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Title: Direct Action Creates Community Author: Philippe Pernot Date: 2021, Summer Language: en Topics: Environment, climate crisis, direct action, anarchist analysis Source: Fifth Estate #409, Summer, 2021. Accessed Juy 27, 2022 at https://www.fifthestate.org/archive/409-summer-2021/direct-action-creates-community
Anarchist utopias are alive and well, not only in Chiapas or Rojava but
also in the heart of capitalist Europe. In Germany, police repression
and gentrification have dealt a decisive blow to traditional anarchist
strongholds like Berlin, with numerous free spaces closed down since the
pandemic started.
But a new form of protest is blossoming. Eco-anarchists are building
momentum all over Germany. The black and green flag is stronger than
ever and enjoys surprisingly widespread sympathy among the public.
The Dannenröder Forest, nicknamed “Danni,” fifty miles from Frankfurt,
is suffering. A highway is being built, cutting through the forest like
an open wound. It is a battlefield, a witness to environmental
destruction and to resistance. Hundreds of activists occupied the route
of the planned A49 highway from October 2019 to December 2020.
They were inspired by protests in the Hambacher Forst, known as “Hambi,”
Germany’s most mediatized land occupation with a clear and organic
growth from one protest to the other. Out of protesters’ imagination
sprang a hundred tree houses, numerous massive wooden tripods and a
dense constellation of zip lines, creating a unique ecosystem of
resistance.
Organized in neighborhoods, life there was utopic. All decisions were
made in a decentralized, unanimous manner, leaving space for activists
to live without constraints or hierarchies. Anarcho-feminist,
antiracist, and anti-capitalist slogans celebrating life in the forest
echoed around the campfires.
But repression was on the way. Last December, nearly 3,000 police with
water cannons, led by special commandos, invaded the forest. After
destroying all barricades and tree houses, they cleared the way for the
deforestation.
Cutting through the dense forest, the future road is heavily protected
by barbed wire and massive police patrols. Yet the eco-anarchist
resistance has not demobilized. Hundreds of activists reunited in April
2021 for a climate camp to reinvent the protest. They now legally occupy
village structures and intend to build a resilient movement based on
decentralized direct action.
Forest occupations (Waldbesetzungen) have seven lives. Somehow, being
expelled by the police strengthens them. Activists disperse around the
country, share their experiences and know-how and create new areas of
protest.
An organic network of resistance is being woven across Germany, and
sometimes the threads of individual action intersect and create nodes.
Climate camps are exactly that—nodes that connect all the struggles.
The first of them began in Augsburg, a conservative Bavarian city.
Dozens of climate activists from the Fridays for Future (FFF) group
decided that weekly demonstrations were not enough. Last summer, they
occupied the city’s central square. They built a wooden utopia in the
middle of the shopping district, an eco-anarchist equivalent to Occupy
Wall Street.
Like in Danni, they live without authority, cook with dumpstered food
and are supported by a network of caring inhabitants. From FFF to
eco-anarchy, they were radicalized by the tales of activists traveling
from the Danni and Hambi. They, in turn, fostered eco-anarchist
resistance in southern Germany.
The intentional family of Waldbesetzungen and climate camps is steadily
growing. Central squares are being occupied in six other German cities,
as are a dozen forests and meadows.
The Altdorfer Waldbesetzung, called Alti, is the newest. Since January
2021, the woods, close to the tourist city of Ravensburg, echo with the
sound of hammers, music, and campfire tales. Protesting the expansion of
mining gravel destined for export to Austria, ten to thirty activists
live together, building dozens of tree houses in various neighborhoods,
following the model of the other forest occupations.
The young anarchist utopia is strongly supported by the local
inhabitants, who cook two meals a day for the activists, donate
construction material, and flock to visit the occupation on weekends.
Since deforestation season starts in October, the Alti has some more
months to prepare for the pending police assault. In the meantime,
banner actions, demonstrations and pranks against conservative
politicians are carried out daily.
The eco-anarchist utopia is alive and well. It is growing steadily as an
alternative to the Green Party, which is becoming Germany’s new
mainstream, and may even lead the government after the next election.
Feminist, antiracist and anti-capitalist struggles are coming together
in the woods, because all forms of oppression are interlinked. Black is
the new green.
In times of greenwashing, green capitalism, and eco-fascism, the
eco-anarchist Waldbesetzungen and climate camps offer a combative and
beautiful spark of hope.
Philippe Pernot is a German-based photojournalist whose work focuses on
anarchy, ecological resistance, and the interconnectedness between
feminist, anti-capitalist and anti-racist struggles. After studying in
France, he worked in Lebanon for one year, reporting about the
Palestinian situation and those abandoned by the Lebanese state.
He co-published a report on a LNG-pipeline project in Quebec and a zine
about a mall being built in his native village in southern France.