Saturday, March 20, 2010

Protest at AUB

Ahmed (a radical comrade from AUB) sent me this (I cite with his permission): "In reference to the small protest staged at AUB against Carlos Slim, in which I took part, LA Times got it wrong, we were not dispersed within minutes. We stayed for almost an hour. Once we put on our masks and unfolded our banners, they closed the curtains so that the people inside the hall could not see us, then the security came and tried to unmask us, but we 'held to our masks'. The organizers of the event came and tried to give us lessons on how we are uncivilized, how this is not the right time or place for protest, how people are there to listen to Slim and not see masked people, and how masked people are scary, but we held to our position. Then AUB bourgeoisie, mostly business students, came to make fun of us, one person but a paper mask and held a paper saying in Arabic "I am hungry" (because you know, the only reason for us to "hate rich people" is that we are poor), another person threw coins at us, a third person put a free drink coupon on the floor in front of us (and I yelled at him "thanks, we need it"). Many people approached us, some were aggressive, some were sarcastic, and some discussed the matter with us, a few were convinced (one person even asked for a mask and joined us), and many told us that they will google up the Zapatistas once they get home. All in all I guess it was a success, beside it was fun pissing those people off, and I think the best thing the security did was trying to disperse us; this way they made a scene and brought us more attention. I believe one of the comrades is planning on writing a correction to LA Times. Please feel free to use this information as you wish."