In 1966,
Martin Luther King started to campaign against segregation in Chicago only to
find his efforts thwarted by violent mobs and a scheming mayor. Marginalised by
the city’s establishment, he could feel that non-violence both as a strategy
and as a principle was eroding among his supporters. “A lot of people have lost
faith in the establishment … They’ve lost faith in the democratic process.
They’ve lost faith in non-violence … [T]hose who make this peaceful revolution
impossible will make a violent revolution inevitable...” The next year there
were more than 150 riots across the country, from Minneapolis to Tampa.
As the
situation escalates in the St Louis suburb of Ferguson, Missouri, where police
recently shot an unarmed black man as he walked down the street, many are
clearly losing faith. As the first day of curfew drew to a close, hundreds of
police in riot gear swept through the streets, using tear gas, smoke canisters
and rubber bullets against an increasingly agitated crowd.
Protesters
insist the police action was unprovoked. Police say it followed shootings,
firebombs, looting and, crucially, an attempted attack on the area they are
using as a command centre. In a statement explaining his deployment of the
national guard, the governor, Jay Nixon, blamed “the violent criminal acts of
an organised and growing number of individuals, many from outside the community
and state, whose actions are putting the residents and businesses of Ferguson
at risk.”
Such
statements ignore the nature, scale and source of the problem. When an
18-year-old is shot in daylight for walking down the middle of the street
holding his arms up; and when his shooter is whisked out of town by the state,
then the residents of Ferguson were clearly already “at risk” from those who
would commit “premeditated criminal acts”. What could be more “deliberate” and
“coordinated” than releasing a video that claims to be of Michael Brown
stealing cigarillos the same day the police release the name of the policeman
who shot him, when the alleged theft had nothing to do with the shooting.
For some
then the police have come too late to the notion that they are there to
“protect” lives. “The law,” wrote James Baldwin, “is meant to be my servant and
not my master, still less my torturer and my murderer.” Those who call for law
and order now must understand that there is no order because men with badges
have been acting lawlessly.
As I
wrote after the riots in London three years ago: “Insisting on the criminality
of those involved, as though that alone explains their motivations and the
context is irrelevant, is fatuous. To stress criminality does not deny the
political nature of what took place, it simply chooses to only partially
describe it…When a group of people join forces to flout both law and social
convention, they are acting politically.”
For good
reason, the nature of such rebellions troubles many. Resistance to occupation
is often romanticised but never pretty. And Ferguson – a mostly black town
under curfew in which the entire political power structure is white, with a
militarised police force that killed a black child – was under occupation.
Riots
are also polarising. People ask: what could violent protest possibly achieve?
It is a good question. But it only has any validity if they also question the
nature of the “peace” preceding it. Those who call for calm must question how
calm anyone can be in the knowledge that their son, brother or lover could be
shot in such a way.
People
have a right to resist occupation, even if we don’t necessarily agree with
every method they use to do so.
As I also
wrote, following the British disturbances: “[Riots] are the crudest tool for
those who have few options. By definition, they are chaotic. Rich people don’t
riot because they have other forms of influence. Riots are a class act.”
Nobody
in their right mind wants more violent protests. But nobody wants more Michael
Browns either. And those two things – the violence of the state and the
violence of the street – are connected. “A riot,” said Martin Luther King, “is
the language of the unheard.” The people on the streets don’t donate thousands
of dollars to anyone’s campaign. They don’t get a seat at any table where
decisions are made or have the ear of the powerful. But with four black men
killed by the police in the country in the last four weeks, they have a lot to
say, and precious few avenues through which to say it. The question now is
who’s listening.
[Abridged]
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