The Peace
Bus is On the Road and heading for the S11 and what's more, it's got the BIG Joint on board..
Melbourne: S11-13 Victory to the People
The building of the Crown Casino by the radically economically rational Kennett government
in Victoria was the sign and symbol of its ascendancy. An extravagant temple to the great
god Money and an opulent playground for the rich, it stretches for two blocks along the
south bank of the Yarra River. Promoted as Jeff Kennett's gift to the people, in fact it
was a gift to his rich mates who built it and were granted the gambling licence.
How appropriate that the world's premier economically rational trade conference, the World
Economic Forum, should be housed there. How wonderfully poetic that it should be besieged
there!
For besieged it was by thousands of young people - school children, forest ferals and
neo-Trotskyites.
A concrete and steel mesh fence completely surrounded the gambling complex and between it
and casino were lines of police with special concentrations at the gates. The surrounding
streets had been closed to traffic and trams and nearby businesses shut down.
At each gate was a blockade of people standing with locked arms. Each morning and
afternoon one or more of the gates was a scene of struggle when the protestors contested
with police the egress and exit of the conference delegates. But apart from that it was
party time and the streets belonged to the people.
Imagine being locked up in a casino for the rest of your days. You wake up to the chinking
of poker machines, the gaudy lights and the grim gaiety of gambling. You bet and win some
and lose some. Fate, the annihilator, is challenged for a while. The adrenalin rushes come
and go. So does the money. With death everything is lost. But then you come to
consciousness again to the clink of gambling chips and the cycle begins again and repeats
itself for 10,000 life times. Please Daddy, this is a hell realm. Shut up and shop!
Peacebus.com arrived, driving through the night from Sydney at about 6 am and the crew
were witness to the first clashes in the attempt by the s11 alliance to close the WEF
down. Happy Wheels came in at 10 am for exhaustion had forced sleep upon me.
What impressed me at once on arriving was the youth of the crowd. There were lots high
school kids there (a high school strike had been called) some moving about the perimeter
chanting together, lots of Asian students amongst them, some proudly sporting their school
blazers. Wesley College was prominent. Here were the leaders of tomorrow and Wesley had
good cause to be proud.
The neo-Trotskyites were moving about in formation too covering their faces with
balaclavas and scarves. They were disciplined, rehearsed and their heads were full of
fantasies about being the vanguard of the people's revolution. They moved about the
perimeter as a loose group and then, at a whistle bow, they would charge towards at gate,
pull up short and taunt the police.
Cold winds buffered the banners and an early down pour made mud of the pathways and pulp
of the placards. Overhead the police and news helicopters hovered, their noise making
conversation difficult at street level.
A stage had been set up at the Queens Bridge corner opposite Crown Casino and Jab had
parked Peacebus.com behind it near where the First Aid tent was sited and the neo-Trots
were camped. This was the western entrance to the South Bank promenade and thousands of
people, protestors and city workers going to lunch, went past curious about our banners
and our cause: to wit, putting the Drug War and its global incarceration industry on the
agenda of the WEF.
It soon became plain that we would have to make our own theatre to be heard for the
neo-Trots, and the s11 alliance generally, were close to the Christian Right in their
drive for ideological purity of mind and body. They never did get our message and regarded
us as they did every other protestor, more fodder for their revolutionary canons.
It took all day Monday s11, to assemble the Big Joint and by the time it was completed we
were too exhausted to take it for a parade. We resolved that the next day, s12 would be
Big Joint day, and I went off to find a friend to lend me a phone line to get the media
out.
&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&
S12 began with a police assault, which I missed. Making a cup of tea at the time I saw
young people coming back from the gates with broken heads. Amongst them were Bodhi Seed
and Cedar Anderson, boys I had know since infancy and now members of the Red Eyed Frogs
band, which gets regular airplay on national radio Triple J. Bodhi had a blackened left
eye from a baton blow and Cedar still ashen from shock had a dressing over his right eye.
Cedar told me they had been sitting in front of the Queensbridge Street gate singing songs
when the riot police charged them. The assault had been unexpected and most were hit from
behind. Bashing musicians is, like crossing poets, bad karma for tyrants. Song will born
of their scorn and echo through the airwaves and strengthen the demand for justice in many
hearts.
The problem with a 42-foot joint is that it takes lots of people to move it and motivating
stoners is not easy.
We had advertised an 11 am to noon start but discovered that this was in the middle of a
major trade union rally gathering at the stage. The unionists came in three huge
contingents marching through the CBD along different routes. Hard faces, big boots, and
dress navy blue and black - this was the antithesis of a rainbow gathering, so I
knew the Big Joint would need some explaining before we went through that crowd.
The rally was huge and full of passion but the unionists had agreed not to confront the
police at the barricades. I went back stage and negotiated access to the microphone to
announce and explain the mission of the Big Joint when the union rally closed. Standing
there I heard an Indonesian women speak and call for solidarity for the Indonesian workers
struggling against globalisation and corrupt elites to improve working conditions there.
But come wind-up time there was a struggle for the microphone between a big and solid
unionist (a former BLF member, I presumed) who wanted to take the crowd to the gates, a
shrill s11 organiser who wanted to make announcements and me, old hippy with rainbow
dreams. We men deferred to the woman but her amplified voice was painful to ears and in
dismay the unionist and I watched the crowd turn off and turn away.
Ever the public speaking coach I suggested afterward that she try speaking lower and
slower. "It is the voice of women", she snapped back as if that justified
everything. God save our ears.
I grabbed the microphone, Robin Harrison beside me with drum, and launched into a
truncated Drug War rap. "The Drug War is coming to the work place," I warned the
workers. "It is only a matter of time before there is drug testing in the workplace.
It is your sons who will people the corporate Drug War prisons." The speech was short
and I battled against many distracting wind-up taps on the back. But I held the crowd and
rallied them for the move on the gates. Robin didn't get one drum beat in that I heard.
I rushed to ready the Big Joint but found the camp in total disarray. Rather than readying
for the moment Jab was in dispute with an attention needy woman, removing her and her
baggage from Peacebus.com. It took ten minutes to focus enough lift to move the Big Joint
to the front of the stage and by that time the crowd had gone.
So at about 2 pm s12 we struggled down Queensbridge Street collecting Joint bearers as we
went. We passed a contingent of Lebanese youth hurling abuse at police behind the barrier,
got them to carry and gave them a crash course in our light hearted rainbow ways.
"It's not economically rational, It's not economically rational.." we chanted as
we approached the main entrance to Crown Casino.
The media release had announced that the Big Joint The Big Joint, the central icon of the
Nimbin's world famous annual hemp harvest festival, the Nimbin "Let It Grow"
Mardi Grass would, like a giant battering ram it will be attempting to burst through the
doors of the besieged WEF.
I lined the Big Joint up on the gate and briefed the carriers best I could without
amplification. "We are going to the barricade and then we will back off," I
instructed. Theatre was intended and my plan was to parade and play at the boundary for
the rest of the afternoon. Ho, ho, ho.
When the Big Joint came to the barrier, the unionists at the back began to push and the
police began to pull. I was stuck with my feet pushing against tops of the police barrier
pulling the Joint back with all my might while police were punching me in the face and
ribs. I went down once and tried valiantly again but all I got for my efforts were more
bruises and a bamboo gash on my right hand.
The Big Joint sailed over the barrier and behind enemy lines. What a disaster! Our first
sally and we had lost the Big Joint in minutes. The police triumphantly carried it away
and stripped off its skin.
I went to the barrier at once to start negotiations for its return. To the police we
protestors were non-humans to whom they had not only closed off their hearts but also
their ears. They had taken off their ID and refused even to say who was in charge of
the detail.
A different approach was required and it was a message-massage we worked on for the next 5
hours. We brought Peacebus.com up to the gate all rigged with banners and PA up to the
barrier and began the Drug War rap at length. Drummers collected around Robin Harrison and
I and we soon had the gate rocking and all the young people smiling, singing along and
moving with our rhythms. "Give us our joint back, please, please" became our
refrain.
At one time I got the blockade to turn around, face the police and make eye and heart
contact. Easy to maintain a person as an enemy when the back is turned; difficult when it
is human to human, heart to heart. Soon the police were smiling and listening too.
Several attempts were made to negotiate the return of the Big Joint with me going to the
barricade then returning to the mike with the police conditions. The first condition was
we hand over all our AK47s (assault rifles). I went back to the mike, and guess what? We
had no automatic weapons. The police had all the guns. The second offer was to swap the
Big Joint for Peacebus.com which they wanted moved. Nothing doing. They proposed raffling
the Big Joint for the Police officers Ball and things like that. So it went on, good
humoured but they definitely knew they had a trophy, a spoil of war.
With the drums behind me I spoke of the globalisation of corrections and the cruel but
inexorably growing trade in prisons and prisoners. Incarceration for profit. People are
surprised to learn that the last three major jails built in Australia are owned by the
Florida based, Wall Street listed, Wackenhutt Corporation who have gathered in the past 10
years 40,000 prisoners in over 8 different countries, 2000 of them Australian. "No
more Drug War prisons. No more Drug War prisoners!" we chanted.
I also told the story of the blood sacrifice at the Eureka stockade of 1854 and how it
spelled the end of the tyranny of the former penal era in Australia and made the
Australian colonies leaders in democratic reforms. I saw tears in the eyes of my audience.
"Let us stand with the ancestors", I urged waving my bloody hand in the air,
"and re-invent the state again".
That morning when I was setting up the Freedom Ride rig, I found one of the hand sign
banners (power, peace, prayer and perfection) missing from the banner bag. Presumed lost
or souvenired during the chaotic pack up in Sydney, prayer had gone missing. Rigging the
other three I reflected on the meaning of that and realised that, whereas at the start of
the Freedom Ride I had been fierce in my invocation of the ancestors, now in my
exhaustion, I was enduring more and praying less.
I stopped at once and prayed. I invoked all those who had gone before and stood up in
public place and spoken up for justice to bless and guide me. "Let justice be heard;
give me voice." No sooner uttered than the prayer banner was at my feet. Jab had
found it in the bus and thrown it to me.
That day my voice had never been so fluid, my rap never more spontaneous. Pure
performance. Pure inspiration. Blessings of the ancestors.
Robin Harrison was magnificent, blessed by the ancestors too. His good humour and
performance skills brought a lightness to s12 that was missing in the neo-Trot dominated
actions of s11, the day before. He split the skin on his fingers drumming that day.
We old hippies were teaching another generation the arts of street protest. That day we
won many friends and inspired many young people. Only the s11 Trots were poo-faced wanting
the crowd to stay with their tired chants.
Next day some police officers who were working 16 hour shifts, complained that Robin's
"It's not economically rational" rap had been echoing in their heads all night.
They also complained that we had not brought Peacebus.com back to the gate to entertain
them.
Robin had his long hair tied up in a topknot, and he was wearing colourful knitted
trousers and his Vietnam War service medals on an op-shop suit coat. Not many people
notice medals and even fewer know their meaning. A furious police sergeant leaned over two
lines of police at one barrier and said: "You bring shame to those medals."
"But I have them", Robin replied lightly.
&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&
After sunset on s12 the mood at the gate turned grim. The s11 organisers forecast that
this was to be the gate that the police would force.
The optimist in me couldn't believe that the police would do this because this was by far
the happiest and most crowded gate. We watched ominously as the number of police outside
the Casino entrance began to grow. We witnessed a changing of the guard as the police who
had been humanised by our humour were replaced by another grim faced bunch. Maybe it was
only an elaborate changing of the guard, I suggested, grasping at straws.
As soon as the new guard was in position, the riot police, who had been concealed within
the Casino, came out running. They wore black leather jackets, black gloves, hard hats
with perspex visors and brandished US style batons. It was a US style baton charge such as
I had seen on TV news. For just as the US trained the police forces of South American
countries and created the death squads, so they have now trained the Victorian police in
brutal crowd suppression.
There were about 50 people embraced in front of the barrier. The riot police charged up
and began to beat the heads of those in the front line, who locked in, were unable to
move. I ran to lock on at the back of that throng. I saw one officer climb up on the fence
beside the gate and reach over to beat heads. In his enthusiasm to do injury, he fell over
the fence and for a moment crowd surfed till he fell to the ground.
Falling to the ground in a riot is a dangerous thing to do. In another culture such a
police officer would have been a dead or severely injured man. But this crowd, being
oriented to passive resistance and non violence, moved back for him and he came up bashing
again, now aided by his mates who had come to his rescue. We blockaders fell back together
and as I did, I got a couple of batons whacks on the head and baton jab in the face while
my head was down. It missed my eye, thank God, but bloodied my left cheek.
I found myself stumbling amongst the legs of police horses who had come up from behind,
for it was a meticuosly planned, timed and executed operation. Within 2 minutes the police
had formed a defended avenue to allow the exit of the delegates coaches. Facing the crowd
there was a row of mounted police, behind them two closed ranks of helmeted riot police
with their batons held at the ready, and behind them another two ranks of police officers
without hats but with protective glasses. Mace-men, I presumed.
The assault had filled me with fierce outrage. In the melee I had lost St John's mobile
phone and the crepe bandage on my hand had come undone. I paced along the line of horses
flicking the end of the bandage in the faces of the horses. The horses shied back awed by
the power of my presence and my bloody face. I eyeballed each mounted officer in turn.
"Shame on you!"
As I paced a young man was ejected from behind the line of batons and fell at the feet of
the horses. I went to his aid and kneeling held him tenderly. Limp and barely conscious,
he had been badly beaten. The cameras flashed. Let there be witness!
The crowd took up the cry. "Shame! Shame! Shame!" they shouted with an intensity
of feeling I hadn't heard since Vietnam War protest days. The mounted police officers sat
frozen, grim faced and staring straight ahead. Fear was in their eyes, and hearts were
totally cut off from feeling.
A First Aid worker led me off, dabbed the bleeding with a pad and filled out an incident
report. I sat for a minute against a wall about 30 meters back and realised my work was
not over.
Peacebus.com was parked beside the gate about 5 meters back. It had been moved from its
position obstructing the gate at the request of the s11 organisers who feared it would
create a crowd crush. I went back, climbed on the roof and got on the microphone
with Robin at my side.
From the roof top I could see the scale of the operation. The police lines extended in a U
shape from the gate about 30 meters into Queensbridge Street and there was another line
across the end of the street going off opposite the gate. My estimate was there were about
60 horses and 500 officers involved clearing the way for 5 coaches. That meant major
planning, rehearsal and much malice aforethought had been involved in this operation. And
it weren't economically rational.
The coaches passed through, the delegates waving at us as if they were misunderstood
innocents. The crowd hissed, and held up middle fingers, reviling them for their arrogance
and the brutality they had engendered in our police.
In fact the police were our audience and it was to them that we directed our voices.
"Where is your heart? Why are you defending the rich who care not for you or
your children? Is it just for superannuation? We are here so that future generations may
have jobs, clean air, water and food. We are here for your children as well as yours. Look
at about you. Is this the kind of Australia you want for your children? Shame, shame,
shame.." The words just kept on coming
The buses were gone, the police lines remained and the crowd now 400 strong was united in
its contempt of the police. What next? It was Robin who got it first and "You are all
going to run away soon" became his chant refrain. "You are all
going to run away soon."
Talk about psychological warfare, even as we sang, the police lines moved back, folded in
and the police literally ran back from the street and into the refuge of corporate
capitalism and the Crown Casino. They had acted shamefully and their body language showed
it.
The street was ours again. We had spoken our truth in public place and the enemy had shown
its face. And it was ugly. Now the beast had retreated. Victory to the people!
The corporate-owned media and corporate-tamed Victorian Labor government may claim the WEF
a great success and denigrate the protestors. But we who were there know that we were the
true humans and freedom and community was on our side of the barricades. The drums sounded
and fire twirlers danced a dance of victory till late into the night.
The face of corporate capitalism represented by the World Economic Forum is finished.
Whatever the media lies, mention of WEF is now inseparable from images of protest and
police brutality.
But more than that, local resistance has been strengthened. With every baton blow, a
dragon tooth was sown that would grow into a fully armed and committed fighter for social
justice and economic sustainability.
&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&
S13 was a huge street party and a bit of an anti-climax. A fine Spring day at South bank,
thousands of people came out and promenaded. Street theatre was everywhere. Graffiti
slogans went up everywhere. A huge procession danced its way through the CBD and back
again. A great line of people joined hands and circled the perimeter.
On the first day, there were no police outside the security fence. But this day there were
patrols of uniformed police who were good humoured and treated the crowd as if it was
Moomba, smiling and making no interventions. A group of six stood about 5 meters from
Peacebus.com while we sat about sharing a joint.
A friend from up north had made up a steel plate Ned Kelly outfit and had stored it
in Peacebus.com. On its breastplate was painted the Thoreau quote: "When injustice
becomes law, resistance becomes duty." Jab seized the opportunity, donned the
armour and stood amongst the police officers. Many, many cameras clicked. Great visual
theatre.
I sat in the concourse on my camp chair resting in the sun. Many young people came and
thanked me, Robin and the other Freedom Riders for our work. Angels came by and stroked my
brow and ministered with Reiki. My scabby, pub-brawler face identified me as a minor
celebrity. Journalists came to me with recorders to get sound grabs. The global Drug War
and the consequent globalisation of the incarceration as an industry had made the fringe
media agenda at least.
While I sat by Peacebus.com, visually identified with Nimbin, one of the street theatre
group's, all dressed up in dinner suits and evening gowns, came up to me and introduced
themselves as the Global Billionaires Club uptown Collins Street branch. They explained
they had come down to s13 and toured the blockaded gates of Crown Casino personally
thanking the police for their defence of corporate capitalism. They were now talking to
the protestors offering them money to go away and, if that was rejected, offering it to
police to beat them up. They thrust monopoly money upon me and with amused outrage, told
how at one gate, a police officer had jeered, "Go back to Nimbin!" Such
our reputation had become.
Much fear had been expressed in the Sydney media that the s11 protestors would transfer to
Sydney and cause trouble at the Olympic Games. The NSW Police Commissioner had issued a
stern warning. The insider joke was that many did go to Sydney. Many of the street theatre
groups performing for free at s11 had paid gigs in Sydney.
Michael Balderstone from the HEMP Embassy rang to say that I was on the front page of the
local daily paper, the Northern Star. Local hero, I was quoted as saying the police ought
to be charged for being in possession of the Big Joint and that the theft was a major
international incident. Total war between the Nimbin HEMP Embassy and the Victorian Police
was forecast. Big Joint humour had won the media again.
Meanwhile Chief Inspector John Winther, my police liaison contact, rang to say the Big
Joint would be returned as soon as the streets cleared. More wishful thinking, it turned
out.
Walking about the perimeter I met a woman in shock. She had witnessed an incident in which
a police car had run over a protestor. She told me a car of detectives had come to a gate
from behind the protestors, where they were told to go elsewhere for the gate was
blockaded and would not be opened for them.
The police, she said, had replied contemptuously by gunning the engine and driving into
the crowd. People scattered except for one girl who was run over. Other police came over
the fence with batons, forced the protesters back and called an ambulance. Fortunately the
injuries were minor. Not so lucky for another girl at the receiving end of the s12 baton
charge. She has spinal injuries and may never walk again.
Apart from this, the WEF ended quietly. Rumour had it that a large number of delegates had
not attended the last day and were concerned about the police brutality their presence had
produced. Possibly more wishful thinking. Either way, the delegates had departed in
stealth and there was no clash at the gates that night.
I spent a lot of time negotiating the return of the Big Joint and waiting. The police at
the gate were unco-operative, contemptuous and bullying. When the right names were
dropped, they reluctantly delivered the bamboo frame of the Big Joint but not the hemp
skin with the art of Elspeth Jones upon it. Of this they denied all knowledge and
responsibility.
After all the successful police negotiation during the Freedom Ride in NSW, I came away
from the s11-13 knowing the Victorian police have a serious attitude problem and I was
weary of it.
Peacebus.com headed north and Happy Wheels headed west bearing me to be with my ailing
father, to rest and reflection. The first Drug War Freedom Ride was over.
Graeme Dunstan
14 September 2000
|