Hyde Park

The 7th July attacks had just taken place – a week ago, a second ago. Londoners filled the streets, not endeavouring to take either the bus or the tube to reach their destinations. Although the calendar said it was the middle of summer, London skies remained true to themselves, mostly grey and threatening with rain. My father was in town to cover the bombings - it was also the first time he came to visit me in my new city. So we walked together across London, eyes and ears nervously looking for signs of another attack. The sound of ambulances hysterically swerving in the middle of the street, ignoring traffic lights, kept us on our toes, wondering whether any other disaster had occurred. We were edgy, London was edgy.

Hyde Park seemed like the perfect place to get some respite. The sight of nature, as tamed as it may have been, reminded us that there are forces stronger than Man’s petty fights. We had been walking aimlessly for an hour or so when we reached the Speakers’ Corner – the symbolic stage of tolerance and freedom of speech, I had been taught. As it was usual on a Saturday afternoon, this little corner of the Earth was filled with people listening to three or four very vocal citizens, standing on upside-down plastic buckets as if on a podium.

Our attention was quickly caught by a roar: “One day, the Islamic flag will fly over the Houses of Parliament!” The speaker was an Islamic fundamentalist – three body guards stood around him and, a few meters behind, a crowd of mostly men and a handful of women in burkas clamoured in support. His sentences were strong and hurtful in the face of our recent memories: “London got what it deserved”; “ we respect those who had the courage to die for our cause”; “this is a country with no more values that needs to be taught a lesson”; “the war will not end here”... Other listeners were clearly upset and answered back – but the responses remained calm, respecting the ethos of that symbolic setting: everyone is free to speak their mind. And so the speech went for about fifteen minutes, until the speaker concluded and stepped off his stand.

A thirty-year old French man, wearing loose jeans, an old t-shirt and an unkempt beard, excitedly made a move for the stand. He had been listening to his predecessors’ speech with great attention and even admiration. His occasional outbursts showed that he agreed with some of the points previously made: this capitalist system is filled with injustice and simply can’t go on; British and American imperialism must come to a halt! However, his plans to voice his revolutionary thoughts were brusquely curtailed. The body guards that had surrounded the Islamic speaker hid the stand and pushed the French speaker away: “You are a kuffar, a non-believer, you cannot stand where He stood, you cannot speak after His intervention”.

Everyone was taken aback; no one knew how to react to this bomb. The French man recoiled in fear; he walked towards another stand and waited a while longer for his chance to speak his mind

ACF