On the eve of the big summit, G20 protesters are complaining bitterly about all the security – the helicopters, the water cannons, the ugly fence, the countless cops. What they fail to acknowledge is that most of it would be wholly unnecessary if they simply agreed to renounce violence, something they consistently refuse to do.
The other day I encountered veteran local activist Anna Willats at a pre-summit Creative Queer Resistance rally on Queen Street. I asked her: Are you against violence at the summit?
“I think that’s a silly question,” she replied. “Of course I’m against violence. I’m against all violence. I’m against police violence. I’m against gender violence. I’m against the violence of the poverty that people live with.”
Yes, I said, but are you against violent protest at the summit?
“I can’t answer a hypothetical question, sorry,” she replied.
Hypothetical? Since the violent world trade protests in Seattle in 1999, just about every gathering of world leaders has been haunted by the threat of the window smashers and brick throwers who throng to these things like bees to blossoms, sincerely hoping to get bopped on the head by a policeman and make the nightly news.
John Thompson, who studies security issues at Toronto’s Mackenzie Institute, says that defending the G20 leaders against terrorism is consuming only about a quarter of the more than $900-million budgeted for security. The rest goes to fending off the rag-tag crew of street fighters who will honour our city with their presence in the next few days.
They are pretty clear about their intentions. In one Web video, kerchiefed rappers urge listeners to “leave Bay Street blazing.” A group called the Southern Ontario Anarchist Resistance will march on the downtown security fence in aid of its struggle against the “capitalist, colonial, racist, patriarchal, homophobic, transphobic Canadian state.” Its aim: to “humiliate the security apparatus” through “militant and confrontational” action.
It would be simple enough for other protest groups to distance themselves from this lawless fringe and commit themselves to purely peaceful protest. But they won’t.
Speaking to reporters on Tuesday, Syed Hussan of the Toronto Community Mobilization Network (TCMN), an activist umbrella group, refused to condemn violent protest at the summit, saying instead that Toronto would see “different people taking different actions in the ways that they see fit.” As for trashing property, he said, “In terms of property, we’re really not trying to tell what activists what to do. We’re trying to tell the G20 what to do, which is to go away.” How helpful.
At a press conference last month, a parade of TCMN activists were asked at least half a dozen times to denounce violence. One by one, they declined.
The fact is that activists find the violent fringe useful. Violence draws television cameras – if it bleeds, it leads – and cameras draw attention to the struggle. Activist leaders may not throw bricks themselves, but many will be quite content if others do.
And when it happens, you can be sure they will blame the violence entirely on the police.
To sock the copper and cry police brutality when he hits back is the oldest trick in the book. Activists are already calling the fence and the massed police a “provocation” – in other words, a green light for brick tossing.
When King Arthur accosts an annoying peasant in Monty Python and the Holy Grail, the peasant yelps, “Ah, now we see the violence inherent in the system. Did you see him repressing me, you saw it didn’t you?” Expect lots of that kind of stagy complaint this weekend. But if real trouble does break out, remember that the groups who refused to commit themselves to non-violence are complicit in the result.
