The Written Word
for April 22, 2001

Freedom of assembly is one of our most sacred possessions. It along with freedom of speech is what differentiates between free societies and dictatorships. Freedom of assembly is also the freedom we seem to willing to give up when we don’t like who is doing the assembling.

When, prior to December 31, 1999, Vancouver police flack Anne Drennan warned people not to come downtown unless they had a good reason there were as many murmurs of contentment as there were grumbles. My reaction was that my good reason was because I damned well felt like it and I could, except where the restriction is reasonable, walk where I pleased. In the end the public barely raised itself from its contented torpor and sort of agreed that Drennan overstepped the mark.

We assemble freely all the time and don’t think about it. We go to church, play golf, attend annual meetings and that sort of stuff. We go to political gatherings where we plot the overthrow, albeit peacefully, of governments. Yet those and other innocent gatherings are the kinds of assembling that in some places in the world are against the law. We don’t think of our day to day assembling as being much of a big deal.

But what about the freedom to protest? We no longer think much about unions picketing places of business to further their claims for better wages and working conditions making it impossible, in the bargain, for the companies to do their business. We accept, and rightly so, the right of the worker to protest and to urge others to do the same. We protest the expansion of ferry facilities and no one suggests that this is wrong. We may disagree with the issue taken by the protesters but we indulge them their right. We watch with interest and often mixed feelings as people block roads, chain themselves to trees or run boats into the paths of whalers. We know that if they do so illegally they must suffer the consequences but we would never countenance authority preventing people from protesting however goofy we might think their ideas.

When, however, the protesters are trying to interfere with politicians somehow we think differently. The Apec protesters half a decade ago, were protesting Canada getting down to serious business with international thugs. Some might not agree that places like Indonesia and China of that day were run by bad people but a hell of a lot of people from all walks of life thought they were. Yet the police started arresting potential protesters days before the meeting, brutally arrested protesters for carrying cloth signs saying "Free Speech" and "Democracy" and then with virtually no notice pepper sprayed a crowd. To be fair there were lots of Canadians who spoke out against this brutality but there were a hell of a lot that didn’t and far too many who didn’t think this sort of "assembly" ought to be permitted. Included in the last group were people like the Prime Minister of our country – the man charged with protecting our democratic rights.

In April 2001 there was the huge and occasionally bloody protest in Quebec City against North and South American politicians debating closer economic ties and further widening of free trade and globalization. A lot of people, including me on occasion, see this globalization exercise as one where large multi-national corporations are, almost totally free of government restraint, making decisions for us hitherto left to people we elect. Many see globalization as widening the gap between rich and poor and permitting the environment to be desecrated. There are, of course, lots of arguments in favour of freer trade but the point is that there are a dozen highly debatable issue involved. Under those conditions there was bound to be protest. Indeed if there were none it would be almost absolute proof that we live in a dictatorship.

But, it is argued, the protest got out of hand just as it did in Vancouver, Seattle and Washington, DC. Ah, then, is that the criterion? If the issues are of such wide importance that a lot of protesters from far and wide will want to make their views know we will ban it? Or create a Berlin type wall around the politicians on the amazing assumption that this will not attract, like a moth to the flame, those who see such things as in themselves challenges to be met? Do we as a society say that Union picket lines upon which there is sometimes violence will be permitted even though there is violence, on a matter of grave principle, but that this great principle doesn’t extend to protests against heads of government making decisions over which we have no control? We don’t, in short, ban union pickets because they are sometimes violent and always to some degree threatening – and nor should we – but we should ban peaceful picketing the high and the mighty because some thugs might show up?

It cannot be argued, of course, that because a woman dresses and acts provocatively that justifies her being raped. It does however, indicate a want of foresight.

That a person walks into an American inner city wearing gold chains and has a bulging wallet does not justify a mugging but it does illustrate a want of care.

Similarly, the holding of a hugely controversial event in a most unsatisfactory place, where security is impossible, doesn’t justify violence but it does indicate what, under those circumstances, must be seen as an arrogant indifference to obvious consequences.

All of this leads to what is the essential point that all seem to be missing – protesters as well as those being protested against are entitled to the protection of the law. It follows that because their right to peaceful protest is being interfered with doesn’t justify banning the protest – anymore than violence on a picket line justifies banning the right to picket.