The dust has settled, the world leaders have gone home, the top table has been polished and put away, and about a trillion dollars is going to be injected into various systems to keep them oiled (a trillion dollars, enough to reverse climate change by my reckoning – but hell, finance is what matters!). As the true representatives of global humanity — the presidents, prime ministers, heads of the IMF, World Bank, WTO and (just as a token) the United Nations — met, a few thousand others took to the streets of London and…well, I’m not sure what they did really. Can anyone tell me what was going on?
I do know that there was no point them protesting, after all, to quote Charlie Brooker: “Protests really work, that’s why the Iraq war didn’t happen.” And I think we all know by now that the only protests that are permitted in modern society are those that are no threat to the system — the moment they do get “out of hand” (newsspeak for “risk causing change”) then the full force of the law will be brought down on the subversive few who dared veer from the program.
What I found particularly interesting about the April 1 G20 protests, is how diverse they were — ranging from camp sites and conventional marches, to dance displays and meditation, to instances of pent-up rage and physical attacks on property — yet how much the media sought to present them as a single unit of activity; preferably the unit that would create a clear delineation between “us” and “them”. Such were the efforts of the media to look for trouble that during the most turbulent periods, as you can see from the photo above, the photographers outnumbered the protestors.
But, as I say, it was all for nothing. A few years ago I would have been angry at the media and police treatment of the protests and the protestors; now I am just ambivalent — an armchair critic of both sides, that are engaged in a futile battle to gain the middle ground, while they both think they are standing up for right.
They are wrong.
It ain’t gonna change on the streets, and it ain’t gonna change in the rooms of power: the real work will happen, and is happening, beneath their feet, and in the quite corners where individuals and small groups are realising that they have to do things themselves. Are you one of them?
You’re right about the protests changing nothing. If they did we wouldn’t be in this mess now. The media only cared about stoking up the potential for violence and were just waiting for it to kick off. Those of us who know something is wrong with the current version of civilization need to be subtle and careful to get beneath and between the cracks of this mess. It is obvious that world leaders do not know what to do (to them it’s an attempt to get back to where we were, a temporary set back on the glorious path of growth), so we must help them, show them. It should be seen as a kindness.
Beautifully put, Apodidae: “Beneath and between the cracks.” If you don’t mind, I think I’d like to use that phrase.
By all means use the phrase and put it to good use in your writing. I am gradually putting together my own thoughts on the mess we’re in and have been for years, in journals. I think what we are looking for was summed up very well in the Pink Floyd song “Wish you were here” with the lines:
“And did you exchange…. a walk on part in the war, for a lead role in a cage?”
This is the thesis for my writings. I must get them in order. Nearly finished “Times Up” by the way.