G20 London

[After much scanning of web forums and the internet I have decided to pixelate the faces of the police officers in the above photo. As far as I can tell UK anti-terror laws now prohibit the publishing of photographs of police officers for whatever purpose, I therefore have no option other than pixelate or remove this image to comply with UK law]

The G20 meeting in London has been hailed as a success by the media, but what if anything has improved for the ordinary people who have lost their jobs and face the prospect of being long term unemployed and having their homes repossessed?

A protest to the Bank of England on April 1 (nick names ‘Banking Fools’ day by the protestors) attracted a mostly peaceful crowd and a festival atmosphere until a few anarchists, and other trouble-makers bent on causing damage, took events to another level, daubing graffiti and attacking the Royal Bank of Scotland on Threadneedle Street adjacent to the Bank of England. The protests were nothing like those seen during the Poll Tax riots of the 1980s but they received similar press coverage, and probably rightly so given the magnitude of the G20’s importance and there were a lot of issues at play here, with the rhetoric from environmentalists, anti-capitalists and anarchists (to name a few) promising some degree of conflict.

Many protesters were wounded and arrested as the police seemed to employed a strike first strategy (after the crowd swell became threatening by its mere size) that saw hard core protestors, innocent bystanders and media alike pulled into the scuffles. Targeted extractions of individuals by snatch quads of police in riot gear also raised the heat and seemed to increase the resolve of the few trouble makers to cause more damage by setting fire to a mannequin of a banker hanged from a traffic light and a newspaper recycle box – obviously not your confident anarchist, resorting to acts of defiance rather than protest and taking a public stand – but they did achieve some of what they were after – by making a nuisance of themselves and attracting the media’s attention (at times it seemed like photographers, official and unofficial, outnumberd the protesters). After several hours waiting to be released from their open air detention, some protestors resorted to building a campfire to keep warm in the increasingly chilly evening.

The exit from the imposed open air detention began around 9pm in the evening. All those contained were let out through a narrow corridor of police vans in single file, past police cameras and police dogs. Protestors identified as trouble makers, challenged authority or organising and inflaming the crowds were arrested (including those who started the camp fire).

Did the media attention incite the protestors to act out? I think no, there were more photographers and media in the crowds at the time of the troubles than there were protestors. From my witness of the few vocal trouble makers, they were intent on doing their will with or without the media in attendanceand the media were targets of the protestors violence too. The biggest threat to the media and photographers were the protestors direct threats and attacks, they were not seen as a tool, but one of the guilty targets. Would there have been the same conditions for the few hardcore protestors to use the crowd as a tool and as a shield between them and the police if there where less photographers in the crowd? I think maybe not.