Tuesday, July 05, 2005
Dead Men Protesting. posted by Richard Seymour
There is an excellent report back from the Edinburgh protests from Bloggery's very own Paul O'Grady at Dead Men Left :To condense yesterday's events, there are two important points:
- Stone-throwing, such as it was, was lead, organised and mainly perpertrated by local youths - by their accents and their clothing, they were easily identified. "Outside agitators" were few and far between, melting away shortly after the riot police turned up. Those the police lifted yesterday are very unlikely to be the dreaded (and near-mythological) "Black Block". No stones were thrown until after the riot police appeared.
- The grossly disproportionate response of the police to an initially very minor public order issue - a street carnival - was not just produced by the desire of competing police forces to strut their stuff. As the line being pushed by the BBC indicates, there appears to have been a deliberate attempt to achieve two aims:
a. to pick out as many likely "troublemakers" before Wednesday as possible (which, for the reason above, may be difficult);
b. to intimidate everyone else.
By moving very quickly from blocking a protest with ordinary coppers (as is usual and expected), to baton charges and (in short order) to riot gear, the police deliberately escalated the situation. (On good authority, it seems the police here have been briefed to the effect that four of their number are expected to die over these few days. Ludicrous, of course, but it explains some of their agression.) I do not think I have seen such aggressive policing in Britain before.
The post, title of which proves that Meaders is seriously competing with Mark Elf for the title "King of the Headlines", also draws attention to a tart little comment about Bob Geldof from Bionic Octopus . This animal is extremely dangerous and I urge you to approach with caution. Grrr. Big teeth and everything.