Tomlinson’s death a logical result of police policy

Ian Tomlinson, Policing
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The latest developments in the Ian Tomlinson case:

The territorial support group officer identified himself to his manager and the Independent Police Complaints Commission as fresh pictures suggested he had removed his shoulder number and covered his face with a balaclava before hitting Ian Tomlinson with a baton and pushing him to the ground last week.

But the officer has not been arrested on suspicion of assault or suspended from duty by the Metropolitan police.

Emphasis mine. That this officer has not been arrested or even suspended yet comes as no great surprise of course, the police defends its own. In the coming weeks and months we’ll hear a lot about this “tragic accident” and the difficulties of being a copper, as well as the most sincere apologies from the police leadership for this unforeseen tragedy. Tomlinson’s assailant might get off scott free or be thrown to the wolves, depending on public opinion and political pressure. In any case the emphasis on the part of the cops, as well as the people who will supposedly investigate their behaviour, will be that it was an accident, an incident, no more. Remember the way the murder of Jean Charles de Menezes was investigated: that will be the way this killing will be investigated.

But as the emphasised bits int he quote above hint at, this is of course nowhere near the whole truth. Everything in the runup to the demo made it clear the cops were out to riot. We had solemn warnings about expected violence, including that infamous warning about a “summer of middle class rage”, excessive safety measures put in place and last but not least, that high profile arrest of the supposed Plymouth anarchists. All this was calculated to get the bobbies on the beat in fighting mood as well as lure black bloc numpties to the demo and discourage more sane people.

Now the police are supposed to be identifiable, but Tomlinson’s assailant was able to cover up his face and remove his shoulder number, something he only could’ve done if this was alright with his superiors. Officiall police policy may say otherwise, but this has become standard operating procedure with cops handling “political” cases like anti-establishment demos. Again, this is an indicator of the fact that unprovoked violence was on the agenda, which makes Tomlinson’s death not a tragic incident, but the logical if unwished for outcome of a deliberate policy.

RedTube: BMW and Visteon

economic crisis, Life under Capitalism, RedTube, Unions
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Compare and contrast the difference between the mass firings of agency workers at the BMW mini plant this February: workers angry and upset, but cannot do anything with their anger while their union abandons them in favour of staff workers.

With what happened when the workers at various Visteon plants in the UK and Ireland got told they were all sacked: quite spontaneously the factories were occupied in an attempt to force the owners to at least give all sacked workers the compensation they had a right to.

In one case, justified but ineffective anger, in the other equally justified anger and well directed action. What’s the difference? Better union reps? A more militant climate in general? some proper lefties on staff that took the lead here? Seeing examples from abroad that inspired the Visteon workers?

It is important to get answers to these questions, as this sort of direct action is the first line of defence of us workers against the crisis. in the BMW sackings the union knew since before Christmas that these people -socalled temp staff that in many cases had been working there for years– was going to be sacked, but did nothing to defend them, but deemed these sackings a necessary sacrifise to safeguard the jobs of staff workers. This will happen again, as the current unions are ill prepared to handle the crisis, have evolved to be part of the system and think in terms of compromise rather than resistance. As just one example we have the shameful spectacle in the Netherlands of unions agreeing to fifteen percent pay cuts to avoid firings at the post office despite massive profits, without even bothering to fight these cutbacks. You cannot trust the unions to defend your rights, so we need to get back to the roots of worker solidarity and do it ourselves, as the Visteon workers seemed to have realised.

Inventing Ruritania – Vesna Goldsworthy

books and books review, Imperialism, politics
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Cover of Inventing Ruritania


Inventing Ruritania
Vesna Goldsworthy
254 pages including index
published in 1998

What immediately came to mind when I picked up this book from the library was Edward Said’s cite>Orientalism. Where that book looked at how Europe created its image of the Middle East, Inventing Ruritania: The Imperialism of the Imagination looks at how the western idea of the Balkans has been shaped or even created by writers of popular fiction and travel literature. Goldsworthy focuses mainly on British literature, as for British writers “the Balkans are sufficiently close to remain in the field of vision, yet remote enough to be relatively free of the ‘traditional friendships’ and ‘historical alliances’ which frequently inspire the specific interests in the area of other European powers” while they are “too far away to be of consistent interest to American writers”. Historically, she limits her inquiries to relatively modern times, from the early nineteenth century up to now, as she argues that the Balkans as an area of interest only emerged as Ottoman supremacy in the area was broken. Before there can be stereotypical images of the Balkans, there first has to be a Balkans, obviously and until the Ottoman empire started to disintegrate there wasn’t.

A book like Inventing Ruritania, which wants to expose the cliches with which western thought has been riddled about the Balkans, can’t help but be political. This is more so when you consider when it was published, in 1998, barely a year before NATO would wage its first humanitarian war against Serbia, just after the wars in Bosnia and Croatia had ended. You could see Inventing Ruritania as a sort of metacritique of the sloppy thinking in Britain and elsewhere with which these events were explained and written about. One of Goldsworthy’s points in this book is indeed to lay bare the sort of racist stereotyping language about the Balkans that is still used thoughtlessly, often by people who would never dream about deescribing areas like Africa or India in similar terms… Yet Inventing Ruritania isn’t a polemic, not even to the extent Orientalism was.

Read more…

Ian Tomlinson attacked by police, eyewitnesses say

Ian Tomlinson, Policing
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Last Wednesday during the G-20 protests a man died while contained in one of the police’s infamous kettles. As I posted last week on Prog Gold, I thought then that his death was accidental, caused by a combination of being cooped up for hours in a police kettle and a bad heart. Back then the police were saying that it was the protestors who had helped cause Ian Tomlinson’s death, as they had allegedly attacked first aid workers coming to help him by throwing bottles at them. This was of course the usual police cant they come up with whenever something bad happens on their watch and was quickly denied by eyewitnesses like the ones in the video below, from Indymedia UK..

However, now it looks like the reason the Met came out with these accusations was more than a bad habit, but rather a deliberate attempt to shift blame for the death, as it seems it was a police assault that caused Tomlinson to collapse:

The man who died during last week’s G20 protests was “assaulted” by riot police shortly before he suffered a heart attack, according to witness statements received by the Independent Police Complaints Commission.

Investigators are examining a series of corroborative accounts that allege Ian Tomlinson, 47, was a victim of police violence in the moments before he collapsed near the Bank of England in the City of London last Wednesday evening. Three witnesses have told the Observer that Mr Tomlinson was attacked violently as he made his way home from work at a nearby newsagents. One claims he was struck on the head with a baton.

Photographer Anna Branthwaite said: “I can remember seeing Ian Tomlinson. He was rushed from behind by a riot officer with a helmet and shield two or three minutes before he collapsed.” Branthwaite, an experienced press photographer, has made a statement to the IPCC.

Another independent statement supports allegations of police violence. Amiri Howe, 24, recalled seeing Mr Tomlinson being hit “near the head” with a police baton. Howe took one of a sequence of photographs that show a clearly dazed Mr Tomlinson being helped by a bystander.

A female protester, who does not want to be named but has given her testimony to the IPCC, said she saw a man she later recognised as Tomlinson being pushed aggressively from behind by officers. “I saw a man violently propelled forward, as though he’d been flung by the arm, and fall forward on his head.

“He hit the top front area of his head on the pavement. I noticed his fall particularly because it struck me as a horrifically forceful push by a policeman and an especially hard fall; it made me wince.”

It’s typical of the Observer to put “assaulted” in scare quotes here, but never mind. The important thing is that yet again, the police has managed to murder somebody and yet again the Met is busy smearing and covering up.