I have always thought that violence during students demonstrations is wrong. A kind of arrogant sense of superiority made me see violent students as stupid blokes unable to think and willing to exploit the mass of people behind them to unleash their lowest instincts.
In a way, I still think in the same way.
However, after seeing the “degeneration” of protests in London and Rome I think that sometimes the judgement has to be different.
Youngsters are frustrated, because political leaders do not listen to them. The Cameron government, as far as I know, has something like more than three quarters of its members who are millionaires. Berlusconi's ministers are even more detached from ordinary people, if that's possible. Politicians are disconnected, and prey to the mechanisms of their true masters: great companies and economic players. In the UK, they rise the Uni fees, and they keep helping the bank managers who caused the financial crisis and now are getting the same money they used to get before 2008, if not even more. As usual, ordinary people pay for the great sharks. And young people pay even more, because this system damages even more those who are not yet integrated in the job market and so on: for youngsters, there is simply no place available.
Now, coming back to violence, when students make their demonstrations the standard answer from the government is riot police. Actually this is true in particular in the Italian case. When I saw the videos of the students ravaging the conservative HQ some weeks ago, the police seemed really “polite”: they were trying to keep students out, sometimes in a harsh way, pushing them back with their bare hands, but overall without much violence. At least, in comparison with what can be seen in the Italian case (see videos of the Roman protests and clashes with police). Maybe in London, at the time, policemen were few and without clear orders, unable to put up the standard response to riots. More recently, they used mounted police. I've seen also a video showing a student being dragged away (by policemen, of course) from his wheelchair... Anyway, I think the Italian case is much more explicit: policemen can do whatever they want, once they charge into the crowd, like gang-clubbing a demonstrator who is already on the ground (8 against one, you are really brave!) and stepping on him (that's no fucking rugby pitch, you know). Once the melee has started, they are not accountable for anything: there is no way to recognise them, since they wear no identification number... as the “infamous” black blocs, they beat and cannot be called to answer for what they do.
In the Italian case, the “red zone” is the expression of a typical fascist policy: to provoke the demonstrators, curbing their rights to express their dissent; when they lose control, or at least some of them lose control, you let them devastate for a while, the police charges and that's it. Repression, not prevention of useless disorders; in this case, disorders are also made more likely to happen on purpose. When the riots start, the fourth power kicks in. Mainstream media have just to describe the situation: students start to destroy everything and they assault the police, then they are justly put down by the police themselves.
No one tries to explain that to close the way to the demonstration with the police vans is what causes the first spark. The people who watch the news will not see and understand the initial provocation: they will just see young jerks throwing stones and burning cars, and they will identify themselves with the owners of the damaged vehicles or shops. Overall, students are wrong, and riot police is right. If you try to explain that things are not so simple and clear cut, you are siding with the violent rioters, and you're wrong too... possibly you are even worse, because you justify them. You are the fascist, or, better, a late member of the communist terrorist brigades.
Simple, isn't it?
This policy works because there is not such a need for the so called “infiltrated”, a kind of negative version of the “agent provocateur”, who is appointed the role to start the violence in order to heat up the situation, encouraging the most hot-headed demonstrators and therefore giving the justification to the police to repress the “violent offenders”. There is not such a need for them, because the situation is already explosive... maybe they are there anyway, just to be sure. Moreover, it is possible that right wing extremists, who are probably worse then their left-wing mates, mingle with the other demonstrators, and then, following their tendency to show their real view of political debate, they start with the violence (do you remember Piazza Navona?).
What I find extremely wrong, in all this, is the stupidity of the rioters, when they damage on purpose the goods of people, like private cars; I can understand attacking a police van, but what's the point in smashing the windows of a car which is parked there? From the mediatic point of view, that's a huge error: the standard tv watchers will identify him\herself with the owner of that car, and will hate the demonstrators, she/he will not show solidarity with them. The police has to be the first to strike. I admit, however, that with the roads closed with police vans there is little to do. But destroying cars simply does not do.
The other thing which makes me feel sick is the police: how can they beat people in that way? That's not only students: workers who are going to lose their jobs because of the lack of interest of their own employers; people who have lost their houses because of the earthquake and have been promised everything by the government (useless to say that these promises have been disregarded); people who simply do not want to pay for the errors made by politicians and the great powers (banks and so on). Or at least, they do not want to be the only ones to pay, while those who have caused the situation either live still untouched or have improved their situation. This frustration builds up and then breaks through with violence. These policemen should be ashamed of themselves: I imagine that some do their jobs properly, but they must be a minority; how would you explain otherwise that all the abuses made by police officers (abuses which increase more and more every day) are never exposed? There is no fucking internal whistle-blower who comes forward. If there are many good people in the police, they are either cowards or blind, from this point of view. Possibly both cowards and blind. This is the problem of having people who work in the police because that's a job, and not because it is a service to the community. If you add the inheritance left to the republican institutions by the fascist age, with the hierarchy of fascist commanders either untouched or re-established a few years after the end of the republic, you understand what is the mental environment in which the policemen live and work. All police forces should be cleansed. Utopia, of course. Power corrupts.
And then people writes that the youngsters should be taught the values of democracy. Someone should tell these jerks that, unfortunately, democracy hardly works in these conditions. Is it actually useful to be worried about these things?
“you, respectable people who want peace.. the peace to do what YOU want.. but if this is the price we want the war, we want to see you buried”
Quite harsh terms, but doesn't the message seem clear?
