Hide Nothing Park

On an alternatingly cloudy and sunny day I set out from my boutique hotel - motto: "Low ceiling" - for a walk to the park. Immediately spurning the directions offered by the lady with a thick (French?) accent at the door, I walked out and shortly reached Hyde Park Corner. The arch and all of that, always rather splendid to see.

I entered the park, got my bearings and did the usual triangle, veering left to head to the large body of water, taking a right a bit further on toward the Speaker's Corner and then back to Hyde Park Corner.

Crowds were out in full force - teenagers holding hands for supported roller blading, even as experts whizzed past them; cyclists; families playing frisbee, football and what not in the lawns; one dad running excitedly, yet apprehensively, alongside his little kid on a tiny bicycle; a sister (one assumes) gamely kicking a ball to her two brothers and a mustachioed, swarthy father with a pot belly; here and there people lying in pairs or groups, and occasionally solo, on the grass; a white labrador gamboling along behind a smaller dog of some other breed; couples cowering in the thickets.

The sun played hide and seek. The temperature was in the mid-teens but very pleasant, especially when the sun was out.

The highlight of any trip to Hyde Park is the Speaker's Corner. Whereas on previous trips it was thoroughly empty and disappointing, this day was fertile.

First up was a well dressed, middle-aged-to-senior looking white bloke going on about whatever it is England has (or had) that the rest of Europe did not: God. To his left were posters strung on the side of the pathway with the usual rubbish from the Bible. Diagonally across the path to the right was a tiny woman (presumably she was standing on a bucket or something) with snowy-white hair frizzing about her shouting herself red in the face about "England for the 'English race' (whatever that is, the woefully ignorant c**t obviously does not know the history of how the Angles and the Saxons disappeared the Celts and other natives)". She was getting a fair bit of heckling but gave as good as she got, telling everyone - the gainfully employed, the tourists - they were turncoats for having left their (respective) native countries and shamefully parading about Hyde Park; a *black* man in black robes, a pointy black hat, a long pole stuck with several small English (not British) flags, a swastika in front, a graded-color chart of various races and shouting "White Power!" walking up and down, sticking his flag like a lance or an exaggerated "Heil!" at other speakers; the very articulate black man defending the black church against accusations of child abuse, even as he admitted there was corruption and various other ills in the system. A table with the usual pamphlets on Islam chaperoned by the dearly bearded who looked at me longingly.

....And then there was the piece de resistance. Well he really was some kind of a "resistance" guy - a large, stocky (not fat) white guy in an olive-green t-shirt with "Cuba" emblazoned on it, one of those fur caps with flaps over the ears and the one over the forehead turned up, standing on the second step of an aluminum step ladder with some flag behind him. He had a good crowd ahead of him, and to his left were a trio of supporters-cum-hecklers, who would probe, provoke or support him. Especially one dude in black sun shades. The rest of the crowd ahead of him came and went. He railed against everything - he was an equal opportunity ranter. He was also relatively well spoken, and well read. Excerpts:

Resistance Guy (RG for short here on): ... Europe is the name of a god of the Greeks, who though they were polytheists, gave us democracy... (struggles, as if grasping through a fog (alcohol perhaps?) to find a fact)... some 100... hnnhhn... 700-800 years before Islam

Arab-looking guy: But you are drinking tea! (Turns to *his* sidekick) And they call it "Yingilish tea" (cackle, cackle)! It is from India (said in the way only South Asians or maybe Middle-Easterners can say it - In-dddi-yaA).

RG: loses his audience, turns to his supporter/heckler and tries to explain that the British brought tea from China to India. Boy, he was well read for a raving boor. Goes on about why the French will never do anything because their food is too good, while the British conquered the world fueled by tea.

RG: (somehow the topic comes back to Islam and he goes on) At least Islam does not have the concept of Sin.

Heckler: sin spelt backward spells "nice."

RG: I was in the tube yesterday and I saw two pretty women. I was looking at them and I was giving them my business (I think he meant he was mentally fucking them - but in a rather tasteful way). Many including me, chuckle.

(A little later)

RG: So you Arab people (something something). 

Black-nazi: comes toward RG and standing a few feet and a few lawyers of people away, narrows his eyes and gives a salute with his crazy lance-flag saying something about white power.

RG: flips him the bird and chuckles.

Plaintive young fat woman: Can't you accept that people are different?

RG: Oh but I do. 

(A little later still)

RG: ...so that is how everyone is subjugated by the capitalists. The queen, the Church of England, they are all in the take. Oh yeah, they are a business, that's what they are. Sainsbury is eating up every corner shop. In 1912 Sainsbury's was just a corner shop, just one shop run by a Jew!

Indian man in baggy pants and baggy windbreaker: No, no, I sold my corner shop to Tesco.

RG: (Astutely figures out his heckler is a Hindu, combined with his capitalist tendencies selling out to Tesco - I guess it really set him off) DO YOU BELIEVE IN BLUE PEOPLE??!! Krishna is blue. What rubbish is that, yadda yadda. (Flogs Hinduism and Hindus.)

Heckler: Oh look, you've now brought it back to religion. Just 20 seconds. (Congratulatory chuckle).

Indian man: tries to explain away saying it is just a religion, just a belief. (I am not sure of blue people, but the Indian man was certainly turning unusual shades)

RG: (tears the Indian man apart) I suggest sir, you counsel with your Muslims friends up north, who have done better than the Hindus, or your Sikh friends from Amritsar! What has Hinduism done for India? It is miserable, a shitty place.

Indian man: Have you been to India?

RG: No. But I have Indian friends and they tell me about it.

Indian man: further protests

RG: Blah blah blah, so you are just a sell-out sir, just like everyone. You are a capitalist pig!! YOU ARE A CAPITALIST PIG!! We gave you tea! We gave you cricket!! 

(Indian man disappears)

Heckler to RG: oh look now, now you've made him upset. Chuckle, chuckle.

RG: ...and so it is that we the British, the Chinese and the Russians will win in the end.

Heckler: Did you say the Russians (raises an eyebrow, not sure what to make of this).

It was thoroughly entertaining. Also educational. On having a civil, if heated discussion in public. How many of us can stand in front of a crowd and say these things, no matter how offensive? How many of us can then stand on the other side and try to talk back, rather than resort to bluster, or worse, violence? Can you imagine what would happen if people had free speech like this in other parts of the world:

India: Riots, buses burned, public property destroyed. Temple to actress of yesteryear razed. New temple to current starlet raised.

Pakistan: Same as India, but starts even before anyone has spoken. 

Saudi Arabia: Speaker bundled into a hijab and never seen again.

China: "Suicide."

Japan: Speaker things long and hard, bows deeply to apologize and preemptively commits hara-kiri.

South Korea: Like India, but with redder faces because of alcohol abuse combined with alcohol intolerance.

France: Who gives a fuck, everyone's eating great food.

Singapore: Caned.

I'm just saying... it could go a lot worse in a lot of other places. I think every school, city and country should have its Hyde Parks if only to engender the courage to speak up and equally the courage to talk back.