I'm sorry that you felt silenced during demonstration. I hope you got other chances to get your voice heared afterwards (and if your voice was heard but just ha

I'm sorry that you felt silenced during demonstration. I hope you got other chances to get your voice heared afterwards (and if your voice was heard but just happened to be in a minority... Not much more to say than 'this too, shall pass'.) As an aside, to be honest, I've always been undecided about demonstrations. I dread for the day were they will be systematically forbidden or brutally repressed. And then again, I live in a country that is in a perpetual state of strike and demonstrations, but we're it's cool and fashionable not to vote, because, "it doesn't change anything". I love the creativity that comes in cardboard slogans. (I want to meet the person who invented "16-64 : it's a beer, to a career" during this pension reform season.) And yet, I always feel uncomfortable about being in the same crowd as other, much less original and much more simplistic slogans.(sorry, but I _saw_ the posters explaining that every single person wearing a mask or getting a jab was a fascist decrebrated sheep. Or that COVID was just a trick from the <insert your favorite scapegoat here>. I would not have like walking behind this, sorry.) Also, at how many people does a demonstration starts to represent "the will of the people" ? It seems like any cause can summon 500.000 people in the streets in May, provided the weather is good. 1 million people is almost a "revolution". And yet, 1.000.000 people gets you less than 5% of any election with a decent turnout. Should that matter ? Also, to be clear : I'm frailed or not particularly brave. The idea that "just because you're a big mob, and you can threaten to break stuff, you're right" is frightening. I supposed I would be even more frightened in an "actual" dictatorship. So, plenty of cognitive dissonance to deal with, hey ? Maybe I'm just enjoying the privileged position of a country where we get elections that are not entirely tricked (source : my perversion is tallying votes on Sunday nights. Cool kids don't do that, but they don't vote either - They get ready for the next demonstration.) I hope that, if we ever loose that, I'll get the courage to demonstrate.