Time's Magpie - Myla Goldberg [19]
Turnout for demonstrations in Prague these days is generally slim; public dissent tends to be organized by the anarchists and the Communists, groups most Czechs want nothing to do with. At the appointed time of the antiwar rally, fewer than ten protesters are in evidence. They stand to the left of the Jan Hus monument, holding hand-painted signs. A young American woman in a bright orange NO BLOOD FOR OIL T-shirt distributes Czech information sheets to native passersby. She explains to the scant arrivals that they are early: the protest is not scheduled to start until two. The first antiwar rally was held three months ago and they are still tinkering with starting times.
The square is filled with tour groups and hawkers of marionettes, cheap jewelry, and glass. A few feet from the fledgling protest, a five-piece band is playing jaunty jazz standards. An American tourist interposes herself between two of the protesters so that her husband can snap a picture. If the woman could read Czech she would know that the sign being held by her photo op translates as AMERICAN AGAINST THE WAR, but the expatriate American protester is either too obliging or too embarrassed to spoil the couple’s documentation of genuine Czech counterculture. After the husband snaps the shutter the couple heads toward the astronomical clock.
A small hatchback drives into the square and unloads an amateur sound system, several painted placards, and a skull-headed effigy wearing an I LOVE USA T-shirt and an Uncle Sam hat. A man with a gray moustache, wavy gray-streaked hair, and dark sunglasses distributes flyers for a post-demonstration demonstration sponsored by the anarchists, to be held four blocks away. His donation jar reads, INTERNATIONAL PEACE MOVEMENT OF THE CZECH REPUBLIC. He assures the assembled that a large group of anarchists and women against war are on their way. When a group of young people appears wearing black jackets, Che Guevara T-shirts, Palestinian head scarves and waving red flags that read REVOLUTION, it seems safe to assume from the chaotic jumble of leftist fashion statements that the anarchists have arrived.
The jazz band breaks down their gear and recorded music starts playing through the small speaker set up near the hatchback. It is a strange medley: an old Chumbawamba tune is followed by reggae and then Latin music, all a little too distorted to be heard clearly. An elderly Czech woman walks by and is offered an informational handout. She already received a pamphlet, she answers; though against the war, she is resigned to it. “It’s money,” she shrugs, and walks away. Václav Havel, the national moral authority and until recently the Czech Republic’s president, is an enthusiastic supporter of invasion. Other officials are less avid, but having sent a thirty-five-member team of biological, chemical, and nuclear decontamination experts to Iraq, the Czech Republic qualifies as a member of Bush’s “Coalition of the Willing.”
Czech posters begin appearing at the base of the Jan Hus statue as more people arrive. An American expatriate clutching a homemade English-language sign looks for someone to hold it; her group has made extra. Later, a septuagenarian gentleman and a middle-aged woman with violet hair can be seen standing behind English signs more than half their height, each sign bearing the distinctive hand-lettering of the industrious American expatriate. It is unlikely the couple can decipher the slogans they are promoting: most of Prague’s older generation do not speak English. The couple peers into the distance looking stoic and long-suffering while pretending not to notice the few press