So I went to the rally last Saturday as planned, despite the early morning laziness to get up from bed and the bus route being cut short by half which resulted in a need to walk. I made it to the Sydney Square, Sydney Town Hall at about a quarter before 11, and was immediately greeted by uproars made by the thousands of Sydneysiders who were already there. Because I believe pictures are better in doing the portraying of the event here, I leave all of you with these some nice live photos I captured during the rally, together with brief comments.
The usually calm Sydney Square turned into a sea of protesters and banners. At least five thousands of people were initially targeted to come, but the actual number who made it, according to the organizers, nearly doubled.
They may come with various banners, but one thing for sure- they shared a same thing, a single idea in mind.
The men in the uniform gave due respect the public, and the public, in reply, treated them in similar way. Anyhow, as always, there are one or two rotten apples in a basket of good ones; despite early warnings that the protest would be a peaceful one, villains were always there to spoil the peaceful mood of the day. Two protesters were nabbed by the police in front of my bare eyes for apparently going beyond the line- one actually went naked in the middle of the mass of people for no unequivocal reason. It left me with a question mark as to what these people actually had in mind for acting in such a shameful way, when all they could do was to follow plenty of others in staying in rational frame and just that. Later at night, I came to know over the news that in total 17 were arrested during the protest.
The protesters then marched on to Hyde Park where further rally was planned to be held, but I decided that was it for me- I needed to head back home for some other business.
What impressed me most was the attitude of the people who joined in the protest; young or old, all tried to let their shouts heard during the rally, while at the same time abiding by the law. Even though they did not come out with similar agendas- a number of groups were promoting environmental-friendly policies while some others chose to bring up anti-war sentiments and so on and so forth- still the general objective was crystal clear in that they were simply no satisfied with the current going-ons in our world. Overall it was a good first-hand, first experience for me, and I definitely look forward to attending events of this kind again in the future.
