Keep Calm and Carry On

First published in The Daily Astorian 10/25/2011.

The title of this column comes from a poster I was given by a friend from the British Commonwealth. The words were a civic maxim during World War II. If fascists had crossed the English Channel, posters like the one that now hangs in my shop would have graced windows throughout the United Kingdom.

The essence of this maxim was repeated recently while I was in Rome and Athens. It was shouted when panic spread beside the Colosseum during a demonstration with tens of thousands of people. It was spoken near the foot of the Acropolis during a protest with 100,000 participants, when violence erupted between policemen and provocateurs.

My family was visiting these ancient fonts of human culture during an educational trip through Europe. As fate would have it, we arrived in time to observe an old pattern with societal power.

The air crackled with energy as we watched activists of all ages gather at the train station in Rome. Colorful banners urged support for economic justice and an end to the corrupt collusion between big government and big financial speculators. Many participants displayed messages of non-violence as they prepared to march in solidarity with citizens at other scheduled events around the world.

Several of Rome’s historic sites were closed, in advance of the demonstration. An upside for us was that areas that would normally be mobbed by tourists were virtually empty. The iconic ruins seemed otherworldly, like sets from a post-apocalyptic film.

It is thrilling to walk through such mythical hotspots when it feels like history is in the making. Yet concerns about safety mounted as we came upon fleets of new armored vans carrying troopers in anti-riot gear. The puttering thunder of helicopters became a constant background noise. We wondered what was unfolding when we spotted a plume of smoke from atop Palatine Hill, where legend says a she-wolf raised Romulus and Remus.

Because of these signs we mostly kept our distance from the main river of demonstrators. Yet all the marchers we could see were peaceful. The heartening tug of collective conscience was strong.

Near the Colosseum we crossed through the marchers in order to make our way back to our hotel. It was then when we saw a second plume of smoke rising several blocks away. In a flash the mood of the crowd shifted. A look of panic swept the faces around us, recalling scenes from movies and newscasts.

“Follow close behind me,” I instructed my family as I began to run toward an area where there was more room to avoid whatever it was that was causing the problem.

Then a nameless man shouted a few words, in just the right voice. Even though I don’t speak Italian, I understood. Everyone around us relaxed, and the protest continued peacefully where we were.

Elsewhere, things were different. Later in the day we saw a vandalized bank with smashed windows and spray-painted anarchist symbols. The words “Stop Control” were scrawled near a demolished cash machine, absurd graffiti from hoodlums whose destructive acts are likely to prompt more draconian measures of crowd control.

On the way to the Forum the next day, we come upon a flock of tourists milling around three cars that had been completely torched. “Oh wow,” said a fellow American to his companions. “Take a picture of that from the protest.”

The same impulse prompted news channels to replay videos of violence over and over during the coming days. Talking heads acknowledged that the vast majority of demonstrators were peaceful. Yet a small destructive fringe of provocateurs hijacked the story.

Same thing happened the following week in Athens. A huge two-day demonstration comprised of mostly peaceful participants converged to show their solidarity. Yet a small group of thugs lit fires, threw rocks, vandalized property, and attacked other protestors who tried to stop them.

Outside our hotel I watched a big bruiser of a man pick up several planters that belonged to a neighboring restaurant and break them in the middle of the street. He displayed the demeanor of a hired bully, not one who had a thought in his head about community values.

Some around him cheered when the brute broke the first planter; yet as he continued, others urged him to stop. When a worker at the restaurant came out to address him, the bully heaved a chunk of stone at a restaurant window. He then went after the worker. Thankfully, demonstrators held him back.

Such provocateurs pretend to be agents of change, but the status quo is their dictator. They discredit the call for humanitarian reform, dividing democratic activists from small business owners and workers who are the backbone of the economy. In doing so, they cater to the most powerful interests among us.

“The violent ones serve the very forces in government they pretend to protest,” said a Greek man who works in a nearby family business. “It benefits no one but a few politicians when the media shows these people throwing Molotov bombs.”

A young professional woman who I spoke with in Rome offered a parallel assessment.

“I think some in government are secretly satisfied with the violence,” she said. “If the protest had been totally peaceful, leaders would need to look deeper into the problems that prompted it. Now, instead, they can just focus on the violence.”

In a letter urging support for the Occupy Wall Street movement, political activist Robert Greenwald writes that “democracy requires the wisdom of crowds.”

Fascism demands that such wisdom be burned on the bonfire of human ignorance. The corporate media stokes those flames with boiler-plate reports of the violent fringe. It is the civic duty of the fourth estate to move beyond this blood and circus; to sort through the complexity and tell the whole story.

Back home, in my bookshop, a fellow worker holds forth in an economy ravaged by predatory speculation. Writing these words in beautiful Athens, five floors above a street exposed to the faint smell of tear gas, I too carry on.