More trouble in Stokes Croft again last night! I feel the protesters have done more damage to the area than a Tesco Metro ever could. I know the arguments about globalisation blah blah but this is over the top! I don’t agree with the police tactics and heavy handed way they are evicting the squat, and Tesco haven’t helped themselves with their bullying tactics, but this is no longer about the wishes of local people, but the ego of outside agitators! Sad times! ;-(
See below the latest street news video by the South Blessed Community Channel, as a follow-up to their anti-Tesco film, (see previous post). Last night the local police used vans and deployed a helicopter to stop the screening of a film in a park about last week’s riots. When the screening moved to a local house, at first the police then attempted to stop that happening too. Surely the police need to realise that such heavy-handed strategies will only make relationships worse, and tensions rise. The reason they gave for stopping the screening was that they feared it would stoke the flames and cause more violence.
It’s true that the screening did not have a public licence, but lots of such events have not had one in the past and they have never seen this over the top reaction to close them down. By carrying out these actions the police could be accused by many of censorship, being paranoid, oppression of civil liberties, trying to stifle public opinion, and patronising local people with the assumption they will riot again based on a film screening.
See coverage of this story by the local BBC news office here.
There is no doubt film is a powerful medium that can influence audiences, but rather than seeing it as a tool that could incite violence, the police need to work with the local filmmakers and see it as a tool to engage in dialogue with communities. I wrote about this subject over a year ago – see ‘Community Media as Third Cinema (January 2010)’. There is a real opportunity here for the police and Bristol Council to stop acting in such a stifling top down fashion, and to organize an event with local people to have a proper debate about what happened last Thursday, and to find solutions for the future. Last night could have been one such opportunity, but it was squandered by a misguided demonstration of visible state power.
I’m pleased the policemen interviewed by South Blessed at least tried to engage in a conversation, even though they eventually bottled up and walked away. It was good to see as often the police refuse to speak to cameras at all. In this high-speed digital age, the police need to see community & social media such as this as a good place to start building local dialogue, not fight against it. Citizen journalism will not be going away, rather it will be on the increase. A public screening in a park should be viewed as a positive step to work with, not something to fear or stifle.
I got caught up in the riots only in so far as driving home that night with my children in the car, got diverted by the police road blocks. I was in no position to get out and film anything with a ten-year old and a seven-year old in tow.
Really pleased to see the events documented by South-Blessed – up to the moment citizen journalism. Also read this eye-witness account on Bristol Indymedia. Community Media in action!
In the mainstream press, see this article in The Guardian with an interview with the people living in the squat, who say they had nothing to do with the (proposed or real) attacks against Tesco.
The general consensus from everyone I have spoken to about this that were there, is that the police acted in a very heavy-handed way, and the scale of the police presence in the evening was over the top, for what otherwise could have been a simple squat eviction during the day. On that particular day at first the resistance to the squat eviction was a separate affair to the anti-Tesco backlash, but due to the inefficiency of the police action, it all rolled into one in the consciousness of the people and the media. I believe the guys from the squat when they say that backlash against Tesco was not their agenda. The whole event just shows how much Tesco is hated, and how passionately some of the local people feel about retaining that area as a Tesco-free zone, in a city that already has 38 of them.
