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Democracy Should Be Vulnerable
by Steve Booth of Green Anarchist
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The Fathers For Justice protest this week, where purple dye in condom filled
flour bombs were dropped down on Tony Blair reminded many people of the
famous protest where lesbians abseiled down into the chamber of the House
of Lords, making a highly effective and memorable protest against Clause
28, on the 2nd February 1988. What both these incidents have in common is
that they show how democracy should be accessible to the people, and therefore
vulnerable. [see Yahoo!]
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Vulnerability and therefore accessibility should be the hallmark of real
democracy. If we are to have the state, if we are to have parliaments and
political parties, then politicians should always be available, and personally
made to suffer the full consequences of their decisions. There is a parallel
to be drawn here between politicians and architects. Architects and town
planners are never made to live in the concrete wastelands which they create.
In my opinion there should be no concrete blocks round parliament, no machine
gun toting police, no bullet proof glass screens. There should be no iron
gates on Downing Street. The whole thing should be completely open. If the
people want to physically tear Blair and his cohorts limb from limb, then
they should be allowed to.
In situations like the purple condom bomber incident, pundits go into purple
rages over the assault on democracy; nobody is talking about the events
and issues which led up to this, the absolute and unbelievable injustice
of secretive and closed family courts, for example, or the dishonest and
unaccountable ways in which the social services operate. If people want
to throw purple dye, lets look at the reasons why before we condemn.
This brings us to the idea that there should be a more direct way of ridding
ourselves of the government. There ought to be a government dismissal form,
freely available in every post office, which electors can fill in and send
off to a freepost address in Whitehall. Once, in the course of a parliament,
half the electorate plus one voter have sent them in, Parliament should
be suspended and a General Election called.
In the mean time Parliament should be afforded the same level of police
protection as an ordinary village fete. Under this way of operating, if
the worst they can expect is at the level of a few tomatoes, eggs and coloured
flour thrown at them then they will do well. The barriers are a symbol of
fear. the screens and armed guards show that they do not truly represent
the people. If they did, these would not be necessary. People object that
parliament would then be attacked by terrorists. Perhaps so, but then this
would concentrate their minds on finding solutions to the problems which
feed into terrorism. It was notable that some progress was made regarding
Northern Ireland for example, after October 1984, when Maggie Thatcher and
her Tories were bombed in Brighton.
Compared to some countries, our level of political violence is low. The
last Prime Minister to be assassinated died back in Napoleonic times. There
are some incidents, though, Princess Diana or the Airey Neave case for example.
One question which does not seem to have been asked about that one was why,
if the bomb was activated by a tilt switch, did it not detonate when the
car went down the ramp into the car park?
Terrorism is a problem, but so is state injustice.
The more usual expressions of dissent are those obvious weapons of mass
destruction, the tomato and the egg. And let's admit it now, the egg thrown
against John Prescott, and the punch thrown by Prescott back at the fuel
protester were the one lively bit in the whole 2001 General Election.
Politics with bullet proof screens can only be fascistic and boring for
the most part, and then will certainly end with a spectacular bang, perhaps
of September 11th proportions. On the whole, it is my belief that the screens
and concrete barriers make terrorism certain. If the only way people can
get through to the cocooned politicians is by acts of terrorism, then some
aspects of dissent will surely take this course.
Yet it doesn't have to be like this. I think we should be absolutely serious
about democracy, about applying it and making it work. Politicians should
be proud of their policies, not cowering from the public behind iron and
concrete screens. The trouble is that their vested interests do not really
want to make it work. Their corruption is so endemic that there is no way
back for them. Above all else, the corrupt and frightened politician is
to be pitied, cowering deep inside his ferro concrete fuhrerbunker. The
barriers and armed cops are a visible sign of their complete failure, and
everyone knows it.
- – Steve Booth
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