Members of Global Justice Cambridge took part in two demos for Buy Nothing Day, 24 November 2023. The demos were small but successful — one with placards and singing in front of Amazon’s Cambridge office, one on the city’s pedestrianised Burleigh Street with other groups marking Buy Nothing Day.
While we were getting our act together for the Amazon one, we were approached by the site custodian, who asked what our intentions were. We told him we’d be staying outside and singing. “Any chance of a good Christmas carol?” he asked. In fact the tune we sang to is from an old French carol, but we don’t know if he was there to hear it.
Burleigh Street involved an extraordinary slow procession through the Grafton Centre, led by members of the Red Rebel Brigade (who dress in that colour for such occasions). Their protests are silent and very dignified. We think they’d have made some impact on us if we’d been mere spectators, and we hope shoppers felt the same.
We didn’t attempt to sing during their part of the proceedings, but we gave the Amazon song a couple of times before and after, while we were out in the sun.
The words were these:
THE AMAZON SONG
(tune ‘Besançon’ https://bit.ly/3G2JjhT )
Amazon, pay your workers right,
have things safe on every site,
have the unions organising,
jobs as jobs, with no disguising.
People, today’s Buy Nothing Day —
come and let’s make Amazon pay.
Amazon, pay your tax in full,
where you work, and pull no wool.
End your games of profit-shifting
and tax havens’ legal grifting.
People, today’s Buy Nothing Day —
come and let’s make Amazon pay.
Amazon, cool the world that burns,
take less from it as it turns,
open Just Transition trial,
fund no climate change denial.
People, today’s Buy Nothing Day —
come and let’s make Amazon pay.
Aidan Baker
CC BY 2.0
If singing on some other day of the year, end each stanza with
People, each day’s a boycott day —
that’s how we make Amazon pay.
