Red Road Flats part 3

On March 13, a march was held from the Red Flats to Shuttle St in Glasgow City Centre in memory of the three asylum seekers who killed themselves on 7 March, and to draw attention to the plight of asylum seekers living in Glasgow. For earlier posts on the flats, see

http://glasgowalbum.blogspot.com/2010/02/red-road-flats.html

http://glasgowalbum.blogspot.com/2010/03/red-road-flats-part-2.html

I decided to join the march at George Square; at Queen St station there was an RMT  picket of striking train drivers. The RMT banner, in the windy language of traditional socialist rhetoric, deaclres the union's aim as 'To work for the supersession of the capitalist system by a socialistic order of society'. ('Supersession' is here a hairy-chested way of saying 'replacement')

'Sightseeing Glasgow'  buses at George Square: not off to the Red Road flats

The march appears 

The chap on the right offering a leaflet to a snapper is with the train drivers dispute, not the march

Dungavel Detention Centre had come in for a lot of justified criticism in relation to the treatment of detainees

James Oswald MP takes his hat off to us (he voted for the Reform Bill of 1832)

No one - alas - appeared from the City Chambers to say hello. The Labour Council leader had recently and rather mysteriously resigned his post - and from public life. Google 'Lord Provost',  'Glasgow', 'cocaine', 'corruption'.

Walking behind the Scottish Socialist party banner. The SSP want to crush both the capitalist system and their enemies in the rival Scottish socialist groupuscle, Tommy Sheridan's Solidarity (if you wish to know more, Google the details of how the vanguard of Scottish socialism came to self-destruct)

A few of the speakers were fine. Patrick Harvie of the Greens and A L Kennedy (whom I couldn't hear but was told  was good) - but some others  seemed to be mostly concerned with explaining that Britain  was worse in human rights terms than  Somalia, and oh  how much they hated being British citizens. . .

. . . an Afghan asylum seeker came on and maundered on about how Russian troops in Afghanistan  'accepted' Islam and fought bravely against the Soviets. At this point I scanned for  Communist and Old Labour hands, who would have certainly backed the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, but I couldn't spot any. 

The BBC estimated  the crowd at 200, which means I knew 5% of the crowd personally.  The old CPGB and Labour guys would have got thousands out for a march like  this - changed days, changed times: the asylum seekers deserve better; Britain's poor deserve better

This wonderful  wee boy turned round at just the right moment. Children like this want to study, want to work, want to repay Britain for taking them in. The smile on his face is the smile of our future -  and if we betray him we betray ourselves