This afternoon we headed down to Speaker's Corner - working our way down the London check-list we drew up - and were surprised to find glorious weather waiting for us in Hyde Park. It was hard, to be frank, to listen to the orators when the sun was shining, footballers and frolicking children were enjoying the green open spaces, and deck chairs were waiting out beneath the white fluffy clouds.
But we tried - Speaker's Corner, after all, is a grand statement on the importance of free speech, and what good is free speech if nobody is listening? So we can report that there were, of course, proselytizers from all three religions of the book (I had never seen a Jewish street proselytizer before - I thought Judaism wasn't quite so expansionary - but hey, what do I know), as well as an impassioned atheist, loudly mocking the Bible's math (crucified on Friday, rose on Sunday, how is that three days and nights? ha, ha! he said) and a fervent nationalist belittling her hacklers (you are all just foreigners, why don't you go back where you belong)
but the sun was shining on the green grass so we went and sat in striped deckchairs and looked for shapes in the clouds. Freedom of Speech was buzzing behind us - boisterous but not violent - while a toddler chased pigeons and rollerbladers circled the trails.
How do you think you can come here and be British - you don't belong here! and how can you leave your own people in your own country, leave them there all by themselves -- she was white-haired and slightly trembling, eyes intimidated by the crowd but voice strong.
Are you born again? [No...] Well, what's your problem? (and old man, and his listeners shying away from him) I'm serious, what's your problem? You - do you know the Lord Jesus Christ?
but there's no MONEY back there, a skinny, brown-skinned man shouted up at her.
that's two days, tops - two nights, not three - (the biggest crowd by far, for this charismatic man in a winter hat) so, what, can God not count? (loud laughter)
And you are only allowed in here temporarily, you won't be staying here forever, because that's not the way of things - things can't stay like this - even on her stepstool she's barely taller than her audience-
what I don't understand (an American accent, in a sequined jacket) is why we're here talking about details - why you're going on about three days, two days, three nights, two nights - when what we should be doing is arguing, discussing, putting our opinions out, celebrating that we disagree and learning to live side by side-
But I like it here! I'm comfortable here! I'm not going anywhere - I'm staying here forever! (loud laughter)
Are you going to listen to me? Are you? (painfully polite tone of voice from this man the charismatic atheist calls 'Minister') Or are you just going to talk - I'm telling you, this "three days" thing, you must understand that the Bible is metaphor, is allegory, is parable...
As the afternoon crept on, the clouds got a little darker, the wind a little colder - it would rain soon, but not before we were safely within the walls of the Oxford St department stores. The voices stayed surprisingly strong.
"It feels so safe here," William mused. "Did you notice how the maintenance vehicle slowed down when it got near all the children?" Like clockwork, a man came by to politely request payment for the chairs. People were eating picnics, playing with their babies.
There was murmuring behind us, and a cluster of synchronized motion. Men across the park laid out prayer mats on the grass or gathered on the bare asphalt, kneeling down for salat al-asr, the evening prayers.
Go back to where you came from, shouting the white-haired woman, still going strong, and her audience replied in a loud voice: NO!
Angela Merkel has declared multiculturalism to be dead, but the prayers in Hyde Park continued unabated and undisturbed, groups of men facing Qibla- reciting, Allahu Akbar- bowing, prostration, and again. The soapboxers and the hecklers didn't pause for a moment.
The atheist had changed his tactic, preaching now on the unjustly low salaries of police officers and teachers, this time to no rebuttals. We walked by, the wind a little too chilly, now, as he talked of cuts and government responsibility, and we left the public park, walked past public art and under public monuments, back into the British public space where debate is, while legal, considered rather uncouth. And maybe I'd have some thoughts about that but I've put off my homework long enough.
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