On resisting state tactics that seek to divide our movement into "good" and "bad" protestors

ikosmos

rabble-rouser

Member: 1531

Joined: May 8 2001

August 11, 2011 - 2:56pm

Quote:

The Forum on Police Violence, Incarceration and Alternatives .... sought to question, what our movements can do to effectively fight against police violence and incarceration. Some suggestions that were discussed included resisting state tactics that seek to divide our movement into ‘good' and ‘bad' protestors and actions, building a culture of solidarity to help work through fear of resisting police and imagining alternatives, and imagining what a world without prisons and communities without police would actually look like.

The quote is from a blog from last May but it's still interesting and timely. Whenever there is violence by the oppressed this is a common response by the authorities. It is a strategy to divide those who resist. In addition, we have babblers who regurgitate this propaganda on cue.

What are ways to deal with this tactic? Is it simply a question of identifying it and exposing this police approach to social justice (i.e., the criminalization of social justice struggles and the typical authoritarian and right wing approach of trying to divide activists and advocates of social justice) or is more needed? What else is needed?

I came across this formulation of the state tactic over here ... at Equitable Education.

See "Fighting Back Against Police Violence and Uniting for Alternatives"

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There is also a very interesting quote by Jaggi Singh in the same story. "During the forum, Jaggi Singh emphasized the structural nature of police violence, noting that the problem has been escalating for years in Canada - to the point where now it is not just dissent that is being criminalized, but organizing itself."