G20 Climate Camp - The right to protest?

The G20 was a chance for some of the world’s leaders to get together and decide how to create sustainable growth and so an important opportunity to make real change in the world. This event was not going to pass by without unchallenged, and sure enough protesters arrived in London in their thousands. They demanded that leaders bring the troops home from illegal wars, they were angry about the loss of jobs despite the bail out of bankers and the as yet, inneffective measures to prevent ongoing climate change. I went along with a small group of students from UWE, with the plan of ‘swooping’ down on a London Street and setting up tents as part of a direct action organised by climate camp. We wanted to show the G20 leaders that we wanted tougher action on climate change.

Rather than the camp having to ‘swoop’ down on London as planned, it was more of an amble. There was little resistance from the police to prevent the tents from going up, in no small way due to the numbers of people there ready to camp. Soon the street was filled with people, tents everywhere you looked, a samba band played and brightly colored flags and bunting completed that festival vibe. Everyone involved in climate camp, as usual, were running an organized event. I was based on non-hierarchical principles and autonomous decision making - a form of pure democracy where every decision is made in agreement with anybody in the camp who would like to participate. There were also compost toilets and free hot food, completing that feeling of community and being cared for, creating a living example of how an alternative sustainable way to live, could be.

Throughout the day there were several clashes with the police trying to get into the camp which left many protesters battered and bruised. They used a controversial technique known as ‘kettling’, where they surrounded the camp and refused to let anyone in or out. Many have questioned the legitimacy and effectiveness of this tactic. People have been left unable to go to the toilet and without water for hours on end and sometimes they have not even been a part of the protest. There are many videos online, from sites such as you tube, showing the brutality of the police tactics. This technology has allowed the general public to witness just how violent and controlling parts of our political system has become.

I witnessed a police officer brutally kicking a protester before he pushed and sent her flying to the ground. Climate camp has a history of being non-violent and the protesters used techniques such as sitting on the floor, raising their arms and shouting ‘shame on you’ at the police. We linked arms on the floor but the police came in, two at a time, dragging and carrying protesters out of the camp including myself. Once they had removed those protesters preventing the police from entering the camp, they had free reign to brutally push those remaining. A good friend of mine, had his wrist broken in the process, a sign of just how heavy handed they were.

Many were left without their possessions as police refused to let them go back to collect them. Tents were left discarded on the side of the road, the remains of a beautiful event which ended so violently and, arguably, unnecessarily. With the camp preventing business as usual (planned for just 24hours), perhaps the state decided this was too high a price to pay for peaceful protest. It raises interesting questions about who the police are here to protect, and whether we really do have the right to peacefully protest as every citizen should have. Despite the brutal tactics of the police, we left happy to be a part of something that was an amazing living experiment and important protest about an issue that will affect us all.