This week was the 30th anniversary of the original Mardi Gras and on that night I went to the launch (by Sydney Mayor Clover Moore) of a small book of oral history of the first years of the Mardi Gras.
These sorts of events are strange ones for me and probably for most of the others who were there. Here we are, a bunch of middle aged grey-haired people harking back to a street-fighting time which has become fixed in legend - but the reality of that time isn't an easy thing to convey. I was pleased that most of the speakers directly addressed not only the 'diversity' of the Mardi Gras participants, but the overt conflicts and tensions that ran through what was a highly politicised movement.
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