What I did last Sunday
Jan. 18th, 2015 10:17 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
castalieI meant to update last Sunday but I felt so high from what I'd experienced that I thought it might be a good idea to wait a little till I was back on Earth. I wasn't expecting to wait almost a whole week but you know how it is... Of course, after a whole week, I feel like I've said all I had to say about last Sunday, so I won't talk (write?) your ears off, promise ;) It's just that l had such an amazing experience at the Marche Républicaine that was organised after last week's attacks that I wanted to record it on my LJ as well as my little planner (that is already bursting from all the journal pieces that I've cut and put inside, poor little thing).
To be honest, I wasn't that keen on joining the march, at first. I'd already gone to the vigil and I felt that aforementioned march would be too political for my taste. Especially with the news that international leaders would join in; I feared there would be a fair amount of hypocrisy in the air because of this. In the end, I decided that I would see past it all and just join all the citizens that wanted to rally and unite, not because of politics (although I know politics is never far away) but because it was important to them to go in the street and basically express their feelings over what had happened the previous days. Again, I'm aware of the controversy of taking the street after 17 people have been killed when no-one really says anything when hundreds, when thousands in other countries are for the same reasons (or even other reasons). I'm just saying it was important to us to be there, it was important to me, and I feel that one shouldn't try to shame or ridicule people whose only goal was to gather in peace to express their shock and sadness over a shocking and sad event.
Anyway, all that to say, I abandoned the FP who I was supposed to meet for our annual New Year Afternoon Tea to join the March and I do no regret it, it was amazing. I'd never seen so many people in my whole life, it was this endless line of people, felt like it would never stop.
They'd closed many stops on the metro line I took to go to République (the starting point of the march) so I, and many others, stopped a bit further way, which means we had to first reach République, which wasn't an easy feat as it was so packed that it took us an hour and fifteen minutes to get there. It's basically a twenty-minute walk on a normal day. Sometimes you just couldn't walk at all and just stood there, taking with people around you, applauding, singing...
It wasn't just the street, the pavement was packed with people participating in the march but unable to get on the actual street as it was just impossible to add another human being there sometimes. We would go online on our smartphones and follow the news via Twitter and I remember showing some of the pics I'll show you below to people around me and we were all "ok, I guess, we're not going to make it to Nation, after all, right? Not till 9.00PM at least." We joked that if we made it to République, it would be our own victory, but when we finally made it, we just kept going.
It was so calm, so peaceful. More than one million people marched in the street of Paris (we were more than 3 millions all over the country) but it remained peaceful, which is something to be grateful for. With so many people, it could have turned aggressive or violent quite fast, especially as emotions were so high but it never did and nothing spoilt the event.
Let me tell you how incredible it is to be in the middle of such a crowd. To sing with them, to hear all those voices at the same time. Damn. I recorded one of the times when we sang La Marseillaise and ooooh goosebumps! It was something; you would hear this sort of wave coming from ahead of you, an indistinct sound at first, then as it came closer you would hear what it was, either "Je suis Charlie" ou "Charlie n'est pas mort" and other slogans or La Marseillaise etc. then it reached you, you joined, and you could hear the words/song keep going behind you.
A couple of pics (not mine) that should give you an idea of how many people were present. It was like that in every city where the March was organised. It was the first time since the Libération in 1944 that so many people took the streets. Stunning, isn't it? Well, I think so ;)
So, yes, that was amazing. I'm so glad I went. It was a wonderful experience, even if the reasons behind it was so incredibly wrong. At least, it led people to this moment of unity, it has to count for something.
Incidentally, when the people involved in the Manif Pour Tous, the homophobic march against same-sex wedding, did their own two years ago, they kept bragging about the huge crowds and telling the media that a million people had taken the streets. Obviously no-one believed them but that was their figures and they stuck by it. Well, now that we actually saw what a million people taking the streets really look like, let me tell you we had a good laugh at their expense ;)
Anyway, that was how I spent my Sunday.
To be honest, I wasn't that keen on joining the march, at first. I'd already gone to the vigil and I felt that aforementioned march would be too political for my taste. Especially with the news that international leaders would join in; I feared there would be a fair amount of hypocrisy in the air because of this. In the end, I decided that I would see past it all and just join all the citizens that wanted to rally and unite, not because of politics (although I know politics is never far away) but because it was important to them to go in the street and basically express their feelings over what had happened the previous days. Again, I'm aware of the controversy of taking the street after 17 people have been killed when no-one really says anything when hundreds, when thousands in other countries are for the same reasons (or even other reasons). I'm just saying it was important to us to be there, it was important to me, and I feel that one shouldn't try to shame or ridicule people whose only goal was to gather in peace to express their shock and sadness over a shocking and sad event.
Anyway, all that to say, I abandoned the FP who I was supposed to meet for our annual New Year Afternoon Tea to join the March and I do no regret it, it was amazing. I'd never seen so many people in my whole life, it was this endless line of people, felt like it would never stop.
They'd closed many stops on the metro line I took to go to République (the starting point of the march) so I, and many others, stopped a bit further way, which means we had to first reach République, which wasn't an easy feat as it was so packed that it took us an hour and fifteen minutes to get there. It's basically a twenty-minute walk on a normal day. Sometimes you just couldn't walk at all and just stood there, taking with people around you, applauding, singing...
It wasn't just the street, the pavement was packed with people participating in the march but unable to get on the actual street as it was just impossible to add another human being there sometimes. We would go online on our smartphones and follow the news via Twitter and I remember showing some of the pics I'll show you below to people around me and we were all "ok, I guess, we're not going to make it to Nation, after all, right? Not till 9.00PM at least." We joked that if we made it to République, it would be our own victory, but when we finally made it, we just kept going.
It was so calm, so peaceful. More than one million people marched in the street of Paris (we were more than 3 millions all over the country) but it remained peaceful, which is something to be grateful for. With so many people, it could have turned aggressive or violent quite fast, especially as emotions were so high but it never did and nothing spoilt the event.
Let me tell you how incredible it is to be in the middle of such a crowd. To sing with them, to hear all those voices at the same time. Damn. I recorded one of the times when we sang La Marseillaise and ooooh goosebumps! It was something; you would hear this sort of wave coming from ahead of you, an indistinct sound at first, then as it came closer you would hear what it was, either "Je suis Charlie" ou "Charlie n'est pas mort" and other slogans or La Marseillaise etc. then it reached you, you joined, and you could hear the words/song keep going behind you.
A couple of pics (not mine) that should give you an idea of how many people were present. It was like that in every city where the March was organised. It was the first time since the Libération in 1944 that so many people took the streets. Stunning, isn't it? Well, I think so ;)
So, yes, that was amazing. I'm so glad I went. It was a wonderful experience, even if the reasons behind it was so incredibly wrong. At least, it led people to this moment of unity, it has to count for something.
Incidentally, when the people involved in the Manif Pour Tous, the homophobic march against same-sex wedding, did their own two years ago, they kept bragging about the huge crowds and telling the media that a million people had taken the streets. Obviously no-one believed them but that was their figures and they stuck by it. Well, now that we actually saw what a million people taking the streets really look like, let me tell you we had a good laugh at their expense ;)
Anyway, that was how I spent my Sunday.
