THREE UNFORGETTABLE THINGS. By Filippo Soresi Bordini
So many thoughts milling around in my head, so many heartfelt emotions, so many shivers running up and down my spine, so many faces, so many hands, so many hugs, so much sharing, so many voices… So many things about the Manchester demo are unforgettable, but for those who have the patience to read on, I would like to mention three: 1) The police: I don’t know, but the British must be profoundly different from us, if they can trust the people who organise a demo and just send in 7 policemen for 350 people. It was amazing, we were about 5 metres away from where the taxis were offloading those sad excuses for human beings, there was nothing between them and us, no barriers, no police cordons, nothing. There were about 2 tense moments, the first when some idiots decided to pass through the crowd of demonstrators and shortly afterwards the wife of one of the trainers decided to retrace her steps to make some abusive gestures. Someone stepped forward, the husband led her away, and the policemen politely asked everyone to step back, and thanked them. The second moment, which happened right in front of me, was when two young trainers, just before getting out of the car, started to give us the finger and shake it at us with a mocking grin, then once they’d got out, still looking at us but without smiling anymore, they started shouting “FUCK OFF!” At that point some of the protesters started to advance again, about ten in all, and I thought “all hell will break loose now”. But what did the policeman who was between us and that wanker do? He turned around, and with his back to us – who were in theory the dangerous rabble rousers – grabbed the idiot roughly, took him into a corner, and didn’t just send him into the hotel, oh no, but gave him a thorough telling off, after which the bloke went into the hotel with his head bowed, without so much as an upward glance. Well…I felt looked after; obviously one policeman wouldn’t have been able to stop us all and so that was probably the right and maybe the only thing to do, but from that moment on nothing else happened, despite further provocations, and I no longer felt that anything would. There was not a single incident that whole day, without barriers, or police cordons, or weapons (at least not that I could see), not even a single idiot throwing a coin or even just eggs. Nothing at all. Everyone was really great. The policemen would often speak with the protesters, and Michael James would stress the need to be respectful of public order, so as not to give the industry any excuse to ruin the message of the demonstration, reminding us that he knew very well the type of scum he was referring to. He would also speak with the policemen quite often, and their body language was always friendly. And there are those who swear that one of them had tears in his eyes, while he was listening attentively to one of the speeches. 2) The minute’s silence: Before the formal speeches started it was like a hell-pit, when the bouts of chanting in unison kicked off my legs would shake, I was shouting at the top of my voice as loud as I could, I was so moved the tears were running down my face, and I thought I couldn’t possibly feel any more. How wrong I was. Even during the speeches, when the trainers arrived the people would spontaneously shout “SHAME ON YOU!” “BLOOD ON YOUR HANDS!” “MURDERERS!” “SCUM!” Then Rita James at the end of her speech asked for a minute’s silence to remember the victims of this vile industry, the thousands and thousands of dead greyhounds. Suddenly not a single shout was heard, not a breath. Even the cars that had been honking more or less continuously as they passed by were inexplicably silent, in that moment. I hugged my girlfriend, and cried thinking about Valentina who was killed when she was pregnant and found rotting in the open; Snip Nua who was used for a BBC programme made to promote greyhound racing and who was dead even before the programme was aired, euthanised for a hock injury; the dogs found in Limerick with their heads smashed, the unnamed dead; all the dogs who died at the tracks that we have heard about in these last two years; those who fell and were just classified as “did not finish the race” which nearly always means they were killed after 5 minutes; Ghigo who they didn’t even allow to live once he’d been adopted. And who knows how many others I thought about without even knowing that they had ever existed, just numbers that were once lives. I looked around and saw faces which must have looked like mine, with dark expressions, tears streaming down frozen cheeks, looks that spoke a thousand words without making a noise. But the thing that really took your breath away was the silence. Absolute, painful, respectful. I swear I could hear my breath and the beating of my own heart. Even when some trainers passed by during that one full minute, which nobody wanted to interrupt, no one made a sound. It was a moment of grief, respect, sharing, closeness, solidarity, and the will to do everything possible to end greyhound racing. But more than anything it was a tribute to the dogs who died because of the racing industry, those whose bodies were recovered, those whose names we learned, and the many thousands who died and who will continue to die without a name, without a mention. Once again, numbers that were – and are – lives. A deafening silence, of a kind that I had never heard before, a silence that felt like it would make me explode, impossible to contain. A silence that I will never forget. 3) The message of the demonstration: The thing that will always stay with me is the message this demo gave me. It’s essential to educate the public about racing, the general public as well as people who haven’t the faintest idea what the racing industry really is, and those who adopt greyhounds. But not by just showing nice pictures of dogs on sofas, pictures that often come from the racing industry itself, like Trojan horses put together by the associations that collaborate with it, who keep silent about the abuses and point out how their dogs are safe thanks to the contributions of the industry. These associations avoid mentioning how those few dogs spared by the industry, on which they spend a bit of small change in order to rid themselves of them in an alternative way, are used to promote and maintain a front which allows many people to go to the tracks without the slightest idea of what they are doing. The day before, we had gone to stand outside Manchester’s greyhound racetrack, the largest and oldest in Great Britain, the place where everything started. One woman, on hearing what we told her, and when we asked her if she knew what went on in there, answered “I just want to have a night out”. There were many like her, even with small children. Many, many women were there, too many to be aware of what they were actually doing. The message of the demo is that educating people is not stuffing their heads with photos of dogs living happily after racing like some groups do, even some Italian groups, who collaborate with the industry, which often uses them as examples of how much they love their dogs. It’s about making people understand that when they decide to spend an evening out at the tracks, maybe even without betting but just having a cheap meal, or holding a stag night (cost: £7 all in), or putting a couple of cheap bets “on the dogs”, they are directly or indirectly supporting a bloody industry that kills thousands of greyhounds each year, and if it doesn’t kill them it forces them to live horrible lives. The only way to do it is to show them the truth. The only way to ensure the protesters are not alone is to keep showing people the truth that reaches us from countries where greyhound racing still exists. Even if it means criticising organisations that claim to save lives, people who are considered ‘angels’ but who, in order to save ‘their’ dogs, indirectly sacrifice many others; and by showing how the only way to stop all this is NOT just to adopt dogs any old way, no matter how. When it’s not done in the right way, it can contribute to the loss of thousands of lives. The only ones who can show us the right way are those who see directly how much damage is done by this policy of fake neutrality which kills, kills and kills again thousands of dogs while saving a few dozen of them. They showed us the way on Sunday 26th January 2014, and it’s called the Truth. The cold, painful, awful but simple Truth. by Filippo Soresi Bordini Filippo Soresi Bordini is an Italian vet who joined the protest as an independent observer. translated by Isobel DeeleyTags: adopt greyhound, adopt rescue dog, adoption, adozione levriero @en, antiracing @en, Belle Vue Greyhound Stadium @en, CAGED northwest, Shut down Belle Vue Greyhound race track in Manchester