29 July 2010

G20 Meltdown street party, Bank Junction, April 1st 2009
No mate, you can’t go anywhere…”




That was the sixth time I’d heard this. I’d walked around the entire police cordon which, by this time, formed a perimeter around the large junction in front of the Bank Of England, asking when we might be permitted to leave. Queen Victoria Street, Princes Street, Threadneedle Street and King William Street all converge here under the unblinking gaze of the statue of the Duke Of Wellington, but today there was no traffic.

The streets were strewn with bottles, placards and litter, and people were sitting in the middle of the road or dancing to drum n’ bass pumping from the portable sound systems installed inside wheelchairs or wheelie bins. Packs of black-masked anarchists roamed through the crowds like caged wolves, kaleidoscopes of coloured chalk graffiti decorated the walls of the banking offices and the Duke’s bronze horse had the words ‘MINE’ Words: Will Jobbins
Pics: Will Jobbins
and ‘C*NT’ inscribed on its flanks. It was hardly Shakespeare, but those words carried more significance in their simple vulgarity than the hundreds of thousands of words penned and printed on the banking meltdown elsewhere.

Two hours previously, I’d watched as hoodies smashed the windows of the Royal Bank Of Scotland with a metal pole and occupied the building. Orange smoke belched from the jagged cavities and shadowy figures jumped in and then emerged, dragging disembowelled computers along the ground by the wires (although, depending on your perspective and assuming they were UK taxpayers, one could say the anarchists were simply ‘reclaiming’ them). The few riot police guarding the doorway were completely outnumbered and were subjected to a sporadic hail of plastic and glass bottles, pieces of wood, shoes and even what appeared to be half a prawn sandwich. Mayonnaise trickled down a policeman’s visor, but he was unmoved.

Bankers and city workers were looking down on us from balconies and open windows. Some of them taunted the crowd with handfuls of cash, others filmed the howling mob on camera phones, while a few – one man bedecked in a pink shirt and white tie – looked decidedly scared. A magnificent chorus of ‘JUMP! JUMP! JUMP!’ rang out. The bankers regretfully declined, and the jeering mob only melted away when faced with an impenetrable wall of riot police mounted upon what appeared to be medieval warhorses.

But to call it a violent protest would be an exaggeration. Notwithstanding the spectacular efforts of fringe groups to appear otherwise, the vast majority of the protesters were peaceful. For a few hours, they had made this corner of London their very own. Despite being hemmed in on all sides by an ever-shrinking cordon of perspex mushrooms, and with a return to reality impending (and the iron grip of the long arm of justice for a few), for a small period of time the streets were ours. It was surreal as this grandiose area of London, the heart of the City’s financial district, for a short while hosted an enormous street party. We partied on the pavements, we climbed on the statues, we danced in the gutters. We lay on our backs on the sun-warmed tarmac in the middle of the road and talked idly of politics, ethics or music. For a few hours, the mantra of Reclaim The Streets rang true – “Our streets! Our streets!” – and so, in the heart of one of the most important capital cities in the world, a small and isolated oasis of revolutionary freedom was temporarily opened and many came to refresh themselves.

However, as the day drew on, the atmosphere shifted. Rumours flew around that nobody was being allowed in or out. The police lines moved closer like storm clouds gathering on the horizon. Sometimes they moved so slowly as to be almost imperceptible, and sometimes they erupted in a frenzied roaring charge, scattering panicking demonstrators in all directions. People were being injured – bleeding protesters were being carried past. Why were they doing this? The violence had been remarkably limited so far, and it was obvious to everybody – including, we had hoped, to the police – that the proponents were a relatively small minority in the crowd. But before long it became clear that we had been ‘kettled’, trapped between unbroken walls of police officers who periodically charged the crowd, shields levelled, batons raised, and previously relaxed people reacted in shock, fear or anger. Many were, by this time, desperate to leave, crying or frightened. Others partied harder in defiance, the volume in the wheely bin sound system was turned up and people danced brazenly in the faces of hundreds of riot officers who responded with yet more aggression, obviously intent on breaking the morale of the crowd.

After more than four hours in the kettle, during which time many protesters received injuries necessitating hospital treatment, we were finally permitted to leave, one by one, along a narrow alley of masked riot officers. Gripped tightly by the arm with a meaty black armoured glove, I was marched to an area well away from the action – past a rolling video camera which no doubt added my face to the police database of potential troublemakers – and released.

Did the march achieve anything? Well, most of the demonstrators in attendance seemed to be aware of the futility of protesting against state-backed multinational corporations, or indeed against the state itself. Peaceful protest is as legitimate and important a part of the democratic process as voting, but in many eyes the government ceased to be democratic a long time ago. A police force that breaks the soft, fleshy, vulnerable bodies of the very people who pay its wages on their hard perspex shields is not facilitating lawful protest. Democracy is alive and well if you agree with the precise kind of democracy that is dictated to you. Dissent, openly disagree or protest en masse and you will be subdued, with a wildly disproportionate level of force if necessary.

So why did we bother? Because not all of us are ready to stick our heads in the sand and instead focus our attention on X-Factor, Eastenders or the latest football scores. Because the bleeding, twitching corpse of real, true democratic freedom cannot be left to fester and decay without so much as a fight. Because to be in with a chance of saving this planet and everything on it from the abyss over which it is teetering, the centres and philosophies of power and responsibility must be changed. And because however futile it appears, the effort must be made – it is the responsibility of everybody who is able to do what they can to facilitate real, constructive change.

But on Bank Junction, as the last of the protesters were frogmarched away or forcibly bundled into police vans, the graffiti was already being scrubbed from the great pillars of the Stock Exchange, glaziers were measuring the windows at the Royal Bank Of Scotland and all that was left of the demonstration were the ragged placards stacked against the railings, a river of stinking piss in the gutter and allegations of wildly disproportionate police tactics which may well have caused the death of an innocent bystander.

Whilst it is true, at the time of writing, that the police officer who initiated that shocking – and apparently unprovoked – assault against Ian Tomlinson minutes before his death has been suspended and a criminal investigation is now underway, it must be clarified that despite the best efforts of the police and media to convince us otherwise, this was not an isolated incident by one 'bad apple'. Many of the police officers in attendance were acting extremely aggressively, no doubt egged on by the words of their superiors in the days leading up to the protest who announced that they were 'up for it' – a curious turn of phrase more often associated with football hooligan firms or gangs of hoodies – and many had masked their faces with balaclavas, and removed or concealed their service numbers.

Herein is the problem – the police should be a responsible force, accountable for their actions whatever the situation in which they are working. When they become unidentifiable, they are no longer accountable and therefore are able to act without fear of identification and thus reprimand. This makes them no more and no less than a violent gang, well organised and heavily armed, and their actions are even further outside the law than the actions of those they are attempting to suppress. Although it is the Tomlinson incident which is currently getting the press (and rightfully so), there are many other formal complaints underway after the 1st of April – including allegations of assault and unlawful detention – and we must hope that justice will prevail, certainly for the benefit of Ian's family and indeed for every victim of the police force's actions that day. However, history suggests otherwise – nobody as yet has been blamed for the 'systematic failures' leading up to the tragic shooting of Jean Charles de Menezes which were identified by Sir Michael Wright, the coroner presiding over the inquest. Can we expect another piece of nimble footwork from the police force as they skilfully dodge the blame for this one too? Will Ian Tomlinson join Kevin Gately, Blair Peach and others in a dusty, dark corner of the police conscience?

To have the right to peaceful protest denied and subdued by our rulers can and will only lead to more frustration and anger. But we have been too afraid to complain – afraid primarily of police suppression and also of losing our relatively comfortable standards of living. But these money-orientated consumer lifestyles are an illusion designed to keep us subdued – it is a form of misdirection, like the pickpocket who distracts you with a magic trick in his right hand whilst taking your wallet with his left. As more and more of us wake up and realise this, more of us are ready to rise up for our liberty, and for the benefit of others in the world - and indeed for the world - which a seismic shift in power would surely facilitate.

The threat of violent suppression now hangs over all protests or occasions of organised mass dissent before they’ve even begun, and the terrifying spectre of a nightmarish Orwellian police state has never loomed so close. But we aren't ready to roll over and beg just yet.
Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable…"
John F. Kennedy, 1962.





Discuss this article in the forum by clicking here.

To view all G20 images click the image below.

• 
•