In the dim twilight the murkiness of night dissolves and the crisp edges of objects reveal themselves exposing what the darkness conceals. To your side you detect a quick flicker of motion that catches your eye for a moment, you feel a sense of vertigo as the object comes into focus and you realize what it is. In between the trees and all around you the woods are lined with tall dark figures looming in the shadows for who knows how long. By the time you know what’s happening you are being rushed by a dozen SWAT units bearing rifles. The last thing you are able to do before you are taken down is blast the air horn. At least you were able to do that much. You are immediately slammed into the ground by four angry figures in full body armor, your hands are bound behind you and a black bag is pulled over your head. The next four hours are the worst thing that has ever happened to you.
Blindfolded and restrained, you listen helplessly to the sounds of screams and gunshots. You wonder if people are dying, if the reason you have your head in a sack is to prevent you from identifying killers. You call out to Raven but are silenced when you receive a sharp kick to the ribs. With your wrists and ankles bound together your legs cramp up and you fall over in a painful tangled mess. Eventually someone snips the zap-straps that hold your feet together and pulls you up. You stumble as the blood returns to your extremities, and trip on obstacles you cannot see as you’re led down the road to a waiting police van while a helicopter does low circles in the air above.
The situation in the back of the van is no better. Someone is crying as you’re shoved in, another prisoner is coughing uncontrollably. The smell of pepper spray catches in the back of your throat. Your hands are shackled to the bench behind you and the world turns a deeper shade of black when the door is slammed shut and bolted closed. It is impossible to hold onto your dignity in the near total darkness of the police van, you weep in silence and feel as though you are going to crack up completely. When the motor finally kicks in you are thankful for the distraction. It’s not until you reach the prison several hours later that the blindfold is finally lifted off your head. When it is, you find yourself alone in a room with two police officers who strip you down to your underwear and tell you to change into a baggy, one-size-fits-all prison onesie. Reluctantly, but realizing that you do not have a choice, you pull the thing over your shoulders and roll up the sleeves and pant legs. Standing barefoot on the cold cement floor you ask.
“Could I please have my socks back?”
The officers ignore the request, grab you by the shoulders and march you down the brutal little hall to your cell. This windowless cement box with its steel bars and jarring electric lights concealed behind wire mesh has misery painted over all of its walls. Mercifully, in your state of exhaustion, sleep is a necessity that spares you from your anguish. You are held until bail court the following morning where the public defender advises you to agree to release conditions, to keep the peace, and be of good standing. You are set free on a promise to return to face charges of “mischief” and “obstruction”.
There is no one there to greet you as you leave the courthouse and you can’t help but feel a little disappointed, but mostly you’re just hungry. Starving in fact. After tracking down the nearest diner, and ordering breakfast you decide that a person in your position should probably seek the opinion of a qualified lawyer as soon as possible. While you wait for your breakfast you call up the legal clinic where the activist lawyer for the camp works, and explain what happened. To your surprise your lawyer isn’t in, and the legal assistant who answers the phone has no idea what you’re talking about.
“But we’re clients of the clinic,” you protest.
“Yes I know. But I haven’t heard anything about a raid.”
It dawns on you that the entire operation must have been carried out under complete communications blackout. Since the cops would surely have destroyed the camp’s media capabilities, it’s possible that nobody even knows that the raid has taken place yet. In a horrifying moment you recognize that they could literally have gotten away with anything. You’re concern goes immediately to the other prisoners. You must have all been separated into different holding facilities because since your arrest you’ve only caught a glimpse of one or two other people from the camp. You realize that the authorities will only release information about people in their custody to family members so you start to make a list of friends and loved ones who you might be able to call right away. Time is of the essence since the longer this goes on beneath a cloak of secrecy the greater danger people are in.
You take a cab over to the peoples’ legal clinic which is a not-for-profit society mostly run by law students who offer legal counselling and advocacy to vulnerable and marginalized people. You nearly knock the door right off its hinges as you burst into the reception area talking a mile a minute. You explain the situation to the stunned looking paralegal on duty who lends you a desk with a phone and a computer right away. You start frantically dialing the numbers of people who might be able get answers concerning the whereabouts of people taken prisoner in yesterday’s raid on the camp. You’re flying by the seat of your pants but within a couple of hours you’re able to confirm the condition of around twenty people which still leaves about half unaccounted for. You also contact the news rooms of several local stations and begin to prepare for a press conference that you’ve called for 4 p.m. After you’ve broken the story to the media and put the police under a little scrutiny from the fifth estate, you feel like you can relax a bit and remember to tend to other things like food and sleep.
When you finally get home feeling completely drained and exhausted, a grim truth dawns upon your sleepy mind. In spite of everything that has occurred over the past twenty four hours and all your efforts to expose the corrupt relationship between big business the police and government, the fact remains that the blockade has been removed and there is nothing left to stop the big gas companies from starting up their drilling. This daunting realization literally brings you to tears. All the hard work and sacrifice that you and your comrades have made has been for nothing. The thought that despite everything you’ve been through, the fracking will continue as if nothing had ever happened, is too much for you to handle. With an almost masochistic sense of self punishment, you boot up the computer to read how the news has covered it all.
You’re relieved to discover that the police had used rubber bullets during the raid on the blockade, and that fortunately there had been no fatalities. It is still alarming though, to see such force used by a government against its own citizens. Rubber bullets are real ordnances fired from real guns unlike the plastic pellets fired from special compressed air weapons that are commonly used for crowd control. While designed to be non-lethal they are devastatingly brutal and can very easily lead to life-threatening injury.
What surprises you is the public’s reaction to the raid. As you continue to read, another dimension of the struggle reveals itself: All across the country people have come out in solidarity with the blockaders. People are turning up in numbers promising to shut down railways, close highways, and occupy government offices, calling for an end to exploratory drilling and the immediate cessation of the practice of hydraulic fracturing.
In your fragile emotional state you try not get your hopes up too high lest your heart break from another disappointment. But over the next few days, as people begin to carry through with their promises, you can’t help but allow yourself a little optimism.
In the eyes of the many, the heavy-handed approach of the police towards the blockade has seriously called into question the government’s commitment to the public versus their commitment to the interests of private corporations in relation to environmental health and social welfare. This, and political indifference to the public’s demand for accountability, has led many to hit the streets in outrage and disgust.
Upon hearing of an event planned in your home town you decide to go out and join in with an action that targets the commercial centre of your city. It is one of many that are taking place all across the nation. The idea is to mount a campaign of economic disruption that will cripple the economy if the government insists of serving the interests of big business over the demands of the people.
Standing alongside hundreds of your brothers and sisters in the downtown square of the city you can feel the collective strength of the movement. It’s empowering to know that simultaneously there are dozens of other crowds gathering all over the country in a joint gesture of discontent. Your heart swells with love and pride when you think about the fact that you are all here as volunteers, nobody made you come out today. All of the people putting themselves on the line today are here because of something they believe in. And as the days turn into weeks and the movement proves determined to continue with the campaign of economic disruption, you become more and more certain that the times indeed are a changing, and that the tidal forces of history are on your side.
Original photo by: Fede 999