The fine art of the well-staged spontaneous demonstration pt2

All this coverage of spontaneous demonstrations of Muslim anger, complete with Danish flags, reminded me that I never wrote my intended sequel to the ‘Fine art of the well-staged border incident’ post I made a few days ago.

A finely crafted border incident is undoubtedly an excellent way to start a war or a spot of internal repression but it is always a good idea to you ease your population into the swing of things beforehand.

Enter the complementary fine art of the well-staged spontaneous demonstration

And the great thing about spontaneous demonstrations is that you can often get fabulous results with not much effort at all. A compliant media is always useful but, at a pinch, you can sometimes achieve the desired effect with just one or two agent provocateurs. Group dynamics are with you on this one.

History is just littered with the corpses of initially peaceful demonstrators who, as they were mown down, died wondering how it was that the person who started the riot had managed fuck off out of it and was nowhere to be seen.

Personal favourite spontaneous demonstrations of recent years include

The Saddam statue toppling story 2003

A fine example of how, with the right camera angle, a few dozen hired henchman surrounded by US soldiers can look like a few thousands democracy loving patriots

The Lebanese Cedar Revolution 2005

Complete with banners written in English

The Ukrainian Orange Revolution 2004

A couple of months ago Boris Berezovsky, one of those fluffy munchkin Russian oligarchs, popped up on a BBC TV documentary bragging about how he funded the Ukrainian Orange Revolution. His convoluted reasoning for doing so being…

• He had to leave Russia because he is wanted for murder and stealing billions from the Russia people
• He helped Putin into power on the understanding that Putin would wipe the slate clean
• Putin didn’t
• Berezovsky funded the overthrow of the Ukrainian government to piss off Putin
• Berezovsky then applied for a Ukrainian visa so that he could visit the Ukraine and spark a diplomatic incident between Russia and the Ukraine on his account
• Not wanting to go to war with Russia, the new Ukrainian government showed its gratitude to Berezovsky by refusing his visa request
• Berezovsky is now planning to overthrow the Russian government instead
• Berezovsky has Neil Bush, George Bush’s brother, as a business partner
• Curiously, since Russia booted out the oligarchs the country is a lot less fucked up financially.
• Lots of Russian oligarchs now live in the UK, as most other countries won’t touch them with a barge pole. It might be something to do with all those murders and stolen billions.

I mention all of this because, at the time, the coverage of the Orange Revolution in the Ukraine was largely restricted to favourable comments about its colour co-ordination and sound systems.

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So, in a deceitful world, how can you tell the difference between a genuine spontaneous protest and a manipulated one? It’s surprisingly easy …

If the protesters are behaving in a way that agrees with your view of the world then, obviously, they are being genuine and spontaneous.

For example, the majority of people watching that demonstrations outside the Danish Embassy in London saw what they expected to see. They saw the failure of the police to arrest the demonstrators as being a prime example of how soft we are in the West.

A smaller number of people, a much smaller number, suspect the demonstration of being a manipulated event. For them, the police deliberately held back so that the images of lunatic Muslim demonstrators on our own soil could be broadcast to the nation.

You pays your money, you takes your pick