Protestation

I have long known that protests attract a disparate array of endorsing groups and individuals representing a host of overlapping opinions. This has been the case for all but the smallest of events I attended since the 90s. I have marched even with those I have huge political problems with - lovers of one-party dictatorships who advocate violent revolution. However I always excused this as okay because protest movements belong to everybody and nobody involved. But recent talk online is prompting me to rethink what I know.

The pandemic has necessitated some decisive goverment actions to limit its impacts. Those rules are inevitably harsh and have taken a toll. In response there have been waxing and waning protests objecting variously to restrictions on movement, promotion of vaccine targets, closures of worksites and so on. These protests have attracted 'wellness' nuts, global conspiracy theorists and ultra-conservative agitators. But as lockdowns went on-and-on the protests grew in size and at the same time I saw fewer correctly masked faces on my local suburban walks. We were all a bit over it. My hunch then is that the committed protesters were now bolstered by relatively apolitical sorts who were venting frustration with personal suffering and emoting more than thinking. There were also bogans who just wanted some obnoxious fun (apparently even regarding the protests as a dating scene).

But what of the mock gallows seemingly intended for our political leaders and medical advisors? Were these metaphorical or something more manacing? The death-threats received by parliamentarians supporting the Victorian state government suggested we had to be wary and events overseas have shown that things can get verty nasty.

The feeling online among those favouring lockdowns was that all those protesters were complicit in its worst behaviours. Experts in public advocacy say it is a mistake to tar everyone in such groups with the same brush. But what if I were to go with the sentiment of critics and apply that to all experiences including my own?



In July 1997 the One Nation party decided to hold a meeting at the Dandenong Town Hall (now the Drum Theatre) at which one of its key figures (cannot remember now if it was David Ettridge or David Oldfield) would speak. Dandy is a hub of our multicultural south-eastern suburbs and it was a provocative decision. The intention to protest this meeting grew organically from locals and soon drew attention from others. I went along that evening with a few friends from uni.

One Nation seemed to be using a side entrance on Walker Street and a crowd of a few thousand had gathered there. We filled the width of that road alongside the town hall. Around the corner in Langhorne Street the local council had arranged a musical celebration of multiculturalism to difuse the likely tensions of the night. Pretty much everyone however stayed in Walker Street. Many cultural and religious groups were represented and there was a postive mood in the mingling throng, which included more avowedly ideological and sub-cultural groups too.

Across from the town hall, sitting on shop verandahs, were some agile masked figures, apparently anarchists. They seemed content to watch over everything silently, till the metal structure started to screech in protest of its own, and they scrambled off into Crump Lane. Closest to the town hall were the police and some barriers intended to separate protesters from meeting attendees. At the very front of the crowd - the moshpit if you will - were the constantly yelling and chanting Marxist-Leninists (under whatever names they had back then) armed with cartons of eggs. I think I agrued with one of them. They think that making life more difficult for your opponent is a sure way of repelling them. But surely these activists knew from personal experience that adversity promotes stubborn resolve. Maybe they just never made the connection between themselves and other humans.

I cannot recall the attendees entering the meeting but I do remember them departing. They must have noticed those cartons because somebody had provided them with rubbish bin liners to wear like ponchos. A small number of mostly elderly men and women were then pelted with eggs. Some teens yelled 'human garbage' jeeringly. The cops prevented much more than that happening. The next day this small part of the night was all that the media reported on. I was livid and even called a journalist to object. There were thousands of us peacefully protesting for hours, I opined, and only a fraction of the crowd had been involved in the egg-throwing. The journalist told me that they only focused on what was 'newsworthy' and interesting for readers. I was far from satisfied with this, but what if the media had done what I wanted, and printed a line like this:

"A handful of protesters pelt frail senior citizens with raw eggs,
as thousands stand idly by."

If all protesters are complicit in the acts of the worst then that is what I would have deserved. But am I right to make these comparisons? You could argue that, it is one thing to throw eggs at some old potential racists and another to mock-hang a public figure who only wants to save lives. That feels like an excuse to me and protests of any kind suddenly seem like something to consider attending much more warily.

There is also the matter of whether protests are even effective. There have been sober concerns over excessive government rules and enforcement during the pandemic. These were well-expressed by a range of legal and civil rights groups, like Liberty Victoria, that lobbied state parliament to amend legislation, clarifying the role of government and the rights of Victorians during a pandemic. Contrast this with the protesters who have succeeded only in pissing off both police and public.

Despite all this, it is worth remembering that the public has overwhelmingly accepted the value of restrictions and vaccines. I suspect that the practice of lockdowns will serve us well now that we are supposed to act with personal responsibility. And I hope that civil society is still alive-and-well in this difficult time.