The violence
When spray paint on a window is diagnosed as ‘violent’ in public discourse but the beheading of toddlers is constituted as legitimate ‘defense’, we feel that the term ‘violence’ has lost its meaning. Regarding protest, the ‘peaceful’ versus ‘violence’ frame is a narrative trap set for us by mainstream power holders. The more we use time and energy disputing what is and isn’t ‘violence’ amongst ourselves the more successful their trap has been. At DLF we choose not to step into this trap.
Rather than ‘peaceful’ versus ‘violent’ we use a frame of ‘harm’ and ‘care’ in our organising. We foster an ethic of community care and we centre this in all our spaces. We ask that comrades ‘do no harm to life’. We ask that comrades engage with each other with maximum respect and – stretch goal – in a spirit of revolutionary love. Even at our most vulnerable, such as during the extreme policing of the Land Forces expo, we saw a community praxis of care that was extraordinary. The way people stepped up to protect, assist and look after each other during the police assaults of September 11 gives us hope for our future.
Many of the acts police referred to as ‘protester violence’ were in reality part of a spectrum of care that was selfless, tireless and ultimately very effective. Leaning in to the protester tactics described by media outlets as ‘violent’ we discover acts designed to protect community from police attacks. People placed their bodies or bread crates up against the horses to prevent trampling or enable safe movement. Rubbish bins were set on fire to deter a police charge with those horses. None of us hurt a horse or another human. Not one. Throwing soft projectiles like eggs or tomatoes, verbal heckling, setting fires and using our bodies as a barricade to protect our comrades are tactics some people don’t relate to, and this was reflected in our evaluation sessions. Our ethic is one of non-judgement of other people’s tactics; discussion is great, cancellation not so much. We only note, here, that none of these tactics caused harm to life. Any injuries to police were self-inflicted, with officers accidentally spraying each other, hitting each other and falling over themselves.








Meanwhile, deals to displace First Nations peoples, destroy their lands and murder en masse were going ahead inside the weapons expo. The most egregious harm at Land Forces was the genocidal commerce taking place within the concrete box that is MCEC.
The police brutality on Wed 11 Sept showed how determined the State of Victoria was to enable this lucrative murder trade to take place.
Sasha, 64
We forced the State to show its hand. Its hand looks like 2000 paramilitary goons firing projectiles, trampling and beating us. This is the reality of militarism, revealed in its all its gory expenditure.
Caroline, 55
The structural harm playing out inside the Land Forces expo was complemented by the material harm police inflicted upon our people. Police used batons, capsicum spray, hard foam bullets and stun grenades to attack activists who were seated or who had fallen down, who were in wheelchairs, holding children, administering first aid to other activists, or who were simply present at the protest. Some of us felt that police used the Land Forces event to conduct a real time training session, to ‘road test’ weapons and combat-style policing.
A disheartening and gross feeling was the reality that we kinda became part of the expo with the deployment of those weapons, we became an on the ground showcase of crowd control.
Rose, 30
Police used it as training practice, deploying their riot squads and projectiles.
Napi, 32
There is no way in which we contributed to the assaults. I was on the road and I saw different groups doing different things. I stand by everyone’s actions. They put on all those extra cops so that they could use military weapons and practice against civilians. Even with all the attacks against us, it was incredible and amazing to be there. I’m proud of our people.
Marigold, 54

The brutal actions of police at Land Forces left hundreds injured and everyone shaken. The anger and grief continue to rise in us two months later. September 11 has become a watershed for repression and also for resistance. We have had many conversations and will have many more to evaluate the tactics used on that day. Activist aftercare continues, with emotional, material and legal support crews all held in the powerful embrace of the grassroots antimilitarist movement.
The violence was horrendous. It was hard to notice how much it affected me until the next week.
Sebastian, 23
I’m really angry about the terrible cop violence.
Ahmed, 28
The police violence was really scary for me and my friends, it was overwhelming. I feel sad about it. I was worried that the violence on Wednesday may have deterred people from turning up. I don’t think it will deter people from turning up but it may encourage people to be more strategic about how they turn up, and how to reduce harm.
The heavy repression felt overwhelming. There were so many cops. They want us to feel that it’s not worth it, they are punishing us so that we give up. Being at the Seafarers was an amazing counter to that repression. The the coming together of community is beautiful.
Sandy, 16

Going into the mobilisation, DLF organisers knew that police would attack us at the Picket event on September 11. People did not expect the array of weaponry and military tactics police deployed, however; nobody expected the coordinated shield advances, baton charges, grenades and shootings that occurred. We were appalled as we watched and experienced the police harming our community over and over again. Organisers had attempted to mitigate police harm by suggesting deployment in ‘pods’ and to stay away from police lines. The pod tactic was somewhat successful (see part 3 of this report), however the level of cop brutality set the agenda for both the picket and its representation. The mainstream media, predictably, normalised the militarised policing operation while dehumanising us. Back in the real world, dealing with the extreme policing and heightened surveillance took and continues to take a lot of activist time and energy. This is an intended effect of policing-as-repression.
Organisers considered engaging in liaison with police prior to the mobilisation but decided to leave that decision up to the various event organisers. A few comrades suggested that marshals or police liaison people may have been effective in mitigating police attacks on September 11.
Not doing liaison contributed to this over reaction by the cops on the Wednesday. Police liaison is an obligation. You have to carry the police with the movement; change has to include police. To walk away from it is dangerous. They got to use the event to try out crowd control weaponry.
Duncan, 82
Some responses to this point:
In other pickets I have seen police liaisons get pepper sprayed. Their ability to mitigate police attacks is very limited.
Bella, 44
I think police liaisons can be very helpful but in some circumstances like Wednesday it would have made no difference to the brutality, it just would have made the police liaisons vulnerable.
Yiannis, 35
DLF organisers liaised with police about one event, the Motorcade on Monday 9th, hoping that liaising would mitigate police harassment along the route. Our liaison was completely fruitless. Police harassed and humbugged every single set of wheels on the road or off it. All our liaison achieved was to give them a heads up about the route, resulting in heavy police guards at all the weapons corporations of inner city Naarm. A police liaison / bunny buddy was the first person to be arrested during the mobilisation, in relation to the Lizard car block of the Westgate Bridge. We do not believe that deploying police liaisons or marshals would have led to a reduction in police brutality.

There are upsides to the harmful repression we experienced. First, the multiple expressions of mutual aid both on site and ever since September 11 have created and cemented bonds within our community and demonstrated how beautifully we are able to support each other. The practice of care as solidarity was exemplary throughout the DLF mobilisation; more on this below. Secondly, our picket forced the state to reveal its commitment to corporatism and militarism through its vicious defence of the Land Forces expo. Last and not least, the deployment of thousands of militarised police in the centre of Naarm was in itself highly disruptive.
Working smarter, not harder, is the challenge we face at future arms expos and other large targets. The successes and failures of the four hour picket on Wednesday 11th are fertile ground for activist learning and planning. We will never outgun the police, nor would we try to. We can, however, outsmart them, and we frequently do.
After the brutality of Wednesday September 11, it felt like we had more traumatised people than we had arms to hold them. At that point, we hoped that others in the broader community would step up to care for the injured and distressed; many did. One comrade asked,
How could we have even bigger arms to catch all the people who were in distress? We didn’t quite manage to hold all the people.
We needed to prepare people for the repression. At other mobilisations we have held sessions to prepare people. Maybe that would have helped.
Celia, 59
As often happens after an episode of police brutality or state repression, some people looked for a person or collective to blame, holding other activists responsible for the harm instead of directing anger at the authors of the harm, the police. This was extremely disheartening for DLF organisers, who were ourselves injured, arrested and distressed by the police overkill. We invite community to reflect on our responses to brutality, study ways of resisting repression, and use crisis as an opportunity to double down on solidarity. We expect state repression to increase as climate impacts worsen and wealth disparity passes ever more ridiculous extremes. Let’s be ready to hold each other. We are going to need those ‘even bigger arms’ to survive end stage capitalism.



The care
A core goal of DLF was to foment communities of care. We met and exceeded this goal. The level and degree of care offered by everyone to everyone was the most heartening and hopeful facet of the mobilisation. Deep respect and radical altruism were present on the streets, at rallies, at Camp Sovereignty, in our homes and at our basecamp at the Mission to Seafarers. We welcomed new activists and established campaigners alike to eat, learn and mobilise together. We worked together to solve problems with humility and grace. It was a joy to be in our spaces. It is affirming to see that despite the shit and violence and chaos of the world, we know how to put community care into practice and foreground revolutionary love.
I found it easy to connect with people. It was easy to come in as a sort of individual.
Drew, 50
Seafarers was an amazing space, where relationship building was enabled and happened.
Cass, 22
Seafarers felt like home, our community’s home. I loved being there.
Tati, 28
People were peaceful and caring and contained. Seeing that sense of community has really affected me. It’s what I want to be doing. It has drawn me into wanting to be doing this, making this work my focus.
Sebastian, 23
The kitchen! Every time I entered the kitchen a different crew was in there chopping and cleaning and stirring.
Nour, 27
We built nice connections with new people, full of care and nurturing.
Sandy, 16
The kitchen team managed to feed a hundred people twice a day for seven days. Meals were tasty, nutritious, plentiful and 100% vegan. DLF organisers prioritise eating together as a foundation of all other work. Sharing food energises and bonds us. Sharing food during meetings and mobilisations is normal in much of the global south and across diasporic communities in the north. We want to normalise sharing food as a protest essential here in Straya. The kitchen team did a vast amount of work prior to and during the mobilisation. Their work anchored us in daily shared spaces of rest, recovery and sociality. The kitchen team deserve every kind of celebration.
Another team we need to single out for major gratitude is Naarm Frontline Medics. This crew was already beloved by the movement, having shown up again and again to care for people injured by police. When the police went ballistic on September 11, Frontline Medics were there to hold, treat and comfort us. Here, we quote from the Medics’ own reflections on the mobilisation.
We were involved from the very start, so we had very established relationships and were able to help with decisions and thinking things through. This was a great thing for us. There was some well organised decon [decontamination]; the medics appreciated being brought in early. And it’s good to see a genuine commitment to aftercare and reflection.
On the Wednesday there was a second self-organising group of medics not doing real well in the space. We’ve encouraged [Salt] medics to get training but the collaboration is poor. One thing we learnt is that the best thing for us medics is to not change our plans when there is a clash between others and our own organised crew.
There were some real problems with the way the other medic team was working. A big thing was people were spraying saline on peoples’ faces, which spreads the OC spray as the water washes it down the body (potentially hitting incredibly sensitive areas). You need to wipe OC off, not squirt it away.
People were also spraying peoples’ eyes without properly opening them, which spreads the OC around the eyes more and also pushes it around the face.
And another big thing is that we always encourage people to remove casualties from the area where they were hit, to reduce the trauma and also prevent further harm from taking place. But too many people were left at the front, very close to horses and violent cops, instead of being moved a little further back for safer care.
There’s more, but those are the big things that can have a really negative impact on protesters and create additional work for medics.
Cam 44, representing Naarm Frontline Medics

The care team were limited in number but boundless in their offerings. The main role played by the care team was collecting arrested people from custody and taking them wherever they needed to go. We can’t overstate the importance of this work. Exiting the cop shop to find a friendly face offering hugs, treats, a lift and a chance to vent or cry mitigates the harm of being detained and sets us up to recover well. Some of the care team mobilised at our events also:
I was acting as part of the care team. I didn’t really process what was happening emotionally at the time, but reflecting later it was very powerful to have been standing in front of police lines handing out snacks and water, and making sure everyone had the watch house number. It felt like it sent a strong message to the police as well as providing community care.
Naomi 37
Whatever else we did or didn’t manage to do, our caring praxis was exemplary. Some of the care was coordinated, through the kitchen, medics or care team. Then there were multiple spontaneous acts of care. Picking up an injured person, showing another activist a new skill, ensuring that wheelchair users were not trampled by cops, sharing all that we own and all that we know: these actions show us who we really are and what we are capable of. This was a major success story of the DLF mobilisation.
Acknowledgements
This written work was made on Gadubanud, Wadawurrung and Wurundjeri lands. We acknowledge the sovereignty of First Peoples on this continent. We lament the harm caused by ‘the British Empire’, its military invasion and its continuing colonisation. We are grateful for the support and radical perspectives of Senior Elders on this continent. We thank Mob in Naarm and across this beautiful, tortured land for staunch, ongoing resistance to genocide. Always was, always will be Aboriginal land.




Organising the Disrupt Land Forces mobilisation involved hundreds of carers, cooks, creatives and co-conspirators. Visual and performing artists gave freely, coders and writers used their words, people took time off work, some people even skipped school to join our resistance community. We aimed to spark communal connections, to prompt interrogation of militarism on this continent and to smash the social license of the weapons industry.
We aimed high and we reached higher. Our resistance was represented by media outlets all over the globe – Japan, the UK, Colombia, Lebanon, Argentina, the US, India, France, etc etc – and dominated national news here in the colony called Straya. The weapons trade survives on secrecy. The harms dealers do not want their existence or their fortunes exposed to public scrutiny. Thanks to our resistance, every social or traditional media reader in Straya learnt that a large weapons sales event was taking place in Naarm, and that thousands came out to vehemently oppose it.






Media coverage is one type of ‘success’. The torrent of learning, listening, dialogue and exchange that flowed from our June 21 launch has not stopped flowing. Bonds forged in shared struggle and resistance work will endure far beyond the bank balance of a weapons dealer. The anti-genocide movement in Naarm were joined by activists from many other towns and cities; we were a national mobilisation. The astonishing warmth of the space we held at the Seafarers was, for many, the highlight of Disrupt Land Forces. To be at Seafarers was to experience a constant state of becoming, transforming, creating and exchanging. Our temporary mutual aid community established trust quickly and held it firmly. The speed with which we developed this solidarity economy is possibly a more significant ‘success’ than any of our ‘actions’. Seafarers gave us a glimpse of life beyond capitalism. It is a world worth fighting for.



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To comment on, edit or add to this report, email disruptwars@proton.me