“ANARCHY WOULD BE A GOOD CHANGE”
This sentence has been echoing in my ears since Saturday. I foolishly got into a conversation on Facebook over a post involving a group of police officers dealing with a group of young guys.
After a few exchanges, I abandoned the chats, and left.
I had to go out, find some trees, be near water, and get myself back to the peace.
I should make it perfectly clear right away that what happened with George Floyd is horrific, and nothing I am going to say below is intended to demean in any way the importance of the movement against racism triggered by his murder.
What I want to point out though, is what usually is never shown in videos about police violence, and hopefully make us all stop and rethink our first reactions to all similar snippets of reality.
The video I mentioned at the beginning I am not going to share because it’s one of many videos that are intended to manipulate the public into believing that the violence is unprovoked and unnecessary.
In that video I couldn’t just watch and not question, a police officer was requesting a search. The young man was refusing it. He was saying he didn’t do anything wrong, The policeman was, however, trying to get the young man open his hand and hand him the bottle with something that appeared like tablets. The boy was refusing it. Two or three other young men were standing around, and one was recording it with his phone. He kept asking the police officer to stop, saying the guy has done nothing wrong, he doesn’t have the right to search him for no reason. The bottle is just full of tablets. “Give me your badge number!” he kept requesting.
The person who posted the video said you can’t just search people out of nowhere like that.
“Why would you refuse a search if you don’t have anything to hide?” - I asked.
He said: “They shouldn’t search people for no reason.”
I asked again: “How do you know they didn’t have a reason?”
“Because he was telling them that.” - he said.
I said: “People say anything to get out of trouble.”
He said: “So you support the idea that people are guilty before the trial?”
I said: “No, but I don’t think the majority of police officers just attack people for no reason at all.”
He said: “They don’t have the right to ask him to show them the bottle with tablets.”
“How do you know it was tablets?” - I said.
“Didn’t you hear him say it was advil?” - he returned.
“You don’t know it’s actually advil.” - I said.
He of course proceeded telling me that:
“We in Canada don’t think like that, the police are corrupt by default, they just want to harass people for no reason, because all of them are just a*holes! I don’t know where you came from but things here are different. The police should be dismantled once for all!”
I said: “I hope you will live long enough to experience the lawless society you are promoting.”
That’s when he said that anarchy would be a good change!
I realised there is no point.
I had to leave. I had to breathe.
I believe the majority of people are not against the police. However, the ones that are, they are much louder and it appears that they are the actual majority. The supporters of the police force, people who support law and order are not loud enough, and that’s why I’m writing this.
I remember a long time ago in high school I was stopped by two policemen in Serbia. Out of nowhere they asked me:
“What do you think about the police? Are you afraid of them?”
I thought for just a second and said that I’m completely indifferent.
“How so?” they were slightly surprised by my answer.
“I have nothing to fear. I do nothing wrong. But I think it’s good that you guys are around.”
They looked at me for a moment, and just turned their backs and left me.
With no words.
To this day I truly believe that if you have nothing to fear, if you are not trying to bend the rules, break the law in any even small way, you have nothing to fear. They need to do their job. They always have a reason for what they do. If they ask you to search you, you let them. You don’t argue. You assume they have a reason. Of course, there are bad apples everywhere, but majority of the police force members are good, honest people trying to fight against crime and keep the order.
Most videos posted against the police are completely out of context, and they usually serve the agenda of groups who are against them for any reason. But if we look closely, George Floyd was trying to use a counterfeit bill. He was asked to return the merch he bought with it, but he refused. He was highly intoxicated, and being a big guy he presented a natural threat to the officers.
Of course, a $20 bill is in NO WAY a reason to kill someone, but police also knew that he had been a criminal for many years, some of his crimes involving aggression and physical attacks.. So naturally he was a potential threat.
Nobody wants to face that kind of truth. We came to the point where we glorify the criminals just because they belong to a certain race, while there were more than one black police officers killed in the protest and I don’t hear BLM talk about them in America. In Canadian protests, which are peaceful, you still hear it, but in America there seem to be an agenda going on beyond just racial justice.
As I remember, the last time a wave of similar protests happened, there was a similar situation. A guy killed was not just an innocent, law abiding citizen. What happened this time, just after the Covid pandemic started to subside, has another dimension with involvement of the domestic terrorist organizations in the USA, which should open so many questions to everyday people in terms of why it may be happening this way and at the moment it is.
I will leave it open, the time will tell.
My desperation after that conversation on Facebook was compounded by another video I came across that day, where a group of youngsters were recording a guy being slashed and stabbed by another guy, somewhere in Ireland, if I remember correctly. Slashing him over the face, over both his arms, stabbing him at the back in the kidneys…. I couldn’t follow it with a clear head. Nobody called 911. A girl was trying to prevent the other guy stabbing him, but he didn’t care, and he kept stabbing. I could almost feel it!
And she just kept holding the guy. Not calling for help, not calling 911, nothing.
Many of the young generations today live in a virtual world. You can’t tell them anything without arguments. They want to manipulate everything and anything to get what they want. They feel entitled for whatever they think they need and want. They don’t respect any authority, they don’t take any responsibility for their actions, they negotiate about everything. Starting from very early in their childhood.
The parents are left with locked hands where applying any form of discipline is against the law.
My sister was in Switzerland for the last three months being a babysitter for a family. They told my sister to let their daughter do whatever she wants. The daughter was telling my sister that she is stupid, that she is shit, that she is going to kick her out on the street, that she is the boss in this house and that she is going to tell my sister what to do, if she don’t - she will beat her up! That kind of monster is created by the society based on lack of any discipline and respect.
And, I’m thinking, I could totally see the anarchistic world this guy was promoting!
That’s why we need to raise our voice against all this manipulation of public opinion.
Before it’s too late. If it already isn’t.
I believe we can still have a world without fear, with order, with goodness, with the law enforcement that does not abuse their power. The majority of those quiet voices need to stand up and show that the bad seed is not what will rule this Earth. And that all people are the same, no matter of the colour of their skin. That all life matters.
As I was leaving the park, I met a baby rabbit eating the grass next to the walking path. I approached it, it looked at me, and kept munching. I got closer, it kept munching still. I took a picture.
“Ya” - I told myself, ”I think we can live in a world like this - with trust and without fear.
