State Violence and Tory Anti-Democracy

It must be by pure coincidence that the government are trying to push through an anti-protest bill given the recent brutality enacted on vigil holders by the Met. Me and my better half tuned in to a live broadcast of the vigil on Saturday only to see Met police officers violently pushing people around and pinning them to the floor in what must surely be the most stupendous act of social ignorance I've ever seen. It was only a matter of days ago that a Met officer was arrested for Sarah Everard's murder. It's only been a matter of months since we witnessed the same police brutality during the Black Lives Matter protests.

What were they thinking, trying to suppress a vigil for someone murdered by one of their own? Why are so many people opposed to demonstrations of solidarity?

When something happens that resonates with so many people across the country and evokes memories of their own experiences, any argument that that states "Well, they shouldn't have been there!" seems utterly crass and vulgar by comparison. Saying such a thing only denies the right of all people to collectively and publicly express empathy for victims of violence and sympathy for the recent murder of Sarah Everard. It also by extension legitimises the violent actions of the police state.  

What did the detractors expect people to do instead, shrug their shoulders? More thoughts and prayers? Let gravity keep their heads down?

Even the argument that we're in a pandemic doesn't wash here. Kids are back at school, the country is being rapidly vaccinated by the amazing NHS, and the virus itself has a significantly lower transmission rate outdoors. 

I know Sarah's parents requested that the vigil should not go ahead, and it is their prerogative to do so, but surely they must understand that so many other women see her tragedy reflected in their own personal experiences? These experiences, both physical and emotional wounds, have been built up over time and are now such a juggernaut of righteous anger that they cannot be stopped, even out of respect.

Both last year's BLM protests and the recent vigil for Sarah are united in the fact that they are both legitimate expressions of collective and mutual experiences from communities that intersect. They're united in the fact that they were both subjected to state violence and that they are, by far and large, working class. If we're to draw any conclusion from this, one would not be wrong to conclude that the actions of the police state were ones that actively sought to prevent unity amongst the masses. After all, it's been known for a long while now that the key to overthrowing capitalism is that unity amongst the masses.

But I'm at a loss as to why so many people in this country compulsively act against their own interests by denying that state-mandated violence exists, by explicitly denying the right to protest or by undermining it with pseudo-causes like anti-mask protests, or by denying that there might be a problem with the way we educate young people, specifically young men. Because, despite all of our efforts, a certain conception of masculinity, a violent, self-entitled and privileged one, remains culturally hegemonic. There is no doubt in my mind that it is at least in part maintained by the state's own propensity for violence. One of the most effective and time-tested ways to stamp it out is through attending protests and demonstrations where we can listen to each other's experiences and express our solidarity with them. People, on the whole, can be an invaluable source of education.

Now, thanks to supine boot-fondlers who tend to express more solidarity with the corporate state than they do with the experiences of their fellow compatriots, we have an anti-protest bill making its way through parliament that could potentially see people in prison for 10 years if they're, on a whim, considered a "serious annoyance". 

The corporate media's role in enabling this by casting aspersions upon solidarity movements as being "loony lefties" or some-such is indisputable. We also cannot deny the roles of the pseudo-sceptics like Julia Hartley-Brewer, Laurance Fox or Piers Corbyn, whose false, divisive and unscientific scepticism actually undermines legitimate working class solidarity movements.  

The right to assembly and protest is fundamental to a democratic society. You cannot stop people from publicly building solidarity with each other through mutual, collective experiences, especially when the alternative is a continuing threat to their very existence. Doing so would be an affront to humanity.

But affronts to humanity are a Tory speciality as we see from the anti-protest bill slithering its way through parliament. 

They say that life imitates art, and if that's true, then it must at some point start resembling satire. This is a worrying proposition when you consider that politics has always been best held accountable by satire and that every single aspect of our lives has been politicised. It's an inescapable decline into a world where satire is indistinguishable from reality, and it's putting satirists out of business.

As a slight aside, one of the images in this article is satire. 

It's getting difficult to tell which is which.