Raving Political Moderates React To Brick Being Thrown

Before raving political moderates everywhere start soiling their drawers at the sight of a solitary brick being thrown in Tallaght yesterday, the entire incident is junior hurling compared to this 

A Brief History of Those Who Made Their Point Politely
and Then Went Home 

On this day of tear-gas in Seoul
and windows broken at Dickins & Jones,
I can’t help wondering why a history
of those, who made their point politely
and then went home, has never been written.

Those who, in the heat of the moment,
never dislodged a policeman’s helmet,
never blocked the traffic or held the country to ransom.
Someone should ask them: “Was it all worth it?”

All those proud men and women, who never
had the National Guard sent in against them;
who left everything exactly as they found it,
without adding as much as a scratch to the paintwork;
who no-one bothered asking: “Are you or have you ever been?”
because we all knew damn well they never ever were. 

Kevin Higgins

From The Boy With No Face (Salmon Poetry, 2005)