I had the pleasure of going to Quebec City last weekend. I strolled the streets of the old city and practiced my French. I also wandered into the 2005 World Police & Firefighter Games. It reminded me of why I dislike the police so much.

It's fascinating to me how these games are sold to the public. It's a discourse of 'public safety'; the people who keep us from chaos are here to show how physically capable they are for the job. These brave men in uniform risk their lives every day so that we can go about our business. And here they are, competing for our pleasure, in a "warm and friendly spirit of camaraderie". What's not to love?


How the police see themselves...

These are the kind of guys I saw there. Strong, not pretty, vigorous. They were warming up for kickboxing, taking shadow punches at each other. Judging by their proud demeanour, they fancied themselves noble guardians of public order, practicing their strength for the ongoing battle to hold the thin blue line.

What do cops do?

My experience of police is different. I encounter them on demonstrations, where they protect politicians or private property from people's anger. At public meetings on police brutality, I hear how cops treat people of colour as sub-human. They rape prostitutes. They beat up and arrest homeless people.

In short, they're the first line of social control for the state. Whenever capitalist society victimizes someone, throwing them out of work, institutionalizing them, creating explosive social environments with no opportunity of escape, the police are there. Without them, the 'underclass' wouldn't stay in its place. Poor people would go after the rich.


The aftermath of the Boston Police Strike, 1919. The press screamed about civil chaos. But there was very little physical violence. Instead, poor people ransacked shops, attacking private property.

A crime against society

There are those who would call this an individual problem. If 'bad' people stopped misbehaving - stopped stealing, raping, getting into fights - then we'd have no need for police. They say we live in a violent society and therefore we need to protect ourselves from ourselves. I might even believe this version, if a) that's all the police did and b) we lived in an egalitarian society.

But we don't. We live in a society divided by class, race & gender, rooted in the social division of labour. Which is a complicated way of describing private property: some people have it, some people don't. Those who do, need to protect themselves from the poor. And they don't give a damn about what happens to anyone else in their quest for wealth. Capitalists destroy communities and throw people out of work, while governments create create refugees fleeing from war, poverty and environmental disaster. Very often, the poor are a different colour, and if they try to speak up for their rights, then racism provides a convenient excuse to bash their heads.


Birmingham, Alabama, 1963 - a few bad apples with their dogs

Those of us who aren't lucky enough to have property, have to deal with the effects of this dislocation on our own. Humans aren't meant for that kind of strain, and something snaps. Then the police are there to make sure the poor & alienated don't hurt anyone but themselves.

In a class society, women need to protect themselves from fucked-up men. The poor need to protect themselves from criminals and drug dealers. I'd argue that's something they can do themselves, given the right kind of political organization, like the Independent Working Class Association. (I don't necessarily endorse the IWCA and its sole focus on community issues, but I like the direct action thrust.)

In our class-divided society, police are not, and can never be social workers. They have tremendous means of violence at their disposal. And they use violence not just against 'bad guys', but against anyone who challenges property rights. Thus, on a strike, the police are used to break picket lines. And on demonstrations, the police protect 'order' i.e. the will of the rich and their politicians.


Edinburgh, anti-G8 protests, July 5, 2005. ...how I see police

There may be good cops. But you can be the nicest guy in the world; if you obey the order to bash heads of protestors when it's given, then you're a traitor to democracy & human rights. You're a tool of the state. You've just renounced your right to respect by anyone.

A bas les flics

Apparently police are ranked among the 3 highest professions for causing domestic violence. It doesn't surprise me. Believing you're doing good, while meting out violence on behalf of the powerful, must fuck with your head. Police are caught between the state, and very often, the working people whose class they once belonged to.

Predictably, that provokes a fierce camraderie. Police close ranks and protect each other. If one of them is killed on the job, 1000s come to the funeral. Rather than seeing the contradictions they're thrust into the middle of, police do their job, get more violent, and more bitter towards the people they're supposed to be protecting. For an excellent, entertaining treatment of this, read Filth by Irvine Welsh.



In Quebec City, I didn't see athletes. I saw racist thugs, preening & posing as champions. I saw aggressive male egos being rewarded for their alienation. I saw sad victims of a society trying to hammer out insoluble contradictions.

Khanestake: Home of the Brave, Land of the 'Squaw'

Here's a concrete example. A little history: Canada is full of unceded native, or First Nation, territory - land that colonizers stole without getting permission of the native people already there. Our Parliament is built on unceded Mohawk nation territory. This doesn't even touch on the disgraceful history of how colonizers treated - and continue to treat - First Nations people.

In 1990, the Mohawk First Nation of Khanestake (Oka) erected barricades to stop the development of a golf course on sacred burial ground. The government sent in the police and army. One police officer was shot & killed during the standoff. The media played up the 'heroic' soldiers, immortalized in this famous picture:


Factoid: a few years later, the soldier received a dishonourable discharge and went on to star in an unsuccessful porn film.

The golf course was never expanded, but simmering tensions remain because the land claim has never been settled. Read more about it here.

At a souvenir booth at the police games, I saw two pins much like the one below:



However, instead of a 'Brave', the pins I saw had images of a Mohawk man & woman, respectively, masked & carrying rifles. Around the woman was written: "Khanestake 1990: Squaw hiding behind Americans & G.I.s". Around the man was written "Khanestake 1990: Warrior hiding behind squaws and children".

So. The police invade unceded territory. An entire community resists them. That includes women & children, and 'Americans' (native people don't recognize Canadian or American nationality.) For that, the natives get labelled as cowards and are the subject of vicious racial slurs (squaw = coon = spic etc.) Was this the opinion of a 'bad apple' in the police force, driven to racism in the heat of the moment by seeing his comrade shot? No, the racism was deep enough to make souvenirs, so it could be celebrated for years to come. And this openly racist symbol was for sale at 'the second biggest games after the Summer Olympics'.

This is why I don't see Officer Friendly. I see a gang of toughs & murderers, revelling in the contradiction that forces them to control the poor.


Police are the fist of the imperial,
I'm spittin through your stereo
Babies need cereal, folks need currency
My job got a crowd wavin applications fervently
Some'll get accepted, most'll get rejected
Guess they gon' til the new prison get elected
- Drug Warz, The Coup