Protesting the G20

It may seem a little bit late to look at the issues surrounding the G20, but I have wanted some time to collect my thoughts on the issue. This post is more thinking about the role of protesting in our society than that of the G20. The G20 is simply the most visible recent venue where all the issues surrounding protesting have come to the fore. The big issue of the G20 protests was the amount of security surrounding the event and the number violations of protesters rights by the police during the protests.

The story starts with the announcement of the $1 billion budget for security for the two days of the G20. This alone would cause me to protest, nevermind whether I agreed with the event or not. I feel that this budget and the seemingly weekly announcements of what weapons would be put to use during the protests set the tone for how the protests would unfold before the G20 even started. These were very intimidating and antagonistic gestures that were meant to put fear into the hearts of those who were contemplating disturbing the event. My feeling is it had the opposite effect on many people, angering them even more about the G20 event and causing them to go out and have their voice be heard.

One the G20 started, I was not at all surprised that the tone of the protests was exactly what it was. What did surprise me was the complete abuse of power used against the protesters. Say what you will about the behaviour of the protesters; detaining huge blocks of people for as long as they could, beating people, and threatening rape represents a gross misconduct on the part of the police, and the calls for more far-reaching inquiries should not go unheeded.

Of course, the behaviour of the protesters also needs to be examined. Unquestionably, there were some violent outbursts amongst the protesters, and the people committing this violence needed to be dealt with. A big problem with figuring out how hard the police should have come down on the protesters is the possibility that the most violent actions of the protesters may have been committed by police provocateurs themselves. Ever since it was proven a couple of years ago that police infiltrated the protesters in order to undermine the protest movement by creating violence, and the following police crackdown on protesters, one must question the amount of violence and damage that legitimate protesters actually cause. This opens the door for protesters to commit acts of violence and then place the blame on police provocateurs. When we don't know who did what, it is hard to figure out who is in the right.

The bigger question, though, is what has become the role of protests in our current society. It is painfully obvious that our current government doesn't want to hear the voices of anyone but themselves, so it is no surprise that they would try to undermind the protest movement in any way they can. The problem is that I feel that protests should be a very powerful way that people can express their dissatisfaction with how the government is conducting itself. Instead of acknowledging those feelings, the government is trying to stifle that voice, leaving no place for the dissatisfied people to express their opinions. This further distances people from the political process, leading less and less people to be motivated to participate at even the most basic political level, voting. When citizens are restricted in the tools they can use to influence government policy, and many are moved to apathy by the feeling of disgust with the political process, this is very bad for democracy. So bad that we can question whether it really is a democracy at all.

It is interesting to note that there was a protest march targeted at the lack of inquiries into the G20 abuses. The protest was said to go very smoothly as the police were very accommodating to protesters. It makes one wonder what the actual G20 protests would have been like if the police had taken this attitude in the first place.

Rob McDonald