May Day

May Day:

May Day used to be a day for celebrating the fullness of spring; the entrance into "the Cathedral of May," which in England in much of the Middle Ages was the most beautiful month of the year.

At some point it became a holiday for malcontents and Communists. Today we're apparently expecting some sort of pro-illegal immigrant protests in America, but that's not what I want to write about. I'd like to point to a more traditional form of May Day protests -- the labor protests in Indonesia.

Workers across Asia rallied Monday to press for better factory conditions and higher wages, often encountering a heavy police presence and, in some places, outright resistance.

Demonstrations were planned in major cities across Indonesia, with up to 50,000 people expected in the capital alone to protest government plans to revise a labor law. The new law would cut severance packages and introduce more flexible contracts that would chip away at worker security.

"Don't change the law," thousands of laborers chanted at Jakarta's main downtown roundabout, as others arrived in buses and trucks, waving green, yellow and red flags and banners expressing their demands.

Fearing violence, about 13,000 police were deployed on the streets, some carrying riot shields and manning water cannons, said police chief Maj. Gen. Firman Ganisaid.

Measure of Effectiveness time: how does this compare with the latest anti-American protests? The anti-American movement in Indonesia had the advantage of a big-time vistor to rally their numbers: the US Secretary of State, Dr. Rice. She was there in person, one of the architects of US policy on Iraq and Afghanistan, one of the chief warmongers. How was she greeted?

On March 14, 2006 approximately 200 people staged a demonstration in front of U.S. Embassy Jakarta in protest of the visit of U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. The demonstration, organized by two hard-line Muslim organizations, Hizbut Tahrir (HTI) and Pembela Islam (FPI), featured a procession of speakers who denounced the United States and Secretary Rice as "anti-Muslim" and "terrorists."

The protest lasted three hours, and ended without violence.