On the eve of the G20 protests in London, the Financial Times reported that the world had survived "Equal Rights Day", that capitalism is in fact not the same thing as democracy after all, and that WMDs (Weapons of Mass Destruction) had been found in Detroit.
I got the call at around 1.20pm. My contact informed me a mob was gathering at the Victory Monument intersection, just a 5-minute walk from my apartment. Assuming the Pro Thaksin/ anti-government ‘Red Shirts’ were back out in force, I scurried down to get among the crowd. I climbed the steps to the Skytrain footbridge and bustled my way through hoards of intrigued people to get the best view, but, to my surprise, there was not a Red Shirt in sight. In fact, the anti-government protesters were two hours away in Pattaya attacking the Prime Minister’s car convoy as he left a conference.
On the evening of April 1st, at about 10pm, I completed the public transport leg of my journey home at Liverpool Street station in the City of London, only to find nearly every exit blocked. One was still open and it allowed people to spill out of the station on streets around it. But access to the main thoroughfare outside the station - Broadgate - was blocked by a line of riot police holding batons and truncheons.
The G20 protests may be over, but those aggravated by injustice aren't planning on shutting up and bowing out any time soon - as proven by the wave of worker protests across the nation at car parts firm Visteon. I remember the Put People First march on March 28th, the first of many G20 demonstrations to come - with speakers Mark Thomas and Susan George rallying the masses in Hype Park to chant "Put People First!" as a screen above displayed to the public the hundreds of companies contributing to the millions of redundancies in the UK - in hindsight, Visteon should've been high up on that list.
Last Monday, a friend of mine called me to say there was a protest going on outside Parliament. "Thousands of Tamils are here", he urged. Intrigued by how this had happened considering it is now illegal to demonstrate within a 1km zone of Parliament Square under section 132 of the Serious Organised Crime and Police Act 2005, I headed down.
It's looking increasingly likely that the fallout from the G20 protests will have the same far reaching consequences for policing seen after the Brixton riots, Hillsborough, and the Stephen Lawrence inquiry.
If you haven't seen the footage from the G20 protests by now, you must've been sleeping. Police officers backhanding women, beating peaceful demonstrators with batons, and pushing over Ian Tomlinson, allegedly causing his tragic death (a view held by many). The Stop the War Coalition were particularly angered by such outrageous tactics, and called a protest at New Scotland Yard on Thursday 16th April, to assemble at 5pm. Despite being famous for their collaboration with police during many huge demonstrations, Stop the War had been warning of the dangers of controversial and brutal police tactics for the last few years, and the organisation see the events at the G20 protests as the culmination of this evident shift of the Metropolitan's approach.
Climate Camp in the city took center stage at Bishopsgate, Central London at exactly 12.30. Dozens of tents were simultaneously pitched in the street and activists sat down on picnic rugs along the road, despite the efforts of a few police who had no option but to retreat to the pavement. Within minutes more tents were pitched, drum sounds and bunting and banners decorated a quarter of a mile of Central London's financial district, turning it into a carnival style camp for climate action. Someone even brought a fully functioning compost toilet facility. The plan? To occupy the street for 24 hours of workshops, protests, a newly formed community portraying sustainable living in a festival style. The message? Don't let the financial fools make the rules!
Numbers was what got talked about this G20. Maybe it's because when you talk about numbers you don't have to talk about individuals and their lives, but leave that whole issue for another time. These numbers were big, like 10 million extra children facing starvation, or how about 1.1 trillion non-existent dollars that governments have lent themselves (sound scarily familiar?) to survive the crisis. Put that into perspective, there's 'only' 100 billion stars in our galaxy, so you can't even call it 'astronomical' anymore – I guess we're going to need to find a new word.
We'll be living in a dictatorship before we know it guys! Despite the shocking footage inextricably linking police brutality to the death of Ian Tomlinson (during the G20 protests in London a fortnight ago), there will shortly be a new law in place preventing anyone of taking pictures or filming any police anywhere; under the ironically named "Counter Terrorism Act", civilians can be imprisoned for up to 10 years for snapping a policeman!
