{"id":1049,"date":"2021-12-18T08:35:48","date_gmt":"2021-12-18T08:35:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/?p=1049"},"modified":"2021-12-18T08:38:02","modified_gmt":"2021-12-18T08:38:02","slug":"stopping-the-santa-invasion","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/stopping-the-santa-invasion\/1049\/","title":{"rendered":"Stopping the Santa Invasion"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"Female<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

After the speeches, people drifted away from the demonstration, some still wearing outfits representing the main focus of their complaint.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Having responsibly abandoned their placards, a group of five in search of food and drink settled themselves in the Hog\u2019s Head and placed their orders.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

These were veteran activists. They had witnessed mounted police moving through the crowds at the poll tax rebellions; they had collective memories of the \u2018not in my name\u2019 protests; they had stood with the miners during the long strike; two could even look back to the anti-apartheid rugby protests in 1969. Between them they had been kettled, abused, arrested and beaten.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

Brian was becoming inclined to scepticism: \u2018Have we really made any difference?  I mean today, will it bring any serious action on climate change do you think? Will anything actually shift?\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018You couldn\u2019t not try to stop things you feel are bad, could you? How could you live with yourself?\u2019  This was Ella, who strongly opposed many things.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018Yes, but look at those Brexit protesters. They stood around College Green in all weathers but in the end they lost the fight,\u2019\u00a0 Brian again.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018Maybe, but they were on the right side of history. I\u2019ve a lot of respect for what they did,\u2019 George mused, and was backed by Susan\u2019s quiet nodding agreement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jemima, still in a condition of barely controlled rage at the sluggish outcomes from the latest COP conference, was inclined to share her own compelling story of activism.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018Never question your use of the right to protest. I was six when I discovered the power of direct action. I\u2019ve never since doubted the ability of ordinary people to make change happen.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018Please, tell us more,\u2019 Susan was a sucker for a good yarn.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jemima was a skillful narrator. Whether she was a reliable one, you must be the judge.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This was a Christmas story in which the six-year-old Jemima was becoming increasingly disaffected with the whole bean feast of holiday preparations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For the most part she evaded transactional situations such as sitting on the knee of an oddly dressed male stranger in return for a tawdry gift concealed in cheap wrapping paper. She distrusted the elf-spies, reputedly employed to find out about her misdeeds (scabs).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On hearing that a strange man would come down the chimney of her home on Christmas eve to leave presents, she was beyond outrage, and not a little alarmed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018I took direct action,\u2019 she told the group. \u2018I pushed the settee right into the hearth to stop Santa getting into the room. Then I went to sleep on the settee. Job done. He simply couldn\u2019t get in.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018Success, but no presents?\u2019 Ella was impressed but a bit sorry for six-year-old Jemima.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018Plenty of presents. My mum was proud of me. Said I\u2019d taken a stand for children everywhere.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018Oh, is that my mac \u2019n\u2019 cheese? Hope the cheese isn\u2019t vegan. Anyone else got a tale of their awakening to share?\u2019<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

After the speeches, people drifted away from the demonstration, some still wearing outfits representing the main focus of their complaint. Having responsibly abandoned their placards, a group of five in search of food and drink settled themselves in the Hog\u2019s Head and placed their orders. These were veteran activists. They had witnessed mounted police moving […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"rop_custom_images_group":[],"rop_custom_messages_group":[],"rop_publish_now":"initial","rop_publish_now_accounts":{"facebook_10158782359051062_103813597863211":"","twitter_1225722811282530305_1225722811282530305":""},"rop_publish_now_history":[],"rop_publish_now_status":"pending","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[379,593],"tags":[95,118,11],"class_list":["post-1049","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-379","category-december-2021-christmas","tag-had","tag-they","tag-was"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pbrNJE-gV","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1049","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1049"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1049\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1053,"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1049\/revisions\/1053"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1049"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1049"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1049"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}