[p2p-research] Professor suspended for supporting G20 protests

Athina Karatzogianni athina.k at gmail.com
Mon Mar 30 11:28:07 CEST 2009 

perhaps of interest

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/top-stories/2009/03/26/anarchist-professor-warns-of-potential-for-london-protest-to-turn-violent-115875-21228492/


Anarchist professor warns of potential for London protest violence

   -
   -

By Mirror.co.uk
26/03/2009<http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/top-stories/2009/03/26/>

*Anarchists' warning as we track down Fred the Shred after attack on his
home*

[image: Prof Chris Knight (Pic:Rex)]

This is the ageing anarchist police fear will bring chaos to the capital's
streets next week.

Prof Chris Knight who lives in a £1million house himself, is organising
protests under the banner G20 Meltdown.

Yesterday he warned bankers to stay away when his group comes to town. He
added: "If you're thinking of coming in, my advice is don't. People are
incandescent about the way you've destroyed their lives."

His group threatens to storm buildings that don't switch off lights on
Saturday - which has been designated Earth Day.

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Asked if he supports violence, Mr Knight said: "Not against people but I'm
not too bothered about damage to property.

"Make no mistake, we are quite prepared to go the whole way.

"One way or another, those lights will be getting switched off."

Worried police have drafted in more than 2,500 officers and cancelled all
leave. Knight, a professor of anthropology at the University of East London,
is planning operations from his home in Lewisham.

Asked about the £7.2million police operation to combat the anarchists, he
said: "If they want violence, they'll get it."

http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/standard/article-23667969-details/Professor+Chris+Knight+renews+threats+against+G20+police/article.do


Professor Chris Knight renews threats against G20 police

*Jack Lefley*
27.03.09

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THE university professor who has been suspended for "inciting violence"
before G20 protests remained defiant today and renewed his threats against
the police.

University of East
London<http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/standard-home/related-36337-articles-reviews/University+of+East+London/related.do>anthropologist
Chris Knight said: "The message to police is 'if you press
your nuclear button, I'll press mine'. It sounds like a threat? Well, yeah -
don't do it. If you want violence, you'll get it."

The university suspended Professor Knight on full pay pending an inquiry
into his behaviour after he told the Evening Standard this week: "If they
[the police] want violence, they'll get it."

The 66-year-old, who lives in Lewisham, has organised next Wednesday's G20
Meltdown Financial Fools Day protests under the banner of The Government of
the Dead.

He will also lead attempts to target businesses in the City and Canary
Wharf<http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/standard-home/related-263-articles-reviews/Canary+Wharf/related.do>which
fail to switch off their lights tomorrow night.

The University of East London did not take immediate action against
Professor Knight, but it was confirmed today that he had been suspended.

He was told his comments were "inciting criminal action, specifically
violence against policemen and women and damage to banking institutions".

A university spokesman said: "Professor Chris Knight has been suspended from
his duties at the University of East London pending investigation. In order
not to prejudice this process we cannot make any further comment."

Professor Knight was unavailable for comment.

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ukpress/article/ALeqM5jpVUmPXADC4VqUuujC8jM0c5KAzA



Academic suspended for G20 outburst

2 days ago

An organiser of G20 protests was suspended from his job as a university
professor after he warned bankers could be "hanging from lampposts", it has
been reported.

Chris Knight, the professor of anthropology at the University of East London
who is organising protests under the banner G20 Meltdown, told BBC Radio 4's
PM on Wednesday: "We are going to be hanging a lot of people like Fred the
Shred from lampposts on April Fool's Day and I can only say let's hope they
are just effigies."

The University of East London told the BBC that the professor was suspended
from duties while an investigation took place into his comments.

http://liammacuaid.wordpress.com/2009/03/26/chris-knight-and-the-right-to-be-bonkers/


Chris Knight and the right to be
bonkers<http://liammacuaid.wordpress.com/2009/03/26/chris-knight-and-the-right-to-be-bonkers/>

Posted on March 26, 2009 by Liam

<http://liammacuaid.files.wordpress.com/2009/03/image9.png>[image:
image]<http://liammacuaid.files.wordpress.com/2009/03/image9.png><http://liammacuaid.files.wordpress.com/2009/03/image9.png>There
are not many jobs in which you can win favour with your boss by going on
national TV and predicting that bankers might be ““hanging from lampposts”
with the blatant implication that you think this is a very good idea, even
if it does capture the mood of the moment. Chris Knight is at that stage in
his career where he no longer gives a tuppenny f##k about these things and
has been all over the press expressing the uncontentious view that the world
revolution begins next Wednesday in London and that by June the entire
planet will be one country.

He used a slot on Channel 4 news to tell viewers that the lights will have
to be switched off in every office building they see during “”Earth Hour” or
“our agents will find ways to enter the building, even if it means knocking
down doors and ­windows to break in.” Predicting that up to one million
people will be demonstrating this Saturday he threatens “mutually assured
destruction” if the cops get violent. It’s the “our agents” phrase that
leaps out.

If a stranger in a pub came out with this sort of stuff there are some
questions you’d ask straightaway. “Is he the undercover leader of a mass
movement that’s been quietly building?” Possible but unlikely. “How long
will it take me to finish this pint and go somewhere else?” “If I go to the
toilet will he nick my jacket?” You would not think that he is anything
other than a harmless crank with a good line in demagogy. That’s not how the
University of East London sees things. They have suspended Knight from his
post in the Anthropology Department on the grounds that he might be inciting
violence.

Credit has to be given to Knight and the networks with which he works. They
have a panache and a theatrical flair that the rest of the left lacks. They
connect with thousands of angry militant young people and give them easy
answers. On the other hand they give them an utterly wrong conception of how
politics works and how strong the social resistance movement is. Chances are
that some people will roll up to the Bank of England next week expecting to
be part of an army that will fight the cops and trash the City. It’s a very
individualistic, moralising type of politics. The Met will teach them the
hard way how wrong Knight was.

Knight has the right to express this lunacy loudly and in public from any
forum that is open to him. His employer, which used to be considered a
radical campus, has no right to censure or silence his private political
views - especially at a time when similar opinions are commonplace on every
chat show that discusses the recession.



-- 
Dr Athina Karatzogianni
Lecturer in Media, Culture and Society
The University of Hull
United Kingdom
HU6 7RX
phone: ++44 (0) 1482 46 5790

Check out Athina's work:

http://www.thefreelibrary.com/Cyberconflict+edge+of+chaos%3a+cryptohierarchies+and+self-organisation...-a0194549147

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Power-Resistance-Conflict-Contemporary-World/dp/0415452988/

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Cyber-conflict-Politics-Contemporary-Security-Studies/dp/0415459702/

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Cyberconflict-Routledge-Research-Information-Technology/dp/0415396840/

http://vectors.usc.edu/thoughtmesh/publish/135.php

http://www.socialissuescollection.com/

scissec.scis.ecu.edu.au/anzsys08/proceedings/2002/papers_full/07.pdf

Press interviews:

France:http://www.lemonde.fr/web/article/0,1-0,36-924253,0.html
http://www.20minutes.fr/article/180599/Monde-La-Chine-a-soif-d-informations.php
Greece:http://www.enet.gr/online/online_text/c=112,id=78490200
Brazil:
http://jbonline.terra.com.br/editorias/internacional/papel/2007/11/04/internacional20071104008.html
http://jbonline.terra.com.br/editorias/internacional/papel/2007/05/20/internacional20070520003.html
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