FROM THE NEWSROOM
Protesting live, on Facebook
By Blake Wolfe/The Scugog Standard

They came, they saw, and depending on who ‘they’ are, they talked or smashed windows.

No, it’s not a description of my weekend (prior plans and a conscious decision kept me elsewhere), but if you were among the thousands in downtown Toronto last weekend - or one of the many millions around the world watching the events unfold in the news - you see where this is going.

All in all, this G20 was the usual par for the course - broken glass, burned-out police cars, several hundred arrests, cries of the abuse of power by police and politicians (some concerns valid, others not). Money well spent?

One man interviewed on TV said that he was surprised to see the level of violence on display this weekend, describing the scene as something that would have taken place hundreds or even thousands of years ago, the veneer of civilization cast off, etc., etc. Not only are we not nearly as civilized and evolved as we like to think, it’s the G20 - have you watched TV in the last however many years?

Are we really all that surprised by this? The sad part is that we probably could have avoided it altogether.

That’s not to say there weren’t people with legitimate grievances letting the world’s most powerful nations know about said concerns in a peaceful manner (whether said concerns reached the ears of world leaders is unknown). But those folks just aren’t worthy of the police and media attention that seemed to create a feedback loop, amplifying the actions of a relative minority - both those who came with an agenda and those who seemingly joined in for the hell of it - of those in attendance.

‘It’s the G20! I’ve likely got no social/political message but smashing things is fun and as long as others are doing it I’ll get a wicked cool photo for my facebook page,’ is surely the train of thought driving some of what was seen in ad nauseum broadcasts from June 26 and 27.

The abundance of digital cameras and almost-instantaneous access to social media - the double-edged sword of the digital age - likely hindered more than helped, with the curious as well as the genuinely well-meaning oftentimes finding themselves in the middle of what - were it not for the opportunity to play foreign war correspondent in their own backyard - would be a place for the general public to avoid, once all hell broke loose.

Sure, get mad, mad as hell. Let everyone know where you stand. These are good things. However, smashing the windows of a certain coffee chain, synonymous with global domination and the subjugation of Third World farmers in the eyes of many a protestor, does nothing. Imagine what could be accomplished if all that energy was put into actually taking on the world’s problems instead of burning out those efforts, posing for the cameras in the streets. Or is that the point? I’ve strained to find one in all this.

Is the goal to create anarchy? Maybe. There’s one problem with that, though. Anarchy might very well be a great thing - but only if you’ve got the stones to survive it. How many of those who trashed a Starbucks last weekend can claim that?

I have no clue how to cure the world’s ills, but it likely doesn’t look like what was on display last weekend. The state doesn’t need to be smashed as much as it needs adjustments and fine-tuning.

Protests aside, what will the summit really do? Sure, measures for avoiding Global Economic Meltdown Pt. 2 were set, but what will really come from that remains to be seen. Could we not have done this in another way?

Once again, how that would happen is something I don’t have an answer for.

But more importantly, why do it in the first place?