I spent the weekend at the Rising Tide People’s Blockade of the coal port at Newcastle.
There were more than 5000 registered participants at the ‘protestival’ on shore, a beautifully organised event with a brilliantly diverse population, many of them in tents. Hundreds of small craft, mostly kayaks, paddled out onto the water and in spite of an impressive police presence – water police from Sydney, and squads of riot police in black, many wearing masks – at least one coal ship was turned back. There were about 170 arrests on the water, of which I was number 64. (According to the police, they had to pull 34 people out of the water: I was one, and I was in the water because of police action. Police had to help ten people to shore who were unable to get there unaided: what police don’t mention is that they had confiscated those people’s paddles.)
I kept my ears peeled for an opening line for a November stanza – that is to say, an iambic tetrameter ending in an unaccented syllable. At first I thought I had to take Senator Mehreen Faruqi’s description of the drastic situation of Pacific Island nations: ‘Water lapping on their doorsteps.’ I was searching around for rhymes for doorstep, and was thinking ‘Imhotep’ had possibilities, when I was returning from my post-arrest processing and a possibly drunk man in a bus stop muttered at me, ‘I hope you drown if you’re protesting.’ Delighted by this gift of a line I thanked him, completely without irony. The poem got completely out of hand right from the start.
Verse 11: I hope you drown if you're protesting
I hope you drown if you're protesting,
hope your voice dies in your throat,
I hope and pray that the arresting
coppers drop you off the boat.
May your chant of people power
getting stronger by the hour
echo down the halls of shame.
It's not your skin that's in the game.
Some of us have made a living
digging, carting, shipping coal.
A living? More! It shaped our souls.
Thatcher gave what you'd be giving.
You say you won't let ships pass.
I say shove that up your arse.
I do feel obliged to mention that everywhere in the Climate movement, people talk about the importance of a just transition to renewables. There’s a lot of disinformation around, but this man’s quiet bitterness was clearly heartfelt, came from a real place
Me fail? I fly! 
Well done you, such a good cause. It must have been a frightening experience, being in the water with the police behaving like mug lairs. And a great poem as well!
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Bravo, Jonathan! I wasn’t there this past week-end – instead fixing a storage problem with my lap-top, then to-day taking a walk along the pathway to Murrays Beach. Then I saw the report of the arrests and the police spokesperson giving what were clearly lies about the very things you have given the background to. I was certainly cheering the Rising Tide protest! And I love your versification. I think every arrest will be tossed out of court when the cases come up… Jim
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Hi Jim. I don’t think they’ll be tossed out of court, but I’m not expecting jail time! The first so many people were booked with a minor charge of not moving on. By the time they got to number 64 it was a serious charge of obstructing the functioning of the port. We’ll see.
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There can’t be progressive seriousness for the same so-called flouting of the law in this democratic protest about environmental degradation of our world – exiting from Australia. Good luck in front of the magistrate. Jim
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I see your point, Jim,but apparently from one pint of view the longer you do something the more serious it gets😎
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Ah, wonderful, a protest poem that isn’t preaching to the choir.
John Levy
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You can probably take some credit for that, John.
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Wow. Good on you Jonathan.
What happens now after the arrest?
Anyway, all power to you.
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Thanks, Michelle. Rising Tide’s tireless legal team got us all to write accounts of what happened in as much detail as we could manage. In itself that was an education. I understand that they will sift through what they’ve been told and devise a defence (or defences, for different situations). The arrestees will meet with legal advisers some time over the next couple of months before our court appearances – mine is scheduled for mid-January, back in Newcastle.
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Well that’s great use of a negative moment! xxx
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To be transparent about it, when the old chap (possibly younger than me) muttered at me, I had just got back with two companions from the euphoric camaraderie of the arrested, still barefoot and phoneless. It wasn’t hard to hear him as expressing pain rather than taking it personally.
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Not for you, because you’re you 🙂 xx
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I’d love to take that as an absolute truth, but there have been moments when I would have told him to go take a flying leap or worse delivered a self-righteous harangue about fossil fuels and the climate emergency.
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