The Associated Press reported last week on the slew of counter-inaugurals across Europe: "VIENNA, Austria (AP) - In Geneva, they'll read patriotic poetry. In Vienna, they'll drown their sorrows and plot their revenge. In London, they'll stage a candlelight protest outside the U.S. Embassy. Across Europe, a land none too friendly to George W. Bush, locals and American expatriates united in their opposition to the U.S. president were marking his inauguration Thursday with some unabashed Bush-bashing.
Austria chapter of Democrats Abroad, which scrapped plans for a black-tie "un-augural ball" because of the tsunami in southern Asia, said its members instead would gather at a traditional Vienna wine bar "to scheme, plot and plan the retaking of our country."
In Britain, anti-Bush demonstrators planned a candlelight protest outside the American embassy in central London, staged by the Stop the War Coalition, which organized mass rallies opposing the Iraq conflict in 2003.
Rather than watch the Washington inauguration on television, the U.K. contingent of Democrats Abroad organized a talk by liberal author Ron Suskind, whose book "The Price of Loyalty" - an insider account of Paul O'Neill's time as U.S. treasury secretary - paints an unflattering portrait
of Bush.
Bush's re-election was widely seen as negative for global peace and security in 16 of 21 countries polled in a BBC World Service survey released on the eve of the inauguration. On average across all the countries, 58 per cent called his re-election a negative development; only 26 per cent described it as positive.
Protesters in Germany got an early start with a candlelight vigil Wednesday evening in front of Berlin's landmark Brandenburg Gate, where they held a dozen American flags upside down to symbolize an S.O.S distress call.
"We're Americans who vote, and who have a voice in U.S. policy," said Elsa Rassbach of American Voices Abroad, which organized the event in the country that had overwhelmingly backed Democrat John Kerry for president.
"I think there's alarm here, so I think many Germans would be happy that many U.S. citizens don't agree with Bush," she said.
Another group, Vote 44, which formed in Europe to promote a 44th president to replace Bush, planned a protest rally at the Brandenburg Gate for Thursday under the slogan: "You've Got a Voice."
"We call on all people worldwide who are against the policies of the Bush government to take part in the demonstration or organize one in their own cities," the organization said in a statement.
In southwestern France, Democrats Abroad screened a film called Bush's Brain and called on its supporters in Paris to dress in Kerry blue and gather at a trendy bar for "a dialogue of truth about the Bush agenda and its global effect on all of us."
About 200 anti-Bush activists planned to watch the inauguration on TV while hearing from Ukrainian youths who worked to elect opposition reformist Viktor Yushchenko as president. Overall, though, the emphasis was on "celebrating being Democrats, not 'we hate Bush,"' said Sheila Sarem of
Young Democrats Abroad France.
Kerry supporters in Prague planned what they dubbed the "What Might Have Been Inaugural Party," and in Geneva, they were holding a "Counter-Inaugural Dinner" to be kicked off with a reading of the Langston Hughes poem "Let America Be America Again."
"Instead of a prayer breakfast, we are having a poetry dinner," organizer Caitlin Buchman said.