Two men say they're Jesus, one of them must be wrong

I went to Speaker’s Corner for the first time yesterday. Obviously, I’ve been through that part of Hyde Park several times before, but this was the first time I’d been there at the ‘peak time’ of Sunday morning. It’s an interesting place to spend a couple of hours, but you can’t help but feel that much of the real interest of going there has gone and that now you’re participating in what’s little more than a freak show.

The first thing I heard as I walked up from the subway probably helps to give the flavour of the place. I’ve read various bloggers and commenters complain about the Olympics over the last few days but this was perhaps the first time I’d heard someone complain that they’re a plot by the Freemasons as part of their ongoing Satanically-inspired plans to send all our souls to hell. I’ve met a few Freemasons in my time and I have to say that none of them seem to be much more than the stereotypical ‘mafia of the mediocre’ who find organising just one night’s dinner and dancing a huge task, so the idea of them organising the whole Olympics seems rather incredulous to me. But then, why let the facts get in the way of a good conspiracy theory? Though wouldn’t it be nice if, just once, a conspiracy nut admitted that an event had just happened rather than being organised by the Freemasons/ZOG/giant alien lizards/the Andrew Flintoff Fan Club (delete as appropriate)?

But even that was a diversity of argument seldom encountered from the other speakers, most of whom were merely exhorting the throng to accept either Jesus or Allah as soon as possible to escape damnation. There was a fair streak of misogyny amongst them though, with a couple sounding almost as though they’d stepped out of the pages of The Screwfly Solution, veering close to the ‘women are the source of all evil’ line.

I think the problem with Speaker’s Corner is that it’s been pretty much abandoned by the serious political speakers and abandoned to the religious zealots and conspiracy freaks. There was someone from the Socialist Party there, and judging by the quite impressive wooden pulpit he had to speak from they must be regular attendees there. He also showed an impressive willingness to discuss issues with the crowd rather than just shout bible quotations at them or ignore those who had difficult questions.

Now, I could make the argument that in this brave new world when we can have arguments with blogs rather than all travelling to Hyde Park that Speaker’s Corner is an irrelevance, some combination of tourist trap and Care In The Community, but I still think it serves some kind of purpose. We can scoff and laugh and heckle at the people who stand up there and speak, but they have the bravery to do so to face the world and say ‘this is what I believe, now tell me what you think’. The idea of a speaker standing on his soapbox (though they seem to have been replaced by stepladders nowadays) to appeal directly to a crowd does appeal to my sense of political history, a reminder of a time when people went out to discuss things face-to-face without any computer screens between them.

I don’t think I’ll ever want to get up and speak there, but I’ll probably return to Speaker’s Corner again, just to see how much it changes from week to week, how many people are regulars, and how many one-timers. Besides, it’s fun to heckle, and there are enough occasions there to make you smile – my favourite from yesterday was the assertion that people of the Mediterranean countries have no need for Viagra for they have olive oil. This was followed by the speaker taking a swig directly from a bottle of it. It takes all sorts, I suppose.