Rideau, Gaël

The anger of the people marching on - 2021.


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The procession is a locus for communion and unity, leaving no place for division and anger. And yet there is a dialectical connexion with protest/anger. Marching is for a start a means to appeasement. Authorities use it as a diversion, a way to a return to order, but this presupposes a belief and sometimes a popular demand, an occasion to sublimate fears and to ask for help. Far from being passive, the popular milieux have their role to play here. The procession can also help to crystallize anger through a negotiation of physical contact, the context of economic tensions and elements of memory- generating a political lexicon associating religion, street and community. With such contexts in mind, procession becomes itself one of the main reasons for this anger to be designated as popular.