Outside a Kashmir university, students in gray woolen vests, navy blue ties and white shirts with sleeves rolled down even in the early morning heat, chanted and waved banners. Their faces masked by kerchiefs with delicate patterns, each attempt at anonymity was tantalizingly particular. Banners read in Koshor and Urdu, “Let the people talk!”, “Governments of Earth”, “Aliens = Hope”, “One Earth One People”. A volley of tear gas was launched into the crowd. Most scattered, but a few hurled rocks at the police. Rubber bullets flacked. Some fell, holding their sides. This wasn’t the first time there’d been clashes like this, albeit for different reasons. Several officers dragged an injured protestor from the front lines, yanked his mask down and tied him to the hood of a jeep. Armed and shielded by helmets with visors and gas masks, the police drove the jeep into the crowd, firing rubber bullets and more tear gas. A few lobbed rocks at the backs of law enforcement, but tear gas was now everywhere. The protester on the hood looked like it was crying blood. It was difficult to make out the faces of fallen people, but terrible sobs, moans and shouts of defiance rose and fell like the wheeze of a dying animal kicking at a trap. Most scattered, and those who couldn’t move fast enough were arrested. The protest was over.
Similar incidents flared in Sao Paulo and Rio de Janeiro in Brazil, Caracas, Venezuela, Istanbul, Turkey, in Kiev and across the Ukraine, where banners read in their native tongues: “Aliens are here. Where were our governments?”, “How long have they known?”, “Are we being handed over?”, “Invasion by who?”, “Why should we trust the secret keepers?”, “Time for change”, “New world, new rules”. Altogether, thousands were arrested, tens of thousands injured, and the number of dead was rising by the hour.
In Thailand, demonstrations in Bangkok and Chonburi didn’t even get to start. Defying a junta ban on any gathering of more than five people, tens of thousands of protesters swarmed every street surrounding Bangkok’s Siam Square and the Ratchaprasong district. Police came out in force, seemingly from within the crowd, as an intense tangle of uniforms and banner waving protesters tussled. Lumphini Park to the south had been transformed into a military field station, from which surged tanks, jeeps and marching troops along Ratchadamri, Witthayu and other northbound roads. The soldiers pushed the crowd in one direction: toward the National Stadium to the west, where police waited to detain and contain. Apart from the scuffling, screaming and crying, there was no violence, no demonstration, just an autumnal scatter of trampled placards and jackboot footprints on little blue masks.
We saw and heard everything. We were the watchers, after all. Web, TV, radio, we took it all in. The ticking down of propaganda around the clock of the world. Powers that be fed off the systemic fears of their citizenry, reminding them of their needs and making them feel every one, by ensuring they were kept unmet. The MO of the seat of power – to divert attention from its own fear. Power is a powerless entity that possesses the world. Sometimes you can feel the pull of it, like a madness, insatiable, mindless.