The rallying point for the big British anti-war demonstration a few days ago was Cleopatra's Needle, on one side of which massed the Socialist Workers' Party. "No war but the class war," their banner thundered. On the other side were CND, Pax Christi, the United Nations Association and the Quakers. On such occasions, you get into bed with whoever.
"No victors"
A few heated discussions broke out. "Victory to Yugoslavia," shouted an SWP person. "There are no victors in this war," said a young peace woman sternly. Beside her, her mother - a gentle-faced, wispy-haired woman shouldering a quite substantial wooden cross - nodded fiercely. She'd travelled to London with some Serb demonstrators but they were too nationalistic, she said, with their flags and military caps. Also, they'd been drinking home-made slivovitch.
It was a day out for everyone and the sun shone on all their banners. Up front fluttered the banner of Women in Black, an organisation of women from the Balkans campaigning for peace. And was that a Tricolour? Couldn't be. A blue UN flag blew in the breeze among plenty of Yugoslav ones - all minus the red star. A small girl carried her own: "Everybody, stop bombing the Serbs," it said in wobbly red writing. "Did you draw that yourself?" She shook her head crossly: "No, I painted it."
A Greek MP, invited to join the walk, made his pitch to the cameras and then the huge crowd moved off, whistles blowing, slogans sounding, horns hooting. The man beside me, in a mud-coloured Dralon car-coat and an ill-fitting wig, chewed his way through packet after packet of gum. Next to him, a woman chatted on her cell-phone. Suddenly, up front, a familiar flag - South Africa. Morris Mohlala in his black beret and ANC badge left Cape Town 27 years ago. His language is Sotho. "So, dumela," I greeted him and he smiled kindly. I'd obviously made a complete hash of it.
Margaret was an ageing demonstration virgin, afraid of getting lost. She'd been to Greenham, of course, but never anything like this. Her peace banner bobbed up and down enthusiastically. Suddenly, she was off. She'd spotted Tony Benn in the crowd. Someone pointed out Bruce Kent to her but she didn't know who he was.
"Up NATO!"
Into Trafalgar Square and crowds of vaguely curious tourists. "Up NATO!" shouted a lone bystander genially. "Bomb the bloody lot of them," shouted someone else, less genially. A walker whose knitted sweater read, "I am Serbian", told me it was lies about all those people being killed in Kosovo. An elderly man, formerly from Belgrade, impeccable in pinstripe suit with bumfreezer jacket, smart astrakhan hat, rolled umbrella and soldier's proud gait - explained that now he supported Milosovic. "Before, no, because of Communism; but now, the lies, the bombing. I know that NATO is trying to get a foothold in my country so I support Milosovic."
Everyone wanted to talk to Benn. "Ireland join the Partnership for Peace? That's joining NATO. No, we in Europe have got to sort out our own problems. What I would like to see is a coming together of East and West, the formation of a European Commonwealth." He listened intently as the Serbian woman told him it was all lies about Kosovo, breaking off all the time to shake hands with people.
There were leaflets on everything - on peace, on NATO, on the Green Party, on rerouting Orange marches, on circling the airbase at Fairford where the war planes fly from. One man gave me one about the right to go naked in the streets. At Hyde Park Corner a few pro-war demonstrators waved Union Jacks and shouted.
Miraculously, the Tricolour, attached to the back of a pushbike, appeared at the head of the march, ahead even of the main police escort van. "Just imagine if NATO bombed England to get out of Ulster," read the message inked on a bit of cardboard. Thomas, from Glasnevin, had made it.
Steady downpour
Turning into Park Lane, the rain started, a steady downpour which fell on group after group plodding into Hyde Park. An orange-robed Buddhist monk stood in it until someone raised an umbrella over him. The anti-war veterans spoke - Tam Dalyell, Kent, Benn. "This is not a demonstration," said Benn. "It's part of an antiwar campaign." There was a message from the Mayor of Nic, an anti-Milosovic, pro-democracy man. His town hospital and market place had just been bombed by NATO. Why, he asked. A surprise speaker was Germaine Greer. Another was a Conservative Party member.
The rain turned to drizzle. Time to go. At the start, someone had given me a small wooden cross to carry, with a name written on it in Cyrillic. No one I knew: Dragan Shukovitch, also known as collateral damage. I stuck it in the grass in Hyde Park with all the other crosses.