Banksy has built a reputation on aiming his satire at the powerful, but here he’s pulled the trigger in the wrong direction. A judge brandishing a gavel like a weapon makes for a dramatic image, but it parrots the oldest right-wing smear – that the judiciary are the “enemies of the people.” They aren’t. The judges didn’t proscribe Palestine Action. Ministers did, and Parliament waved it through. The courts are the one place where that order can be challenged, which is more than could be said in Nazi Germany where such challenges were impossible.
By turning the gavel into a bludgeon, Banksy misses the point. The judiciary aren’t executioners – they’re the last thin line of scrutiny left in a country where protest is being criminalised by decree.
Judges have even released so-called terrorists on bail, much to the fury of the government. That independence matters. So if Banksy wanted to take a real swipe at power, he’d have put the gavel in a minister’s hand, with the judge trying to wrestle it back. As it stands, he’s handed a free gift to the very authoritarians he normally skewers.
1 comment:
interesting post, im sure he was pointing at the police arguments used in these arrests as being in the interest of 'justice'... even so moot point.
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