The G20 protests: Police brutality or proper crowd control?

In my last article, I wrote about my thoughts on the kind of revolution I’d like to see in our society. One that simply makes it so that individuals become more interested in self-development and in minding their own business to become better people rather than concern themselves with things that really don’t matter much in the end. I also expressed that I don’t feel that protesting is a very effective method of invoking change, particularly in politics here in Canada. I just haven’t seen enough evidence to back up the notion that demonstrations are useful.

However, as I previously stated, they are indeed powerful tools to unite people with the same ideologies and the same beliefs. What I failed to mention was that protests will also uncover some of the realities of our society. Protests will show us what kind of government we have, what kind of police measures are in place to protect or abuse us and what kind of media we have to report about any incidents that take place.

Without groups of activists, engaged citizens and extremists alike, we would be less exposed to the role of policing and the role of government responsibilities surrounding groups of citizens who gather to raise their voice. We wouldn’t know how far a group of people with a badge might go to control a group of people without badges. We wouldn’t know how angry and helpless we might become while looking into the eyes of another human being who is hiding behind a visor and a helmet. We wouldn’t know what it might feel like to swing a baton indiscriminately because we’ve had a rush of adrenaline.

We wouldn’t know what it’s like to become “us” and “them”.

That, for example, an entire group of pals that gathers to play football after work might in one weekend be found on different sides of a conflict. That men who would not ordinarily find it amusing to belittle the women they know personally find it acceptable to laugh at, threaten or taunt women they don’t know. Women who are “them”. And on the opposite end of the spectrum, that some protesters and detainees aggressively taunt the officers while knowing that they will be arrested and later might win votes of sympathy from comrades, when the arrest might have been completely justified.

I am like a lot of you. The Canadian who loves the rights and freedoms that I have in this country. And I understand that there are special times when those rights and freedoms need to be suspended or altered to protect us and the government. But I also believe that the way we are controlled, governed and treated by our government and its branches of enforcement needs to be approached with reason.

I’m like you – I’ve seen conflicting reports, I’ve not paid much attention to the media. And then, the power of social media came to the rescue – youtube. When I covered the anti-prorogation rally on Parliament Hill, one of the people in attendance commented on video: “Mutual surveillance, the government and the public, only fair.”

The videos that I have seen of the G20 protest are disturbing to say the least. I’m sharing a few here but I encourage you to look for them online and share them on Facebook. I’m trying to understand the tactics used by the police, especially when it comes to the aggressive crowd control measures that they’ve used. It appears to me that they did not want any protesters to sit peacefully – that the tactic was to keep them moving. I don’t know how effective this is or if it’s even really that wise to use such aggressive measures politically or not. But in this case, my sympathy lies with those who were treated so poorly by those with a badge.

I shake my head when I see reports like this because it keeps reminding me of the film “Das Experiment” (The Experiment) and the book written by the man who created the Stanford Prison Experiments, Philip Zimbardo: “The Lucifer Effect: Understanding How Good People Turn Evil”

He explains why it is startingly easy for someone in a position of power of another person to treat him or her so poorly.  It’s well known psychology.  And that’s what frightens me.

We are living in the age of information.  It saddens me and startles me that we have not grown enough to know how and when to apply the information that we’ve gained from evidence.  We know that it is very probable that mobs of police officers will dehumanize groups of prisoners if we don’t act to control their power and limit their actions.  We know that detainees will submit to acts of humiliation simply because they are fearful of rebellion (for the most part).  Yet we still allow our citizens to use aggressive methods and dehumanizing tactics in situations that don’t require such abuse of power. It also bothers me that these kinds of actions take place despite the fact that citizens have cameras and camcorders – is the intention to do it anyways so that eventually, the influx of examples of abuse will just serve to desensitize us? It’s rather bold isn’t it?

What I have read, what I have seen were not examples of proper crowd control.  They were not examples of the correct tactics to use in the circumstances that they were used.  They were simply disgusting and abusive.

I also reject the opinion often expressed by outsiders that protesters deserve to be arrested or detained simply for making an appearance.

Amy Miller – Alternative Media Centre, Independent Journalist from Darren Puscas on Vimeo.

So it appears that I was wrong.  Because if anything, these protests might prove to lead to change.  Perhaps not the change that was intended, but there might be a real chance to review and abolish some of the crowd control and detainee procedures that were used this past weekend.  And if so, if I never have to see another youtube video with scores of aggressive humans with batons and shields running towards people singing the national anthem, then we will have become a safer and more sane society.  We will have used this experience to become more reasonable in the way that we treat fellow human beings, with or without a badge.  We will have reconnected with what makes us more alike than different from one another: our humanity.

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