Comments on: The Digital Vigilante

By: Robert

Robert — Fri, 31 Aug 2007 14:11:31 +0000

That’s an interesting question, one I hadn’t considered. Remember that my intervention was initially passive - I was just filming, not getting stuck in with my fists. My resolve was strengthened by the homophobic abuse they were throwing at the guards… but initially I whipped out my camera because they were just, like, being bad!

And I think I probably would have filmed in the BNP circumstances too. The right reason to do so would of course have been because I supported the right of freedom of assembly. There is no sense in getting on my high-horse about homophobia otherwise.

Whether that would be my actual motivation, or whether I was more concerned with protecting the property rights of the marquee owner… who can say? Its a heart-and-head thing, and would present more of a dilemma than the situation I was actually faced with.

By: Matt Munro

Matt Munro — Fri, 31 Aug 2007 11:39:38 +0000

Did you intervene purely because you perceived the attack to be homophobic or would you have intervened if it had been at say, a BNP rally ?

Photographers, especially during wars and disasters, are often faced with this dilemma - carry on filming or drop the camera and help ?

By: Robert

Robert — Tue, 28 Aug 2007 13:57:41 +0000

What, my scintillating analysis of ‘resolving’, or the fact some idiot threw things at me, or the fact I got an earful from my girlfriend for my troubles?

By: Alastair Mucklow

Alastair Mucklow — Tue, 28 Aug 2007 12:33:37 +0000

Brilliant.

By: Bogle

Bogle — Fri, 24 Aug 2007 08:17:23 +0000

You only provoked one of the neds otherwise you cleared the area pretty well, it seems. As for your resolution to film such incidents or the resolution to respond violently perhaps the simplest thing is just to resolve to do something and not be a pussy about it.

Unfortunately you can still get it wrong. I’ve broken up a couple of fights but in at least one case discovered that where I thought I was stopping two lads beating up the one they’d just thrown to the floor of the pub I’d actually just stopped them catching up to the bloke who’d randomly punched someone in the street. As everyone else had stood back the little shit escaped.

Right, I’m off to practice my school mistressy voice in the park.

By: Fay

Fay — Thu, 23 Aug 2007 20:58:39 +0000

“Each call to violence should be judged on its own merits, at the time. No two conflicts are alike, and intervention in one instance should not endorse similar actions at some other time.”

First things first, I really enjoyed reading this and (almost) completely believe that you had no thought of what a good blog it would make when you whipped out your Nokia to film the whippersnappers.

And I agree it’s probably impossible to lay down rules about about how you will or should react in any challenging situation. I once walked past a guy who seemed to be about to punch his female companion in the face and then felt guilty for the rest of the day.

But I also surprised myself by intervening when everyone else was keeping their head down – last year a couple of school kids from the local high school got on the bus and started shouting, swearing, banging the side of the bus and being generally a pain in the neck. They were probably 12 or 13, not very big, and I was amazed that none of the adults on the crowded top deck did or said anything, everyone just looked straight ahead pretending it wasn’t happening. I was even more amazed that I suddenly heard myself shouting in a very school mistressy voice, “Behave yourselves, sit down and shut up.” Unbelievably they did!

I am not sure I would do the same thing again, I think there might be some instinct that tells you when it will work. Maybe your Nokia impulse worked because it was the right impulse?

(but do you suppose any good will come from all this Nokia promotion?)