THE MOST PHOTOGRAPHED PROTEST

In "White Noise", Don DeLillo wrote about “the most photographed barn in America”, an unremarkable spot except for the fact that it was the most photographed. Yesterday, April 1st, the hordes of journalists and photographers in London covering the G20 protests recalled this moment in DeLillo’s book.

I headed to the starting point of a planned parade against financial crimes, but spotted nary a protester. As the scheduled time of the march neared, I ran into some journalists from The Economist. One remarked, “There are ten of us to every protester.”

According to The Times, there were 2,500 journalists accredited to cover the events in London, with an estimated 4,000 protesters matched by thousands of police to keep them all in line.

I met a young dissenter, Can Aniker, a 17-year-old who skipped school to join the "mayhem". Aniker was visibly upset about a lot of things. He complained about the British government's assault on civil liberties--something that “no one seems to notice”. He was angry about the bankers’ crimes, lamenting, “I would be anti-capitalist but other systems don’t work.” He recommended some websites with the “real stories” about what was going on all around us.

Once the parade finally began, I moved up the road to get a view of the campaigners. Aniker appeared a few moments later, fed-up. “There’s so much press, everyone is stopping for photos,” he said. “This parade isn’t moving.”

He was right. In front of us, it seemed as though the parade was in slow-motion. The banners read, “Democracy is an illusion”, but these iconoclasts seemed more ready for their close-up than a tussle with police.

Graeme Marsh, the owner of a fitness centre in the City, experienced a 90% loss of business yesterday owing to the drama. Clients cancelled and staff stayed home from work. “I think that a lot of London media took great joy in using overly bombastic language to raise expectations of what in reality has been very isolated and anti-climactic for the most part.”

Sky News showed footage of the "riots" breaking out between police and campaigners, and newspapers disseminated photos of a chap hurling a television through windows at the Royal Bank of Scotland in central London. But what featured most prominently in most of the images was the TV crews, journalists and photographers feeding on the most photographed protest in the world.

~ JULIA BELLUZ

Picture credit: Room 1834 (via Flickr)