Davos is cold. Unrelentingly so. This tiny and mildly opulent ski resort, tucked in the waistband of the Alps and close to the Austrian border, has a population numbering about 6,000. In the winter, visitors far outnumber the locals.

This is the site of the annual World Economic Forum, where political leaders and capitalists gather to give general guidance to the forces that promote globalisation. At last year's summit, protesters came from various countries to express their general disapproval of the diminishing number of capitalists whose decisions affect all our lives. There were riots and the destruction of that temple to crap food, McDonald's.

This year, the Swiss authorities banned demonstrations from Davos while the business of capitalism was being discussed. The courts overruled them and all was set fair for confrontation.

I went there in the course of filming a three-part sequence on freedom. We decided to follow a group of protesters from south-west England. They call themselves Tactical Frivolity, dress in elaborate carnival costumes and use the space between political front lines and protesters to dance the samba.

In England, I interviewed one of the members, a young mother (one daughter) who lives in Hampshire. She is not a member of any organisation, has no axe to grind. She has no personal hang-ups, except the difficulty in finding a man who would not break her heart. She began protesting when she discovered that the powers that be were about to bulldoze a hill that she had climbed as a child; the successful climb had been the first great achievement of her life. After that protest, she moved on to the M11, Newbury and then to Prague. She says that if she gave up this commitment to change the world then "something inside would die".

I met her again in Zurich, the closest major city to Davos, with nine other members of the group. We set off on the two-and-a-half-hour drive, they in their van and we, the film crew, in ours. The group had already been stopped and searched in Zurich and questioned about whether they were heading for Davos. We had heard of others who were forced to lie down on the roadside with pistols at their heads, and then deported.

I was rather doubtful about the truth of all this until we entered the canton of St Gallen. We were stopped by armed police, had our passports confiscated, then we were arrested and driven to the local police station. We had to empty the van of all our belongings. This was a criminal investigation.

We were kept in a compound with our personal belongings strewn all over the floor. The police threatened and abused us, made false allegations and were rather offensive all round. I told them that, if they behaved like that in Brixton, they would be sacked.

We were released three hours later. Shortly after we left, two helicopters flapped around the mountainside and police cars appeared as we drove to the next canton. As we crossed the border, the army helicopter dived out of the sky with a Swat-type outfit of commandos running every which way. We were terrorists and they were on the attack. It was vicious, frightening and horrific. They separated the vans. The protesters were herded down a siding that could only be described as an armed camp. We were told to go. We waited around the corner in the hope that our protesters would be released. In a jiffy, two vanloads of commandos appeared.

It was more than an hour before our friends rejoined us. They told an amazing story of arms and dark boxes in which they had been held, of guns pointed at their heads. We were told that there was to be another checkpoint. The same story: guns, dark cages and no-nonsense, commando-style grandstanding. There were several moments when I thought I might die.

They turned back our friends and we proceeded to Davos, where the protesters numbered about 60. This tiny town had been sanitised by military action and surrounded by barbed wire and guns. Only thus could the leaders of capitalism protect themselves.

Post your comment

Please note: you will need to login or register before you can comment on the website