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Will there be violence at the G20?
Try talking about the G20 without someone bringing up the bank bombing in Ottawa
By Ellie Kirzner
Here’s a question: how many news cameras would have turned out for the Toronto Community Mobilization Network’s presser on G20 protests Thursday morning if a bank in a tony area of Ottawa weren’t sitting in blackened ruin?
The answer’s a bummer.
As it was, firebombers were the star of the news conference at the Steelworkers Hall on Cecil.
Though organizers worked desperately to keep the focus on issues — they had nine activists on tap from OCAP’s John Clarke to the Canadian Arab Federation’s Khaled Mouammar to climate activist Maryam Adrangi — it was clear from the Q and A that newsies considered all the talk about poverty, enviro dessecration etc, merely the preamble to what they really wanted to know: will there be violence at the G20?
Network spokesperson Leslie Wood struggled to stay on message: “we’re working for a more peaceful, sustainable world; we don’t talk tactics,’’ she responded in a myriad of ways.
“But are you going to tell people NOT to be violent?’’ one reporter persisted.
“We want to show that the G20 is incompetent in managing the world economy,’’ Wood gamely went on.
Finally, gender justice activist Anna Willats took the matter well in hand: she said there’s lots of violence visited on people in the normal course of society but that she doesn’t support movement violence in return. “I can’t square that circle,’’ she said.
But she went on to tell the press: “ the “message is in your hands.’’ If you focus on violence, that will be the main issue, she said. “You have the control.’’
Then her punchline: A bombed bank, she said, “ will be fixed up in a month; violence against women, will last for generations. You guys have to get on that.’’
But there’s a reason journos often don’t. Media outlets hungry for market share often reward reporters who go for the frisson — fear sells, no question. The lesson activists take from this is that polite demos rate a captioned shot on page five. Hence they (let me say this tenderly) develop a capacity to tolerate dismal deeds in their own ranks. Because that’s what gets reporters to meetings about issues — as in today’s.
This all sucks. And there’s only one way out, short of the final destruction of all market-driven enterprises on earth: activists need to go the limit, not on fear-inducing actions, but on creative and outlandish life-affirming protests front page editors can’t ignore.
Veterans of the Quebec Summit will know what I mean when I say: Teddy bear catapult. That shooting of harmless stuffies into the arms of shielded cops on the barricade just has to be the metaphor. It’s true, police didn’t go for it and it meant court headaches for activist Jaggi Singh who was merely a bystander, but you get my point.
There’s groups all around us dreaming up pooh-bearish-like stunts — I wish them a fruitful and comedic muse.
Source: http://www.nowtoronto.com/daily/story.cfm?content=175119