|
The Republican National Convention is a carefully stage-managed cheerleading session for the ruling class of the United States. Designed as a unidirectional monologue and intended to strike fear in the hearts of its spectators, it is meant to be consumed by the unwary (between commercial breaks) on Fox News and the like. The discourse warns people to support Bush and his never-ending war -- or face extreme danger from "terror." It spreads like a virus through corporate media outlets, manifesting in a sustained state of fear and anxiety among the general public. Protesters, if mentioned at all by the corporate media that puts out this message, are usually labeled as dangerous undesirables and "anarchists." The protest against the RNC is in many ways also a counter-performance, challenging not only the deceitful message of the Bush administration, but also the corporate media it employs. Instead of encouraging passive spectatorship and depoliticization, the counter-performance activizes people to express dissent with creativity and flair, to share dialogue, create their own media, and demand a better world in solidarity with others. 500,000 activists marched under the banner United For Peace and Justice before the RNC officially kicked off, and the protests continued for the entire duration of the convention. On the streets were hundreds of acts of cultural resistance: Critical Mass bike rides, raging grannies, radical cheerleaders, satirical performances (e.g., Billionaires for Bush), the Pink Slip Bloc, a theatrical unemployment line, a procession of coffins, "die-ins", fountains dyed blood-red, a Fox News SHUT-UP-A-THON, a Freedom of Expression National Monument, First Amendment Flash Mobs at Ground Zero, and many, many more dramatic activities. Playing on the stages were thousands of critical performances, from the highly subversive show I'm Going To Kill the President! to the hundreds of acts at the Imagine Festival, evenings of poetry and spoken word, readings of Ubu Roi arranged by Theaters Against War, and an anti-war show at the Knitting Factory by Canada's own Artists Against War. The counter-performance was all-at-once an arts democracy, a space for cultural disobedience and theatrical resistance, an opportunity to exercise rights of Freedom of Expression and Freedom of Assembly, and a fountain of dramatic counter-hegemonic and anti-oppressive discourses. A massive celebration of resistance, this carnival of dissent challenged the RNC's oppressive message, security apparatus, and social reality in a very direct and visceral way. The NYPD has the words "Courtesy, Professionalism, Respect" written on every squad car, but you wouldn't know their motto by watching their deportment in the streets of New York during the convention. Despite protests that were both peaceful and largely theatrical, there were 1,821 arrests during the week, the most ever at any political convention in the USA. In addition to standard tactics of police repression (barricaded pens to contain demonstrators, plastic handcuffs, surveillance, infiltration, and massive presence), the cops also employed several new, some would say deranged strategies. Massive orange nets were used to catch protesters like fish (including over 250 on bicycles from Critical Mass), sergeants ordered arbitrary mass arrests (including hundreds from the War Resisters League who were en route to stage a die-in), motor scooters were used instead of horses (to ram into protest mobs at high speeds), and apparently a new "sound-weapon" was even on-standby to repress protesters by emitting dangerous frequencies designed to damage their eardrums. Those rounded up, many still in protest-costume, were sent to Pier 57, a makeshift "detention center" otherwise known as the Guantanamo-on-the-Hudson. In this former bus garage, protesters were held in grossly unsanitary conditions for more than 30 hours with no food or access to lawyers. While waiting in crowded cells made of chain-link fence (topped with razor wire), many of the imprisoned suffered chemical burns, allergic reactions, severe respiratory problems, skin infections, rashes, and welts -- due to motor-oil and grease covering the floor. It was truly a case of Carnival meets Kafka. On the streets the police were also stopping and questioning anyone deemed "suspicious." I, along with fellow theater activist George Mougias, had the personal misfortune of being detained for two hours by machine-gun toting NYPD officers, undercover FBI agents, and a "counter-terrorism" unit. Our crime? Curious about a massive windowless skyscraper, we cordially asked a police officer what it was. Within minutes a park was emptied of pedestrians, guards were posted at all entrances, and we were escorted there to be frisked, have our bags searched, and passports and video camera seized. A two-hour Kafkaesque interrogation followed, finally concluding with the decision to impound all of our video footage -- for study in a crime lab. "But it's just our documentary of theater activism, nothing criminal there," I protested. "You should have known better," one officer cautioned, "New York has been a police state since 9/11." The RNC "performance", a long-winded, deceitful and made-for-TV monologue, was a pale, pale comparison to the grandiose carnival of dissent put on by the hundreds of thousands of ordinary people who took to the stages and streets of New York City. The people's "performance" was colorful, theatrical, participatory, critical, and activist all at the same time; the very anti-thesis of the RNC "show". In a desperate attempt to control the discourse, the RNC and all its "enforcement agents" (including the corporate media), despite using tactics of coercion, intimidation, and violence, could not upstage the brave and dramatic people who dared to express themselves critically. When Carnival meets Kafka I have only one piece of advice: join the carnival and reclaim your culture. Donovan King is Artistic Facilitator for Canada's Optative Theatrical Laboratories. Copyright © 2004 by theater2k.com. All rights reserved. |
