A question for my fellow advocates of nonviolence: was it okay for protesters to throw eggs and shoes at Tony Blair when he was signing his new Iraq war apologia in Dublin?
None of the missiles hit him, or had any chance to. Even so, the action raises the question about how “polite” or “civil” protests need to be to be considered at least minimally “nonviolent”?
I have some ideas about this, but will hear some others first. I think this issue is timely because Blair’s patron and Partner in warmaking, George W you-know-who, will soon issue a book with a similar exculpatory agenda.
Here’s the money quote from the report in the UK’s Guardian:
<< Skirmishes broke out between protesters and police at the first public signing for Tony Blair’s memoirs, with shoes and eggs hurled at the former prime minister.
Four men were arrested and charged with public order offences for their part in the protest this morning outside Eason’s bookshop on O’Connell Street in Dublin, Ireland . . . >>