Heroes or Villians (a reply to Bimble)

Categories: uncategorized

Date: 20 August 2007 09:58:07

Bimble has given an opinion on yesterdays day of action linked to the Climate Camp at Heathrow. What follows is another perspective on what was going on down there. Like most of you I wasn't there and so what follows is going to be an assessment based upon (i) the media coverage, (ii) my own experience of non-violent actions and (iii) my academic study of the subject of political activism and social movements.

Firstly, the picture you get depends upon who produced the piece of media you are reading. To get the widest possible picture it is important to read a number of reports. So here is a selection you may find useful.

The Telegraph provides a selection of pictures, with some brief comments next to them. With this it is interesting to look at the pictures and decide whether you would interpret it in the same way if you had the pictures without the text and had to describe what you were seeing.

The Daily Mail actually delivers a slightly less biased account than their usual "rent a mob" coverage of this type of event.

The Independent uses some provocative language in their account.

The BBC give their opinion.

The Guardian includes a report of familiar Met tactics.

Indy Media provides the alt. coverage and keeps you up to date with the current situation.

From reading the range of reports, my assessment of the demo was that it was a largely peaceful demonstration which contained a huge range of different people who are opposed to the expansion of the airport. The majority of the protestors were "fluffy" and committed to non-violent action. The key weapons that they intended to use in this demonstation appear to have been play and humour.

The police came to do their job and the majority of police wanted to do this professionally. The strategy that those planning the policing of this demonstration chose to use was one of which is becoming standard within demonstrations. Putting police in standard uniform in initially but having police in full riot gear in reserve. At a certain point the police chose to block the protestors into a specific area and scuffles broke out.

On both sides there were a small number of individuals whose actions were not non-violent or professional. The result of the actions of these individuals was that the situation kicked off to some degree. The blame and responsibility cannot be fully laid on one side or the other but the nature of Met policing strategy for such events does not help the situation nor does the fact that, because of news values, the media will always focus on the minority of negative situations that occur rather than the peaceful nature of the majority of the protests.

As I indicated earlier my assessment comes, in part, from my own experience of a range of actions - most of which involved Met Policing and a range of protestors. Within those protests I have seen the way that Class War mock the fluffy nature of most protest and their small numbers seek to stir things up, the way that protesters who are casually dressed, and have their faces covered by face scarves, in a way which marks them out as extreme right wing sympathisers have infilltrated those demonstrations and sought to instigate violence, the way that people have unsuccessfully sought to keep the brew crew under control and persuade them that if they want to get wasted it would be better if they were elsewhere, the way police have been couped up in their vans for hours on end and then get let out for a bit of excitement, the way that some members of the Met who wish to engage in violence remove their numbers so they cannot be identified, the way the police have chosen to cordon people in for long periods of time and only let them out in dribs and drabs building up frustration and how whilst the protesters have been confined into a small space the police have used a small incident to justify baton charging the crowd.

As for the use of such demonstations which Bimble questions. Well, if it this type of protest was not effective it would not be viewed as so dangerous by the governments and corporations who, over the years, have introduced a range of legislation and spent lots of money in trying to contol legitimate peaceful protest. In the current age for an issue to be recognised media coverage is required and for media coverage to occur there needs to be "an event". In this case the paranoia and fear of BAA about the demonstration and accompanying climate camp actually helped maked the whole thing very successful. The sheer scale (and arguable incompetence) of the BAA injunction request to try and stop the action meant that the debate started to get more coverage. Amid the soundbites the actual issues do start being discussed and the public start to think about things more. Upon reflection some people may even be pursuaded by the arguments against the third runway and further think about their own use of air travel.

In addition when politicians start to see a wide range of their "ordinary constituents" joining the usual mix of lefty's, hippies and eco-warriors on this type of demonstration they realise that support of projects such projects could cost votes and in some cases it can start to change their minds about their actions in The House.

These types of demonstration are always part of wider movements which involve a range of activities, and so whilst on their own you could argue they achieve nothing as part of the wider whole they achieve much.

There endeth my latest rant.