Last Tuesday I went to the David Hicks rally at Parliament House. I don’t much like going to protests, but sometimes you just have to? I wasn’t sure whether to take my vigil puppet, because although I knew he would attract attention, I didn’t want to imply that I thought it was a okay to wish that fate on the prime minister, much as I despise his politics. The point to me is that no-one should be treated in the way that David Hicks has been. I thought about this aspect when putting up the vigil blog, too, but I hope the understanding is that it’s a request to imagine this happening to anyone.

In the end I took the puppet and hooded him, so he was anonymous, and when I saw the cage protest I was glad I had. It made me a bit uncomfortable for just that reason, as did the the various calls to send various ministers to Guantanamo Bay. Having Ned Kelly as the jailer was a strange choice that I didn’t understand. It just seemed bizarre! Ampersand Duck has the best photo of him!

But overall it was a good, if small, rally. Natasha Stott-Despoja gave a fiery speech, and Andrew Bartlett and Kate Lundy were also good. Mamdouh Habib was the most impassioned, with reason. Loadedog, whom I met for the first time there, gives a good rundown on what Habib said, and I agree with him that what Habib says carries weight because he alone has been there and experienced it. The rally organizers messed up by not announcing ahead of time that he would be speaking, and it was amazing to see how all the reporters and photographers who has wandered off came running back to record what he had to say.

I wandered off myself after Habib’s talk. I find my tolerance for the inevitable speakers who want to jump on the bandwagon is close to zero these days.

On the way to the rally I had noticed a cool painted car, and, while I was parking close by, it had dawned on me that it was Ampersand Duck‘s car! I’ve been enjoying her blog for quite a while now. So I scrabbled around to find a scrap of paper and left a scrawled hello under her windscreen wiper. As I was leaving, she was getting into her car, so I jumped out and had the pleasure of meeting her. It seemed to make the whole day a lot more worthwhile!

Here are my photos from the day at Flickr.