March 24, 2010

Because Pigs Are Only Human, After All

Posted in History, Politics, Society, The Police at 12:25 am by Paul Sagar

Confession time: I really don’t like going on demonstrations. It’s not so much the standing around for hours, bored, whilst the police stare at me in a menacing fashion (though that is unpleasant). It’s more because I’m a thoroughgoing misanthropist with a low tolerance for twits. As a result, I find demonstrations irritating because of the people I find myself alongside.

Whilst almost everyone at a leftie demo is well intentioned, there’s a lot of muppets. Take the greasy-haired snivelling students trying to flog you the Socialist Worker Party rag. Looking snooty when you turn them down, it’s highly tempting to shout: “excuse me, but as a member of the Socialist Worker Party when was the last time you actually did a day’s work?” Then there’s the self-righteous preachers who always manage to magic-up a microphone in order to shout idiocies such as (and I quote from Saturday) “what is happening today is exactly like Italy in the 1920s!”

There’s the usual black-flag waving anarchists, screaming about how they hate authority – even when (pace subsequent lies and distortion) the authority of the police is presently preventing their weedy little bodies being kicked to pieces by a gang of drunk football hooligans. There’s the mandatory contingent of hemp-wearing vegetarian environmentalists, handing out leaflets about how we need to cycle everywhere and eat nothing but lettuce to save the planet. About how we need a “green new deal” that can rescue the planet and create jobs…with no actual economics printed anywhere on their recycled-paper dross. Then there’s the hard-line wingnuts, such as the lady I bumped into on Saturday. Selling copies of her magazine “1917”, she was part of the International Bolshevik Tendency (total worldwide membership: 100), which advocates universal gun ownership and the right of North Korea to have nuclear weapons to defend itself from capitalist imperialism.

Finally there’s the awful, insufferable, toneless, out-of-time chants and songs, most of which are manifestly idiotic. “Black and white, together we are dynamite”? That’s right. At an anti-racist protest, why not sing about how race-mixing leads to explosion? Genius.

The above all combine to make protesting a fairly irritating experience. So why do I go? Usually because I think a cause is sufficiently worth throwing my weight behind; suffering packs of twits for a day is a relatively small price to endure. It’s also made more bearable if I go with friends so we can bitch and moan together.

But why am I telling you this? Because personal emotive reactions matter to how one views a situation and a group of people, and how that influences one’s action. And everybody has such emotive reactions – including especially the police.

Following my blog about the Bolton anti-EDL protest, several people have quizzed me about what the police motives for misrepresenting the UAF/anti-EDL protest could possibly be. Am I just being paranoid? Why would the boys in blue play silly buggers? Here’s some thoughts.

The first thing to remember is that the UAF initially attempted to disrupt the police’s plans for two separate demonstrations. As a result, police officials may well have sought to teach the UAF a lesson. Mess with our plans and we’ll arrest a lot of you (perhaps also to gather information). Then we’ll tell the media that you were a trouble-causing minority, which will hurt your cause.

I think that’s very plausible, but there’s something deeper to consider. Something more worrying for those whose default attitude is to view the police as neutral enforcers of the fair rule of law.

When I recently blogged about police spin regarding the tragic death of Ashleigh Hall, “Yurrzem” made the following insightful comment:

“Those of us who remember the miners’ strike have a naturally sceptical attitude to the media and the police. It’s notable that a lot of the today’s senior coppers must have cut their teeth at the time.”

This was followed-up by John Q. Publican:

“…the generation of top coppers who have led, planned, directed and then lied about the litany of over-reactions, brutality and political violence were learning how to behave as policemen in the 1970s and 1980s.

There are forces which have gotten past this, because some of the honest coppers from back then got promoted; but in the Met, Sir Paul Condon drove out progressive and liberal senior officers and actively pursued an agenda of social authoritarianism and the suppression of protest. His protégés, fast-tracked by him because they were his type of copper, are now running the Met and in charge of the various high-profile anti-protest operations; Stephenson, Blair and company.”

I’m not qualified to comment on John Q’s specific assessments of individual police officers – but the overall picture looks convincing. Top coppers in charge today cut their teeth when the police was crushing organised labour at the behest of the Thatcher government.

Left wing demos are still characterised by considerable numbers of union activists, usually with branch banners proudly on display. The police in charge of contemporary operations must surely view left-wing activism and organised labour events with enormous suspicion and hostility. Why wouldn’t they, given their past experiences? No doubt most police are contemptuous of the EDL, many of whom are probably known as petty criminals and football hooligans already. But it’s entirely reasonable to suppose that the police top brass has a particular antipathy towards, and suspicion of, organised left-wing protest. If you’d made your name and rank cracking miner’s skulls in the mid-1980s, wouldn’t this be your attitude too?

We’d all like to live in a world where the police are apolitical, neutral enforcers of fair laws. But the police – and this includes its commanders – are just people. They too have prejudices, allegiances and suspicions, built-up over a lifetime of experience. I don’t go on as many demos as I could because I find many of my own “side” irritating in the extreme. It’s reasonable to suppose that top police officers are highly suspicious of leftist protests, for the same basic reasons of antipathy rooted in personal prejudice and animosity. Accordingly, they will be happy to do left-wing protests down, be it through arrests on the day or in the press afterwards. Pigs, after all, are only human.

Yet once that fact is recognised, it should be up to our elected politicians to introduce measures safe-guarding against, and correcting for, police prejudice.

I am not, however, holding my breath.

Permalink