried to cut the police lines, with the result of a violent clash with the bobbies. It took a while for the Police to get control of the area as the clash continued for hours. During the fight with the police few bins have been burning: but also a Police Car was attacked and burned in front of the mask-fighters. Some people obviously masked have been taking selfies in front of one of the enemy symbol. Few people reported injuries due to the police intervention and the MET reported 3 of their members medicated at the hospital as the result of the massive launch of stuff against them.
Police also tried to warn the protesters to avoid wearing masks at at demonstration that’s called “millionMaskMarch, projecting a message on the facade of the National Gallery, warning people to don’t cover their faces or to remove covers if requested. There is still a sense of this demonstration today? Probably yes as we still have to deal with bad Capitalism, no privacy and growing inequality, but it looks like that for some of the people involved in the clash with the Police, is just an excuse to have some fun and get high with 100% pure adrenaline.
Photos by Tobia Piatto, UK Correspondent
words by Giacomo Cosua
