It was a mixture of peoples of all races, cultures, Flemish & French, different political parties, the trade unions, NGO's and lots of old people, people with families, young kids who demonstrated for the first time in their life. You recognized by what people were shouting from which tradition they came (some like me had already demonstrated against the Vietnam war when, others had their first peace marches during the protest against the Cruise Missiles and SS20 in the eighties). Non a la Busherie was an inventive slogan. Busherie sounds the same as Boucherie in French (slaughter). Some responded "non a la boulangerie" (no to the bakery). Despite the seriousness of the situation there was humor in the air. But, also a lot of anger. Nobody believes the lies from Bush & Blair here. Everybody is seeing thru' the smokescreen. No war for oil! No war for Israel, added others. For a brief moment demonstrators could back a government who tried to avoid war and was obstructing Nato (unheard in our history). Young Flemish teenager girls were singing: 1 2 3 4 we don't want your bloody war, 5 6 7 8 steek die bommen in je reet!

I had to translate for my French speaking friends and said that learning a language thru' a demo is not exactly "nice" (5 6 7 8 put these bombs in your ass!) What chilled me however the most were the continuous sound waves. Someone in the back of the demo started a siren, an alert like for an air raid and then everyone started yelling and shouting (no words, just yelling). This was repeated for hours & hours. It froze my veins. The kids liked it and the 14-year-old enjoyed this part, the best. He could not understand why I was so quiet and his mum also. He found the yelling funny in all his bright innocence. Later after the demo I was trying to find a coffeehouse and I started yelling in the near empty streets. That the kid did not find funny but I enjoyed this immensely.

We said goodbye, knew we'd been part of an historical day, a day where the whole world had been in protest together. "Globalize resistance" was one of the slogans I could embrace the best.

In a second hand bookshop I found the first French translation of Tagore's "The fugitive", an edition from 1922. It was sold for 2 eurodollars. I bought it and called it the "reward for an effort in peace" From this book purchased right after the demo, "It's not in the comfort of my nest but in the infinity of the sky I learned the joy of singing, explained the bird" (my transcription) "Peace does not mean to be in a place where there is no noise, trouble, or hard work. Peace means to be in the midst of all those things and still be calm in your heart." source unknown