I had a discussion with a friend recently about the student riots in London. He was disgusted by the damage they caused and said that this type of violence can never be justified. I disagreed – as is my tendency.
I have seen more civil unrest this year in the UK and Ireland than I have seen since Margaret Thatcher used her police army against the civil population when they march on London against the Poll Tax and Miners Strikes.
Back then the police were used to stop buses going to London to demonstrate against both issues. However it has to be remembered that governments of all side have used their own police as an internal civil army against their own populations many times during the twentieth century.
This week in Dublin a man was arrested for blocking traffic and protesting against the government’s budget and policies. He used a cherry picker truck to block the road and had hung political posters to his truck. One of the first things the police did was take down the posters, before they had even arrested the man or moved the truck. Is this part of their job to stop posters being displayed to the media?
But the police in Ireland have a long history of abuse and corruption; with very few ever face being charged for their violations of the law. The same happens with white collar crime. The Irish political classes of all side are corrupt.
What options are open to a public when they are denied democratic procedures and rights, when no one of any power speaks out on their behalf, when the President of Ireland would not be public about the government refusing to hold by-elections on parliamentary seats when they have been empty for many months and sometimes more than a year?
I believe that violence against power is justified when there is no other reasonable option left.
In the UK many MPs sign declarations before the elections that they would not raise student fees. They did this in public, speaking towards their main constituency. Now we are all used to politicians lying – we know that NO politician is to be trusted, that they will say one thing to get our votes and not carry out what they say, and quite often do the opposite. What kind of society do we live in were we accept this and feel powerless to do anything about it?
My main argument against my friend was that the government are committing violence and murder against its own population currently, but it is not reported and it is much harder to identify and highlight.
If a government reduces finance in a certain area, like a hospital, and someone dies as the result this is murder. It is premeditated killing of an unidentified person. The same is true when the government reduces finances in any area that has been targeted as requiring that finance to save lives and stop people suffering or dying.
It can be argued that these cuts have to be made, that there is no other choice. However this is blatantly untrue in Ireland and the UK.
This week the government have taken 8 Euro from blind people and carers, while leaving tax breaks available to property investment running to 2014. There is a strange political philosophy and arrogance at work when this is defended, and seen as the right thing to do.
Currently the Irish people are being ravaged by their government and on the whole do nothing; it is disquieting to watch and to live within such a society.
I believe violence against power has reached a point where it is justified.
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{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
“One man’s terrorist is another’s freedom fighter”- it’s a matter of perspective as to which you believe and it speaks to a central point on the place of violent protest in a democratic state and, at a deeper level, to a central point in human morality. We are reflective beings, capable of choosing our actions rather than being subject to the tyranny of instinct. But as rational beings we also prefer universal principles to guide us – a sense of what is right and wrong that ideally can be applied universally. If violence is wrong then it is wrong, period- if only it could be that simple. Violent opposition to the Nazi’s or their like is a case in point, and one that most people would deem as not only necessary but also morally defensible. So clearly there cannot be a universal principle, and the circumstances pertain as to whether it is justified or not.
Leslie claims that “violence against power is justified when there is no other reasonable option left.” And much hinges on what counts as reasonable options and whether there really are none left available to the protester. A common defence of violence is that there are no remaining options other than it, so it is crucial to the argument. But less obviously much also hinges on the “power” he refers to. Taking this issue first, it is clear that the “power” is the government. But what exactly is the government? Firstly it is the democratically elected representative of the people as expressed in the last election. We may not like the present (or any particular) government, and we may indeed change it had we the choice, but as it stands it is still legitimately the elected government. The “power” in effect is the collective citizens of the state themselves, and any violence inflicted on the property and/or the agents of the state opposes that power and is therefore fundamentally anti-democratic. Not to mention the expense entailed by the citizens by destruction of publically owned property and any additional policing/medical costs. So ironically violence enacted by the few (or the many) as a “right” in their eyes becomes in effect an unjust imposition on their fellow citizens who must bear the cost. One may legitimately ask what right have the violent to impose this on the rest of us?
So can violence ever be the only reasonable remaining option in a democratic state? I think not. Violence in my view is a failure of imagination and political acumen. One may protest in any number of ways, sit-down protests, occupying public spaces (bang pots etc – think of Iceland), strike, call a general strike, engage in political debate, take court action (think of Pierse Doherty in Donegal) walk out of lectures etc. The list of potential protests is truly endless. Above all, you must engage and convince your fellow citizens of the legitimacy of your actions and gain the political power from that to change whatever it is you wish to change. Thirty or forty years of a murderous and violent IRA campaign failed to change the political status of Northern Ireland and totally failed to convince either the southern or northern populations of this island. Violence is not only costly in terms of property, human life and society; it often just doesn’t work to achieve the intended aims. In fact it is plausible to believe that violence is counter-productive. As a rule reasonable citizens are disgusted at it and tend to reject not just the violence itself, but the aims of the perpetrators. In this sense violence delegitimizes the protester; it is a step backward not forward for their cause.
But there is another reason to reject violence in a democratic society and it is this. Democracy works on basic rules. The will of the people is expressed at the ballot box and thereafter the rule of law as legitimately enacted by the legislature. So law is the supreme principle to which all must subscribe. If one opposes a law or some public policy and instead of trying to legitimately change it through democratic means seek to overturn it through violence you undermine this supreme principle. Suppose you even succeed, bring down the government, perhaps even replace it in a coup, what then? You have achieved you goal, but at a heavy price because you have delegitimized law itself by saying in effect that it can be overthrown violently. Nothing can prevent your overthrow in similar means and others opposed to you can legitimately do the same. It would after all be inconsistent to argue that violence is only legitimate for you and not for others. Democratic society thus stares chaos in the face when violence is permitted to have a place at the table. We should reject it not only because it usually fails anyway, but because it undermines more fundamental principles upon which a society relies in order to exist at all. On the individual level, we should also reject violence as a general if not universal principle (it may be that violence is necessary to oppose tyranny for example) and pretty much for the same reasons. Once we legitimize it we let the genie out of the bottle – we are saying in effect that violence is a legitimate means to an end. The next time I have an argument with someone, I can rightfully use violence to impose my will and he can do likewise. Would anyone want to live in that kind of world governed by that kind of principle where the biggest bully on the block rules the roost? Conflict is a feature of human relations and there needs to be a way to resolve it, but violence is not it either for society or the individual.
Okay, you win this one now that you have had a chance to go and think – you got me at “failure of imagination”