Closing In

*
*
*

Away, sample pictures off a computer.

As he said shortly after escaping from the Bora Bora caves in late 2001: "If Osama lives or dies does not matter... The awakening has started. And it has, in the sense that the model bin Laden constructed in al-Qaeda is proliferating across the Arab World... But it is only the name that is being franchised, and in most cases not even that. What bin Laden has done is to articulate an ideology and a strategy, demonstrate their usefulness , and set them loose in the world for Muslims anywhere to adopt and adapt as they wish."
The Mess They Made, Gwynne Dyer.


The police were everywhere, in the parks, in cars, in uniforms and in plain clothes. We're becoming a police state, he joked to whoever was with him, but it wasn't really a joke. It had all happened by stealth; and in his lifetime. In the old days, when he was growing up, there were the Askin police, named after Robert Askin, a particularly brutish man who was Premier of the stae of NSW in Australia from 1965 to 1975. In my memory he was a big, thuggish looking man perpetually surrounded by big, thuggish looking police. He ruled the state with an iron fist; and when I see the young cops of today, despite their astonishing numbers they seem nothing as bad as the rough justice types that once ruled and bullied us so brutally.

In the seventies I was arrested in the largest student demonstration there had ever been in Australia. More than a hundred of us were ultimately involved, and hundreds more on the outside. In hindsight, I'm not even sure what we were demonstrating about. Even at the time, I wasn't quite so sure, but had gone along for the ride. In the weeks preceding there had been many an impassioned speech from our student leaders, railing against the refusal of the authorities to cooperate over something or other. We gathered in our hundreds under the then tiny lemon gums in the quadrangle, pamphlets were handed out, impassioned speeches given, reputations made. It was a micro-world, but at the time seemed the centre of everything.

The day came when they decided to occupy the vice chancellor's office. This was the most daring, most revolutionary thing we could think of. Everywhere, elsewhere, in the great world, ferment was at hand. The Beetles and the Rolling Stones were preaching revolution; and we could feel the ramparts shaking; far off; and now here, in our suburban university in the heart of a suburban world. I was already smashed; it was past midday and I had already been to the bar for several bourbons, not to mention what else I was up to. I was swept up in the crowd, the grand speeches, the euphoria, and before I knew it was sitting cross legged, in the days when such things were possible, amongst a whole group of earnest faces. We couldn't believe our daring.

The demands went out; the evil vice-chancellor must come to the party. But instead he called the police; and the negotiations took a far more serious turn. In the meantime, I had discovered the vice-chancellor's fridge full of beer, and was cheerfully helping myself. The rest of the earnest young things didn't think that was such a great idea, but in those days nothing was going to stop me, not when it came to beers, celebrations, tumult, chaos; I was in there getting blind drunk whatever else they said. The day dragged on into evening; and the atmosphere became more and more intense. And I became more and more drunk; an embarrassment to the student leadership, who suggested I might want to leave and go to the pub on the outside. I wasn't going to have any of that, either. I wanted to be in the thick of things; it was all so terribly important, whatever it was. Better people than them had tried to talk sense into me.

We were given a final ultimatum; you can leave now and you won't be charged; or you can stay and face the consequences. A certain number did leave, off home to mummy; and the leaders thanked them for their contribution; and the student leaders told us that we should be grateful for the part they had played; and not everyone could go all the way. They weren't really woozzes. Whatever. We could hear the chants of the crowd outside; what do we want, when do we want it. In a city, in a world, in a remote and ordinary place where nothing ever really happened, news had spread rapidly and hundreds had gathered to support us. The final negotiations took place; the hard core settled in, ready to take the final consequences, I searched the vice-chancellor's office for anything else to drink, having already emptied his bar fridge, and then it was on, we were being arrested; these big brute blokes in blue with shoulders the size of gorillas, were in our inner-sanctum, ordering us out.

We were taken down some strange way through long narrow concrete corridors, emerging suddenly to a scene of complete pandemonium, a corridor of thuggish blue uniforms leading up to the police cars, hundreds, perhaps thousands of students circling the scene, all chanting, all yelling. My face was snapped a thousand times; good on you mate, someone said, and then from the brief, tumultuous light we were in the back of police vans; all of us, well most of us, being arrested for the first time; being, after all, not criminals but earnest young students, studying anthropology, philosophy, commerce, we were this country's future.

We were thrown a couple of dozen to a cell; in some suburban police station. Australia wasn't exactly set up for mass protest; and in the days before terrorism and the population explosion, Sydney wasn't really prepared for this sort of thing. Still drunk, having over-indulged for fear of running out, I made myself very popular by throwing up in the cell toilet, and then passing out, not entirely unfamiliar with sleeping on floors. Maybe there was a fine, or we got charged with something, I can't remember; but there was no great consequence; just the memory of struggling from the darkness to the light, the great seething crowd, the ecstatic support, the shouts; the irony of always being in the centre of things when really all I wanted to do was hide. The problem was if you wanted to tell stories something had to happen; and the great city enfolded itself upon us; and we were lost; entirely lost, all over again; not even a student demo to give our path meaning.

THE BIGGER STORY:
Arrests during music festival - Randwick

2008-03-09 05:35:39

Police were generally pleased with crowds who attended a music festival
at Randwick overnight, despite officers making several arrests.

The ten-hour-long festival began at noon and included a drug dog
operation involving police from Eastern Beaches Local Area Command,
security officers, and user pay police, with assistance from the Dog
Squad.

Results of the drug dog operation included:
* 74 drug detections
* 10 people charged with the deemed supply of drugs
* 1 person charged with warrant offences and drug possession
* 40 Field Court Attendance Notices issued for drug possession
* 18 Cannabis Cautions issued
* 2 people charged with fail to quit, assault police, resist
arrest, and drug supply and possession
* 2 Juvenile Cautions issued for drug possession and juvenile on
licensed premises
* 3 Penalty Notices issued for fail to quit, false ID, and
offensive behaviour
* 12 knife searches conducted
* 11 drug searches conducted
* 4 move-on orders given

A total of 239 ecstasy pills were located and seized by police
throughout the night, along with a quantity of cannabis, cocaine, and
speed.

Minor traffic disruptions occurred at the conclusion of the event as
festival goers made their way home from the venue.

No serious injuries were reported during the incident.

Police Media.