Mr Howard said he believed many Australians were "not feeling strongly either way at the moment" about potential war against Iraq. –
The Age, 24/1/2003
Well I think if that were ever true, it’s changed in the last few weeks.
In what could be a first, police and organisers were *not* an order of magnitude apart when they estimated crowd numbers from Friday evening’s huge anti-war demonstration through central Melbourne. I was there. Well, kind of, for a little while. And I would estimate that the crowd numbered at the very least "a shitload".
Had I not been on my way elsewhere, I may have joined in properly, but as it was I needed to get across Swanston Street, which at the time was a sea of people. As I’m one of the estimated 88% of people in this country who don’t want non-UN sanctioned military action, I did chant "No war" with the others as I crossed. It took a few minutes, but I eventually got there, and wandered further up a closed Lonsdale Street, passing march latecomers as the throngs behind me continued to head south.
