The horse cabs rode in like George Washington’s militia.
Accompanied by their dogs and children, they carried vengeance in their eyes and struggle in their hearts. For weeks, the impoverished victims of the Santa Fe province had gone ignored by the Kirchner administration, while those in the political spotlight were dealt welfare handouts galore. Neglected and hungry, they had reached their breaking point. It was time to take matters into their own hands.
Some set off fireworks.
Some banged pots and pans.
Others blocked traffic with street fires.
An inconvenienced taxi driver became enraged, immediately exiting his car to chuck the rubbish from his path. Two protesters cursed him, commanding him to turn around. He flicked off one and pushed the other. In an instant, a group of teenage protesters hurled a tire at him.
Blown back by the force of the throw, he hit a telephone pole and toppled to the ground.
After only two minutes into the brawl, five policemen showed up on motorcycles. They dispersed the rowdy crowd, helped the taxi driver back to his car and let idling vehicles through the intersection. Once the road was empty, the officers spoke with the protesters and proceeded to help them block the street.
Remarkable.
As long as there is an alternate route, it is the legal right of Argentine political organizations to shut down roads (and freeways) for “piquetes.” While pedestrians also have the right to walk freely through the street, the right to peacefully assemble is among the highest of priorities for civilians and politicians alike.
The Rosario CCC (Corrientes Clasista Progresista) exerts this privilege to the utmost extent.
All day they posted up in front of the city council building, chanting their demands and waving their flags. Entire families held up banners to halted vehicles with the organization’s name and purpose. They spoke from megaphones and sung at the top of their lungs, all without a murmur of reaction from city officials.
So they set up their tents.
They camped out for three weeks in the plaza outside the council building, cooking meals in giant pots and talking to local news media. Meanwhile, many annoyed residents in the surrounding area called the mayor to have the group removed. After more than 23 days of controversy, the Rosario city council agreed to negotiate with the CCC.
With the enormous visibility the group had received, the officials had no choice but to meet their demands.
“It would be political suicide to try and bust a piquete,” said Ezequiel Romano, a law student at the National University of Rosario. “I think that the fear of reprisal from the authorities is much bigger in the States. It used to be the same here, but there is a belief that everything involving military (or) state intervention of political movements is associated with anti-democratic intentions.”
It is ironic that in the supposed paradigm of democracy, reprisal from the authorities has subdued “activists” to nothing but clipboard petitions and Facebook groups.
In my own attempt to fight back against British Petroleum’s negligence back in April, I organized a political assembly based under such a presumption: that peaceful signature gathering and run-of-the mill media visibility could bring about social change. After spending a summer canvassing for a non-profit and using other political groups as a model, it seemed that more direct methods of protest would produce nothing but jail time.
So we moved forward with our plans and had the demonstration, cutting “red tape” that stretched for miles. We collected thousands of signatures in a matter of hours, despite a stream of calls from
Johnson Hall demanding that the event be shut down. At the end of the day, we shuffled off the signatures to representatives and waited. A week later, a deep-water drilling moratorium was instated due to a “public outcry.”
Two months after that, it was lifted in the “public interest.”
We had fallen victim to the 21st-century hype of American “activism.” Our ideas, our debates, our demonstrations, they were all encouraged. Of course we had the right to argue. But once it boiled down to nickels and dimes, our discourse was as indifferent a matter as carbon dioxide to an SUV manufacturer.
Political action in the Northwest was not always so peaceful.
In the 1990s, direct action was alive in the Northwest. There was pirate radio (unlicensed and illegal) in San Francisco, Eugene, Portland and Seattle. Ships were blocked from entering ports. Logging trucks were isolated in their tracks. 50,000 protesters showed up at the WTO conference in Seattle to combat a new round of trade negotiations. Then anarchists “Free” and “Critter” got 22 years to life for lighting fire to three SUVs on Franklin Boulevard in Eugene.
It became clear that dissent would not be tolerated.
“I suppose political action is more massive in Argentina,” Romano said. “Very few do this out of self-motivation. For instance, the CCC was not asking for something in order to aid a political party. They still had to keep big numbers and stay strong, so they resorted to different techniques to effectively protest.”
The time has come to start thinking differently.
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