019. Black screens

I remember the first time my handheld died during a protest. We were outside the parliament and held our devices up as shields against the riot clad police officers. Live feeds of pictures and video. The first lesson you learn as an activist is that if you are unhappy with your government the police will never be on your side. Cops watch themselves when the world watches them.

First we lost our connection. And then everything simply switched off. A hundred dumbfounded activists stupidly blinked at black screens. Our confused chatter hid the clatter of more boots moving in. And then the broken bones and blood and the scars proved that something had happened, but there were too many dissenting voices to know exactly what and which side was the instigators.

Used to be western societies didn't switch off the internet and the mobile phone network when they went to beat the shit out of their populace. It seemed an act reserved for harsher governance. But it wasn't because our politicians were benign and ardent believers in free speech that they let us freely document their brutality. More likely it was because they were old and slow and hadn't quite figured out the way the world worked yet.