Watching from the roof
When the melees broke out, the first thing I felt was panic. Hundreds of people started running towards us, dividing randomly according to an internal sense of safety. Some ran towards the harbor and the row of port-a-johns, others towards the city and away from a demonstration that had obviously gotten completely out of control.
My demonstration partner, Jefe, was experienced in this sort of thing. “Keep calm,” he said to the frightened masses running towards us. “Stop running, link arms. Nothing’s happening. Everything’s fine.”
As far as I could tell, nothing was as it should be. Police officers, those entrusted to maintain the safety of all, had assumed a menacing air. Unless you happen to be the military sort, the sound of three hundred frantic footsteps and the sight of a tight line of uniforms makes your heartrate soar. It doesn’t take long before you lose all sense of security, and perhaps a certain amount of trust in the status quo. Certain longstanding beliefs—in my case, an absolute belief in nonviolence—get shaken up and repositioned. Like a set of chess pieces tossed into a sack and dumped back out, it takes a while to sort where each one belongs.
Yesterday’s posting was a shot in the dark, a premature reaction to an extreme set of stimuli. On that memorable first day when a reported 544 police officers were injured and 100 or so protesters were arrested, I climbed onto a kiosk roof and watched the cops knock an old man to the ground. I saw some Autonomen throw stones, true, but I watched as the police punched bystanders and stomp on demonstrators. At one point, overwhelmed from what was happening on the ground, I turned toward the guy standing next to me. His fine dark eyes were glossed over. We really looked at each other; then, he shook his head slightly.
That headshake, that glance, set something off in me. What did he mean? The absurdity of the situation, the throwing of bottles at innocent police? Or was he on the other side, shaking his head at the police brutality. He was clearly moved; I didn’t trust my instincts enough to know what I should say. A second later I felt pressure on my shoulder. My friend—in a mere second he had earned that title—was weeping.
In that moment, I constructed his life story my head: Perhaps he was a true activist from a Southern country, one where police reactions to demonstrations went beyond the random punch and shove routine. He was sure to be active in his home country, fighting against deep injustice and oppression, working for human rights we forget to take advantage of.
I was certain this was the case. Still, another question followed close behind: After such a life, what side was he on? Was his crying a reaction to the general oppression of peoples who want to be heard, or to the absurd dilettantism of our beer bottle activists? For dilettantes they seemed to be, the stone throwers anyway.
The violence question, which for had previously been an easy one to answer, had gotten much more complicated.
