A week ago, an explosion and fire at a mine in Soma, Turkey, claimed 301 lives. Search and rescue operations were abandoned on Saturday, supposedly after all 787 miners trapped had been accounted for. The country’s dismal work safety record manifested itself in its worst industrial accident. The prevailing sentiment is that it, and the lives it has cost, could have been prevented. The grief and feelings of injustice took the shape of protests due to this and the flippant, irresponsible, and disrespectful attitude of the government in response to the incident.
The latest example of the government ignoring the warnings of safety concerns came less than a fortnight before the tragedy, when the government rejected a proposal to discuss and take action about workers’ safety, specifically in coal mines. The populace did not forget this when the prime minister visited the disaster site the day after it occurred.
One of his advisers, the Western-educated and polished Yusuf Yerkel, took issue with the demonstrators. He expressed his displeasure by attacking and repeatedly beating one of them. Naturally, he did not resign in the aftermath. Instead, amidst murmurs of the prime minister himself having punched a protester, the photographer who caught his adviser on camera was arrested. Unsurprisingly, with the responsibility of members of the government including physically assaulting citizens, the police brought out tear gas and water cannons to deal with the nuisance.
The latter is being deployed everywhere in the world, with little regard for the health and safety of those at the receiving end of the forceful jets of water. The authorities have acknowledged that water cannons are capable of causing serious injury (including, but not limited to, blindness, broken bones, ruptured ligaments and spleen) or even death. This has not kept them from using them.
Such acknowledgments do not come from law enforcers in Turkey, of course, nor do they come from those in Egypt, Indonesia, or China. Regimes brutalising citizens is on the rise, in quantity of instances of brutality as well as the number of such regimes. Armoured vehicles equipped with this weapon is a regular part of their armouries.
India used them during the Delhi rape protests, Bangladesh during the pre-election violence. The people need to know their place, and if they forget, they need to be put there by force. They are to be dominated and controlled.
This principle is being applied in the West as well, from where the aforesaid warning about water cannons comes. The mayor of London announced at the beginning of the year that he was in favour of arming his police force with them. He was even prepared to foot the bill. The argument was that the 2010 tuition fee protests, the 2011 riots, and the Occupy protests were precursors of more of the same to come, and the authorities needed to be prepared.
The blithe ignorance of the underlying causes of the dissent – oppressive policies, financial ruin, and government failures – was in keeping with the worldwide trend of citizens being treated as pawns of governments. The Thatcher years give the Conservatives a decorated history of using force to put a leash on the populace rather than reason and serve their interests. The mayor is simply seeking to live up to that legacy.
Video footage of water cannons extinguishing people in Turkey was accompanied by condemning commentary. Similar newsreels lit up televisions when they were used in Egypt, India and Bangladesh. The incidents were always far enough away to be derided whilst remaining unaffected and indifferent. The problem with allowing brutality in the name of law and order in far corners is that the door is left open for it to come to one’s own shores.
Governments the world over seem to live in fear of citizens exercising their rights of freedom of speech and expression. Perhaps it is time they take notice of those they rule and their concerns instead of employing heavy-handed tactics to suppress them forcefully.
The discontent of civilisation is a sign of the times. Governments cannot be trusted because they abuse power, and they know that this belief is justified. Heeding the malcontent voices is the only way out of this otherwise irreversible quagmire. The trust will return with good governance, but those in power are not interested in such insignificant matters. They believe it is much easier to assert their authority than to listen to the people. They are revelling in their success in convincing the populace of its victimhood. The people should remember that no one is ever a victim.
