Budapest Solidarity for the Pit Stop Ploughshares

international | anti-war / imperialism | news report Monday October 24, 2005 21:04 by redjade - reporting from the eastern EUro-Pale

The world is smaller than you think.

Soviet Army Memorial, US Embassy in back left and Irish Embassy behind the trees

Hello all...

A small bit of solidarity with the Pit Stop Ploughshares was expressed at a short vigil at the Irish Embassy in Budapest Hungary today.

ex-Pioneer and I met up with some people I had met recently at the ReActivism Conference ( http://re-activism.net ) and at the AK-57 squat ( http://ak57.freeblog.hu/ ) in central Budapest. Nice to make some connections with good people here in the centre of europe!

The meeting place was to be at the last remaining Soviet Statue in Budapest (the last, if you don't count Statue Park http://www.szoborpark.hu/en/en_index.php ) and then walk a short distance to the Irish Embassy. The story seems to be that the Soviet Army Memorial statue in front of the US Embassy is not an expression of hungarian humour but was a prerequisite by the Soviets before they left Hungary 1990 (need to check that bit of info, though).

We had some difficulty deciding who to protest, however - so many baddies in one big building! (could have protested against the BBC too, but couldnt think of an over-riding reason to do so today) But we settled on our objective - the Irish Government and its continued support and assistance to the US occupation in Iraq.

Something to note is that Hungary is a NATO country and had its troops in Iraq but pulled out long ago, I will try to write or get someone here to write up that story for Irish Indymedia sometime. It befuddles me how a NATO country could withdraw from an American war when a (supposedly) neutral country pretends it is not central to the same war.

Also with us was Drew, an American Clown who just spent some time in Serbia attempting to organise street kids into a Circus Cooperative, of sorts. He needed to get back home to Michigan and was blowing through Budapest on the way, where I met him was before a showing of Guy Debord's “The Society of the Spectacle” dubbed in Hungarian ( http://www.bopsecrets.org/SI/debord.films/refutation.htm ) at the AK-57.

After our short and sweet vigil/protest/whatever-it-was we went to a café with free WiFi and uploaded pictures to Indymedia Hungary and Max from the Indy crew here wrote up a description of the Pit Stop's action and ReTrial for a quickie feature.

It was a good day! And its been fun telling people on this eastern side of the EUro-Pale about all the good people and things happening on the far west side of the EUro-Pale. Must find way of connecting people - this planet is smaller than you think!

ex-Pioneer and I miss ya all very much and we send our best wishes to Karen, Nuin, Damien, Deirdre and Ciaron and thank them for their long struggle over these years. :-)

{ I'll be posting more once I get a more consistant internet connection here. }

Links:
Today's Photo Series posted at Indymedia.hu
- Börtön Békéért beszámoló
http://indymedia.hu/cikk.shtml?x=26026