There was an organised protest at Parliament Square this morning to help convince the government (crucial vote next week) to ban the pesticides that are dwindling bee numbers in scary proportions. This will in turn will have a catastrophic knock-on effect on everything else. As Einstein said.”If the Bees go, we’re all fucked” (or something like that). This is not an altruistic endeavour..this is pure self-preservation.
Like all good protests, there was as many people documenting it as participating. It was more like one big glorified photo shoot than an actual protest and as the passersby just sort of passed by it occured to me that the coverage of the event was in real terms more important than the event itself. The protestors had gathered to be photographed, uploaded, blogged out, tweeeted and shared in order to raise awareness on a global level rather than at street level.
Did it matter that no-one surrounding them paid attention? Not really. They did a bit of singing (Give bees a chance) and even pretended to march for a bit but it was all really for the cameras.
The digital world has finally become more important than the real world. Reality is dead. Long live the Internet!
And yes, just like everyone else, I was doing as much documenting as protesting…
lots of bad bee pun placards but below was my favourite by far…such a brutal apocalyptic message delivered by such a smiley faced bee..
bee-lieve it (sorry-couldn’t resist one more) or not she was actually playing the flight of the bumblebee..I kid you not.
There was a generally friendly and good natured vibe to the proceedings and despite the machinations of the media circus the seriousness of the protest was also plain to see…
As I was leaving I saw this guy and he stared straight back at me with a grave “The End is Nigh” kinda look…it gave me the shivers. I should add that its highly possible he was just eye-balling me cos I was pointing a camera in his face. Less poetic but worth mentioning…
(p.s if you want to bee selfish (sorry, had to throw one more in) and save our sorry hides, add your signature to the petition to vote for a ban on the pesticides here. Lets hope those weak, self-serving politicians (too harsh?) make the right decision..for all our sakes, not just the bees.)