Picket Line Prayer "While his team-mate executed a dummy play, he clutched the Holy Grail under his arm and accelerated past the first row of the defence. Deftly he sidestepped and pivoted outside the reach of those coming from all quarters. On he went for another ten metres, with the crowd going wild, until, with a shuddering halt, the opposition dragged him to a stop. The run was ended and the plastic bottle of water slipped from his grasp" Plastic bottle of water? What was a footballer doing with a plastic bottle of water? It isn't a description of a footballer at all. It is a somewhat esoteric account of me attempting to get water to a group of protesters who had been sitting on the road in the hot sun for a couple of hours with the police frustrating every attempt to deliver water to them. I don't believe in blockading and sitting on the road, but I believe less in depriving people of water. As one of the RSL protesters said, "Even in the concentration camps they gave us water". We tried for five minutes to get permission from the police but they were adamant. So there really was nothing left but to make a run for it. And my hours of watching the World Series rugby matches really paid off. I quite surprised myself - I must have made about fifteen metres. My only regret is that the TV cameras didn't get any footage of the dash. All they got were shots of a breathless sixty two year old being bundled into the paddy wagon, thus ending my brief excursion into the realms of rugby football. The senior officer of the Tactical Response Group (a paramilitary group formed to combat terrorism) wasn't too impressed and asked whether I could outrun a bullet. I didn't know what to make of the comment. I still don't. But, on the basis of my run on the 27th November 1991, I now see it as a distinct possibility! It wasn't, however, all fun and games at AIDEX 91. There was much sadness - particularly with respect to the violence. Violence is something which I am increasingly against, be it on the part of the protesters, the police or Sir William Keys and his merchants of death. The violence on the part of the protesters came from a number of quarters. One was from a small group of malcontents whose experiences of society and the police have embittered them and all they now want to do is to destroy. They are a real problem. They are not driven by love but by hate - a hate which surfaces in mindless public shootings, and in protests like ours. They are psychologically disturbed people for whom as yet we have no answer. Another kind of violence comes from those who have tried every other way to bring their concerns to the notice of society without success. These are the people who have argued with the establishment that to arm people like Saddam Hussein is madness. They become angry that exhibitors like British Aerospace are supplying the manufacturing technology of multi-launch rockets to no less than General Pinochet. These are the people who have higher morals than the fast buck. But their viewpoint has been disregarded and they have been smiled upon benignly by the establishment as "not understanding what AIDEX is trying to do". They understand all right, but they cannot afford the full page advert that British Aerospace placed in the newspaper during AIDEX. They know the violence of the establishment. They have tried everything else and now see themselves with no other option but to meet the primary violence with violence. I disagree with their response but I certainly understand their actions, because I share their frustration. And then there is the violence of a small group of people whom I regard as the most dangerous of all - power hungry, voracious, political animals who manipulate others to their own self seeking political will. They are ruthless, cold and calculating. Of all the enemies I know, these are the ones whom I have the greatest difficulty loving. They are the scribes and pharisees of our day who still say "It is expedient .." Alongside these small groups of violent protesters were a whole host of others ranging from the ultra squares like myself to the delightful "ferals" with their painted faces and their sense of community which has to be experienced to be believed. ("Ferals" is the contemporary word for those whom we used to call the Flower People, or Hippies - the alternative culture.) I was so impressed with one of these, a wandering Galilean Jew, that I found myself unconsciously asking: "Could this be the Christ?". Such was the beauty and the love of some of these people. Between the ultra squares and the ferals lay a huge number of concerned people - students, medicos, mothers and fathers, grandfathers and grandmothers, academics, politicians, business people and on and on and on - people who see further than the fast buck and are committed to doing something about it. These are the people I salute. They are not the "thugs" or "terrorists" or "the pits" berated by Sir William Keys - the Director of AIDEX who says that those who are opposed to AIDEX operate on emotion rather than logic. They are the salt of the earth - the ordinary people, the little people, the children of God, the peacemakers of this world. They had nothing to gain for themselves by being at AIDEX - which is more than Sir William can say. These are the ones with whom we wanted to fast and pray, and our first problem was that when we came to set up our cross outside the gates of AIDEX, the police would not allow it. Bernadette and I made several attempts and in the end were arrested. We were charged with "obstructing the traffic" notwithstanding the fact that the road had been blocked off and there was no traffic. One of the journos reckoned we should have been charged with "inciting people to pray". The net result was that we spent eight hours in jail and I was fined $50. Some of the ferals questioned me about pleading guilty on fabricated evidence. They have not yet realised that, for those who believe the end justifies the means, most evidence is fabricated. Many of the things of which the protesters were accused were "fabricated" - the most laughable one that they covered themselves with excrement. You have to be pretty thick to be unable to distinguish brown zinc cream from faeces. I really do feel for some of these young people. They still naively think that justice is somehow connected with the legal system. Many of them have not yet heard the Magistrate intoning the words "I can find no reason to disbelieve the police evidence". They are words I have heard a thousand times and yet they still tear at my guts. I sometimes wonder just how many people have become embittered and disillusioned and rebellious by the hearing of those few words. Our time in jail was a good time, and you really do meet the most interesting people in jail. When I was put into the paddy wagon I saw a guy I thought I recognised and, sure enough, it was Anthony Gwyther - the Ploughshares Catholic Worker who is coming up for trial in December for taking a hammer to a B52 in Darwin and trying to turn "swords into ploughshares". In the cells too I met a mathematician and we had an interesting time discussing his theory that life is to be found at the edges, at the circumference of the establishment. He was a nominal catholic and pointed out that when two edges meet there is an enormous amount of vigour and activity. Another I met was the member of a small Christian community in Victoria which has just disintegrated after eight years or so. He was about twenty-five years of age and really had a grasp of things - so much so that I felt a great deal of "angst" for him. It's all very well to see more of what it's about when you are sixty years of age but think of the responsibility of being in that position when you are twenty- five years of age and having the whole of your life stretching in front of you. These are the people to whom I dips me lid. They are the people for whom I pray and who give me hope. Of course, not all you meet in jail are like this. Some of them were the aforesaid violent protesters - the psychologically disturbed and the pharisaical ISOs. One of the latter ended up giving us a lecture on "the disempowerment of the police". I was not impressed. I was even less impressed when I learned he worked for the government. We also had our moments of hilarity. One was when the police continually asked me about my status as a Barrister and Solicitor and I could not understand why. It subsequently turned out that a story was going about that the police had imprisoned a High Court Judge. Somehow the lines had become crossed with a former President of the Uniting Church who was a High Court Judge. With names like Wilson and Watson, and both coming from W.A., it caused some anxious moments for the police in the lockup, who incidentally were quite delightful. One of the constables wiped her brow in relief when I told her there was nothing to fear and it was only little old me she had to deal with. From that time on whenever she called out my name it was "Mr. Watson - alias Wilson". Was it worth going to AIDEX 91? I believe so. We sat under the large three metre cross we had set up about eighty metres from the gates and surrounded it with small white crosses. One of the policemen asked, "What's this, a graveyard?" We replied: "That's what it's all about!" It was good having the categories of our praying all around us. It made it alive and real, and in the near freezing temperatures of the pre-dawn hours, as we kept our vigil, the mind became very clear. One thing we had not contemplated, however, was the constant stream of people who wanted to talk things over - from a young medico exploring her faith to a hulking youth who was "shit scared". There were others who just wanted to relate to us. They did interrupt our praying a little but who would have it otherwise? Didn't someone say that life is not in what is planned but in the interruptions? AIDEX 91 was violent and this I deeply regret. But to me there is no doubt where the primary violence lay. It was with Sir William Keys and his merchants of death. The violence of British Aerospace and Honeywell left the others for dead - which is quite an apt phrase when you come to think of it. I see for the concerned Christian three possibilities in a situation like this: * One is to go along with everything that goes on there and to be identified with the concern and the anger about people making money by the killing of people. * Another is to have nothing to do with such a protest. This was the choice of the established churches who held a sunrise service some five or so kilometres from the scene. * The third option is to be there and to do one's own thing - to be in it but on one's own terms, even though it is open to misinterpretation and misunderstanding by those outside. It was this third option that we chose, and at this point of time I have no regrets. I would do it again tomorrow - but with a little more boldness and a little more commitment. Neville Watson