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Salient. Victoria University Student Newspaper. Volume. 33, Number 9. 25 June, 1970

When Means Threaten Ends

When Means Threaten Ends

The Demonstrators

Some of them behaved in a way which must have precipitated the use of force on the part of the police. That may sound like a fairly involved way of saying that some demonstrators 'asked to be arrested', but in fact that isn't what I mean. Those demonstrators who threw paint and flour in Parliament Grounds on Thursday night may or may not have been arrested. One of them, Howard Moses (who two members of the Salient staff saw throwing material), was certainly not arrested. And yet those actions undoubtedly contributed to the heightened tension of an atmosphere in which several people were subsequently arrested for hitting, with the flat of their hands, the side of a bus which had nearly run them down. And, on Friday night, several people saw one group of demonstrators shove another group into the police ranks—an action which, some reports go on to suggest, led directly to some of the 34 arrests made that night.

In fact, therefore, those demonstrators who behaved violently or provoked the police as often as not caused the arrests of others who were content to protest peacefully. More importantly, however, they nearly succeeded in directing the protest movement away from its initial object, the All Black Tour of South Africa, Rhodesia and South West Africa, to an irrelevant and largely unreal issue—that of alleged police 'brutality'. The Thursday night demonstration had at times too much of the character of an anti-police demonstration rather than an anti-Tour protest, and the situation was in danger of disintegrating altogether. Friday night and Saturday, however, saw a fresh assertion of the clearly anti-racist and essentially non-violent character of earlier demonstrations and the self-fulfilling prophecies of the Progressive Youth Movement and other opportunist fringe elements were effectively nullified. A few troublemakers were still in evidence—those lionhearted characters who wandered along the fence shouting "Fascists!" or "Pigs" or, occasionally, "Fascist Pigs!" at policemen who gazed back at them with a degree of contempt which I shared fully. Or those protesters who refused to move off once the plane had left, when told to do so by the police and asked to do so by Tom Poata ("don't let the police provoke you . . . they will try to provoke you but don't let them do it . . . just disperse quietly and don't give them an excuse to arrest you . . .") But the people mouthing the simplistic polarities—"we (demonstrators) good; they (police) bad"—had been effectively shut up by an overwhelming vote the night before against violence and for a peaceful protest.

The end—as the plane took off and there was clearly nothing anyone could do to stop a small group of New Zealanders (but with the moral support of what I believe to have been the majority of New Zealanders, including Maoris) from furthering this nation's involvement in racism—was sad. It was honest though, and our means—a peaceful and honest assertion of what our consciences told us was right—did not belie our ends.

The Police

People who I spoke to after the demonstrations almost invariably had much more to say about the behaviour of the police than that of the demonstrators. This was natural enough from some points of view, but one thing should be made clear: it is grossly hypocritical to oppose police violence and to condone violence on the part of demonstrators. Many students appear to have been guilty of this hypocrisy.

I am inclined to believe that most of the allegations made against the police have some substance. I witnessed one incident myself where a policeman, who has since been identified to me as Detective-Sergeant C.W. Lines, kicked a demonstrator. The same incident was witnessed by a member of the Salient staff (and, no doubt, by a hundred or more people in the crowd). This member of the Salient staff also witnessed, with Margaret Bryson, the President, the same policeman punch another demonstrator.

I have also seen photographs (some of which are published in this issue) of other incidents and I have heard descriptions by reliable witnesses of incidents where members of the police seem clearly to have acted with undue force. In the case of the arrest being made in the back page photograph, it seems reasonable to ask why the person arrested, whose hands seem to be fully occupied with the task of hanging onto his duffle bag, should have his hair pulled. Incidents like this were frequent, it seems. Many of the people who spoke to me about the demonstrations seemed surprised that I was interested in such mundane acts of violence as the hair-pulling, arm-bending, kicking and many other perverse processes by which members of the police restrained demonstrators from committing the acts of violence which they (I suppose one means the demonstrators) were about to embark on.

It is also almost true to say, as NZUSA President Paul Grocott has said, that "on Friday night particularly, any of the 600 demonstrators still present outside the Majestic Theatre could have been arrested for exactly the same reason that 34 people were." The arrests appeared to be almost completely random; the police just began to pick people out from the periphery of the crowd and march them away. The first arrests were made while Grocott was in the middle of making an appeal to the demonstrators to end the sit-in in Willis Street.

Those persons who were arrested were treated very badly by the police and of this there is no doubt whatsoever. They were denied access to counsel in several cases, they were—and I am convinced that this was deliberately done—effectively denied sleep by the police through a series of petty harrassments such as transferments from one cell to another, the withholding of blankets (although these were readily available) and constant interruptions. They were not given an opportunity to wash before the Court Session on Saturday morning and consequently appeared before the Magistrate—unwashed and without sleep for 36 hours—much as the police would have wished them to look.

The Magistrate

Mr Scully, the magistrate who on Saturday morning dealt with the demonstrators who had been arrested, behaved in court like a petulant little bully. In threatening to clear the courtroom at the slightest sound from the members of the public present, Mr Scully seemed at times to be deliberately provoking the tired and dejected spectators. As a remand and bail was sought for a demonstrator, Mr Scully paused for several seconds ("and bail of $150 in . . . his recognizance") before naming the sex of the defendant—a reference, apparently, to the length of the demonstrator's hair. This was repeated in each case, accompanied by a leer at the defendant, and in Shadbolt's case Mr Scully actually said "in her recognizance" before making a play of stumbling into a recognition of Shadbolt's gender. This display, and Mr Scully's irritable demands for respect in a courtroom in which there were far too many policemen to clearly suggest the independence one would have wanted in evidence, brought discredit upon the Court.

On the other hand, and I mean this in no way to lessen the force of the immediately preceding remarks, Mr Scully's actions—in giving remands and allowing bail where sought-and those of Mr Jamieson SM-in handing down what seem to be very fair sentences ($25 for Shadbolt, $24 for Verschaffelt)-cannot be questioned.

Our Leadership

Those of our few student politicians who can command any respect from students should all of them (and I am particularly thinking of one person for whom I have a very high personal regard) be condemned for their failure to attempt to frustrate the actions of those demonstrators who almost led us into a series of confrontations with the police: actions which would have done far more to damage the cause of racial equality than could the Tour itself.

Where Now?

Paul Grocott concludes: "Inspector Moodie, who had the misfortune to be in charge on Friday night, and Magistrate Jamieson have both said things which indicate a change in attitude, and a change in the authorities' approach to our scene. They don't want us in their gaols or even in their courts. They are impressed (in a sense) by the role of peaceful protest. As Shadbolt told them in court: 'You've got to choose between the lesser of two evils—violence and peaceful protest. I think you should encourage peaceful protest.'

"And so," Grocott continues, "I think we will see a new approach. The law-enforcement people will have to work out a new way for handling peaceful protest. None (or few) of them (let alone us) want a repeat of Friday night. The overall benefits and impetus for the cause of peaceful change in New Zealand society which have come out of the climax of the anti-Tour movement will, I think, become more clear in the months ahead. The other results are still eagerly awaited."

An optimistic summation but one which, like most of my comments to this point, makes little reference to the pro-racial equality movement and its future. The effect of the anti-Tour protest has been over-estimated by the protesters. In protesting against the Tour, we took it for granted that the majority of New Zealanders regarded as repugnant apartheid and the premises of racial superiority on which that policy rests. But we were wrong. The pro-apartheid propaganda continues. The rugby tour may provide the propagandists for apartheid with some pretty hard-hitting material. (The Dominion carried a 'news story' last Monday headed "All Blacks impressed by Transkei: Apartheid providing better life—Laidlaw".) The struggle for racial equality may not even be one that we're winning. But it must be won.

David Harcourt