Big Mouths Strike Again

Yesterday, I took Bruno to Speakers' Corner in Hyde Park and he promptly fell in love with it. He loves anything that has to do with controversy and argumentative people. He took many photos of determined faces blaming the wrongs of the world on Christianity, Islam, Capitalism, Socialism, and what-have-you.

The old man in this photo had two buttons pinned to his jacket, which read "Don't Panic" and "Back to the 70s". His belt buckle had a Marijuana leaf design. He went from one speaker to the next, grinning silently as if he was incapable of taking anyone seriously.

The guy to the right in the photo would say to nobody in particular: "how many of you are feeling bad right now? Aren't we all feeling good? It's a miracle." He spent a good amount of time talking to uninterested passerbys.

Most of the crowd consisted of Muslim men. Interestingly, while the Christian speaker proclaimed a lot of evils had to do with Islam (while angry young Muslims screamed back at him), the Muslim speakers emphasided how Islam was not about terrorism, the oppression of women or any of the other evils pushed forward by the right-wing press (though I can't put my hand in the fire for one of the men speaking heatedly in an Arabic-sounding language.) The most interesting speaker, by a wide margin, was the articulate socialist who wanted to prove Hugo Chavez's government was doing great things to Venezuela.

Some families appear to rent lawn chairs at Hyde Park and sit all day facing Speakers' Corner. I wonder if they were related to the speakers and the men in the crowd who treat the place as their Sunday routine.