Conform, Fail, Repeat by Christopher Samuel

Author:Christopher Samuel
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Between the Lines
Published: 2020-05-13T16:00:00+00:00

The G20 in Toronto

To assess the actions of G20 protesters, we must first identify the central actors in the protest field and articulate their differences, not as reflections of differing natural properties, but rather as reflections of specific schemes of classification and perception manifested through the actions or position-taking they perform within social space.26 These position-takings constitute concrete attempts on the part of actors to establish their own self-definitions as well as a definition of the field itself, that is, to establish constructions that in turn have real effects on subsequent developments of the field.

The week prior to the G20 summit included protests and events that focused on issues ranging from Indigenous rights to queer liberation and climate change. Here, I will focus on two major events: the People First march and the Black Bloc Get off the Fence action. The People First march was organized by labour unions (primarily the Canadian Labour Congress and the Ontario Federation of Labour) as well as a number of allied groups (such as the Council of Canadians, Greenpeace, Oxfam Canada, and the Canadian Federation of Students) and—depending on whose count we give credence to—attracted between four thousand and thirty thousand participants.27 Organizers of this event negotiated with police and attempted to gain symbolic leverage through their visibility, their numbers, and the moral content of their message.28

By contrast, the Get Off the Fence action intended to join with the People First march until the march turned away from the fence behind which G20 negotiations were happening, toward the police-sanctioned “free-speech zone.” At that point, Get Off the Fence activists intended to break off and engage in “a militant, confrontational demonstration where [they would] challenge the global apartheid and injustices the fence represents.”29 As promised, where the People First march was stopped by three rows of police, Black Bloc activists broke off and undertook a highly choreographed burst of property destruction. Activists engaging in Black Bloc tactics insisted on maintaining anonymity, framed the police as singularly hostile and violent representatives of state power, and sought to gain symbolic leverage through the destruction of the “symbols of capitalism,” primarily storefronts of big businesses such as Starbucks and various banks.

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