…or “fighting for peace is like fucking for virginity” as the old graffiti used to say.
I am so disheartened by the events of Saturday and the subsequent over-reaction by police that I barely know where to start.
First of all, there was my beautiful carnival and its hijacking by a bunch of people in white paper suits and bandannas, who — I understand — organised themselves on Friday night, made rash decisions on Saturday morning and acted without thinking through the consequences for themselves and others. This undid 9 months of planning for a peaceful carnival — and now there is debate in the activist ‘communities’ about refusing the media dichitomy of the good protestor/bad protestor. But it’s hard when I feel betrayed and feel despondent about the future of my society… if in a radical autonomous organising environment, we cannot communicate enough to garner respect, how will this society function in post-capitalism? Saturday is not the community I want to live in… and one of my mantras is to “be the change you want to see in the world”. So, I am disillusioned. For now.
Part of the problem is that I do believe in the ‘bad protester’ — or at least the idiotic one. Akin, who has been named now in the Age so I guess it’s okay to name him, is a bloody twit. He’s Turkish, on a protection visa for humanitarian reasons. He was hoping for citizenship, or so he said. What sort of idiot in that situation goes into a protest, smashes up a police van and steals its logbook? As the article says, he had a ticket to go overseas for three months on Wednesday. Nutbar.
Then there was the State response: absolutely disgraceful use of force against people who either hadn’t been there or weren’t responsible. Where Akin and his cronies threw bins and signs at vehicles and barricades, the police hit bodies with batons. A 20-year-old girl is still in hospital with her injuries. They smashed into a party we were having in the middle of the road on Saturday night, tipping over a guy in a wheelchair. They smashed into people dancing near the Melbourne museum yesterday, smashing into bodies, the same overhead blows condemned in the Ombudsman’s report in 2001 [full video].
But I can’t help but see that this time, they feel they were provoked. Because the white-suits were foolish if they thought their cute confetti-on-the-cops tactics wouldn’t encourage idiots like Akin. Because Akin and the drunken yobbos who saw a good opportunity for a brawl hurt their friends, for no known reason. And they see protesters dressed in dreads and figure they’re the same people… and somehow they fail to see the *children* in the stroller before they start swinging. Nothing, absolutely nothing, though, excuses abducting random people off the street who happen to be sweet vegetarian cooks for Lentil as Anything, preparing food for the G20 Alternative Forum.
On the good side, I went to the G20 Alternatives Forum and listened to Heriberto Falas of the Zapatistas talk about organising in Mexico and what’s happening in Oaxaca and I got to ask him about how they deal with diverse tactics and people who want to be violent, and he said there are armed groups in Oaxaca who are respecting the request from the people not to use force, and that developing clear principles and guidelines and communicating them clearly is the key. That was inspiring and powerful to hear.
And now, we are here. And I no longer no what to feel… I flip-flop from one argument to another as I listen to people’s reasoning… and at the same time, my lover and I struggle to find a place for ourselves in this new life together under one roof, in the face of a pretty emotional and rocky experience Monday and Tuesday. This has not been an easy week.