At 5pm this evening, Indymedia and solidarity activists and friends of Brad turned up outside the Mexican Embassy in London to show solidarity with the uprising in Oaxaca and the state murder of Indymedia journalist Brad Will, 36, of New York City. Initially, there around 30 people, but this quickly swelled to a mass of 60-70 or more people. The initial presence was marked with banners and a small noise demonstration, before the Indymedia Tricycle turned up, followed thereafter by a samba band and audiovisual equipment.
The promised presentation of Brad Will's final footage then was played on the front of the embassy, to the delight of the crowd, who began to quieten down to listen to the soundtrack and view the harrowing footage. Within just a few minutes, a police officer obstructed the viewing by standing in the doorway of the embassy; another then attempted to stand in front of the projector, an obstacle easily overcome by moving the tricycle forward just a few inches. More officers moved in, to obstruct the viewing, and the samba band struck up again. The noise level increased, the police shouting that they weren't stopping the screening (what?!) and the samba band responding in style with more and more noise, beautifully combined with the crackling sounds of the protests in Oaxaca.
As the noise level increased, the police became more and more heavy-handed, far outweighing the scale of the protest. By this time, there were numerous people (passers-by) stopping to enquire what was happening... And then the police pushed forward. The drumming continued, but truncheons were now drawn. A sudden push, and the screening was abruptly halted. The audio-visual equipment was moved back as van loads more cops turned up, the police response became more and more violent. A 2 minute warning was given to demonstrators to move back to the middle of the road, but then - barely within the beat of a drum - there was a surge forward by the police, beating demonstrators back with their truncheons.
Several of the samba players were grabbed. Some of these were "escorted" back to the middle of the road, where the police played the 'nicely-nicely' approach, others (including rumours of a passing cycle courier who had stopped to find out more of the protest) were arrested. In total, 5-7 people - as yet undetermined - were taken back to West End Central Police station on Saville Row in London.
Comments
Hide the following 18 comments
wow...
30.10.2006 20:08
Any news on those arrested yet? Pictures?
RIP Brad
Step it up!
30.10.2006 21:41
We are all Brad now, never forget it!
no justice, no peace
what a joke
30.10.2006 23:02
well bollocks to it. Go back without a samba band, unannounced and do something less creative and more direct.
We aren't going away.
RIP Brad, you will not be forgotten comrade.
Sue Donym
This is rubbish!
30.10.2006 23:55
I watched this demo...truncheons were not drawn as police moved forward. Extreme provocation by demostrators ~(including drums being beaten in policemans face!)...
protestors wanted violence! Police did well.
true blue
blue fool
31.10.2006 02:31
"truncheons were not drawn as police moved forward"
As if police advancing on the protestors without truncheons removes any worries that the police were being aggressive. Remember readers, It's only when those big tools come out and start hitting you on the head that its the time to start being intimidated and not before.
"Extreme provocation by demostrators ~(including drums being beaten in policemans face!)..."
What? As if the police were attacked an couldn't escape from the crazy drum menace? I can just picture it now...those wily hippies must have snuck up on the police unawares and then forced them into a corner (it's probably easier to move around with big metal instruments than riot gear after all) whilst levelling their drums of death at the police and shouting, "do you feel lucky punks, well do ya?"
"protestors wanted violence!"
If the protestors really had wanted the violence, all of which was directed at them, does this indicate a new strain of political protest? a masochistic mobilisation, hell-bent on securing just one thing....more and better persecution....and someone should probably tell these pain-seekers they're looking in all the wrong places, don't they know that if they want to be certain of rousing some repression they should go to the very source, just round the corner in Westminster.
"Police did well"
You're right, 5 - 7 arrests, not bad going, though I think the protestors will be disappointed, ahhh...if only we all lived in Mexico, we'd be having the repressive time of our lives, as I'm sure would you be true blue.
Phil Griego
What is it all about?
31.10.2006 09:04
Adriana Díaz Enciso
e-mail:
diazenciso@btinternet.com
Homepage:
http://www.diazenciso.wordpress.com
Protesters wanted violence???
31.10.2006 10:28
an unarmed policeman bravely faces protesters wanting violence (archive image)
You're a crap liar and you need an eye test, (i) the report doesn't say it was as police moved forward (ii) several ASP expandable batons were drawn when the police first attacked the demonstrators, but were put away when cameras were pointed towards them.
ACAB
date?
31.10.2006 10:46
k
???
31.10.2006 11:31
kat
To Adriana Diaz Enciso
31.10.2006 16:16
I read your comment. I think I understand what you say, although I disagree. I don't have experience with really really repressive governments, and I am the same age as you.
Over the last years, several young western activists were killed - Carlos Guiliani, Tom Hurndal, Rachel Corrie, now Brad Will. Others were hurt or wounded while carrying out direct actions, being on hungerstrike or similar things. Each time, I worry and I mourn, learn about the situations where they died, and help organising support. I think: Do they really NEED to risk their lives, in order to change the world? Are they caught in some heroic phantasy? Is it not a terrible waste? Is this the price we have to pay for a strong, political movement?
But then I hear reports like those from Oaxaca last weekend. People lying down in front of tanks "like a carpet" - and seriously threatening the government with this dangerous peaceful action. I am impressed, uneasy about being an onlooker, feel part of that "whole world" which is watching. I try to imagine different ways of protesting, ways that are not live threatening. But how? How can you seriously challenge power without risk? Maybe the world is a risky place for those who try to change it.
I agree that the London police is not our main enemy - they follow orders from the government, are part of the neoliberal system that stiffles every resistance to the present capitalist organisation of the world.
But I don't think this action in front of the Mexican embassy was childish or silly. We - as a movement - need a presence in the streets, we need images (like the last video footage from Brad Will), we need small, visible cultural articulations in addition to the big, legal demos and marches. We need people who have the guts to stand in front of an embassy, doing something that seems silly, sometimes getting beaten or arrested for it, trying out actions and finding ways to make our voices heard - in addition to people who write petitions, faxes, who lobby and fundraise, who lock on or occupy. We need people who test the boundaries the government sets us - in the right to demonstrate, to document demonstrations, to be in certain places (like parliament square).
Of course, compared to a big popular upraising, this might look ridiculous. But in a place like London, it is part of the struggle for attention, an intervention that is only a tip of an iceberg. Maybe the courage here is not so much about facing police batons, but of being dismissed as "silly anarchists"? Is it really a pointless provocation, to just stand in a street and project a video? Shouldnt public space be there for everyone, commuters, skateboarders, musicians, demonstrators? Would it have been more dignified if the comrades of Brad Will would have mourned somewhere private, invisible? I think not.
It is a shame that on this occasion, there was no shared political form that would have worked for you and your friends as well as the rest of the demo. I hope this doesn´t mean that it is impossible to work together in a wider sense, independent from each other but respecting each others ways to express dissent.
jablon
about the forms of protest
31.10.2006 23:28
I thank you all for this conversation, which I think is useful.
I know of course that there are Western activists deserving all our respect, many of them willing to risk their lives, some of them having been already victims of repression. I do respect their work, enormously. (Sorry about my probable spelling mistakes).
Yet, I wouldn't think that the work of people such as, for instance, Brad Will or Rachel Corrie bears much resemblance to a bunch of people at the Embassy's doors provoking the police. I do agree that showing the video could have been a very powerful way of making our voice heard. Annoying as it was that the police stood in front of the projection (I didn't see that because we had left by then), the video had to go on showing and it was good they did project it. At the same time, I really think that such a chilling, horrifying video doesn't go well with samba and noise "tuned in" to the yells of the protesters in Oaxaca. I've only seen it once, but I think that even if you've seen it many times for whatever reason, what it inspires, apart from horror, grief and fury is.. I run out of words! Well, to keep a respectful silence really!
My concern is that amidst the noise and the "silly anarchist" attitude, it's very easy to forget what the whole thing is about. Today I've been listening to the people from Radio Universidad de Oaxaca all day through internet. Admirably organized and corageous, and admirably sensible too. Reminding people all the time they should not fall into provocations, for instance. I just can't see how we can reconcile that attitude to the express provocation to the police back here; I was there at the demonstration, I saw the attitudes from the beginning, the fruitless challenge.
These things are serious. The people who are risking their lives in Oaxaca are doing so not because they want to die or be beaten up or arrested or made to be "disappeared" by the police. They are doing so because it's the only way they can stop the atrocities they are suffering, because it's they only way they are making their voice heard, because they want justice, because they are fed up of being trampled on over and over again.
I truly think than rather than pointing at the police here saying "oh look how bad they are", we should concentrate on the business at hand: informing the rest of the world about what's going on in Mexico, and telling the Mexican government we are watching, we condemn its actions, that we have a series of demands concerning this. Otherwise, everything gets dispersed, all demonstrations end up looking very much like the other without anyone really knowing very much what was it all about, apart from a clash with the police.
I am more than happy to have this dialogue and to be open to the possibility of doing things together. At the same time, and after a long experience on very diverse forms of demonstration and activism in Mexico, I truly cannot be part of something that I find against my convictions, and that's why I decided to leave yesterday. The feeling was shared by other people, as I said.
As to why there were not more Mexicans there, I ask myself the same question!
Adriana
Adriana Díaz Enciso
e-mail:
diazenciso@btinternet.com
Response to Adriana
01.11.2006 14:55
After reading your previous posts I am joyful to see members of the Mexican community in London wanting to express solidarity with people in Mexico, in this case, with people in Oaxaca. After several years in London I have grown disappointed with the Mexican community in England (and in Italy where I lived) for their political apathy towards many issues that I consider essential to the progress of Mexican society such as indigenous rights, and the government’s economic and/or physical repression of the Mexican people.
I read with interest your comments and I would like to express my disagreements with them.
Firstly I don't agree to the suggestion that Mexicans should have a stronger right to express their grief, anger and their solidarity with people in Oaxaca. This is an international struggle for survival and Oaxaca is just one of the many places in the World at the front of this struggle (this by no means diminishes its importance). We all need to stay together trying to build stronger ties between us rather that pinpointing our differences. Adjectives such as "childish" and "tantrum" attached to fellow protestors and comrades don't help to build solidarity and increases the gap between a fictitious "us" and "them"; a gap that, as John Berger eloquently said, is the beginning of barbarism.
Secondly, most of the people at this demo (judging by the pictures) are the ones normally involved in all sorts of solidarity movements with people's struggles in the World (Palestine, Iraq, Cuba, Atenco, etc) and people's struggles here (privatisation of common goods, racial inequalities and racism, displacement of communities, etc). They are always very courageous and prompt to act. When Atenco, Mexico, was attacked by the police they were there to be the voice of the voiceless outside the Mexican consulate and Embassy. It would be a shame not to unite with people who are so committed to fighting against injustice. They are certainly not interested in the "thrill" of police confrontation. Sadly, the police often make this unavoidable.
Thirdly, police are never nice in any country - this is one truism. They represent a monstrous institution that acts to keep populations in control. Having had several encounters with police in several countries, I believe that police differ between countries only in uniforms (which are now being standardised), and how polite they are before hitting you with their sticks. When I called for a solidarity demo for people in Atenco (at the same place of this demo) police were quick to arrive and to attempt to provoke us. This is the same situation around the world - we see it now to a greater level in Oaxaca.
Finally, I invite you and all others to try to think of not one, but many ways of expressing solidarity with people in Oaxaca as we are all needed to make a meaningful change not only in Oaxaca but against all injustice in all aspects of our lives.
Yours truly,
Carlos (A Mexican living in London)
no tactics only heart
01.11.2006 21:08
when we arrived there nothing was plan, we just arrive and we start to play our drums, at one point i had tear in my eyes, after listening for few night live the radio from oaxaca, and the resistance of people there........ i was looking into the eyes of the other drummer and i understood that they were sharing the same feeling. We couldn't stop playing, we couldn't listen to the police telling us to stop, as we always do NO, for what reason? we are together with everyone who struggle but really we couldn't stop this time, we couldn't stand behind a banner or give leaflet away. we do not consider ourselves anarchist and neither silly. we just follow our heart that is bleeding for atenco, for oaxaca, for latin america, for the poor that dies every day with our complicity.
sorry for the gramar a better one will come out soon.
this comment below made worth two days in jail............
impresionante
01.11.2006 15:21
bueno, no se si entiendo bien, y nos alegramos mucho que tod@s l@s compas de london esten por fin libres. pero claro que aunque no es o mismo la carcel que la barricada pero reconocerlo impresiona. esta guerra es de tod@s l@s rebeldes del mundo. la solidaridad se siente.
un abrazo combativo desde oaxaca.
por nuestra gente en lucha, por nuestros muertos. con los compas que ponen el cuerpo. hasta la victoria! siempre.
fuera el capitalismo ! URO fuera !
CONTINUEMOS LA RESISTENCIA
tod@s somos oaxaca!
------------------------------
Translation of the Comment above
(maqui)
------------------------------
Nice one, even though I am not sure if I understood it alright, we are very happy that all compas (comrades) from London are finally released. And although it is true that it is not the same a prison cell than a barricade (in Oaxcaca), for this compas to acknowledge it is impressive. This is a war of all rebel people in the world. Solidarity is heartfelt.
Combative hugs from Oaxaca.
This is for our people in struggle, four our dead. With the compas that put their bodies in the struggle. Until the victory, always.
Down with Capitalism! Down with URO!
LETS CONTINUE WITH THE RESISTANCE
We are all Oaxaca!
impressed
impreso
tacho
Thank you for solidarity
01.11.2006 23:31
I guess there`s such a long history of resistance and violence repression here, that people are not defeated by murders, diappearances or torture. It amazes me every day.
People here really appreciate the support from all around the world. !Venceremos!
For people who understand Spanish, APPO`s radio tells more up to date information all the time. You can listen to it here:
Anna
catching up
02.11.2006 01:04
Adriana
Adriana Diaz Enciso
e-mail:
diazenciso@btinternet.com
to Adriana: "the whole world is watching" - but how do we know?
02.11.2006 23:20
again, your concerns resonate with my own. How can we show the last video of a killed indymedia journalist to the sounds of Samba drums? When I watched the video in privacy, my immediate desire was to hide away somewhere silent and just cry.
Instead, I continued reading the English live translation of radio APPO in Oaxaca, collecting links for the indymedia reporting, and reading up on the general situation in Oaxaca. I didn't go out to protest publicly. Just tried to do my bit in making public as much as possible on the web via indymedia, for those outside Oaxaca who want to know.
By now there is a long list of solidarity actions all over the world, a documentation that "the whole world is watching" - or at least people in the whole world. (some are here:
How do we know that people in the whole world are watching? I think all the protests at Mexican embassies have a strong voice. Since 29 Oct, indymedia people have been live translating the radio APPO stream, words that I would not have understood otherwise - another form of protest, but just as necessary. Is typing words into a keyboard a more dignified way of mourning than demonstrating in front of an embassy? Or is it less dignified? And what about crying in a silent corner?
I think you put it really well when you said that: "samba and noise "tuned in" to the yells of the protesters in Oaxaca. Maybe that's exactly the chance we have, tuning in our own protests with others. Even if it can be irritating, or seem inappropriate. A report from a drummer on the London Embassy demo shows that for him/her, Samba was the appropriate expression of his/her grief:
"when we arrived there nothing was plan, we just arrive and we start to play our drums, at one point i had tear in my eyes, after listening for few night live the radio from oaxaca, and the resistance of people there........ i was looking into the eyes of the other drummer and i understood that they were sharing the same feeling. We couldn't stop playing, we couldn't listen to the police telling us to stop, as we always do NO, for what reason? we are together with everyone who struggle but really we couldn't stop this time, we couldn't stand behind a banner or give leaflet away." (here is the full text:
You said that you wouldn't think that the work of people such as, for instance, Brad Will or Rachel Corrie bears much resemblance to a bunch of people at the Embassy's doors provoking the police. But I think it is not for everyone to leave everything behind and risk their lives in a conflict zone - certainly not for me. Does that make my work at home insignificant? Unpolitical? Lip-service? If I try not to risk my live, does this mean that I am not serious about my politics? What about the non spectacular day to day political work at home?
Sure, the political system in the UK is different from Mexico, and so are the forms the struggles take. In Oaxaca, the call is to be non provocative, this inside a major provocation, the demand for ulises ruiz to leave. Maybe in London, the call is to test the boundaries of civil liberty, to push them back at least to the standard we have been used to at times - that it is ok to demonstrate in public places, including Parliament Square, that it is ok for journalists to take pictures of police repression without getting hit in the leg, that it is legal to squat in empty houses. We shouldn't wait until things like these become live threatening...
Like you, I was very impressed by Radio APPO reminding people to reject provocations. You say that the people who are risking their lives in Oaxaca are doing so not because they want to die or be beaten up or arrested or made to be "disappeared" by the police. They are doing so because (...) it's they only way they are making their voice heard.
I find a similar attitude in Oscar Beard's posting. He was hit by a policeman during the Mexican Embassy demo in the leg (not risking his live) while taking pictures. He says:
"I was told by one tonight I was thought of as a hero, because I got injured. This I snapped at. (...) No. I'm no hero. To tell the truth I'm a coward, and that is why I've only sustained three injuries in the last year. This is not heroicness, only studipity. I got in the way and I got hurt again. This is nothing to write home about. It's dumb and I feel an idiot for getting caught again." (
He wasn't out for pointless, silly provocation, he was just doing his job as a political journalist (apparently mainly unpaid). As you say: "informing the rest of the world about what's going on in Mexico, and telling the Mexican government we are watching, we condemn its actions"
The demo at the mexican embassy in London is related to this work of informing and campaigning, and with the struggle of the people in Oaxaca. You have seen how little the corporate media report about this uprising, mostly with the general tendency of "the army has been called to restore peace". To get the events in Mexico into the public sphere in Britain, it needs to be related to local news, UK news. We need petitions and campaigns, but we also need to compete in the economy of attention, we need to create local events, spectacles. The action at the embassy, with its use of media technology, could be seen as an attempt to create such a spectacle. It didn't work for the corporate press, but it did for another public - the public of alternative media, the friends and family of those who were there, and the wider political networks: the whole world is watching.
People often say that alternative media is "preaching to the converted". This may be, but the converted need information, too. Presently, Narcosphere and Infoshop, both alternative media, are on top of google news, so the readership must be bigger than usual.
Another long letter to you - thanks for your thought provocing comments.
jablon
answer to Jablon
03.11.2006 11:30
There's so much to talk about, so many nuances! On the one hand is the question of the police, on the other, and the most important since that's why we're demonstrating in this particular case, that of the way people are doing their struggle in Mexico. And then of course is what I can only say from my personal experience. Well, this is going to be long, I guess.
I am very bad for dealing with internet; I don't even know if there is a limit of extension to what I can say here, which may end up being even longer than yours. Today I am going to write something in my blog, both in Spanish and English, regarding this whole issue and answering to your comments as well. Is it easier and practical if, after I've done that, I get back here and give you the link?
I just don't want to write this in a rush, I'm thinking and thinking, particularly so after the Day of the Dead yesterday.
Thanks for your comments. I'll get back to you later on the day with the link to my blog, once it's updated with today's entry. I apologize to everyone if I'm not following the "etiquette" of internet. This is the first internet forum I've participated in ever, and the whole thing still makes me very confused, very dizzy. If you prefer me to simply cut what I put in my blog and paste it here, and there's no extension limit, let me know.
Adriana
Adriana Diaz Enciso
e-mail:
diazenciso@btinternet.com
Day of the Dead
08.11.2006 12:33
www.diazenciso.wordpress.com
It appears a bit odd, with no gaps between some paragraphs, etc., and I didn't manage to edit it; I'm still quite awkward with internet, but I hope at least the meaning is clear.
Adriana
Adriana Diaz Enciso