I spotted the first one as I turned the last corner on my way to work this morning. Steaming ahead at an impressive clip, in his maroon and yellow running kit, I figured this was some serious marathon trainer, but I didn’t think much of it.

It twigged when I spotted a policeman dart out into the intersection and direct the traffic (this even though the robots were actually working. And despite the fact that, on the many mornings when the robots are out with the rest of the electricity, you’d be hard pressed to find any police officer directing much of anything). Out of the intersection, barreling down the cycle track, came another runner in maroon and yellow kit. And then another. And then a few in blue. I thought I was just running to work. But I’d landed myself in the middle of some race route.

Not that I was complaining. We had a police escort the whole way. They stopped traffic for us. The police standing at every intersection along Enterprise were alert and helpful – a far cry from the three that heckled me as I passed them by, puffing my way up the road towards home yesterday. I was smiling the whole way with the power of being the one for whom traffic is stopped. And when we got to the Newlands roundabout and the entire circle came to a grinding halt? Yeah, I wouldn’t mind experiencing that again.

Which got me thinking. These race participants were:

• Noticeable with their clothing and props;
• Brought together around a shared interest and common purpose;
• Proceeding through town and making themselves visible to a range of people going about their every day business, thus sparking discussion, conversation and comment; and
• Protected by the police, escorted, honoured and defended.

In other words, these runners’ experience was a far cry from the WOZA/MOZA members in Masvingo who were arrested for playing netball last week. In fact, the behaviour of the police this morning sounds an awful lot like what they should do with all of our public events and demonstrations.

Until they’re willing to do so, maybe upping the ante of subversion in sports, and fun running the revolution is our next best option.

This entry was posted on August 17th, 2007 at 8:48 am by Amanda Atwood and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.