Today, I watched a video in which the Home Secretary, Theresa May, proposed allowing the police to detain protesters who wear balaclavas. It’s entitled ‘UK To Ban People From Marches & Protests & Police To Validate Clothing’.
The title makes it sound like a shocking breach of innocent individuals' rights, but anyone with a brain and an ounce of objectivity can see that that's not what’s going on here. Some people seem to react as though this is tantamount to chemical castration, including the person who uploaded it:
‘What is the point of demonstrating to conform, Marching to obey, Protesting to accept. Jesus overturned the tables of those who participated in usury. The heroes of demonstrations and protests are enemies of governments and kings.’
‘Why should law abiding citizens be held to be guilty beforehand - everyone is innocent till proven guilty. A govt elected by 20% of the population has no right to attack civil rights.’
Let’s ignore the fact that I’m almost certain the 20% figure is nonsense. To me, everything the Home Secretary suggested sounded pretty minor, measured and reasonable but then, for some people, any kind of restriction on human behaviour is seen as an outrageous breach of their individual entitlement.
I’m sure there must be activists out there somewhere protesting for the restoration of people's democratic right to rape donkeys.
‘Yeah, ‘cos we can’t let them stop us raping donkeys, ‘cos then where will it end, y’know? Before you know it we won’t even be able to, pleasure ourselves in the privacy of our own yurts, innit?
And I need my balaclava to keep me warm, innit, ‘cos god knows the yurt don’t.’
To be fair, it’s true – the balaclava is a not just a symbol of the extremist activist. Historically, you may be surprised to discover, it’s had two functions:
A) Keeping your face warm.
B) Hiding your face so that you can cause criminal damage, or worse.
But let’s be honest, not one balaclava has been used for purpose A since the 1980s – coincidentally, around the same time that the IRA popularised them as the must-have accessory for cowardly thugs. Plus, we have snoods now.
What these heavily-biased malcontents are essentially whining about is the removal of their right to act unlawfully against the state, without detection and punishment (which is not a real right, by the way). This would be admirable, and a reasonable reaction, if we were all living under the yoke of an abusive legal system, put in place by an ultra-fascist police-state - but the fact is, we aren’t.
Sorry activists. I know you all wish that this was V For Vendetta, and that you could leap between the rooftops on implausible anti-government adventures, but unfortunately this is the real world. I know that you like to think the world needs you, but we don’t. Go home. We’ll be fine. Britain isn’t oppressive – it’s just very dull. Nothing to get worked up about.
If you’re really keen to make a difference, why not move out of your parent’s house and ship out to North Korea. The North Koreans are some of the most downtrodden people on Earth, and their rooftops are completely devoid of slogan-spouting, balaclava-wearing, police-baiting tits.
Even if we did live in an ultra-fascist state, if secret police were ready to pounce at a moment’s notice, and if you felt that the best way to deal with this reality was to engage in yobbish violence in a busy public space, a ban on knitwear is going to be the least of your worries.
And do you know what the sad thing is? I’ll bet the balaclava-wearing thugs didn’t even have anything to do with posting that video. The kind of people who write things like ‘What is the point of demonstrating to conform, Marching to obey, Protesting to accept.’ would probably shit organic yoghurt all over their student bedsits if you put them in the same room as one of those balaclava guys.
This brings me to my final point today, which is my strong suspicion that this ‘anti-establishment, police-state, your-local-leisure-centre-is-run-by-a-corrupt-global-elite’ merry-go-round exists mainly to provide escapism for bored, middle-class, twenty-somethings. People who’ve tried and failed to jump-start a meaningful career, and now rely on hand-outs and minimum-wage non-jobs to finance their next festival ticket. Those are exactly the kind of people who change the world. Not.
Put down the balaclavas, and grab a tea-cosy guys – it suits you better.
Have you ever worn a balaclava? Were you a violent protestor, or just cold? What are your thoughts on the Home Secretary’s plan? Click ‘comments’ below, or e-mail pithytitle@live.co.uk
pithy post-modern bloggers are the ones to change the world of course, no one that ever preached against the state and used peaceful protest ever achieved anything, we can forget Martin Luther King, gandhi or Helen Steel and Dave Morris.
ReplyDeleteno, it doesn't matter if everyone that wants to attend a protest has to be screened, how will they work out who is a known thug or who is genuine?
the right to protest is an important one in this country, whether you feel passionate about that or not, and that right is getting undermined all the time, and every time there is a meaningful protest, the media takes the attention from the genuine issues onto these stupid balaclava wearing knobs, instead of banning balaclavas, why don't we just ban media coverage on them, focus on what the protest is actually about.