A promising march down Trumpington Street

Violet’s roving reporter Aoife Hogan hails the rhythm of the night as Cambridge reacted to Donald Trump’s travel bans

Aoife Hogan

Freddie Dyke

Trump made the world angry again, so Cambridge marched again.

I’d promise you not to say ‘again’ again, but it’s only been a week, and there seems to be a pretty definitive trend in the politics played by President Donald Trump.

On 20th January, Trump told all Americans they would “never be ignored again”. On 21st January, a woman carried a placard in New York which read: “You know things are messed up when librarians start marching”. She was right. Things are indeed messed up when over 500,000 people take to the streets of Washington to march against their day-old president. But those 500,000 found beauty in that mess, as librarians ditched whispering for shouting and the streets were busier than they were on Inauguration Day.

“The world will keep speaking, keep writing, keep memeing.”

On Monday, Cambridge also congregated in a vibrant mess of ideas and inspiration, solidarity and anger.

I thought it would be deeply disorienting to stand among hundreds of others exhausted by a series of orders set out by the new president with terrifying speed and intensity. But, as we chanted “Move Trump, Get Out the Way” in the style of Ludacris’ seminal 2004 single ‘Move Bitch’, the town took on a new kind of energy. A student slam poet demanded, “we must resist”, “we rise in the face of tyranny, and bigotry, and violence”. People held placards which read, “Stop holding hands with fascists”, “respect existence or expect resistance”, chanting “from Palestine to Mexico, all the walls have got to go.” A speaker told Theresa may that if she rides with a tiger, she’ll be eaten by it.

Video: Cambridge protests against Trump travel ban

But what struck me most was that it wasn’t just a march against Trump.

There was a rhythm to the night, a kind of beat that everyone kept coming back to, and could relate to in different ways. Some people were there with the Labour Party, others with Momentum Cambridge and the ‘Women for Refugee Women’ organisation. Some were just there to “impeach the Peach”. Others just watched. Everyone’s presence brought something new, so what stood out to me most was a shared message simply about what it means to be a human. An old human, a young human, basically a human (dogs were present), a conservative human, a Labour Party human. When I asked him what he would say to Trump if he could speak to him today, student speaker Saif Jalali said “Engage”. He told the crowd, “what we are doing here, what is going on around the world from citizens like us, is not political activism. This is humanity.”

Whether Varsity’s (incredibly well-executed) live stream makes it to the Oval Office or not doesn’t even matter, because the world will keep speaking, keep writing, keep memeing. It’s what we do next that’s important – not just what we have the strength to refuse, but how we use this strength to act.

Trump broke hearts again. He divided families again. But we proved that we were stronger, something we will do time and time again