Just so we don't get lonely

The US is not the only place where claims about "terrorists" and "terrorism" are being used to squelch dissent, sometimes violently. In the UK, reports the Independent for November 23,

Sweeping measures to deal with terrorist attacks and other emergencies are to be announced this week, giving the Government power to over-ride civil liberties in times of crisis, and evacuate threatened areas, restrict people's movements and confiscate property.

Other places aren't waiting for legal niceties, as a disturbing summary by Katharine Ainger, editor of New Internationalist magazine shows, referring first to the case of

Simon Chapman, a young British man detained on charges of carrying petrol bombs during anti-EU summit protests in Salonika in June....

Now on the 44th day of a hunger strike in a prison hospital in Greece to protest his innocence and demand bail, Chapman has lost two-and-a-half stone [35 pounds] and is in a serious condition with respiratory and liver problems.

Meanwhile, evidence that the police framed him is mounting. On November 12 his lawyers handed over new footage from a private Greek television channel showing police filling a black rucksack, identical to the one used to incriminate him, with explosives. Other TV footage shows him being arrested carrying an entirely different blue and purple rucksack.

Chapman faces 18 months in jail awaiting trial and between seven and 25 years in prison if found guilty. There are seven other Salonika protesters detained on lesser charges who are also on hunger strike: two are now in the emergency ward of an Athens hospital; one is in a critical condition.

Italy gained the EU presidency after the Salonika summit and immediately introduced proposals for strengthening EU-wide surveillance of those believed likely to attend protests. ...

In a raid on a school during the protests against the G8 summit in Genoa in July 2001, the Digos anti-terrorist force, on the pretext of discovering two Molotov cocktails, beat and kicked activists in their sleeping bags, injuring more than 60 of the 92 arrested. During an inquiry in which 77 police officers were eventually disciplined for brutality, senior officer Pietro Troiani admitted the petrol bombs had been planted by police to justify the raid. Another senior police chief, Franco Gratteri, said that the stabbing of police officer Massimo Nucera during the school raid had been faked in order to justify the use of force. ...

In theory, the police are there to keep the peace and catch the perpetrators of violence. In practice, they have often allowed the most extreme factions amnesty while cracking down on ordinary protesters. For example, it emerged after Genoa that known neo-Nazis had been allowed to cross into Italy with impunity while other protesters faced closed borders. The faction that smashed bank windows and set cars alight roamed the city untouched. Police then beat the crowd indiscriminately. The more violent a protest is seen to be, the easier it is to justify heavy-handed policing and discredit protest in the eyes of the public. ...

In 2000 in Washington DC, police shut down the activists' convergence centre because they discovered equipment to make "pepper spray" (a bag of dried chillies in the kitchen) and "petrol bombs" (paint thinner and rags in the area where banners were being painted). In Barcelona in 2001, police were reprimanded after they were discovered dressed as activists and breaking the windows of a Burger King. ...

British police used the Terrorism Act to search anti-war protesters and prevent them travelling to RAF Fairford in Gloucestershire, from which B52s were taking off to bomb Iraq. Protesters against the recent arms fair in London faced similar measures.

I try - without, of course, always succeeding - to choose my word carefully. I try to say what I mean without either implying more or acknowledging less. That doesn't mean I don't say or write things sarcastically, with passion, or in anger. I do. Frequently. But I do try to be precise in my meaning and clear in my intent.

What all this has to do with the above is that there are certain buzz words of the Left that I have long resisted using, words tossed about so easily that they have lost their real meaning. (That "words have meanings" may be the only point on which Rush Limbaugh and I agree.) Words such as oppression, fascism, and genocide. So please be aware of the intensity I mean to convey when I say what we are seeing both here and abroad is by any reasonable definition deliberate and conscious political repression, not just of actions but of ideas - and as that repression moves from the covert to the overt, from the subtle to the openly violent, as the brutality of Miami becomes a "model for homeland defense" to be admired and imitated, we have to, first, rededicate ourselves to that image of justice we carry in our heads, second, accept that the personal risks of pursuing that dream are greater than we, in our for the most part comfortable existences, have faced before, and third, realize that the risks of failure are also greater, perhaps much greater, than before.

If you don't have time, give money. If you don't have money, give time. If you have both, give both. If you, like so many, have neither - do what you can.

And try to keep in mind Gandhi's (I think it was Gandhi.) dictum: "First they ignore you. Then they fight you. Then you win."

Footnote for clarity: From the BBC for November 26:

A Greek court has ordered the release of five anti-capitalists who are ill on hunger strike, their lawyers say.

The five - two Spaniards, a Briton, a Syrian and a Greek citizen - were held after riots in June at the European summit in Thessaloniki. ...

The order to free them was given by a court in Athens, on condition that they remain in Greece until their trial. ...

One earlier report said doctors had been refusing to carry out an order to force-feed the five. ...

The force-feeding order came from public prosecutor Aristidis Frangiadakis who ordered doctors to "undertake all necessary actions to save the lives of the prisoners". ...

But doctors treating three of the suspects at a state hospital near the prison said the measure was illegal and unethical, and said they would not carry out the order, AP news agency reported.

The Greek government had been resisting calls from human rights groups, including Amnesty International, for their release. One wonders if the doctors' simple act of principled defiance is what tipped the balance.