Free to march

Photos or footage of AUOB marches always make me wonder about the demeanour of some of the demonstrators and the messages on their placards.

The latest march in Edinburgh coincides with a time when my native country of Germany celebrates 30 years of re-unification and also remembers the East German Peaceful Revolution of 1989, which played an important role in bringing down the GDR regime and the Berlin Wall.

When in Berlin and Leipzig hundreds of thousands of ordinary people took to the streets, they did it at great personal risk. There was no freedom of opinion, no free parliamentary elections, no freedom of the press and – not least – no free travel. Expression of opposition was prosecuted. A harmless joke about the GDR regime could land you in a Stasi prison. Everything destined for publication, from newspapers to theatre plays, was directly censored by the state.

Compared to parades organised by AUOB, the sincere and warranted East German protests were the complete opposite: no painted faces, no garish wigs, no flags or fancy outfits.

People simply marched for their freedom, carrying a few placards and banners which plainly stated their demands: free votes, free speech, free press, freedom of assembly, free travel – freedoms the people of Scotland have enjoyed for generations and are probably taken for granted by many AUOB marchers. Hence they don’t appear on their banners. Instead slogans are coined like “Unchain the unicorn“. Civil liberties exist, unicorns don’t. They belong in fantasy land like, I suspect, the whole “case for independence”.

REGINA ERICH 1 Willow Row, Stonehaven