by Jeff Shantz
State repression columnist

In events like the G20 protests and clampdown there emerge real opportunities for recognition and understanding that are not always so readily available behind the screen of “business as usual.” The learning curve shifts and some things become much more clear.

Riot Police protect the banks at King and Bay, June 26, 2010, PHOTO: Ali Mustafa (cc)

by Jeff Shantz
State Repression Columnist

In the days following the mass police assaults on organizers, demonstrators, and bystanders during the G8/G20 events, even as comrades linger in squalid detention centres and jails, a troubling notion is taking shape, seemingly gaining traction, among activist circles as well as some sectors of the general public more broadly. This notion suggests that the police in Toronto acted in a way that was somehow atypical or out of the ordinary. Even more there is a sense that the police could have “kept order.” Some public discussion suggests that policing during the G8/G20 reflects a breakdown, a failure to carry out their duties “properly.” Incredibly, during a rally in support of people in detention, Naomi Klein suggested that the police “Do your god-damned job!” In response many in the crowd chanted “Do your job! Do your job!” Elsewhere, and even more incredibly, Judy Rebick has suggested that the were police failed to do their jobs properly in not arresting perceived black block participants: “What they could have done is arrest the Black Bloc at the beginning before they had a chance to be part of the bigger crowd and that's what they didn't do.” Some seem to believe that the police were supposed to be there to protect them or that the police provide the means for “protest” to take place.

By Jeff Shantz
State Repression Columnist

Only a few days into the Olympic spectacle and much talk had turned to black blocs and a few broken insured Hudson Bay Company windows. Yet much of the discussion has been framed within a strange liberal duality of choices between militant demonstrations (said to be offensive to working class observers) and supposedly “peaceful” symbolic protests, like the march the night of the opening ceremonies (which is presented as more palatable to working class audiences). As if the actions of the demonstrators are the real question and determine the structure of events. Anyone who has ever been on a picket line might find this a bit strange —working class folks have never been involved in dust ups with the cops?— and it has me reflecting not so much on the specific actions in Vancouver as on the broader context for policing and protests.

By Jeff Shantz
State Repression columnist

Criminal justice systems in capitalist liberal democracies like Canada have criminalized work that is predominantly done by women. Examples of this regulation of women's labour range from the witch hunts — the punishment of women largely for medicinal knowledge; the criminalization of midwifery and abortion provision; and the criminalization of sex-trade workers. Three sex-trade workers challenging Canada's prostitution laws in a court case in Toronto show the struggles over the regulation of sex work in Canada.

The three sex-trade workers involved in the court case, dominatrix Terri-Jean Bedford and prostitutes Valerie Scott and Amy Lebovitch, argue that the laws against keeping a common bawdy house and communicating for the purposes of prostitution perpetuate violence against women by forcing them into more dangerous working conditions.

By Jeff Shantz
State Repression Columnist

The 2010 Olympic Winter Games are scheduled to take place from February 12-17, in Vancouver-Whistler on land that was never given up by indigenous communities. For growing numbers of indigenous people, homeless and poor people, low-income tenants and sex workers the Olympic Games represent a continued history of colonization and “social cleansing” of poor communities.

Construction for the Olympics infrastructure is adding to extensive destruction of indigenous peoples’ traditional homelands and contributing to the displacement and criminalization of people living in poor urban neighbourhoods.