Complexity and Social Movements: Multitudes at the Edge of Chaos ...

72 States fight back
streets from dawn disoriented familiar forms of police engagement, which
was now confronted by multiple repertoires of action. This ‘unknown’ was
significantly structured by tensions between Federal and local security services.
The FBI attached primary importance to President Clinton addressing
the meeting resulting in the operational imperative that ‘the President must
get through’. Accounts of the event reveal how policing strategy became
increasingly aggressive as the time of the Presidential arrival approached
with the use of tear-gas, pepper sprays and riot batons increasing throughout
the day.
The post-event dénouement is more important to present purposes as
events on the day are the subject of extensive treatment elsewhere
(Cockburn et al. 2000, Yuen et al. 2001, Notes from Nowhere 2003). In
post-war United States, the relatively unrestrained use of riot police and
state troopers is historically associated with labour disputes, ‘race riots’,
student revolts and anti-war protests. US ‘freedoms’ of assembly and speech
have always been open to the ultimate use of force, something sedimented
within popular culture and collective activist memory through events such
as the shooting of students on University Campuses during the late 1960s
and early 1970s. In Seattle, force was used against a coalition of predominantly
white 7 union and environmental activists in a sufficiently unfocussed
manner to impact directly on citizens about their daily business. The ‘local’
outcome of this Federal Imperative included the end of the career of
Seattle’s police chief and initiated a steep learning curve for police and security
agencies in coming to terms with an emergent ‘protest’ phenomenon
(Canadian Security Intelligence Service 2000).
Media coverage of Seattle
Solomon’s (Solomon 2000) study of 22 articles and editorials in the Los
Angeles Times (LAT) and 35 from the New York Times between
21 November and 21 December 1999 reveals some marked similarities with
media coverage of subsequent events in other countries. Both papers
emphasised the marginality of protestors with the LAT asking ‘Who on
earth were they’ (3.12.99, p. A1) and the NYT drawing ‘Dark Parallels with
Anarchist Outbreaks in Oregon’ 8 (3.12.99, p. A12) describing them as ‘a
Noah’s ark of flat-earth advocates’ (1.12.99, p. A23). To protestors the
WTO appeared as ‘a handmaiden of corporate interests’ representing ‘the
tyrannical symbol of a global economy that has shoved social priorities
aside in a relentless quest for profits’ (Solomon 2000: 14–15). Public support
for protestors by Seattle residents was expressed through chants of ‘Let
them go!’ as police pursued activists.
Media reports did however, follow Bill Clinton’s public statements
supporting the cause of many of the peaceful protestors and the need for
dialogue, identifying a ‘small knot’ of ‘more militant elements’ who had
used police behaviour as ‘a cue to go on a rampage’ (Solomon 2000: 15).