COVID policies, and how to make masking work at events 
I was reminded of this by another conversation, and figured that it might be helpful to share this with more folks.
In the Netherlands, some time ago, there was a housing protest. It was quite big and crowded, and most of the crowd - from diverse backgrounds, and without them having signed up before - was wearing a mask.
How we achieved that? By simply stationing a couple volunteers at the entrances to the park where the protest started, handing out masks from a big pile.
No further explanation, admonishments, requirements, questions, nothing. Just "here's a mask", one person after another, people didn't even have to stop walking to take it.
It really is that simple. Handing out the masks set a quiet expectation that people would wear them, and most people did. Some refused a mask because they brought their own; some people already put on their own mask as soon as they spotted the hand-outs from a distance.
I recall exactly two people actively refusing to wear a mask. Out of thousands.
COVID policies, and how to make masking work at events :boost_requested:
@joepie91 same thing worked at a show we organized locally a little while ago :)
COVID policies, and how to make masking work at events :boost_requested:
also with all the CCTV cameras and surveillance around, if you are going to some political protest, why would you *not* want to wear a mask if there was a chance to do so without looking "strange"?
re: COVID policies, and how to make masking work at events
@vfrmedia @ritualdust I can only speak for NL here, but let's just say that the understanding of safe protest tactics has not exactly landed here yet
re: COVID policies, and how to make masking work at events :boost_requested:
compared to UK, FR and DE, it seems its only recently that the authorities have been pushing back harder against protests (both "heavy stuff" at frontline and surveillance) to the same level as the other 3 European countries (I've been following the reports from the A12 protests closely)
re: COVID policies, and how to make masking work at events
@vfrmedia @ritualdust That's not quite accurate; protest repression has been a problem here for many decades, and actually usually is *worse* than what has been happening with the A12 protests.
The thing is that for many years, there were no meaningful large-scale protests, for a variety of cultural/political reasons; political apathy is a huge problem here, and so is copaganda around protests.
So the protests that *did* happen were usually smaller groups of activists, and the only mainstream reporting that happened was republishing the press release from the cops, which of course always painted it as a damn-near riot regardless of what actually happened.
This lack of protest culture also means that the vast majority of the population has *no idea* how protests work, what the long-term risks are, or even that the cops are not their friends (until recently, the cops have done quite well at reputation management here). And so there's no widespread culture of protest *safety* either.
re: COVID policies, and how to make masking work at events :boost_requested:
I watch old news videos and I'd seen heavier stuff in NL against protests when pirate radio stations got busted in late 1980s (like I see in other European countries) but as you mention it did seem there were fewer large protests in NL - although maybe Europe wide thing as in the 90s neoliberalism caused short term gains and authorities temporarily tolerated distractions such as drugs/raves..
re: COVID policies, and how to make masking work at events
@vfrmedia @ritualdust Oh, certainly, there *used* to be much more of a protest culture. The political apathy I'm referring to seems to have originated exactly in that mid-90s shift to neoliberalism.
re: COVID policies, and how to make masking work at events :boost_requested:
I was a raver and DJ and was genuinely surprised at what we seemed to be "getting away with" all over the whole EU in the early 90s until mid 2000s; but I always thought in the back of my mind it was some sort of distraction technique - if people are partying every weekend, they are often too knackered during the week to consider political stuff and might tolerate the status quo more...
re: COVID policies, and how to make masking work at events
@vfrmedia @ritualdust In fairness, that seems to be exactly what happened.
re: COVID policies, and how to make masking work at events :boost_requested:
the irony is what finally put an end to this tactic is car dependency - partydrugs users were getting so sleep deprived they were a danger on the roads driving to work at the start of the week - the subsequent crashes often involved middle class normies as well, so around 2015 many European countries started drug testing motorists more often, which finished off the rave/club scene in many areas..
re: COVID policies, and how to make masking work at events
@vfrmedia @ritualdust Also, I would say that the housing protest mentioned in the original toot was actually somewhat of a turning point on this.
It was the first protest in recent history that I know of, where the rest of the protest march refused to abandon the black bloc when the cops tried their usual divide-and-conquer approach, and instead came to a halt entirely, blocking the road.
This ultimately ended up with the cops escalating further and further, including against the rest of the protest. Unfortunately, they did this in the presence of several local political parties, who suddenly realized that the long-standing complaints about protest repression were in fact not made up.
This turned into a small PR disaster for the cops, with them even releasing heavily edited drone footage (and getting criticized for that) to try and 'prove' that they didn't escalate (which they of course did). Since then, the cops have been noticeably more careful in their conduct around protests.
re: COVID policies, and how to make masking work at events
@vfrmedia @ritualdust So yeah, I would say that the thing that has changed is that large protests are actually starting to happen now, and media are actually starting to report on it.
And so the cops are on their best behaviour (by their standards anyway) because now they might actually get in trouble if they overstep.