Earlier this year, the G20 Summit was held in Hamburg, at which there were a great number of protests – some of which sadly turned violent. In reaction to this, the German Chancellor at the time Angela Merkel stated that “Violent protests…jeopardise lives. They endanger the protesters themselves, endanger police officers, security forces and local residents, and are quite simply unacceptable.” She went on to say however that she had sympathy for peaceful protests… That may be the case, but sympathy, I am afraid is not enough…
Recent history is replete with examples of peaceful protest being ignored completely – the most flagrant example of which, was for me the protests against the war in Iraq. On February 15th, 2003, between 10 and 15 million people in 600 separate cities across the globe marched against the war in Iraq in what was possibly the largest coordinated protest in history. In the United Kingdom, the number marching was more than 1 million (1.5 by some estimates) and in Rome more than 2 million. The marches were both entirely peaceful and entirely ignored: a month later, Iraq was invaded.
If governments will offer nothing but sympathy for protests by citizens, what other steps can be taken?
Perhaps protests at more popular/ populist events can raise awareness sufficiently so that governments can listen? Not apparently in the United States of America… in September of this year professional athletes chose to kneel at the singing of the national anthem rather than stand – this to protest the apparent disregard with which they feel the lives of black people are held by the American police forces. This action however, was not even met with sympathy; the President of the United States of America indicated in a speech that he believed that the athletes who kneeled during the anthem should be sacked – indicating that he thought the act disrespectful.
Perhaps through political processes? Perhaps regional governments should act to ensure that their own citizens are heard? This too however seems doomed to failure, as was discovered by the Catalan people in October when, during a referendum called for independence from Spain, the voters were violently prevented from participating by police – who dragged voters from the polling stations and fired rubber bullets into crowds. More than 800 people and 30 police were injured. The Spanish constitution enshrines the indissoluble unity of the Spanish nation, a phrase which the government is using to declare the referendum illegal – and to deny the people of Catalan a voice/ vote. The Spanish constitution was written and voted upon in 1978; therefore it is entirely likely that many of those who voted for the constitution in 1978 are no longer alive, and that those who would vote now did not have a vote then… As of today, the Speaker of the Catalan Parliament and 5 Members are being held on trial for sedition – as are another 10 Catalan citizens – for their participation in this process.
The right to protest does not of course, automatically grant the right to be listened to, nor the right of change – however it should never be removed, and people should not be penalised for exercising that right. Sadly, those in power who are confronted with such protests do not agree.
In recent years governments have changed the rules for legalised protest as was seen by the changes implemented in the United Kingdom in 2005 which concerned the right of protest in Parliament Square: outlawing any unauthorised protest. The same year, saw a flagrant abuse of poweragainst protesters when more than 600 people were detained in 2005 under the Terrorism Act of 2000 when protesting at a political rally for the Labour Party (the government of the day). Following in the footsteps of this approach in July this year the High Court in the United Kingdom granted an injunction against (future) protesters to a company against whom there are no protests! The petrochemical company INEOS (which is investing in fracking in the UK) was granted an injunction against “persons unknown” (i.e. any possible future protests and protesters), despite the fact that they have no drilling sites and have not seen any protests. The injunction advises protesters that they may be imprisoned, fined or have their assets seized if they cause any obstruction to the firm’s fracking operations. Furthermore, no appellant was permitted to contest this case as it was an ex-parte hearing at which no parties are given the chance to mount a formal defence. Campaigner groups are now seeking £15,000 from crowdfunding to support their application overturn this injunction.
If, in the face of peaceful protest, sympathy is the best that the governments of the world can offer, then I am afraid that we are already living under an authoritarian regime. Governments have a duty to listen to their citizens, so when they see large numbers of citizens who manifestly believe that either the law or the actions of the government are wrong, they need to listen.
The violence which sometimes appears in protests such as these is not easy to label, at times the violence has been deliberately provoked by the police (as at the G8 in Italy in 2001 where 13 police were convicted of brutality) , at times violence has come from groups infiltrating a movement purely to be able to loot and fight; but it could be that violence stems from the very real malaise of a population which is ignored and discounted by their governments. There is perhaps, no magic bullet that will allow either governments or the citizens to identify between a protest which should be ignored and one to which the government should listen – but is equally true that by simply ignoring the situation and legislating against protest the situation will not improve.
Neither we nor governments should not be afraid to be challenged, we should not be afraid of change – and we certainly should not seek to legislate against it. If we seek to suppress the voices of disagreement, we suppress views which challenge our own; and we remove dialogue from the solution.
Without open and honest dialogue – what solutions are there?