philosophy of boots

you know the thing when you read all these anarchist books, about protests getting out of hand and people getting beaten up by riot police. in my case, there's always this little voice in my head telling me that it can't be true. police are here to maintain order. sure they have to show their teeth from time to time, but only if it's really necessary, right? my dad used to be an officer once. they just have to prevent things from getting out of hand, sometimes this requires violence to show those punks you're serious about it. and this thought had sunk deeper in my being than all the anarchist lectures ever did i guess. 'they are here to protect us from the bad guys'.

but last thursday was the day i witnessed police-brutality first hand, in my own country, in the city that i love, involving the people i like to call my friends, and i don't think i'll ever be able to look at these things in the way that i did. sure, we all like to say 'fuck the police' from time to time and think we are cool. but it just got a new and more profound meaning that evening.

what happened was that we were participating in this demonstration against fascism in the city of ghent, belgium. some 1000-1200 people gathered to show their discontent of an extreme-right gathering in the same city at the same time. 

at the very start of the demonstration, a group of anarchists (i can't really tell how many, but i guess there were 100-200 of them) dressed in black, many wearing masks decided not to follow the official demonstration and instead went their own way, presumably trying to reach the righties on the other side of town. my friends and i decided to just follow the regular demonstration, as we weren't really in for rioting at the time (any other time, just aks, but thursday night, nah).

after the official demonstration was finished (about which i'm not going to say too much, since it was a boring and uninspiring event, once more illustrating that left-wing politics need to rethink theirselves seriously) we were heading for a drink in a local club. on our way though, we bumped into a group of anarchists that were trying to get through a police barrier. there was some verbal aggression, but all in all, no violence. the police forces were shouting incomprehensible orders through their megaphone, when suddenly they decided that it had been enough and opened fire with their water canon/gun (i don't know what the accurate term is for these things). as we tried to flee the scene, we suddenly found ourselves (along with some 200 other people) trapped by police forces, coming from all sides and not letting anyone through. which was quite ironic, since they ordered us to leave the place.

from then one, everything happened in a whirlwind. people were trying to take cover from the water gun, while officers were pushing them back. Anarchists were throwing things (they weren't throwing or destroying anything at first), giving the police a good excuse to storm the demonstration. people that didn't have anything to do with the whole thing and that just happened to be on the wrong place at the wrong time got beaten and kicked by these robocops. i never saw anything like it.

anyway, they forced everyone to sit down, threatening to use the water gun again if we didn't. one girl was trying to take a picture of the whole thing. some stressed-out police-dude noticed, tried to pull her out of the group and hit her in the face. seriously, this is the sort of thing you only read about. after that we had to sit down for an hour, picking out random people to arrest before letting us go. 

being there and bearing witness to this sort psychological and physical violence, in this country, in that city, at that place and time just changes something inside you. the way in which you perceive society changes. it was completely unnecessary to storm the crowd, to hit people, to use the water gun, and especially to hit that girl. i hope she is ok.

the day after i saw the news on television. how they pictured the whole thing made me even sadder.

(the picture displayed is taken from the indymedia-site ovl.indymedia.org and presumably belongs to one named Vik. Check their site for more info and pictures of the events.)