Among the 488 arrests at the weekend at what the media is still pleased to call ‘pro-Palestine demonstrations’ were many, going by the video and photographic evidence, who were considerably beyond their first flush of youth. Grey hair and wrinkles abounded – one of the decrepit demonstrators was pictured dressed in a charming garment juxtaposing the Star of David with a swastika. As with many demos of late, the age of these miscreants is being held up by the movements in question as if to say ‘look how harmless they are’. I’m afraid for me it just brings to mind the saying that there’s no fool like an old fool.
We’re constantly being told that we all stay indoors too much nowadays. I beg to differ. Some people don’t stay indoors enough.
Protests in general are populated by the young and the old, suggesting very much that that this is displacement activity
We also never stop hearing about the fundamental right to protest. Really? In what way are mobs of anti-Semites a ‘protest’ anyway? A protest against one racial group sounds a lot more sinister than that to me.
Protest marches in general are a strange modern Western custom that we never stop and think about because they’re so familiar to us, and are always vaunted as being A Good Thing. But most such affairs are for things that the establishment is basically on the same side of, but is felt to be not going quick enough on – ‘trans’ rights, green catastrophising, recognising ‘Palestine’ etc.
The very few that aren’t – the asylum hotel demos or the difficult women of Let Women Speak, for example – are much more interesting, as they feature people who in the normal course of things very rarely march or protest. Surely that counts for a lot more. The government’s new ‘repeated protests’ legislation, you can bet your life, will be used mainly for those people. The Hamas stans or eco-nuts, not so much.
Protests in general are populated by the young and the old, suggesting very much that that this is displacement activity, ‘something to do’. ‘They’ve got too much bloody time on their hands,’ as my grandparents’ generation were fond of saying about such events, and maybe they were correct.
Old celebs are now wont to chip in with foggy political thoughts more suited to adolescents. We have Miriam Margolyes, 84, raving about Israel’s supposed ‘genocide’. Yesterday we heard from actor Jonathan Pryce, 78, suggesting that a TV drama could ‘defuse anti-migrant anger in the UK’. Pryce was raised in an era where television flattered itself that it could shape society; dubious then, ludicrous now.
As culture shrinks into siloes, politics is about the only thing left where we are all still on the same page. Anti-Semitism has become a craze like Black Lives Matter before it, occupying the cultural space once held by the hula hoop or leg warmers, or potty but essentially harmless manias like Christian Science and rational dress.
Grey-haired crackpots abound – this is the Last of the Summer Palestine, The Antiques Roadblock. My favourite aged agitators were the Extinctionite pensioners in 2021 who were literally wearing sackcloth and ashes, along with the pious expressions of 14th century flagellants, and had around their necks confessional cardboard placards with legends such as ‘IGNORED CRISIS, OPENED NEW COAL MINE’ or ‘BOUGHT UNNECESSARY CLOTHES’. Then there was Dirk Campbell, then 72, and formerly bassist with experimental 70s rock band Egg, who in 2023 invaded the stage at the National Conservatism conference and started ranting about fascism to a bemused Jacob Rees-Mogg. There is something about JRM that positively enrages a certain kind of ageing, upper middle-class progressive. I think he sets off memories of their long-deceased old form tutor, and confirms their quaint belief that it’s still 1908.
This is the inevitable ageing of the beatniks, hippies and punks of yesteryear. The accumulated wisdom of the ages was jettisoned, replaced by the accumulated detritus of pop piffle and Star Trek-y platitudes – the ‘values’ our politicians blather about. If you have to keep stating and defining and redefining your society’s core beliefs, you’re in trouble. We should all know them in our bones.
I think the angry old are another symptom of the strange attitude we have to ageing nowadays. The elderly are no longer allowed solace and rest, and are exhorted to keep banging away, often literally. Witness the endless headlines about having great sex over 60, and the rocketing numbers of pensioners attending STD clinics. If you behave like a child into your teens you’ll be reviled, but behaving like a teenager forever is encouraged. The old used to be able to forget sex as something done and dusted, until they found it as strange and icky as they did before puberty. I sometimes wonder if there should be a cut-off age limit for sex at the other end of life, too. Leave our poor old bits alone, I beg you.
Old age is surely to be enjoyed and rewarded with respite. This should be the time of Saga and Classic FM, of going ‘oof’ when you stand up and ‘aah’ when you sit down, of even the weariest river winding somewhere safe to sea. Nobody should expect you to go gadding about having it off, waving placards about and getting nicked. Let the old be old again.
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