freedom of expression, violence and politics

On October 16 at the International Press Centre, EU Commissioner Viviane Reding rather clumsily defined "terroristes en herbe" some of the people who attend protests, especially anti-globalisation ones. When someone in the public reacted to this, Reding denied having used the phrase and tried to explain what she meant. She did not want to say that anti-global protesters are or could become terrorists. What she did say was that, the seeds of terrorism could find a fruitful terrain among protesters and that in order to prevent this, freedom of expression and dialogue have to be guaranteed and all form of violence banned.
As the rest of the evening showed, juggling the three balls is far from easy. Reding herself illustrated very well where the difficulty resides when she refused to respond to a criticism addressed to her, saying that the person who had voiced it was not a journalist, "not a confrère". In other words, he did not belong to the club to which Reding had been invited and to which she had accepted to participate. Politicians are often accused of contradicting their words and stated beliefs with their acts. But the spectacle offered by Reding was quite a jewel in its own right, since she managed to "perform" the contradiction live in front of about fifty people.
Unfortunately Reding's case points to a much wider problem. To a confusion between freedom of expression, dialogue and violence. A form of intellectual deficiency or political unwillingness that forces the question of protests into simplistic and often artificial oppositions, like the one between acceptable forms of expression, like dialogue, and unacceptable ones, like violence.
A strong symptom of this deficiency/unwillingness is the confusion reigning over the relationship between anti-global protesters, hooligans and terrorists.
In public statements, politicians generally consider protesters "people who want to express an opinion". This falls into the right of expression and as such is perfectly acceptable, end of the problem.
Unless we are prepared to ascribe to human kind an innate desire to express opinions of all kinds without the least expectation that their effort may result into some kind of modification of reality, the analysis offered above is hopelessly naive and has little to do with the right to protest or the right of expression.
Unfortunately this is what is being repeated by politicians and written by most papers: people can express their opinion and will even be listened to. But one has the impression that what such discourse implies without stating it explicitly is that expression of ideas and protests are permitted, as long as this does not make any difference. What may happen if people begin to expect a change, if they grow restless, if they begin to use more radical means, is never taken into consideration. And the other protesters, the ones who use violence, simply receive unanimous condemnation.
Reding's clumsy phrase about the seeds of terrorism is interesting because it brings out this problem very clearly. Reding talked of "terroristes en herbe". What are these exactly? People who are not terrorists yet but who could become terrorists. It is unacceptable to consider dissenting people as potential criminals but the idea that there can be a transition between peaceful protest and violence (which is still different from terrorism) is very important. Politicians do not like to admit this because the responsibility for this transition is often political. They prefer to focus on those who accept "cosmetic" protests and repress the violent groups.
Expression is inherently connected to change: people care about expressing their views because they want this to make a difference. One has to acknowledge that, as an instance of freedom of expression, any protest has a specifically political dimension which has to be taken seriously. Protesters are not people parading for their own pleasure. A protest is not a carnival, even when it ends up looking like one, it is a political act coming from people who have this as their only public platform. Heads of states do not need to protest to bring about change. They already have the power and the means to do so. Big interests do not need to fight in the streets to exercise their power or "express their opinion". Multinationals do not protest, they hire lawyers and take their issues to court.
This makes it already clear that whoever protests in the streets is in a position of inferiority with respect to those who already have power and influence. At the root of violence, there is a situation where lack of power degenerates into a frustrated desire for power. This kind of violence is specific to protests. It is does not necessarily have to be present in a protest and whether it does develop or not, depends very much on how political authorities respond to the demands that have been made. Now, too often "responding" or "listening" to protesters' claims is trivialised and treated like a form of ceremonial politeness. The task of listening is far from easy. It means accepting the possibility of real change. This means a change that in all probability goes against the status quo of other, more powerful interests.
The relationship between expression, power and violence in the case of protesters has nothing to do with "hooligans" and "terrorists".
Any politicians would be hard pressed to affirm the opposite. But facts suggest a different picture and the occasional slip of the tongue clearly shows that a dangerous and embarrassing confusion reigns over the matter as a whole.
Dangerous and embarrassing confusion 1:
The universal acceptance of the right to protest does not prevent the police from setting up a response to the possible outcome of protests, namely violence, which shares the operational measures used to control hooligans during Euro 2000. Is a "hooligan" the same as a protester? Is a violent protester a hooligan?
During the press conference of the Task Force of the Police on October 31, the Commissioner Gneral Herman Fransen affirms that "the 13th of July the Council of Ministers has recommended certain measures that have been accepted unanimously by the responsible ministers. The principles concerning exchange of information, borders control etc. had already found their inspiration during the organisation of Euro 2000. We worked with liason officers and with "spotters". "JAI 82 (13th July)" took up some of those principles. Today we were asked to report on the application of this document: is it applicable, can we amend it, can we improve it ? Maybe we can adapt it. … We have to draw a strategy. We have to take common principles, shared by everyone, in the domain of information exchange. What does someone who has to organise security need in order to put his strategy on paper? This will be contained in a manual..."
In other words, the gathering of information, infiltration of policemen, filming of protesters have been going on and will go on. And no one seems too bothered by the implicit conclusion that managing violent protests and managing hooligans may share the same instruments and approach.
Dangerous and embarrassing confusion 2:
Universal denial that protesters are potential terrorists does not prevent the Council of the European Union from proposing a wider definition of "terrorism" which extends it to those who aim at "seriously…affecting…an international organisation." Such definition would apply to protests like those organised in Gothenburg and Genoa.
Dangerous and embarrassing confusion 3:
In his infamous ( and according to himself never pronounced) speech about the superiority of Western civilisation, Italian Prime Minister Berlusconi also maintained that terrorists and anti-global protesters share the same anti-capitalists beliefs. Everyone was outraged by the comment on Islam and no attention went to the anti-capitalist part of the speech. Is this only chance? Or is it the case that European leaders did not feel compelled to reject publicly a position they in fact share and which consists in the idea that radical political dissent has to be treated as a criminal act and hence as a form of terrorism?

arch/ive/ief (2000 - 2005)