A critical lack of understanding

I am still trying to understand what I saw when I attended an Extinction Rebellion protest recently in The Hague. Well, perhaps I am trying to process what it means, since I know exactly what it is that I saw. May 27th on the A12 highway, thousands of protestors took to the street in an act of civil disobedience and disruption to protest that Dutch government’s investment of billions of Euros in the fossil fuel sector. The old foe was of course (formerly Dutch Royal) Shell.

The protest was peaceful, if emotional. One of the first warm and sunny days of the year, many protestors were out in their swimwear, complete with beach balls and inflatables. The phrase “this feels like some weird sort of festival..” was heard throughout the day. The water cannons, turned down to minimal pressure, only served to cool down the protestors on what was otherwise a sticky affair. Naturally, the advice that three warnings were given and so the right to arrest became legal became common knowledge. XR has since stated that the time for this advice to arrive was unnaturally fast - within 15mins of arrival. It was clear that the legal right to protest was unwelcome. A well-behaved protest on the green space next to the highway, as advised by the local police, makes no sense from a protest point of view since a protest unheard and unseen is no protest at all. I am also sure that this is not lost on the force.

It fairly quickly turned somewhat sour, if in a well behaved way. I attended this protest as a member of the student press, someone with some experience as a photojournalist but certainly no card-carrying member of the press (yet). My sympathies most certainly lie on the side of the climate activists, since to be on any other side makes no sense to me. I would assume that one only has to look around to know that the world is in dire straits, but I am also well aware of the fact that this particular strain of common sense is not so common. What I was not aware of, was the attitude of the police in the Netherlands. Coming from South Africa, I know a certain kind of law enforcement. Namely, when protests sour then the fan is hit by the proverbial shit. The #FeesMustFall movement of circa 2014 - which was the catalyst for the anti-colonial #RhodesMustFall movement that reached the shores of the United Kingdom - led to the witness of the liberal use of stun grenades, rubber bullets, and what we call a sjambok; a long and particularly vicious whip. In any protest in South Africa, anyone from the old guard will tell you to wear running shoes for a reason. In The Hague, parents protested with their young children and packed lunches.

When the action came, what I saw astonished me. In some corners, the behaviour between police and protestors was cordial - as if they were helping someone who tripped over a shoelace. But in other corners, the removal of unwilling protestors was met with violence. Not the violence that you would see on the streets of Cape Town, Bogota, or Paris, but one of blocking noses, bending wrists, and jammed jaws. A totally different sense of underhanded violence. While I could never condone police brutality, at least in an old fashioned protest you know what you are going to get. In The Hague, your treatment was unknown. Were you going to get the smiling policeman who knew that resistance to arrest led to a dragging away, or were you going to get the meathead bending your wrists and punching you in the sternum? Even then, some officers were told to back off by their colleagues. They knew exactly where the line was, some respected it and many did not. There was certainly no unifying behaviour from the police. What does this show? I have some ideas, namely that there are elements of the police force (any police force) that simply do not care for the right to protest. I can only ask what are these men trained to do in a situation like this? They cannot claim that they have been put in a stressful situation. If you want stressful, have a cobblestone thrown your way á la Paris. Be on the receiving end of a homemade incendiary device, á la Bogota. The final act of the force only served to reinforce the idea that they really would just rather do without the fuss and bother. Many news outlets, informed by the force itself, have reported on around 1600 arrests. This is simply false, since protestors were taken away to another location and once there, let out and let on their way. No bookings, processing, or even ID checks. Many protestors simply hopped on the next train back to central station and continued playing the game. It really left me both angry at the behaviour of the police in the face of something they don’t want to know and it has left me scratching my head. Is this the rebellion?

I do not think that I am in a position to comment on the nature of protests. I am not well educated enough on the matter. I know that peaceful protest is the high road, of the civilised mind, an ideal that really should be strived for. In theory, a critical mass of bodies is enough to change the world. I also know that in the face of real world oppression there is sometimes little that peace can do. When it comes to climate protests, which way is the wind going to blow. If the Dutch occupy enough highways, will legislature change? Will the global financial system buckle under the pressure of songs and blow up flamingos? Will a critical mass work? I don’t think anyone knows what is going to happen, which way the dominoes will fall. I can only conclude that this comes from a critical lack of understanding. That the right to protest is misunderstood. That the climate emergency is misunderstood. That the real criminals are the ones in the boardrooms and not on the streets. That real civil unrest needs real impetus. That some people don’t want to understand or act. All this, I think, only makes the voice of the protest even more important.