Protesters can't disown the 'violent minority'

The state sees anyone who publicly opposes its policies as a threat. Protesters, violent or otherwise, are all in this together

o Leah Borromeo
o guardian.co.uk, Monday 28 March 2011 16.03 BST


The day after any major demonstration always brings out the hungover "mostly peaceful, shame about the violent minority" mantra from the meeja-darling bloc. Whenever there's an alternative popular movement that grips the national imagination, left-ish commentators and journalists fight whitened tooth and manicured nail for public alliance to this season's worthy cause of resistance. Yet, when things become ever so spiky or unsightly, they are also the first to publicly sever connection with people who choose to vent their anger in more visceral ways.

The sight of burning barricades on the streets of London is too much for the press to resist and one of the biggest demonstrations since the Iraq war protest turns into riot porn for the newspaper columns and airwaves.

Many groups who organised actions at the March for the Alternative never take direct action beyond staging peaceful sit-ins. They challenge the norms of the A-to-B protest but never damage anything and always clean up after themselves.

Most of those who marched would never take their anger out on inanimate objects. Violence is an act of the few with an effect on the many. Regardless of where you stand on the "smash stuff up" divide, the spectacle is part of the whole. If anybody "ruined things for everybody", it was the police with their wholesale arrests and wanton baton action.

Something out of the ordinary is happening – parts of Britain aren't bothering to be so polite anymore. Sometimes, to make your voice heard, you have to speak softly and carry a big stick.

There are no "good" protesters and no "bad" protesters. The state sees anyone who publicly declares their dissent to its laws and policies as one thing – a threat. When a state is threatened, it sends its henchmen out to quell it. When 500,000 people take to the streets of London against public sector cuts that will affect each and every Briton, the henchmen are the police. And you – student or teacher, patient or nurse – are that threat. It matters little that you're partying in Trafalgar square or throwing paint-filled eggs at Topshop on Oxford Street.

You can't balance the violence of the oppressor with the violence of the oppressed. One leads to the other and violence isn't always just a punch to the face or a brick through a window. When faced with the reality that each and every one of us will live more desperate lives, the smashed windows of a multinational or a hotel that can charge £4,000 a night matters little.

The coalition government sees no difference between a firefighter trying to hold on to his job and a student struggling to study. To try to make distinctions between a "peaceful" and a "violent" protester is inherently flawed. Dissent is a violent reaction. Saying "no" is resistance. To publicly condemn the "violent minority" is a betrayal of the cause you claim to fight for. David Cameron and NIck Clegg see no difference between protesters – and neither should you.

Westminster council say the damage to property is likely to total "tens of thousands" of pounds. More than 200 protesters were arrested, 149 have been charged and there were at least 50 reported injuries. Of the 4,500 police officers deployed on the 26 March demonstration, 31 were injured, with 11 officers requiring hospital treatment.

Although there are concerns that sporadic violence to property weakens strong arguments on the depth of spending cuts, we must remember that because cuts affect everybody, everybody is going to have a different reaction to them. Some may wish to fight back with local campaigns, others may wish to take more direct action. The point is to maintain a momentum, a united show of resistance, against a spectre that shadows us all.

The impunity with which this coalition is implementing cuts while bolstering the greed of the very businesses that got us into this mess is neither peaceful nor benign. So – many apologies to those who wish to distance themselves from the "violent minority". But we're in this together. You may not like having to share a boat, but it's a lot better than drowning.

Protesters can't disown the 'violent minority' | Leah Borromeo | Comment is free | guardian.co.uk

Originally Posted by contracycle

The state sees anyone who publicly declares their dissent to its laws and policies as one thing – a threat. When a state is threatened, it sends its henchmen out to quell it. When 500,000 people take to the streets of London against public sector cuts that will affect each and every Briton, the henchmen are the police. And you – student or teacher, patient or nurse – are that threat. It matters little that you're partying in Trafalgar square or throwing paint-filled eggs at Topshop on Oxford Street.

Really? So they arrested 500,000 people?

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When faced with the reality that each and every one of us will live more desperate lives, the smashed windows of a multinational or a hotel that can charge £4,000 a night matters little.

Anarchists in the 19C were saying the same thing about terrorism. A few deads was a small cost to pay for making a wider political point. This way lies genocide/mass extermination, 1917 Russia-style.

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Although there are concerns that sporadic violence to property weakens strong arguments on the depth of spending cuts...

Concerns? Yeah, you could say that. Or, if it is true, it then really weaken your political position by allowing the Gvt to refuse to engage with your arguments and just keep on protesting on what a violent savage you are...

As I said elsewhere, violence is fine by me. It's a tool, to be used. But, unless you're actually willing to go full length on it (i.e. switch to terrorism/revolutionary practices), it's best to use it only after the other guy. It gives you either the moral high ground or the appearance of nobility - "Tirez les premiers, messieurs les Anglais"...

And, sorry, but much as I might disagree on the cuts or whatever, they are not 'violence'.

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Originally Posted by Gilles de Rais

Really? So they arrested 500,000 people?

No, but there is plenty of precedent for them beating up non-violent protesters, even if in this case they seem to have been reasonably restarined.

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Anarchists in the 19C were saying the same thing about terrorism. A few deads was a small cost to pay for making a wider political point. This way lies genocide/mass extermination, 1917 Russia-style.

Firstly those are two separate points; this article wasn't apealing to the "propaganda of the deed" argument, it was contrasting scales of damage inflicted.

Secondly, there was no genocide in Russia. That's just... well to described it as a fiction gives it too much credit. It's something more like the claim that Liberals are hell bent on aborting as many babies as possible.

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Concerns? Yeah, you could say that. Or, if it is true, it then really weaken your political position by allowing the Gvt to refuse to engage with your arguments and just keep on protesting on what a violent savage you are...

I thnk we are long past the point of trying to PERSUADE the government. Plenty of arguments have pointed out the errors of their strategy but they are iedeologically committed to it. Why should we be restrained when they are not?

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As I said elsewhere, violence is fine by me. It's a tool, to be used. But, unless you're actually willing to go full length on it (i.e. switch to terrorism/revolutionary practices), it's best to use it only after the other guy. It gives you either the moral high ground or the appearance of nobility - "Tirez les premiers, messieurs les Anglais"...

Class war is endemic and ongoing. There is no discrete "before". Plenty of people would say that the state has used so much violence against the citizenry that they are perfectly entitled to respond in kind.

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And, sorry, but much as I might disagree on the cuts or whatever, they are not 'violence'.

Is that kind like, it's not rape if you don't have any broken bones?

Originally Posted by contracycle

No, but there is plenty of precedent for them beating up non-violent protesters, even if in this case they seem to have been reasonably restrained.

So the state doesn't automatically consider everyone manifesting as "enemy of the state" then, does it?

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Firstly those are two separate points; this article wasn't apealing to the "propaganda of the deed" argument, it was contrasting scales of damage inflicted.

I am pretty sure that was also an argument used by anarchists before. The moment you say violence is an option in the pursuit of an ideologic difference, genocide/mass extermination is the natural and logical conclusion.

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Secondly, there was no genocide in Russia. That's just... well to described it as a fiction gives it too much credit.

The Ukrainians may disagree... "After the defeat of Wrangel, the Red Army immediately repudiated its 1920 treaty of alliance with Nestor Makhno and attacked the anarchist Black Army; the campaign to liquidate Makhno and the Ukrainian anarchists began with an attempted assassination of Makhno by agents of the Cheka. Red Army attacks on anarchist forces and their sympathizers increased in ferocity throughout 1921. As War Commissar of Red Army forces, Leon Trotsky instituted mass executions of peasants in Ukraine and other areas sympathetic to Makhno and the anarchists. Angered by continued repression by the Bolshevik Communist government and its liberal use of the Cheka to put down peasant and anarchist elements, a naval mutiny erupted at Kronstadt, followed by peasant revolts in Ukraine, Tambov, and Siberia.

Obviously the 32-33 Stalin-imposed famine ( Holodomor - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia )

And more generally, "Soviet demographer Boris Urlanis estimated total number of men killed in action in Civil War and Polish-Soviet war as 300,000 (125,000 — in the Red Army, 175,500 — White armies and Poles) and total number of military personnel died from disease (on both sides) as 450,000.[31]

During the Red Terror, the Cheka carried out an estimated 250,000 summary executions of "enemies of the people".[32][33]

Some 300,000-500,000 Cossacks were killed or deported during Decossackization, out of a population of around three million.[Decossackization (Raskazachivaniye) is a term used to describe the Bolsheviks' policy of the systematic elimination of the Cossacks of the Don and the Kuban as social groups.[1] This was the first example of Soviet leaders deciding to "eliminate, exterminate, and deport the population of a whole territory," which they had taken to calling the "Soviet Vendée"[1] Some historians allege that the repressive measures imposed by the Soviets during decossackization constitute genocide.[2][3][4][5][6][7] One specialist of the conflict in the Don region, Peter Holquist, concludes that decossackization did not constitute an "open-ended program" of genocide but does claim that it shows the Soviet regime's "dedication to social engineering" and was a "ruthless" and "radical attempt to eliminate undesirable social groups] An estimated 100,000 Jews were killed in Ukraine, mostly by the White Army.[35] Punitive organs of the "All Great Don Host" sentenced 25,000 people to death between May 1918 and January 1919.[36] Kolchak's government shot 25,000 people in Ekaterinburg province alone.[37]

[...] Millions more were also killed by widespread starvation, wholesale massacres by both sides, and pogroms against Jews in Ukraine and southern Russia."

I'll give you that it did take two to tango and the Whites weren't exactly examples of moderation when it came to dealing with their enemies but

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I thnk we are long past the point of trying to PERSUADE the government. Plenty of arguments have pointed out the errors of their strategy but they are iedeologically committed to it.

You don't persuade the gvt. You persuade the voters and either the gvt complies to keep in power or get booted.

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Why should we be restrained when they are not?

Because they are restrained. They haven't proposed exterminating benefit cheats, have they?

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Plenty of people would say that the state has used so much violence against the citizenry that they are perfectly entitled to respond in kind.

Poetic license. Violence is a physical thing. Else, it's not violence.

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Is that kind like, it's not rape if you don't have any broken bones?

Not sure about rape (I thought doctors could tell via examination of the 'damage' sustained by the vagina - Some micro-lacerations and abrasions are normal but, iirc, different in a consensual and non-consensual act) but pretty sure that violence is a act of violence. Else, it's something else.

__________________
Unless otherwise specified, I am posting as a regular poster. When I will act as a mod, I'll make sure you're in no doubt.

Originally Posted by Gilles de Rais

So the state doesn't automatically consider everyone manifesting as "enemy of the state" then, does it?

IME, the police certainly do treat you pretty much that way. But that doesn't suggest that the state has no sense of PR at all.

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I am pretty sure that was also an argument used by anarchists before. The moment you say violence is an option in the pursuit of an ideologic difference, genocide/mass extermination is the natural and logical conclusion.

I'm sure it may well have been argued in other cases, but they are still unrelated points, and neither is related to alleged genocides. That just doesn't follow at all.

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The Ukrainians may disagree... "After the defeat of Wrangel, the Red Army immediately repudiated its 1920 treaty of alliance with Nestor Makhno and attacked the anarchist Black Army; the campaign to liquidate Makhno and the Ukrainian anarchists began with an attempted assassination of Makhno by agents of the Cheka. Red Army attacks on anarchist forces and their sympathizers increased in ferocity throughout 1921. As War Commissar of Red Army forces, Leon Trotsky instituted mass executions of peasants in Ukraine and other areas sympathetic to Makhno and the anarchists. Angered by continued repression by the Bolshevik Communist government and its liberal use of the Cheka to put down peasant and anarchist elements, a naval mutiny erupted at Kronstadt, followed by peasant revolts in Ukraine, Tambov, and Siberia.

Again I think this is taken grossly out of context. I don't think anyone would expect people to starve quietly, so I don;t see that the Bolsheviks should have been expected to. Which is what would have happened. So this is by nature of being a civil war, and civil wars are notriously bloody. This is a factor wholly unrelated to proeprty damage in London.

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Obviously the 32-33 Stalin-imposed famine ( Holodomor - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia )

Even the link you've cited acknowledges that the view that it was deliberately imposed is "controversial".

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And more generally, "Soviet demographer Boris Urlanis estimated total number of men killed in action in Civil War and Polish-Soviet war as 300,000 (125,000 — in the Red Army, 175,500 — White armies and Poles) and total number of military personnel died from disease (on both sides) as 450,000.[31]

People die in wars? Is that unusual?

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During the Red Terror, the Cheka carried out an estimated 250,000 summary executions of "enemies of the people".[32][33]

True enough. But not in essence any different to the corporal discipline applied by any state.

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Some 300,000-500,000 Cossacks were killed or deported during Decossackization, out of a population of around three million.[[I]Decossackization (Raskazachivaniye) is a term used to describe the Bolsheviks' policy of the systematic elimination of the Cossacks of the Don and the Kuban as social groups.[1]

These are the same Cossacks that were the leading element of White Terror, yes? Which had carried out pogroms and exterminations on behalf of the Tsars. I'm not at all surprised that some anmus remained, although once again even the bit you've quote confesses uncertainty over whether there w3as a deliberate policy to kill.

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[...] Millions more were also killed by widespread starvation, wholesale massacres by both sides, and pogroms against Jews in Ukraine and southern Russia."

Ah well, at last an acknowledgment of "both sides". Which unfortunately doesn't do your claim that any violence by the weak against the strong is an open door to genocide. Which is why the Jewish organs were overwhelmingly algned with the Bolsheviks.

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I'll give you that it did take two to tango and the Whites weren't exactly examples of moderation when it came to dealing with their enemies but

But what? It was a brutal civil war, and one which involved the Whites deliberately attempting to starve the populace into submission. I don't expect things to go according the Marquess of Queensbury rules under those circumstances.

I find it an irony that you aregue in one thread that we have no rights beyond violence, and here feign to be shocked when it appears in the context of civil war.

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You don't persuade the gvt. You persuade the voters and either the gvt complies to keep in power or get booted.

I've already pointed out that we were never asked to vote on this propgramme of austerity measures. I don't accept the legitimacy of parliamentarism, and I don;t think that what the voters actually think matters very much to the state.

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Because they are restrained. They haven't proposed exterminating benefit cheats, have they?

and demonstrators have only resorted to damage to property. That seems pretty proportionate to me.

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Poetic license. Violence is a physical thing. Else, it's not violence.

Quite so.

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Not sure about rape (I thought doctors could tell via examination of the 'damage' sustained by the vagina - Some micro-lacerations and abrasions are normal but, iirc, different in a consensual and non-consensual act) but pretty sure that violence is a act of violence. Else, it's something else.

So if I threaten someone with a knife or a gun, and they comply, there was no violence?