REBLOG: Wanderers Fans ARE a Threat
From Communique from Suburbia.
On the recent over-policing of Wanderer’s fans – that is, working class, ethnic people from the Western suburbs – and the recent Senate Inquiry into the over-reach of the state:
In Australia, it has taken a libertarian, elected by a combination of good fortune and brand confusion, to ask questions about the overreach of the state. By chance, the formation of the Senate Committee coincided with the releasing of a set of draconian requests by the Parramatta Local Area Command governing the behaviour of Western Sydney Wanderers fans. This added a pronounced class dimension.
It goes without saying that all state power is experienced most overtly by the working class. With Western Sydney’s intersection of demography and geography, it is no surprise that common in the conciousness of many of its residents is a collective experience of over-policing, profiling and brutality.
An anti-police sentiment borne from such experiences is burnt into the DNA of the Westie.
……..
In typical Wanderers fan fashion, the label ‘grub’ – just like those before it of ‘scum’, ‘bogan’, ‘povo’, ‘wog’ and ‘reffo’ – has been immediately appropriated, continuing the subversion that has permeated their identity from the outset.
It is clear that the police see the RBB as a threat. Not because they are deadly, nor because they are violent. They fear them because a bunch of organised Westies can make them feel extremely insecure by carving out a space of their own. The RBB pose the possibility that the state is not ubiquitous.
Read the full post here: Wanderers Fans ARE a Threat
