One who believes in or advocates the absence of government in all forms especially one who works toward the realization of such. One who disregards laws and social norms as a form of rebellion against authority. One who promotes chaos and lawlessness.
“ One who promotes chaos and lawlessness “ in which a few hundred at most individuals comprising a minuscule percentage of the thousands of relatively peaceful protesters in Toronto for the G20 succeeded in fermenting beyond their wildest expectations. Which is why a FULL PUBLIC INQUIRY is necessary.
As blog about democracy I have avoided opinionating upon the G20 disaster to this point largely because of the difficulty in separating fact from opinion and true accounts from spin (on both sides of the “thin blue line”). I did however like thousands of others view much of the chaos live on television (I unfortunately do not have the ability to view the hundreds of videos posted on line) and read many of those personal accounts of what can only be described as “abuse” by individual police or groups of police.
I have read rants condemning all the police as totally ignoring the restraints of law under which they normally operate and seen equally broad opinion saying that they we fully justified in their actions. The truth lays somewhere between those two extremes, there is no doubt that SOME police officers used unnecessary force, had no respect for individuals well being and made arbitrary arrests for no apparent reason. There is also no doubt that SOME protesters caused considerable property damage, taunted police officers in a effort to escalate the confrontation, and failed to move along when requested. In short the whole thing is not one sided and we should remember that individual police officers were under orders from above (be it their own sergeants, the Toronto police chief, or some nameless government official in the “control center” in Barrie.
That said the arrest of almost 1000 citizens, of whom apparently only about 20% or so have been charged with anything, and only abt 15 have been deemed serious enough to be held over for a further court hearing before release, is enough reason in and of itself to have a FULL PUBLIC INQUIRY embracing all the other inquiry's promised..
The allegations of arbitrary arrest and physical abuse (both during arrest and whilst in detention) by numerous citizens is a clear indication that at least SOME individuals stories need to be verified and where found to be valid action taken against those who initiated the abuse, condoned it, or ordered it.
On the other side of the coin those “anarchists” who by their actions precipitated much of the police (re)action, if and when identified, should be treated as terrorists for their agenda is (by reason of their self proclaimed anarchist affiliation) to ”promotes chaos and lawlessness” and if thats about as close to a definition of terrorism as you can get. That due to the lack of action by the authorities when they were actually creating the havoc it is rather doubtful that any but a token few will be charged or convicted is yet another reason for a FULL PUBLIC INQUIRY.
One final note here to our police officers. In order to do your job you need the respect of the public, if every citizen you deal with refuses to cooperate, if the public fails to report wrong-doing, if we are reluctant to open our doors to an officer, then your job becomes all but impossible. Our democratic society rely upon a respectful cooperation between those who are protected by the law and those who must enforce it. This spectacle has done great harm to that mutual respect even amongst those of us who realize what a difficult but necessary job you do. That respect can be regained, let those of you who witnessed wrong-doing or abuse by your fellow officers speak out, you are no less a citizen than any other, if you value democracy (and as a police officer I would hope that you do) that thin blue line must not become a wall of silence. Our police cannot turn into a military junta and if those that were on the front line and saw abuse do nothing about it then that is the direction we are headed. Doing nothing is condoning those abuses, by all means support your fellow officers where the actions were justified but support our democracy by speaking out when they are not.
“Whether the police were right or wrong, if the public believes we have done something wrong, we have fences to mend,” he said. “You can’t have the public saying ‘we hate the police.’ We just can’t ignore them – we need the public.” Deputy Police Chief Keith Forde during an interview with The Globe and Mail
Democracy requires dialog, let us have it at a FULL PUBLIC INQUIRY.
1 comment:
You have strung 3 separate definitions/understandings of anarchy from the wiktionary and treated them as one to present an utterly misleading definition on your blog.
As an anarchist I have to ask why you would consciously do this?
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