ABSTRACT
On July 2, 2005, some 225,000 people marched through the streets of Edinburgh in the largest demonstration the Scottish capital had ever seen. The occasion was the imminent G8 summit meeting at nearby Gleneagles at which the UK prime minister had pledged to highlight the economic plight of the world’s poorest countries. The march was the culmination of the “Make Poverty History” campaign, a campaign that the Roman Catholic Primate, Archbishop Cormac Murphy O’Connor, has called “the greatest moral upheaval since the campaign against the slave trade.” Despite competition from the simultaneous Live8 concert in London, the march drew more than half its participants from beyond Scotland and, despite a large and vigilant police presence, was wholly peaceful and overwhelmingly nonconfrontational. No doubt reflecting the very large participation from the churches, it seemed more a procession of witness than a protest.
