Violence is not free speech

Southam News

In Milan, Quebec City, Gothenburg, all the cities trashed by those who say they oppose globalization, there is a pattern to the protests.

Participants assemble, display signs, chant slogans, play hackey-sack, beat drums, snack on organic food and distribute flyers extolling the innocence of convicted police killer Mumia Abu-Jamal.

Then come the rocks and bottles. Police initially don't respond. But when the attacks escalate, police use tear gas and water cannon to protect themselves and control the crowd.

After the dust settles, the usual organizations and labour unions issue statements denouncing state "censorship" and "brutality" -- as if there was a universally enshrined right to attack police and to damage public and private property.

At the early riots, the violence was prompted by a small cadre of troublemakers. But with each new confrontation, the number of participants who arrive prepared with slingshots, small firebombs and other combat gear grows larger.

There is no longer any pretense of purely peaceful expression. The more militant protest groups proudly promote a "diversity of tactics" -- code for provocation and thuggery.

The series of anti-globalization protests that began in 1999 have produced hundreds of injuries on both sides, and cost host cities more than $375-million in the form of security expenses, riot damage and lost business.

The same sorry spectacle occurred yesterday around the world as a result of that outdated left-wing shibboleth, May Day "celebrations."

It's not relevant that the crude protectionism the protesters advocate has been massively rejected by generations of economists, as well as the developing countries whose interests they purport to advance. With a few obvious exceptions, freedom of expression includes the freedom to say wrong things without the hand of government pressing down on you.

But attacking policemen with shards of concrete and glass is not a form of free expression. Neither is tearing down a fence erected to protect politicians and their staff from those same weapons. And it does not become free expression merely because the perpetrators say they are motivated by "rage" and "frustration" over how governments govern.

The June meeting of the G8 -- the West's leading economies -- in Kananaskis, Alta., west of Calgary, will likely be the site of serious violence. Calgary police recently spent more than $1-million on two armoured military vehicles in anticipation of problems, which national security intelligence reports predict.

An organization called the Activist Training Working Group has held protest seminars in Calgary. One of the main organizers is Jaggi Singh, a 30-year-old Montreal-based activist often arrested for participating in aggressive protests. The seminars cover such topics as "planning and carrying out effective direct actions that directly challenge oppressive power," "mobile tactics," "scouting and security" and "practical street solidarity."

(According to the group's Web site, Singh's meetings are "presented by" the Canadian Union of Postal Workers, the Calgary and District Labour Council and the Canadian Labour Congress. It is fair to ask whether those groups' members support such protests, which will likely hinder the Calgary region's economy. We doubt it.)

The G8 meeting is two months away, but the script has already been written. While democracy's leaders conduct their negotiations, protesters will provoke the police with the usual assortment of missiles and vandalism until they are dosed with tear gas -- after which Singh, Naomi Klein, Maude Barlow, Svend Robinson, Alexa McDonough, Jose Bove and the other luminaries of the movement will adjourn to their teary press conferences to denounce those security officials who were spurred into doing their jobs.

It is as predictable and pointless as bad theatre.

Canadian patience with these protesters has run out. While their giant puppets, elaborate costumes and obsolete Marxist slogans were once amusing, they are now revealed as mere camouflage for violence.

If people break the law in or around Calgary and Kananaskis, police should arrest them and the Crown should prosecute them as they would any other lawbreaker.

Speech is free.

Violence is not.

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