We know that walking is often
used as a tactic of political protest. The image above shows a walk in Bangor, designed to preserve a bus service, so there may be one or two unintentional ironies there, but the principle remains.
There was even a walk of protest in Hollywood last week, to protest
police brutality. The walk ended in a “die-in” at the
intersection of Hollywood Boulevard and Highland Avenue (above), where the protestors lay
down in the road, which I guess is kind of the opposite of walking, but in any
case it all seems to have been peaceful enough. And of course a few celebs got
in on the act.
Where I grew up, close to the
Peak District in Derbyshire people still talk about the Kinderscout Mass
Trespass of 1932 as though it too happened just last week. It was certainly monumental in establishing the
right of access to land all over the UK, and it shows the power of walking,
especially the power of walking where certain people think you shouldn’t.
And then I saw this oddly moving
piece in the LA Times about how things have been going in Hong Kong - not a walk of protest, but a stroll. (The full
story has now slunk behind the pay wall and I can’t even find who the writer
was, a woman I think and apologies to her for not giving credit, but this
opening gives the flavor.)
“For decades, pro-democracy demonstrators here
have tried marching. And for more than two months now, they have camped outside
government headquarters. In recent days, as they face ouster from their
encampments, they’ve begun a new tactic: strolling for democracy.
After dusk, throngs of demonstrators, self-styled
shoppers all, pace the thoroughfares across several neighborhoods in the city’s
Kowloon district, putting police on edge.
The strolling concept took shape Wednesday in
Mong Kok, the bustling shopping district where authorities had just forcibly
dismantled long-standing protest encampments.
Hours after the clearance was completed, demonstrators returned to
flood major intersections, attempting to build barricades and retake lost
territory. When police interceded too quickly for them to succeed, the
demonstrators, said they were there to shop …”
Well I suppose shopping can often a highly
specialized form of walking. When you
can combine it with trespassing, it may be considerably more.
