Bryan Murphy's Blog - Posts Tagged "protest"
Italians do it better
In France, the protest vote goes to old-style fascists; in Greece, it goes to new-style fascists; in England, it goes to Little Englanders; in Italy, it goes to new-style social anarchists. Who you gotta love?
Fighting Yesterday's War: Diatto's car factory and 21st century protest
Commercial vandals have secured a stunning victory in Turin. They have destroyed a fine piece of the city's architectural heritage, and done so with full protection by the police, and little opposition. What is more, they have succeeded in getting the press to brand that opposition as the vandals, instead of them.
There are lessons to be learned here for anyone who thinks that any city's architectural heritage is of value.
First, how did the vandals succeed? In short: money, modern technology and intelligent tactics.
Money on the table to convince the cash-strapped city council to lift its protection of the site and to provide an enormous protective police presence while they vandalised it.
Modern technology in the form of two long-reach excavators which used the brilliant tactic of immediately cutting a small swathe through the buildings, so that by the end of the first day's work the major part was already beyond saving. Those "Godzillas" are powerful creatures; intelligent Godzillas are virtually unstoppable.
The vandals even won the media battle. On the first day, the local rag's website reported on the vandalism using the word "clashes" ("scontri") in its title, even though its own story and accompanying picture belied that. The next day, another national newspaper reported one-way violence against the police, resulting in two injuries. That would have happened in places which I couldn't see, and, of course, they were quite right to report it if that is what took place. However, their typecasting of the demonstrators as masked anarchists from a nearby squat was sloppy journalism, at best. Nevertheless, such reporting succeeds in alienating the public from the protestors.
How, then, to stop the vandals?
This incident shows that once the Godzillas get to work, your heritage will be destroyed. You therefore have to protect your heritage before they get to it. That means you need better politicians, better laws and smart lawyers on your side, too. And support from a broader public than street-fighting men. Moreover, if you occupy a place, don't let the police know when nobody is going to be there.
It is entirely possible that many of last night's demonstrators were less interested in preserving the city's architectural heritage than in sparking a wider revolt against the "system". They weren't very successful in that, either.
This could have been Italy's Gezi Park, but getting reported as throwing rocks and bottles at policemen is not going to make that happen unless they are perceived as already having beaten the shit out of you and being ready to do so again repeatedly. In other words, now is a time for total pacifism.
Maybe it always was. Look what Gandhi achieved. Europeans of my generation remember the images of young women placing flowers in the rifles of soldiers during the "Carnation Revolution" in Portugal. In Bulgaria 20 years later, a "high-noon" confrontation between a protest leader and a riot-squad commander was defused when the student wrong-footed the policeman by embracing him to show that essentially they were on the same side.
To return to today and the comparison with Istanbul, what protests need now is "women in red". Come on guys, sacrifice your virgins! Send the hotheads with sticks to the back of the demo, or, better still, get them to leave their sticks and stones at home. Send the ladies with lipstick and skimpy clothes to the front and film any feckwit in uniform who dares to lay a finger on any of them, then send that film on a viral voyage through cyberspace. The mainstream media will find it hard to brand you as crazed cowboy anarchists after that. Instead of being "the other" you will have become "us" or,better still, "our children", "our sisters", "our wives". Then people will start listening to you.
There are lessons to be learned here for anyone who thinks that any city's architectural heritage is of value.
First, how did the vandals succeed? In short: money, modern technology and intelligent tactics.
Money on the table to convince the cash-strapped city council to lift its protection of the site and to provide an enormous protective police presence while they vandalised it.
Modern technology in the form of two long-reach excavators which used the brilliant tactic of immediately cutting a small swathe through the buildings, so that by the end of the first day's work the major part was already beyond saving. Those "Godzillas" are powerful creatures; intelligent Godzillas are virtually unstoppable.
The vandals even won the media battle. On the first day, the local rag's website reported on the vandalism using the word "clashes" ("scontri") in its title, even though its own story and accompanying picture belied that. The next day, another national newspaper reported one-way violence against the police, resulting in two injuries. That would have happened in places which I couldn't see, and, of course, they were quite right to report it if that is what took place. However, their typecasting of the demonstrators as masked anarchists from a nearby squat was sloppy journalism, at best. Nevertheless, such reporting succeeds in alienating the public from the protestors.
How, then, to stop the vandals?
This incident shows that once the Godzillas get to work, your heritage will be destroyed. You therefore have to protect your heritage before they get to it. That means you need better politicians, better laws and smart lawyers on your side, too. And support from a broader public than street-fighting men. Moreover, if you occupy a place, don't let the police know when nobody is going to be there.
It is entirely possible that many of last night's demonstrators were less interested in preserving the city's architectural heritage than in sparking a wider revolt against the "system". They weren't very successful in that, either.
This could have been Italy's Gezi Park, but getting reported as throwing rocks and bottles at policemen is not going to make that happen unless they are perceived as already having beaten the shit out of you and being ready to do so again repeatedly. In other words, now is a time for total pacifism.
Maybe it always was. Look what Gandhi achieved. Europeans of my generation remember the images of young women placing flowers in the rifles of soldiers during the "Carnation Revolution" in Portugal. In Bulgaria 20 years later, a "high-noon" confrontation between a protest leader and a riot-squad commander was defused when the student wrong-footed the policeman by embracing him to show that essentially they were on the same side.
To return to today and the comparison with Istanbul, what protests need now is "women in red". Come on guys, sacrifice your virgins! Send the hotheads with sticks to the back of the demo, or, better still, get them to leave their sticks and stones at home. Send the ladies with lipstick and skimpy clothes to the front and film any feckwit in uniform who dares to lay a finger on any of them, then send that film on a viral voyage through cyberspace. The mainstream media will find it hard to brand you as crazed cowboy anarchists after that. Instead of being "the other" you will have become "us" or,better still, "our children", "our sisters", "our wives". Then people will start listening to you.
