G20

I actually missed the G20 protests, but came to the Melbourne Social Forum.

By the time i got to melbourne by the slow train on Saturday night, (i had missed my plane due to a slow trackwork train the day before), i got there in time to greet everyone hanging out and dancing to music outside the parliament on Spring Street.

Tired faces, who had obviously been through euphoria and trauma in the day, greeted me.

The next day, media outcry and repetition of a few images of cracked police windscreens prevailed. Some guy from Monash, was able to fit the (now prevalent) media archetype of a crazed protester, to become the face of the protest.

Again The Age, Australia's most reputable newspaper, and the Herald Sun stooped to the low levels of claiming that protesters threw urine at police. Same lie that they told six years ago. Their only source was treasurer Peter Costello. -just goes to show how newspapers bend the truth a lot when they feel they have to.

There is a good discussion on Melbourne Indymedia about the G20 protest, and the media representation of it.

And for the record, I have a real problem with the arrogance of the arterial bloc callout that said:

'We have no time for violent macho fantasy or delusions about Ghandi (sic).

It goes on. The problem i have with it is that i am not convinced that there were not violent macho fantasies at play. I think the idolisation of the Italian tutti bianchi can be problematic if their tactics are transplanted to an entirely different context, in which they are not understood by others. In this case, the images are received as threatening by everyone except those who understand the leftist subcultural allusion. Protesters in this way were able to dehumanise themselves: the media did not have to make any effort to do this, this time around (in contrast to the protests at the World Economic Forum in 2000.

In addition, in relation to Gandhi, I actually think the far left has just as many delusions about Gandhi as liberals who idolise him. In general, I think both are problematic. Gandhi is poorly understood, and it would do us much good (in terms of strategy) if we understood Nonviolence (Ahisma) and the Truth-Force (Satyagraha) better.

Whilst the far left in general interprets Nonviolence as a moralistic discourse, the Environment movements throughout Australia, understand nonviolence in more practical terms, and I think we have a lot to learn from them.