I was not there. I watched different people reporting what was on the television screen.  This was the demonstrations in the City of Miami against the world trade conference.  I do not think that any time in my life I would have participated in a demonstration where there was a significant police presence because of the threat of violence either by the demonstrators or by the police.  There were peaceful demonstrations during the week but promises of violence brought out demonstrators and police units to face each other on Thursday November 21, 2003. My participation here was merely watching the reporting of protests and control by police of a fairly mild demonstration seen on TV.

I remember walking with signs demanding recognition of teachers’ right to bargain collectively with the political establishment of the City of Newark. Then there was the period preceding and during the strike professors at Monmouth felt themselves forced into when there was no response by the managers of that school to negotiate in good faith for hard-won contracts. In Newark, there were police agents who took pictures of the marchers and their signs. At Monmouth, there were officials who photographed us marching with our signs and then they closed down the College.

The scope of the two incidents was quite different although the methodology remained constant.  In the instance of the professors, they wanted to be treated like other workers who, at THAT TIME, were better paid than Public School Teachers in salary negotiations.  There was a peaceful battle for the professors to gain recognition as members of a union in which many found themselves uncomfortable. There were also a few hotheads. Notably, there were two or three who expressed a desire to knock some heads of other professors who were against the union and against the strike.  They literally, were sat on.

The Miami thing was interesting to watch; it was selective and we mostly heard the voices of reporters. The cameras in the helicopters provided a more global view of “protests” which went something like this.  From our vantage point we saw an organized and controlled uniform presence of (I think only men) wearing armor and gas masks, truncheons and with some futuristic looking weapons that could hurl rubber missiles having the potential to cause death if aimed up at heads.  I noticed that when these last were fired, the rubber bullets caused dust to be kicked up for they were aimed low.  The police formed in a mass line to slowly force the demonstrators to cease starting fires and drive the protesters away from the building and the people inside they were trying to influence with signs and shouting.

The demonstrators were largely of two camps.  One was the protestors who were union workers belonging the AFL-CIO while the other was a group of undisciplined young people who scurried about trying to build barricades of pallets and other material that moved as they were forced to retreat.  Fires that the second group started were badly designed and never were very big and put out by the police line that used extinguishers as the mass separated around them.  Some large signs were torn down (burglary, desecration, violence) to add to the fires and barricades.  There were some costumes and the most active of the barricade and fire builders wore masks. While there were some bullhorns in evidence, the disorganized demonstrators did not seem to have central direction. Individual police could not be identified for they wore face shields and gas masks.

This is written on the next day when photographs appeared in the local paper and there were close-ups in still pictures.  The very many photographers and videographers vied in numbers as a third group to record the eventsas the massed police inexorably moved everyone in front of them away from the building where international representatives were discussing trade issues.  These issues were lost in the demonstrations, the police action and the huge number of “official” photographers and freelancers who flitted in and about were trying to capture images that would tell one story or another.

Some of the protestors claimed in interviews on camera that there was police violence.  I think I saw more violence by some demonstrators and I was glad to see that the batons carried by the police were not used to club down peaceful on-lookers.  There was one poignant and curious image of a well-dressed woman in a red blazer, black skirt and low shoes who held up a sign I never was able to read. She walked slowly in front of the police, holding the sign facing out toward the demonstrators and was not molested in any way. She held it up for quite some time.

There were very many differences between the time I carried a sign and these “demonstrators”.  They tried to burn debris in several places on public streets and built barricades that never quite came off.  If this was a replication of the famous Paris revolution that is pictured colorfully in Les Miserables, there were neither paving stones nor participating citizens in the houses bordering the streets where the riots were conducted.  Businesses were closed and people stayed away.

There was one man dressed in a suit and tie who tried to stamp out a fire.  He was roughly pushed by a demonstrator and fell on his back to the ground.  The man felt free to protest the violence of that fire. He was attacked for his opposition to this kind of dangerous behavior.  The police did nothing to stop either the fire or the attack on the man.  The photographer caught the entire action.

What we saw was the reporting by cameras, still and video, a demonstration, counter demonstration and massed military-like police movements to stamp out fires and move people away from the site of a meeting.  The meeting went on with the conferees insulated against the shifting tableaux acted out outside.

I must point out that what we see in the newspapers and hear reported on the radio and TV in other countries - is here.  It is here in the United States and here in the City of Miami where I live.