Some thoughts on non-violent civil disobedience

As I reread the postings of the past few days, it occurred to me that to someone not following the events closely, the intention of the demonstration at the Bella Center yesterday and thus the full context of our interaction with the police might not be clear. Yesterday's post was written very soon after we left the action and my main goal was to get out an account of what had happened, rather than provide circumstantial background or thoughtful analysis - so I thought I’d attempt to do this now (Stick with me - the good stuff's at the end!).

The publicised purpose of the demonstration yesterday was to enter the Bella Center in an act of non-violent civil disobedience aimed at opening up the negotiation space to the public. Our decision to participate in this action was guided by the fact that this week, numerous accredited NGOs have been shut out of the Center and thus each day there is diminishing civil society oversight within the negotiations room. I do not exaggerate to say that decisions about the future of our planet are being made behind closed doors and without accountability or transparency. Further, some allies who are still being permitted into the center have been reporting back on the exchanges that are happening inside, and the picture they paint is one of Northern countries committed to developing a carbon market without much of a care about whether or not it does anything to reduce CO2 emissions, as Southern nations that are already feeling the effects are pleading for real action on the part of the developed world and financial support to help them both adapt and mitigate the effects they are already feeling. This information is substantiated by the frequent walk-outs staged by members of the G77 to demonstrate their disgust over the bad faith participation of the developed world.

We decided to attend this event knowing that an act of civil disobedience had been planned and knowing the police would be present and would presumably be attempting to stop people from entering the center.

What ultimately happened, however, is that the police moved in on us as soon as we arrived in the area - a point at which no one was breeching any of the barriers that have stood around the building all week and where, again, no one was doing anything violent or illegal. Further, rather than simply acting to prevent us from entering the center (which would have been extremely hard for us to do given the one entrance to the building, the fence, the line of police vans in front of the fence and the several hundred police officers present), they acted immediately with violence and in a manner that can only be assumed to be designed to escalate the situation, not defuse it. Given the reaction of police, the decision was made almost immediately to abandon the plan to enter the Bella Center and to instead hold the transparent and open meeting outside, where a legal demonstration permit entitled us to the space. Although this decision was announced repeatedly, the police continued to press in on the crowd, beat people seemingly at random (for example, if they were not moving quickly enough for the police’s liking because there were people in front of them and they had no way of moving any faster) and fire tear gas and pepper spray indiscriminately into the crowd.

I hope you are all still with me, cause here’s sort of the point of why I wrote this post:

I know that there are many, many people who will say that the Bella Center is a private space and “we” had no right to even announce a plan to attempt to go in there – the public is not allowed in and we should respect that. Further, there are others who will say that, like it or not, rightly or wrongly, we have no right to be outraged by the actions of police, given that we knew it was likely to be a contentious situation going in. I’d like to briefly provide my thoughts on these two points.

1) We have no right to be there: I encourage all of you to consider what it means that so many in society are content to allow governments to negotiate life-changing agreements behind closed doors, without the oversight of civil society. I would also ask you to consider this in the case of Canada in particular, where recently released government documents show that our government has been lying to its citizens about their plans on capping emissions. We are the ones who will bear the consequences of the decisions made here in Copenhagen, and yet we are being denied any voice in the process. I contend that the notion that anyone does not have a right to be fully informed, witness to and participant in these negotiations is a complete fallacy – the closed doors are a way to ensure that governments are not held to account for what they say or the position they present, their intention is to let governments make decisions that will affect their citizens without involving citizens in that process at all. Of course I get the idea that we elect representatives to ensure our views are heard in parliament, but how do we know they are doing a good job advocating for us if we aren’t allowed to know what they are saying? There is a reason proceedings in the house of commons are open to the public and broadcast on CPAC. The great social movements of previous decades were founded on the notion of non-violent civil disobedience and I'd encourage you to question what it means for a government to tell its people, you aren’t allowed in, you have no right to speak, you cannot know the content of the negotiations we make on your behalf.

2) We had it coming from the police: We were peaceful and committed to non-violence, it was not necessary for the police to be so aggressive in order to prevent us from entering the center. It was clear to me that the goal of the police was not to prevent us from entering the center (which could have been very easily done by simply standing in a line in front of the entrance, or in front of the fence in front of the entrance, or in front of the line of the police vans in front of the fence in front of the entrance), but to punish us for speaking up and attempt to intimidate us into silence. Whether you agree with my particular set of political beliefs or not, I think most people can appreciate that it is a scary, scary thing indeed when the police act violently towards a group of peaceful people not because of a HARM they are causing, but because of the MESSAGE they carry. If we accept that people who wish not to have their rights violated by the police should simply not do things to anger the police, that seems to be the end of most of the freedoms a person can hold. I refuse to accept the idea that it is foolish or too radical to expect that I should be able to engage in non-violent, non-harmful public action without facing a violent reprisal from the police.