Four members of the department of sociology and criminology at Barry University were recently invited to participate in a panel discussion at the University of Miami.* The panel discussion, held on Monday, March 8th, addressed the issue of police brutality during the FTAA November meetings. The following recap of the event was provided by Dr. Mauel Caro, Assistant Professor of Sociology and Criminology, Barry University.

The four presentations made during the panel discussion fit within an overall argument that can be summarized as follows: the brutal “Miami Model” of dealing with anti-FTAA protests was justified by the propagation of the image of a dangerous protestor that needed to be quelled: a violent anarchist who lacked political agenda and whose sole purpose was creating chaos. This image is inaccurate if you attend to the history of anarchism, yet it has been recurrently used since the end of the 19th century to justify the police’s action against workers and protestors of different kinds.

Dr. Manuel Caro presented a self-produced video that illustrated the Miami Model and how it looked in the streets of Miami on November 20th. The video portrayed some of the instances in which the media and local officials recurrently presented the violent anarchist to the general public in Miami to make sure that Miamians supported the brutal repression of dissent during the FTAA meetings.

With the intention of debunking this mythical image of the new boogie man, Dr. Gary Grizzle presented some of the basic tenets of anarchism by focusing on the life and work of Peter Kropotkin who asserted that government structures are unnecessary and oppressive.

Dr. Luigi Esposito presented some evidence about how the image of the violent anarchist who is intent on sheer destruction is not a new one, but a very old myth that has been recurrently used since the late 1900s whenever the brutal crushing of dissent needed to be justified.

Finally, Dr. Lisa Konzal drove the argument home by showing how the violent anarchist was used by local officials of the City of Miami in order to justify passing an ordinance to control the way people expressed their opinions in November. This ordinance criminalized carrying all kinds of objects, with the fear that they could be used by these violent anarchists to inflict injury on the police and citizens.

After the presentations, an interesting discussion ensued about the possibilities that anarchism represents as a political alternative to modern nation states, and the role of violence in protest.