The absurdity of policing in a collapsing world.
Dear Chief Constable Richards,
I would like to thank you for the
policing experience at the Balcombe fracking protest which in micro
gives a perfect picture of the macro to come as ecological warfare
breaks out across the planet.
My time at the camp has been a strange
couple of days of juxtapositions. I have seen in your lines police
officers uncomfortable about using their right to violence against
women and children intent on protecting their community standing next
to other officers delighted to use that right of violence. I formed
lasting bonds with people I had only just met while fighting against
an organisation that can never be met. I swam in a lake with fellow
campaigners knowing that pleasures like this will soon become
impossible as the environment gets hijacked and ransacked. But the
biggest juxtaposition of all, is seeing the police fighting against
the people they are supposedly there to protect.
I asked several of your officers where
they thought this protest would end. They claimed that they did not
know. I would suggest that they do know, but do not want to
acknowledge the obvious. As our ecosystem collapses in the face of
climate change and resource depletion and the economy becomes
increasingly energy dependent, protests like Balcome will be the norm
of your policing efforts, not the exception, and they will become
increasingly intense with no end in sight. This is not what your
best officers signed up for.
It is clear on speaking to your
officers they are under a dangerous misapprehension. They claim that
they are neutral, when they clearly are not. It is their job to
uphold the law and the law is not neutral. The law of this country
makes it legal for a company to destroy the environment, to expand
and create greenhouse gases. That same law makes it illegal for
anyone to stand in the way and stop the destruction. In no way can
this be described as neutral.
As a result of your officers upholding
the law and not staying neutral Cuadrilla's lorries deliver the
drilling equipment, the drilling goes ahead and the environment that
people need is destroyed with the help of your police protection. The
protest is already unsuccessful in achieving its objective of
stopping the drilling so the same battle of attrition will move to
the next site. These protests are tolerated by you only so long as
they are ineffective. Effective protest would be to stop the lorries
by force now that all appeal to reason and logic has failed.
Cuadrilla wins this round not only
because the law is biased towards them, but because your organisation
has the monopoly of violence in our society. It allows your officers
to assault protesters, but the protesters are not allowed to reply in
kind and they also do not do so because they cherish your monopoly of
violence. It is a fundamental covenant that society has with its
police; society gives police the monopoly of violence because we
collectively think that this is in all of our interests and we trust
you to use it wisely.
But as ecological warfare commences
across the country and the world at large, this covenant is
invalidated. The inequalities and biases within the legal system
become evident to society at large. Very soon people will conclude
on mass that it is no longer in their interests to allow you to
maintain your monopoly of violence when the legal system is weighed
against them. When this happens society breaks down. It has already
started; the inner city riots were the first manifestation where
people on mass chose not to obey the law and more will come as food
prices escalate in the near future with climate change.
You must by now surely be cognisant of
the increasingly harsh laws being passed to stamp down on dissent in
the face of the building ecological apocalypse yet your best officers
are increasingly reluctant to uphold these laws. It is unavoidable
that it will become apparent to them that by enacting the law they
cannot remain neutral. You might want to find out how many are on the
point of mutinying against this and to question what happens when
this inevitably starts. Will you be able to stop it? Will you be
forced to replace those thoughtful officers with less thoughtful ones
and would you be happy to command this new force of psychopaths? Are
you the best person to pre-empt unavoidable transformation by
refusing to command your officers to enforce environmental
destruction?
I trust that you will correct the
dangerous misunderstanding of neutrality that those in your command
have and clarify that it is the remit of the police to uphold the law
irrespective of the morality of the law, the damage the law does and the way that these laws
are passed.
I look forward to your feedback after
you have had these discussions.
