Free City?

Last Friday, a week before these infamous summits, Em and I went downtown to see and photograph the fence.

It was so incredibly eerie and disarming to see these fences near completion, erect and like an absurd taunt to the people in this city. It was the weekend of NXNE, and so many people it seemed were downtown, enjoying the Friday night seemlingly oblivious of the atrocity nd irony of smiling behind fences. What was in their hearts however, I do not profess to know, nor can safely judge. In the heart of downtown, as the sun was setting and the evening settling in, I swear to you it felt like we were under occupation.

One week later, it seems we are.

Today the protests started in earnest. Battalions of police are in Toronto, fully regaled in riot gear, shields, masks, batons at the ready. They have buses full of police, helicopters flying overhead. About one month ago the province quietly ushered in an old police law allowing them these wicked powers of detainment and arrest. We cannot even move in certain parts of our city without being subject to search and identification.

This was once a free country and a free place.

Though I am not here to argue that security has no place. There have been similar protests before but none with such an incredible presence of law enforcement dressed for combat.

I was thinking earlier today about the nature of the police and i thought this - It is we who share with the world knowledge, dialogue, spirit, assistance and friendship that are the true police of this city and at the large this world. Only though peaceful dialogue with one another can we achieve a better place for humanity. This does not mean that agitation is out removed from the equation. Far from it. Non-Violent Civil Disobedience, the right to march and be heard, freedom of assembly, freedom to disent, freedom of movement are essential cornerstones of any democracy and should be protected and honoured by all. How exactly then does a peace officer protect the peace behind shields, armed and ready to fire upon their own brother and sister citizens on command? No, they are not peace officers, they are not police officers, they are that line that protects the status quo. They are the army of governments, who in the name of their people spill blood and turn as their backs as the poor die in cycles of violence and poverty.

The G8 and G20 are insolent gatherings of government delegations making odes to murder and impoverishment of the most vulnerable of our planet.

Tomorrow they come to my city. Tomorrow I march. I march for peace, for humanity, for the protection of our planet, an end to corporatism, poverty, I march for clean water to be given to all, for food to be provided for our hungry, housing for our homeless, support and choice for our women. We are not marching so governments can erect blanket jingoistic policies based on fleeting moralities so the most needy must conform to standards and beg for assistance. Most of all we march because the few, the rich few should never be able to decide course of life for the many. The few should never be able to dictate how the many shall live and survive.

Follow me tomorrow on twitter - Freecitycitizen
for now here are some pics the evening one week before the summits began.

Freecity?