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Title: Demonstrating Resistance Author: CrimethInc. Date: May 11, 2005 Language: en Topics: mass actions, direct action, Elections, USA, resistance Source: Retrieved on 7th November 2020 from https://crimethinc.com/2005/05/11/demonstrating-resistance Notes: An analysis of the successes and failures of recent militant demonstrations
Model
In the past six years, the North American anarchist movement has gone
through all the stages of a turbulent love affair with mass actions,
including messy breakups and attempted reconciliations. In the process,
some anarchists have taken up with other approaches to demonstration
activismâincluding, most notably, an emphasis on more autonomous,
decentralized actions. In this review of the past yearâs demonstrations,
weâll discuss the strengths and weaknesses of both approaches, and
analyze how these have played out in the streets.
In considering how to evaluate both mass and autonomous actions, we
should begin by establishing what it is fair to expect of them. Most
anarchists thoughtlessly describe them as direct action, but,
technically speaking, demonstrationsâeven confrontational, militant
ones, in which police are forced out of neighborhoods, corporate
property is set afire, and bureaucratic summits are shut downâare not
direct action. Making love, growing or stealing food, providing free
child careâthese are concrete actions that directly accomplish their
goals. Militant demonstration tactics, on the other hand, may qualify as
direct action to the extent to which they circumvent liberal or police
control to make a point or create an atmosphere outside the dictates of
the powers that be, but most anarchists who participate in them would
argue that their primary purpose is to bring closer the abolition of the
hierarchies and institutions against which they are staged, and viewed
in this light they are generally more symbolic than direct. [1]
This is not to say that they are never worthwhile. Even if a
demonstration doesnât serve to solve immediately the problem it is
staged to address, it can contribute to this process by spreading
awareness, raising morale, exerting pressure on those opposed, and
providing useful experience for participants. Not even a whole city of
smashed windows could suffice to stop any one multinational corporation
from wrecking the ecosystem and exploiting workers; but if a broken
window serves to focus attention on an issue and inspire others to
mobilize themselves, it at least qualifies as highly effective indirect
action.
The protests against the meeting of the World Trade Organization in
Seattle in November 1999 remain the most popular example of effective
mass action in our time. Though countless pundits have typed themselves
blue in the face on the subject, it is possible that anarchists have not
yet finished refining the lessons of Seattle regarding the advantages of
the mass action model and the elements that must be in place for it to
work. The very fact that no mass action since Seattle has been as
successful should make it easier for us to evaluate what made it a
success, now that we have plenty of experience with actions that lacked
those qualities.
What worked in Seattle and the mass demonstrations that followed it?
When they were effective, what exactly did they accomplish, and how?
First, itâs important to understand that, unlike every mass action that
followed it, the protests in Seattle benefited from the element of
surprise. The powers that be had no idea what they were in for, the
police were correspondingly unprepared, and, just as significantly, the
corporate media didnât know better than to broadcast the news of the
victory far and wide. When subsequent protests failed to succeed in
actually halting summit meetings, decimating shopping districts, or
receiving international news coverage, this should not have come as a
shock: the forces of repression were thoroughly prepared for them, and
capitalist media moguls had learned it was not in their best interest to
advertise anti-capitalist resistance as effective and exciting.
All the same, even without the element of surprise, subsequent mass
actions were effective in some ways. They brought attention to anarchist
ideas and resistance, enabled radicals to gain experience in militant
tactics that were impossible in other contexts, and continued to build
momentum and connections in insurgent communities.
The chief strengths of mass actions are due to the opportunities
accorded by the concentration of many radicals and activists in one
space. When a broad range of groups who regularly employ different
tactics to address different issues come together, all can benefit from
the ways their different approaches complement one another; not only
this, but what they accomplish can easily be recognized as a part of a
broad-ranging program, rather than a single-issue campaign. For radicals
who are used to feeling like a powerless minority lost in a sea of
apathy, the presence of many others of like minds can be intensely
empowering. In large groups, people can inspire one another to find the
courage and sense of entitlement necessary to act in ways they otherwise
would not, and there is no shortage of potential comrades with whom to
collaborate. When great numbers are present, radicals can plot
large-scale strategies and achieve ambitious goals, and the achievement
of these goals serves to attract future participants. So many beautiful
people concentrated in one space can create a temporary real-life
example of an anarchist society, something practically unimaginable for
those who grew up in the sterile, colonized, hopeless environments of
modern day capitalism.
The other really advantageous aspect of mass actions is that they are
accessible and participatory. Because they can incorporate a wide range
of tactics, they offer space for participants of a wide range of
capabilities and comfort levels; and as they are announced openly and
take place in public settings, people can join in without need of
special social connections. Thus, they serve to create new connections
between people and communities, and to provide points of entry for
atomized individuals into a mass movement. Additionally, because so many
people, both intentional participants and chance witnesses, experience
them firsthand, news about mass actions spreads easily through word of
mouth and other non-corporate channels. This makes it difficult for the
corporate media to ignore them entirely without risking a loss of
popular credibility.
The limitations of the mass action model also became clearer and clearer
as the years passed after Seattle. Organizing events on such a large
scale, not to mention traveling to them from a great distance, demands a
lot of energy and resources, which must be drawn from the same pool of
energy and resources upon which ongoing and locally-based projects
depend. If a demonstration results in mass arrests, as the less militant
civil-disobedience-oriented mass action models are wont to, this can
consume time, money, and attention that might be more profitably applied
to some constructive end; the same goes for the felony charges and
arduous court cases that can result from individual arrests at more
militant actions. The connections made at mass actions are more often
between spatially distant, culturally homogenous communities than
between local, culturally dissimilar ones that could benefit from
continuing to work together outside the mass action format. It has been
charged that, though they demand a lot of organizing from those in the
host city, mass actions often drain more from local communities than
they give to them. More insidiously, because the mass action model
focuses on exceptional events that largely take place in well-known
cities, it can foster the unhealthy impression that history is
determined at special occasions in Washington, DC rather than in the
decisions people everywhere make in their daily lives.
Because each mass action demands so much from so many, organizers who
seek to put on major demonstrations must compete with one another for
the privilege of getting to stage one of the few that can happen in any
given period; under these conditions, it is easy for authoritarians to
seize the reigns, or sabotage the labors of many with a few bad
decisions. Because traveling great distances to events and risking
arrest is not feasible for people of many walks of life, the mass action
model has been criticized as the domain of privileged activists; this
does not necessarily undercut the possibility that it can achieve
worthwhile goals, but it does indicate certain limits to its
effectiveness as outreach and as a participatory form of resistance.
Finally, and most significantly in the post-9/11 era, the mass action
model enables authorities to prepare extensively, making every
demonstration into a spectacle of their intimidating might. This gives
the misleading impression that people are powerless in the grip of an
all-powerful government, when in fact the state must draw troops from
far and wide to stage these shows of force. It is especially convenient
for intelligence-gathering departments to have so many radicals
concentrated in one place, working on one project. Working publicly, in
great numbers and under constant surveillance, it is very difficult for
radicals to disseminate new tactical ideas without infiltrators and
police apprehending them.
Knowing these limitations all too well, but not wishing to retire into
inactivity, some activists argue in favor of more decentralized,
autonomous actions. Generally speaking, an autonomous action is an
action on a small enough scale that it can be organized without
coordination from a central body, below the radar of the authorities. A
classic modern day example of autonomous action is an attack on an army
recruiting station, in which its windows are broken and slogans are
spray painted across its walls. Throughout this discussion, we will be
addressing three basic kinds of autonomous action: actions carried out
by individuals or individual affinity groups that take place entirely
apart from mass actions; actions carried out by individuals or affinity
groups that coincide with mass actions; and larger mobilizations, such
as impromptu street marches, that are organized and initiated
autonomously by small groups.
The autonomous action model has many advantages that mass actions lack:
such actions almost always benefit from the element of surprise, they
require significantly less infrastructure and preparation, and those who
organize them can choose the time and terrain of engagement, rather than
simply reacting to the decisions of the authorities. Autonomous actions
are perfect for those with limited resources who do not desire to act in
a high profile manner. They are practical and efficient for striking
small blows and maintaining pressure on a broad range of fronts, and
provide an excellent learning opportunity for small groups who wish to
build up experience together.
In choosing to focus on this model, however, activists should also take
into account the ways in which its advantages are also limitations. It
is easy to maintain secrecy in preparing for an autonomous action, but
it is often correspondingly difficult to spread word of it
afterwardsâlet alone carry it out in a manner that offers those outside
the immediate circle of organizers the chance to join in. While the
autonomous action model is useful for those already involved in the
direct action movement, it is rarely useful for helping others get
involved or develop more experience. Without participatory, accessible
forms of resistance, a movement cannot be expected to grow.
The essential idea of autonomous actionâthat individuals can organize
their own activity, without need of direction or superstructureâis also
the essence of anarchism. The problem here is that the essential
challenge of spreading the autonomous action model is also the essential
challenge of the anarchist revolution: most people are not used to
acting on their ownâwithout direction, organization, and the energy and
sense of urgency that special events and large numbers of comrades
provide, many find it difficult to cross over from hesitation into
action. Even for those who hope to act autonomously, mass actions
provide momentum, morale, crowd cover, legal support, numbers, media
attention, and many other important elements. Outside the mass action
model, we have to figure out how to do without these, or provide for
them some other way.
Focusing on autonomous actions is a strategic retreat for radicals if it
means dropping out of the public eye. Merely material blows, such as
financial losses to corporations, will not suffice to topple the powers
that be, at least at this juncture in the struggle; the hurricanes that
struck the southeastern USA in the summer of 2004 did literally tens of
thousands of times the financial damage of all the direct actions
carried out that year combined, without posing any threat to the
stability of the capitalist order. What is truly dangerous about
anticapitalist resistance is not the actual effects of any given action,
but the danger that it might become contagious and spread [2]; and for
this to be possible, people have to hear about resistance, and know how
to join in. Too often, autonomous actions that are prepared and carried
out in secret depend entirely on the media to publicize them. With the
corporate media determined to limit coverage of direct action and
independent media struggling to reach any audience beyond a few
subcultural ghettos, this can be a serious flaw.
Even when they do attract attention, autonomous actions do not
necessarily mobilize others. In the worst case, a direct action movement
oriented around the autonomous actions of a dynamic few can degenerate
into a sort of spectator sport. This is one of the many reasons most
anarchists reject terrorism and other approaches that depend on the
actions of a vanguard: for an action model to stand a chance of being
useful in the project of revolutionary struggle, it must be possible for
others to adopt and apply it themselvesâindeed, it must promote and
encourage this, it must seduce people into using it who might otherwise
remain inactive.
Finally, while mass actions by their very nature involve and benefit
from large-scale coordination, it is more difficult to coordinate
effective decentralized actions. Clearly, as the past few years have
shown, itâs not sufficient for some lone maniac to issue a âcall for
autonomous actionsâ for them to take place everywhereâor, and this might
be even worse news, if they have been taking place everywhere, it
doesnât seem to have made any discernible difference. We need a model
for autonomous actions that actually enables them to take place, and to
be effective when they do. In the discussion that follows, weâll analyze
the lessons of the past yearâs attempts to develop such a model.
In considering these issues, itâs important to emphasize that neither
mass actions nor autonomous actions represent the only possible form of
radical activityâthey donât, and shouldnât, represent even the primary
one. If a total moratorium on both could enable an accordingly greater
focus on other activities such as the development of community
infrastructure and alliances, it might be for the best for the anarchist
movement; some have argued in favor of just that. If we continue to
invest energy in demonstrations of any kind, it should be because they
can, as part of a broader strategy, enable us to make gains on other
fronts as well; this author, for one, feels strongly that this can be
the case.
Watershed events like the aforementioned protests in Seattle donât just
come out of nowhere. Throughout the apparently quiet 1990âs, direct
action groups like Earth First! and Anti-Racist Action were acting on a
smaller scale, building up experience and momentum, while previously
apathetic milieus like the punk rock scene and college activism were
politicized by lifestyle politics and the anti-sweatshop campaign,
respectively. Once Britainâs successes with the Reclaim the Streets
model demonstrated that mass anti-capitalist action was still possible
in the post-modern era, it was only a few months before activists tried
to do something similar in the USA at the meeting of the World Trade
Organization.
The results surprised everybody. Suddenly, everyone had a working
example of anti-authoritarian, anti-capitalist resistance as a reference
point. Anarchists, among other radicals, came out of the woodwork, and
everyone was itching to have a go at repeating that success. Because the
Seattle protests had not been a mere fluke but rather the culmination of
a long period of growth and development, there was a root structure in
place to sustain further such actionsâthe most notable being the
protests against the World Bank and International Monetary Fund in
Washington, D.C. the following April, against the Democratic and
Republican National Conventions that summer, and against the Free Trade
Area of the Americas summit in Quebec in April 2001. And because each
demonstration attracted new attention and additional participants to the
anarchist movement, the root structure quickly deepened and spread. The
movement, focusing much of its energy on these convergences and mass
actions, rode a wave that sometimes made it appear to be an unstoppable
historical force.
By summer of 2001, when great numbers of people participated in
streetfighting at the G8 summit in Italy and planning was underway for
more protests against the IMF in Washington, DC, some felt that the
movement had reached the crest of that wave. Many were exhausted from
the demands of constant organizing, long-distance traveling, and court
cases; at least as many felt that the anarchist movement was on the
verge of a breakthrough that would change the nature of resistance in
North America. Weâll never know whether or not the effectiveness of mass
mobilizations had already reached its peak, for before the planned
protests in DC could take place, hijackers flew airplanes into the World
Trade Center and the Pentagon, and the entire context changed. The
anarchist response to the new situation was, for the most part,
embarrassing: rather than seizing the opportunity to emphasize that now
even U.S. citizens were dying as a result of their rulersâ foreign
policies, many hesitated to speak out in fear that they would be
attacked or seen as insensitive, and thus ceded all the gains made by
anarchists over the preceding years. Fears ran rampant that new
anti-terror legislation and enforcement would be used to imprison and
suppress the anarchist movement, a concern that has since been shown to
be unfounded [3]. Now that most activists did not believe that positive
revolutionary change could be around the corner, all the internal
conflicts and burnout that had been building up over the preceding years
of constant action came to the fore, and over the following months
anarchist communities saw the worst infighting in recent history.
In retrospect, it is possible to argue that mainstream media attention
was responsible for a significant part of the high morale and sense of
entitlement that enabled anarchists to act so effectively in the period
between the Seattle demonstrations and the 9/11 attacks. Few if any in
the anarchist milieu have addressed this irony. In Western society,
everyone is raised to desire, however secretly, to be famousâto be on
television â because what is on television is âreal,â is important.
Although at the time many anarchists insisted they didnât care whether
or not they received coverage in the corporate media, it could be said
that the simple knowledge that they were âfamousâ as a movement if not
as individuals sustained their spirits and sense of urgency. When this
attention was withdrawn, morale plummeted immediately. The corporate
media is unlikely to return the spotlight to anarchist activity in the
foreseeable future, and the motivation of anarchists should not be
dependent upon otherâs representations of them in the first place.
Anarchists now must find ways to maintain momentum and energy even
through a total media blackout.
As the anarchist movement struggled to regain its footing throughout the
year following the 9/11 attacks, some tentative attempts were made to
apply the mass action model again, notably at the protests against the
World Economic Forum in New York City and then at the âPeopleâs Strikeâ
protests against the IMF in DC a year after the terrorist attacks. These
were admirable efforts, and if nothing else they served to give those
seriously committed to demonstration activism a way to stay involved,
but they showed that for the most part the large numbers and high morale
previously associated with large mobilizations were no longer available.
Older activists were demoralized, younger ones were unsure how to
proceed, and people on the fringes of activism and radical politics were
too distracted by the spectator sport of the so-called War on Terror to
refocus on the struggle against capitalist globalization on other
fronts.
When the Terror War shifted into a new gear, demonstrations became
popular again, but anarchists were no longer in the forefront of the
organizing. Liberal and authoritarian groups attempted to appropriate
all the mystique radicals had recently given mass action, while only
taking on the superficial aspects of the organizing models that had made
protests before 9/11 exciting, participatory, and thus dangerous to the
established order. The first two major demonstrations to protest the
impending war in Iraq, in DC on January 20 and then worldwide on
February 15, were dominated by liberal single-issue politics and models.
The protests in New York City on February 15 became a little more
raucous when the police attempted to block the march and rank-and-file
protesters fought back, but for the most part consciously radical
militant tactics seemed a thing of the past at mass actions [4]. This
was all the more disappointing in that the February 15 protests were
perhaps the most heavily attended protests in history; because militant
activists had surrendered the mass action context, millions of people
marching in the streets neither helped to sway the opinions of the
masters of war nor to obstruct their preparations for itânor, for that
matter, to build a movement capable of disarming them.
Things changed when the United States attacked Iraq on March 20, 2003.
On this day, and over the months that followed it, countless cities were
struck by demonstrations that went beyond the limits liberal organizers
try to impose. San Francisco was entirely paralyzed; more importantly,
radical communities appeared in more surprising locations such as Saint
Louis, Missouri, conceiving and carrying out their own disruptive
actions as the militant core of the anti-war movement. A new generation
of activists, many of whom had not participated in the post-Seattle
phase of demonstration activism, gained experience during this time.
As that phase of the war in Iraq died down, activists also slowed the
pace of their activity, taking time to recover from such a demanding
period of organizing. Anarchists nationwide began to focus their
attention on the Free Trade Area of the Americas ministerial that was to
take place in Miami the following November. Many believed that, thanks
to the new momentum generated in the anti-war movement, this could be
the first really effective, exciting demonstration against capitalist
globalization since September 11; some hoped this would be the
triumphant return of Seattle-style protest activism. Consultas were held
around the country at which plans were hashed out, posters were designed
and distributed, groups disseminated calls for various forms of action.
Unfortunately, Miami was a poorly chosen playing field for this grudge
match. It was the most militarized police state North America had ever
seen: there were so many police, equipped with so much destructive
weaponry, that any kind of militant confrontation would have been doomed
to failure. The protestor turnout was bound to be limited: the majority
of potential participants were still distracted by the Iraq war, not
thinking about corporate globalization, and Miami was a great distance
from most active communities. Consequently, there wasnât a wide range of
diversity among the protestors, which can otherwise temper police
repression: this made it easy for the police to pigeonhole protesters as
either law-abiding union members or unruly anarchists, so as to ignore
the former and attack the latter.
These factors alone might not have spelled doom for the protests, but
there were also several strategic errors in the organizing. The plan
organizers put forth, to attack the fence surrounding the meetings, was
exactly what the authorities expected [5]âand while the latter were
thoroughly prepared for this scenario, few activists arrived mentally or
physically equipped to undertake this. Even worse, certain organizers
cut an unbelievably foolish deal with the labor unionsâwhich, it must be
noted, were closely collaborating with the policeâto the effect that no
direct action would take place during the permitted union march on the
afternoon of the primary day of demonstrations. Thanks to this
agreement, the police were free simply to maintain order during the
union march, with little fear of having to divide their attention; then,
as soon as the march was over, they steamrolled across the entire city,
beating, gassing, shooting, and arresting everyone who remained,
confident that everyone they attacked was acting outside the law and
therefore a safe target. The only way anarchists could have turned the
tables would have been by acting unexpectedly and en masse outside the
occupied district of Miami, but the initiative necessary for that kind
of autonomous, covert organizing was painfully lacking. The consulta
model, while it indicated an admirable commitment to decentralized
organizing, failed to provide intelligent strategic decisions, adequate
security for planning, or commitments on which participating groups
actually followed through. These may all have been incidental failures,
but each one cost dearly.
This is not to say nothing of value was accomplished in Miami. People
still came together and acted courageously, with all the benefits that
entails, and the police state was revealed for what it was, at least to
eyewitnesses and through the few venues that ran coverage of the events.
But coming away from a protest with a martyrâs tale of police violence
and abuse, or, at best, a story of heroic narrow escapes, is a poor
second to actually feeling like one has struck blows and made gains.
In the wake of what many felt to be a debacle, some anarchists began to
emphasize the importance of acting outside mass models in smaller, more
autonomous groups with the element of surprise. Some had been promoting
this idea for a long time; it had even been tested to some extent in
mass actions, such as at the Peopleâs Strike in Washington, DC,
September 2002, when the organizers distributed a list of targets and
intersections and announced that actions would take place throughout the
city. Others, notably environmental and animal liberation activists, had
been acting in clandestine cells for decades. So it happened that, as
the election year approached, the war in Iraq wore on, and political
matters came back to the fore of public attention, anarchists were
preoccupied with the question of whether mass actions could ever be
effective again, and what forms of decentralized action might be able to
replace them.
The year 2004 was ushered in by a midnight march in downtown Washington,
DC, commemorating the ten year anniversary of the Zapatista uprising in
Chiapas, Mexico. More than one hundred masked anarchists bearing
banners, torches, and percussion instruments took over a major
thoroughfare for a full hour, leaving spray paint and stencil designs in
their wake. This march appeared as if out of nowhere in a crowded
business district, on a night when the police department was so
overextended that it took over a half hour for even one patrol car to
show up. There were no arrests. Clearly, some anarchists had learned the
lessons of Miami, without withdrawing from public actions altogether.
All the same, the first months of 2004 were quiet ones for direct
action. March 20^(th), the anniversary of the declaration of war on
Iraq, saw largely peaceful mass demonstrations along the lines of those
before the war, lacking the urgency and militancy of the actions carried
out during it. In April, there was another protest in Washington, DC
against the IMF and World Bank; the extent to which it was a ritualized,
placid affair revealed just how far anarchist attention had drifted from
the formerly prioritized terrain of mass actions opposing corporate
globalization. It was followed immediately by the March for Womenâs
Lives, a rally in support of abortion rights that drew over a million
people. Although there were hundreds of anarchists present, if not more,
the possibility that militant action of any kind might take place was
never broached. People of militant perspectives were still coming
together when liberal organizers solicited their participation, but
without a sense that it was feasible to organize events on their own
terms.
This impression was sealed by the G8 summit in Georgia that June. The
protests at the G8 summit in Genoa, Italy in the summer of 2001 had been
the high water mark of the anti-globalization movement: hundreds of
thousands of protesters had converged on the city, engaging in tactics
of all kinds that had left entire financial districts in wreckage. Eager
to avoid another such catastrophe, the powers that be picked a secluded
island off the coast of Georgia to host the G8 meeting in June of 2004,
and set aside tens of millions of dollars for security. Not only the
island itself but much of the coastline around it was thoroughly
militarized; as has become customary, the media ran a series of articles
demonizing predicted anarchist protestors while emphasizing the
invincibility of the police and military forces that would be waiting
for them.
Demoralized by the Miami experience, most advocates of direct action
assumed from the outset that nothing would be possible in Georgia. In
retrospect, it was wise to let the G8 summit pass rather than
squandering the last optimism of the movement on a doomed venture,
though at the time this resignation seemed to be a troubling symptom of
general cynicism. Many brushed off mass actions as obsolete; in the end,
there was only one protestor for every sixty-seven security officers at
the G8 summit. Much of the energy of those few who did take the trouble
to go to Georgia was invested in the âFix Shit Upâ campaign, in which
anarchists provided volunteer labor supporting disadvantaged families in
the areas of police occupation. The name of this venture, which could
neither successfully solicit media coverage nor appeal to liberal
sympathies nor inspire the punk rockers whose slogan it referenced,
speaks volumes as to its long-term effectiveness as an insurrectionary
strategy. When no actual blows can be struck against the system that
creates and enforces poverty, anarchists should at least do what they
can to alleviate its effectsâbut many anarchists are already doing this
where they live, and traveling long distances to do so has all the
disadvantages of traveling to carry out more militant actions without
most of the advantages. In every aspect, the G8 summit was the nadir of
the general slump through which mass action activism passed following
9/11, notwithstanding the renaissance during the Iraq war.
Some had called for widespread autonomous actions around the country to
coincide with the G8 summit. A little-known example of one such call was
the âInsurrection Nightâ proposal, which was circulated via email
listservs. In incendiary language, it called for people everywhere to
carry out militant, confrontational direct actions the Saturday night
preceding the week of the G8 summit. The advantages of this approach
over going to Georgia to get tear-gassed and arrested in the middle of
nowhere were obvious: it allowed radicals to plan their actions in
familiar, unguarded terrain and with the benefit of surprise. On the
night so designated, however, nothing happenedâor if anything did, news
of it was never circulated. If all it took to get people to rise up and
strike blows against the apparatus of control was to issue a call to
action, this revolution would have been over a long time ago; and even
if such calls were to work, it seems clear that the system can survive a
burning dumpster here and thereâthe problem is how to concentrate such
blows, and strike them in such a way that they give rise to wider
uprisings. From this example, one can surmise that both calls for
autonomous action and autonomous actions themselves must proceed from an
already thriving culture of resistance if they are to offer any results
[6]âand neither, alone, are sufficient to give rise to such a culture.
If the G8 summit in Georgia was the nadir for mass action, the
âInsurrection Nightâ prototype represents the weakest version of the
autonomous action model.
A few days after the proposed night of insurrection, on the final day of
the G8 summit, activists in North Carolina shut down an entire corporate
business district with steel cables, smoke bombs, and banners decrying
the G8 and corporate power in general, causing a massive traffic jam in
the center of the state. Local newspapers and television gave this more
coverage than they gave the protests in Georgia against the G8 summit,
and local residents experienced it far more immediately. This took place
only two days before a public outreach event, the âReally Really Free
Market,â in the state capital, at which people gathered to share
resources and entertainment freely. As a result of the direct action
that preceded it, the police and media both paid a great deal of
attention to this event: the nightly news showed hundreds of people
happily dancing, eating, and exchanging gifts, while police helicopters
circled overhead and a hundred riot police waited nearby. Thus, this
combination of tactics resulted in free publicity for the effectiveness
of covert action, the munificence of community activism, and the
heavy-handedness of the state. In contrast to the âInsurrection Nightâ
prototype, this can be seen as an effective integration of autonomous
action into a wider strategy for building radical communities and
gaining widespread attention.
Another example of effective autonomous action occurred a month later in
Maine, following an Earth First! gathering, when approximately 150
people converged on the Governorâs Mansion to protest a proposed liquid
natural gas pipeline. First, a few activists erected a thirty-foot
tripod with a protester locked atop it, blocking the driveway. Once this
was accomplished and all but the police liaison and the woman on the
tripod had escaped unseen, a small masked group arrived and took
advantage of the distraction occasioned by the tripod to dump hundreds
of pounds of foul lobster guts across the lawn. They disappeared as
other protesters showed up with food, games, and other festive forms of
entertainment, further confusing the slowly responding authorities. Two
communiqués were delivered: one a serious one for the mainstream media,
the other a hilarious statement on behalf of the âlobster liberation
frontâ for activists and others with a sense of humor. The event helped
keep opposition to the pipeline visible, gave those opposing it more
bargaining power, and demonstrated an alternate model for autonomous
actions.
The Maine action was organized in secrecy by a small circle of people
who nonetheless managed to open it up to great numbers of participants;
in this regard, it possessed many of the advantages of both the mass and
autonomous action models. As the target was three hoursâ drive distant
from the gathering at which participants were recruited, and its
identity was never openly revealed, the action retained the element of
surprise. At the gathering, two preparatory meetings were held at which
organizers described the general nature of the target and affinity
groups formed to focus on different aspects of the action. The morning
of the action, a caravan left the gathering; the bulk of the
participants did not know where they were going until they were led onto
the site. This negated the risk of informers being present.
This kind of organizing demands a careful balance of security and
communication, for those invited must learn enough about the action to
be excited about participating and equipped to do so effectively. This
model requires a large number of people to place a high level of trust
in a few individuals; thus, it often works best in tight-knit or
culturally homogeneous communities. While it is not as accessible to
broad ranges of people as the mass action model, it is more
participatory than other forms of autonomous action, offering
introductory roles for less experienced activists.
The events in North Carolina and Maine were only two of several local
actions in mid-2004; but for radical activists and well-behaved citizens
alike, the central political events of the summer were the Democratic
and Republican National Conventions. At these, the possibilities and
limitations of the anarchist movementâs preoccupation with autonomous
actions were tested.
The Democratic National Convention took place in Boston at the end of
July. It was not heavily attended by radicals; many were saving their
time and energy for the Republican National Convention. Regardless of
theoretical matters such as whether anti-authoritarians should focus on
contesting the most powerful political party or all political parties,
activists laying plans for mass actions must take into account practical
questions such as how many people will actually show up. Perhaps if
thousands of anarchists had converged on Boston to show their opposition
to the false alternative represented by the Democratic Party, it would
have made an important point, but this was not to be. As many learned in
Miami, anarchists must always devise strategies that take into account
the number of participants an event will draw and how much militancy can
realistically be expected of them.
To get perspective on the protests at the Democratic National
Convention, we can compare and contrast them with the Peopleâs Strike
protests against the International Monetary Fund in DC September 2002,
with which they shared many features. Both protests were less attended
than organizers hoped; both included calls for autonomous action, as
well as organizing for more centralized, accessible events; both took
place in cities that are known for having police that show restraint
during protests. At each event, the main day of action featured a
critical mass bicycle parade, a march, and decentralized actions around
the periphery. Both protests were organized by explicitly
anti-authoritarian groups that made media coverage an integral part of
their strategy.
The organizers of the Peopleâs Strike had emphasized the confrontational
character of their action, declaring explicitly that the city would be
shut down; the unapologetically militant tone of their rhetoric was one
of the most salient features of that mobilization. Although it turned
out that not enough militants, and not militant enough ones at that,
turned out to follow through on this threat, the media and police
accomplished it themselves by spreading hysteria in advance and clogging
up the city in their attempts to defend it. After most of the actions
planned had been accomplished, the police, still unnerved and always
most likely to go after defenseless sitting targets, mass-arrested
everyone present at a non-confrontational action in Pershing Park. This
mass arrest, though somewhat inconvenient at the time, proved to be the
most important legacy of the action: it ensured international media
coverage for the protest, made the police look absurd, and ensnared the
city in lawsuits that kept the demonstration in the news for years
afterwards and forced the police to be more hesitant to make arrests
during future protests.
By contrast, in Boston, the organizersâthe âBl(A)ck Tea Societyââwere
careful to distance themselves from violence, striving to offset the
media campaign of extreme misinformation about anarchists that had
become typical by that time [7]. Presumably, they hoped that by doing so
they could attract more participants; unfortunately, as the prevailing
sentiment in liberal circles was that getting âanybody but Bushâ elected
president was the first priority, participation in protests against the
Democratic Party was bound to be limited to radicals. The Boston
organizers were also kept on edge by a campaign of police and FBI
intimidation, but this never panned out into the raids and arrests they
feared. The fact that there were so few arrests in Boston indicates
that, however intimidating the police made certain to be before and
during the event, they themselves hoped to avoid illegal raids and mass
arrests that would draw more attention to the protests. Had the
organizers figured this out in advance, they could have strategized
accordingly.
Following the Peopleâs Strike model, the organizers in Boston
distributed a list of targets throughout the city suitable for
autonomous action. However, in preparing the Peopleâs Strike, the
organizers had also covertly coordinated many actions, so as to be sure
that something would happenâconsequently, there were freeways shut down
by burning tires, bank windows smashed, locks glued, and a major avenue
barricaded by a giant inflatable, though many of these actions went
unnoticed by the media or other activists because they took place over
such a broad area. In Boston, the organizers donât seem to have been as
proactive, and neither, apparently, were many of the other activists who
came to the protestâthe most militant action of the event seems to have
been an incident in which a dozen people turned over shelves in a Gap
clothing store, leaving spray paint in their wake.
Just as the âInsurrection Nightâ model failed to yield results, simply
distributing a list of targets is hardly sufficient to enable militant
action to occur. If they hope to see militant autonomous actions carried
out to the extent that mass actions have been in the past, organizers
must provide some of the prerequisites that enable people to apply
militant tactics in the latter context. These include crowd cover,
communications and scouting, media attention, and, above all, the
reassurance that somebody somewhere has actually invested energy in
making sure something will happen. The Bl(A)ck Tea Society attracted the
necessary media attention; they provided a text messaging communications
system, though it proved vulnerable to police surveillance, resulting in
a few arrests after a botched attempt to assemble following the âReally
Really Democratic Bazaarâ; they seemed to have done little else to
facilitate autonomous actions. This is not to disparage their organizing
effortsâin addition to media and outreach work, they also organized a
convergence center, prepared legal infrastructure, and staged a variant
on the Really Really Free Market model that attracted thousands of
participants. But if autonomous action is to rival mass action as a
model for militant activity, anarchists have to learn that the âclap
your hands if you believe in Tinkerbelleâ approach, in which organizers
call for decentralized actions and then cross their fingers and hope an
army of maniacs will show up to plan and execute them, does not produce
results.
The Democratic National Convention was not an opportune setting for a
doomsday showdown with the forces of law and order, and itâs important
that a movement limited in numbers and experience not overextend itself.
Perhaps anarchists should have concentrated all their energy on
accessible, non-confrontational approaches in Boston; it certainly
doesnât pay to make empty threats too many times. If effective militant
action of any kind was to happen there, given the massive police
presence and small numbers of protesters, it would have had to have been
decentralized and autonomous: twenty such actions as happened at the
Gap, for example, could have caught the police by surprise, generated
media attention, and raised morale in anticipation of the Republican
National Convention. Failing that, it would have been more sensible to
focus on more outreach and community-building, in which the Boston
protests were already superior to the Peopleâs Strike. In trying to have
it both ways by calling for militant action while neither preparing it
nor tricking the police into making it unnecessary, the organizers
played into the hands of the authorities, who hoped to show that they
could easily thwart anarchist attempts at disruption. This had negative
consequences for Boston locals as well as the anarchist movement. While
the long-term effects of the âPeopleâs Strikeâ were that local police
became more hesitant in dealing with crowds, the millions of dollars of
funding that the Boston police received to prepare for the convention
paid for an arsenal of semi-lethal weaponsâone of which was used to kill
a woman during a post-game sports riot a few months later.
A month after the protests in Boston, the Republican National Convention
was held in New York City. Unlike every other demonstration since the
invasion of Iraq, this was a historic opportunity for anarchists to
apply the mass action model effectively. All the necessary pieces were
in place: the local populace was furious with the Republicans for
invading their city, and enthusiastically supportive of the protesters;
radicals were coming by the thousands from all around the country,
hoping this would be the event of a lifetime; and there was to be a wide
range of people involved in the protests and a great deal of media
attention focused on them, both of which would help deter the police
from a violent crackdown such as the one in Miami the preceding year.
The attention of the whole world was concentrated on New York City, and
while many liberals feared that a serious confrontation there would
undermine the chances of the Democratic Partyâs presidential hopeful,
countless others longed for one.
If all that wasnât enough, there was a struggle going on between the
liberal organizers and the city police department as to whether the
giant permitted march would be allowed to go to Central Park. This was
the same situation that had precipitated the street confrontations
during the anti-war protests in New York a year and a half earlier; if
the city was unable to reach an agreement with the organizers in time,
everyone knew that the march could turn violent. The leaders of the
liberal organizing coalition backed down on their demands on one
occasion, only to be forced by their grassroots membership to reinstate
them. This conflict provided a perfect opportunity for anarchist
organizing. A nationwide call for a black bloc on the day of the main
permitted march would have taken perfect advantage of this conflict,
giving those frustrated with the city government and its liberal
accomplices a rallying point. Had the first major day of protests ended
in streetfighting, it would have changed the entire character of the
protests and perhaps of opposition to the Bush regime in general. The
very last thing the police department of New York City wanted was to
have to use tear gas in the crowded streets of the most populated city
in North America; this would have been a public relations debacle for
both the city government and the Republican Party, and it would have
shown that anarchists could pose a real threat to the imposed domestic
peace that enables wars overseas. Even if this had resulted in massive
numbers of arrests, it could have been worth itâhundreds, if not more,
of the anarchists who went to New York ended up getting arrested,
anyway.
Alas, anarchists were so caught up in solving strategic problems from
past actions that they failed to apprehend these possibilities. While a
heavier focus on autonomous actions would have been the only hope of
enabling effective militant tactics at the demonstrations in Miami and
Boston, New York was a perfect setting for a large-scale, centrally
organized strategy, and anarchists passed this chance up in favor of a
focus on decentralized, autonomous actions. Perhaps older activists were
still shell-shocked from the protests at the Republican National
Convention in 2000, at which a poorly planned mass action had ended in a
lot of pointless, demoralizing arrests; perhaps it was just too
difficult to coordinate actions centrally between groups from around the
world in such an enormous and complicated city; perhaps it really was
the legacy of Miami frightening anarchists out of using their heads.
Regardless, as the communiqué delivered weeks before the demonstrations
by the NYC Anarchist Grapevine admitted, there was no âBig Planâ for
militant action in New York.
Unfortunately, what anarchists fail to coordinate themselves will be
coordinated by authoritarians, and so, while anarchist labor was central
to the infrastructure that enabled them, the character of most of the
actions planned for New York was non-confrontational, even liberal. At
the last minute, the organizers of the main march finally accepted the
conditions of the city, agreeing to march in circles rather than follow
through on the desires of the rank-and-file who wanted to go to Central
Park with or without a permit; likewise, though anarchists and militants
swelled the numbers of many other actions, these were largely
orchestrated to avoid actually challenging the activities of the
Republicans or the occupation of the city.
To be fair, some anarchists, notably including many who had traveled
from San Francisco and other parts of the West Coast, organized a day of
direct action late in the protests, but they focused only on enabling
symbolic tactics of civil disobedience. Worse, they made exactly the
same mistake that had been made in Miami and at the Republican National
Convention four years earlier: they arranged for their action not to
coincide with any others and to take place after most of the less
radical protesters had left the city, so the police had free hands to
focus on repressing everyone on the streets that night. This resulted in
over one thousand arrests, without any concrete objective being
accomplished besides the news coverage these attracted and the
harassment of some Republican delegates.
One of the most important lessons that can be drawn from the
aforementioned action is the importance of different kinds of actions
taking place simultaneously. In Seattle, Quebec, and Genoa, legal
marches, civil disobedience, and confrontational militant action all
took place at once, and the division of the city into zones according to
level of risk made it possible for protesters to pick the form of
engagement with which they were most comfortable. In the Republican
National Conventions of both 2000 and 2004, as well as the FTAA protests
in Miami, organizers did exactly the opposite, senselessly endangering
those committed to militant action and undercutting the effectiveness of
the protests as a whole. The costs of this could have been offset had
militants organized a major mass action themselves, but none dared do
so.
In the absence of a unified approach, the hundreds of different actions
that took place in New York never quite added up to the insurrection
they could have. As a demonstration of the possibilities of localized
autonomous action, New York was unparalleled, but it was also a missed
opportunity in an era that provides few good chances to apply the mass
action model.
Two groups did attempt to organize actions on the day of the main march;
ironically, one applied the mass action model as if carrying out an
autonomous action, while the other did exactly the opposite. The former
of these groups was a militant contingent, apparently organized by word
of mouth, that took part in the main permitted march; this might be the
first case on record of a black bloc going undercover by mixing with
civilian protesters and leaving their faces uncovered until the moment
before the action. When this group approached the point at which the
march turned around to march away from Central Park, right in front of
the building hosting the convention center, an enormous green dragon
puppet was set afire, and streetfighting broke out; however, there were
not enough numbers or preparation to maintain this. Within an hour, the
police had reestablished control and the march proceeded as before; only
a few impressive photographs of the fire remained, one of which ran in
one especially poorly informed tabloid with a caption describing it as
the work of âthe anarchist group âBlack Boxâ.â [8]
The other notable militant effort that day was a call for anarchists to
intercept Republican delegates on their way to their eveningâs
entertainment at several Broadway shows. However, because this call was
promoted in such venues as the New York Times, these actions lacked the
element of surprise, the most important aspect of the autonomous action
model. Many anarchists showed up, but as there was no strategy for mass
action and few participants brought individual plans of their own, there
were many arrests and little more was accomplished than a few delegates
being shouted at.
Whatever strategic miscalculations anarchists may have made, it was
still thrilling to be in New York with so many others determined to
change the course of history. The Critical Mass bicycle parade, which
took place before most of the other events, offered a moving
illustration of just how many people and how much energy were gathered
together that week; to stand at a corner and watch groups of thirty and
forty surge constantly past for a full half hour was simply
breathtaking. Most who went to New York left with new energy and
inspiration, which helped to catalyze further action as the elections
drew near.
The election provided a matchless opportunity for nationwide autonomous
actions. Unlike any summit or local issue, it happened everywhere at
once, focusing public attention on a wide range of issues that could be
addressed on a variety of fronts. Among others, a nationwide campaign on
the theme âDonât (Just) Vote, Get Activeâ urged people to take action on
election day to demonstrate all the possibilities for political
engagement beyond the voting booth [9].
The diversity and scope of the actions anarchists carried out around the
election make it worth recounting some of them here. In Washington, DC,
fifteen polling stations were decorated the night before election day
with a stencil design fifteen feet long and four feet high reading âOur
dreams will never fit in their ballot boxes.â In Baltimore, the
following afternoon, a Reclaim the Streets action on the same theme
attracted sixty people.
In Portland, Oregon, one thousand people struggled with police to march
through the streets. A âDonât Just Vote, Take Actionâ march of two
hundred people in Tucson, Arizona was attacked by police employing
pepper bullets. A spontaneous march of almost two hundred people in
downtown Philadelphia blocked a major bridge to New Jersey; everyone
escaped arrest except a reporter from a local television news station
who was inexplicably attacked by police while marchers chanted âWe donât
need no water, let the motherfucker burn!â In New Orleans, a radical Day
of the Dead march featuring a marching band, seventy-five skeletons, and
an alter screamed and moaned its way through the French Quarter to the
riverfront, at which the alter was filled with remembrances of deceased
loved ones and then set afire as a naked attendant swam it out to sea;
on the return route, participants dragged newspaper boxes and garbage
cans into the streets and smashed the window of a stretch-SUV deemed too
revolting to ignore.
During Chicagoâs âDonât Just Vote Week of Resistance,â which included
several demonstrations and other events, police tried and failed to
prevent over one thousand people from taking the streets in a massive
unpermitted march. At another incident in Chicago, a rock was thrown
through the window of a GOP office in which Republicans were gathered to
watch election results, sending glass flying all over the room. Large
rocks were also thrown through the windows of the Republican
headquarters in downtown Buffalo, New York and a nearby army recruiting
center, and the local news station received a letter claiming
responsibility.
In Red Hook, New York, 250 Bard college students shut down an
intersection in the center of town for almost an hour until police
forcibly dispersed them. In northern Los Angeles county, a group carried
out what they suggested might be the first banner drop in their area,
with a banner on the âDonât (Just) Voteâ theme reading âWorkers: Which
Millionaire Will You Vote For?â In Vermillion, South Dakota, a town of
only 10,000 residents, fifty people maintained a presence outside a
voting booth, stretching a volleyball net to bear a variety of signs,
sharing food, and inviting all with grudges of their own against the
system to join them. The same town was to host another such
demonstration two and a half months later on the day of the
Inauguration, attracting media coverage from as far away as San Diego,
CA.
The day after the election, a march in downtown Washington, DC on the
theme âNo Matter, Who Won, The System Is Rottenâ attracted one hundred
people. Equipped with a powerful sound system, it snaked through the
streets, disruptive and rowdy, evading police repression. In San
Francisco, five thousand people marched against Bush; afterwards, a
breakaway group built a bonfire out of US flags and an effigy of Bush,
then marched through the city pulling urban debris and newspaper boxes
into the street and smashing the windows of two banks. In San Diego,
fliers posted the preceding night on UCSD campus reading âWhereâs the
Riot?â attracted one hundred people to an impromptu forum as to what
forms resistance could take next. When the question âWhoâs willing to
get arrested today?â was broached, many raised their hands.
Two days later, in perhaps the most militant participatory action of the
week, a surprise march of over one hundred people bearing torches,
drums, anarchist banners, and a two-headed effigy of Bush and Kerry took
over downtown Raleigh, North Carolina, decorating the streets with
graffiti and destroying bank machines until it reached the state
headquarters of the Republican Party. The windows of the building were
smashed, its walls were covered in spray paint, fireworks were set off
inside, and the effigy was set afire in the front yard. The following
day, over fifty-eight major media outlets ran a story covering the
event, in which the state GOP chief of staff was quoted as saying that
campaign offices and party headquarters were being vandalized throughout
the nation. âThey have a right to disagree,â he pleaded, âbut to do it
agreeably.â
The following night, yet another spontaneous march occurred in
Washington, DC, leaving spray paint in its wake and meeting with
enthusiasm from locals. From one side of the country to the other, by
day and by night, militants were carrying out actions that demonstrated
the seriousness of their discontent and invited others to express their
own. This was the autonomous action model, which had evolved over the
preceding year, finally being used to effect in circumstances for which
it was appropriate.
Ironically, as the Inauguration approached in January of 2005, it was
activists from New York City that insisted protests be organized on the
mass action model and called for a massive anti-authoritarian march,
while others called for autonomous actions. This time, both were right,
and it was only tactical errors, not errors in strategy, that prevented
the protests from shutting down the spectacle. Presidential
inaugurations provide a rare opportunity for centrally-organized
anarchist mass actions: they can attract large numbers of
anti-authoritarians, they offer an obvious target, and the risk of
arrests and police brutality are forestalled by the presence of diverse
crowds and media and the desire of the authorities to maintain the
illusion that everyone is pleased with the ruler being sworn in. At this
particular inauguration, the ongoing legacy of the mass arrests of the
Peopleâs Strike a full two and a half years earlier also served to tie
the hands of the police. At the same time, Washington, DC, being the
nationâs capital, provides an excellent field for autonomous actions,
which could only serve to heighten tensions, distract and confuse the
police, and emphasize popular discontent.
The massive anarchist march was wisely planned to coincide with the
other protests of the day, so as to benefit from the crowd cover they
provided and the divided attention of the police. Hundreds of people
participated in the march, even though, as a result of some strange
misunderstanding or internal conflict, it left the convergence point
early, before many would-be participants had even arrived. At the
previous inauguration, a black bloc had successfully broken through one
of the checkpoints surrounding the parade route, and the organizers
planned to repeat this feat and go on to block the route. This was the
major tactical error that prevented the march from being really
effective: a basic rule of thumb in planning for an action is not to
count on being able to repeat the past. Had the organizers prepared a
back-up plan, such as a way to maintain the coherence of the bloc if it
could not penetrate police lines and a secondary target outside the
immediate zone of police control, it would not have been such a
misfortune that the police blocked the path of the march before it
arrived at a checkpoint. As it was, having no backup plan, the march
bogged down at this point, and broke up; a smaller company of anarchists
regrouped and succeeded in reaching and charging a checkpoint, but
lacked the numbers and equipment to break through.
Other problems afflicting the march included an apparent loss of contact
with the scouting team and poor internal communication dynamics that led
many to accuse one participating group of hijacking the march. Aside
from these, the fact that the march did not succeed in its professed
objective can be attributed to the hesitance with which most
participants approached it, as it was the first militant mass action of
its size since Miami. There were enough people there to break through
the police lines, had more of them been ready to put their all into it;
next time, assured by that experience that mass actions are indeed still
possible in the post-9/11 world, perhaps activists will arrive better
equipped and more psychologically prepared. Speaking of equipment, itâs
worth pointing out that the black bloc that broke through the checkpoint
in 2000 used an appropriated industrial wheelbarrow to spearhead their
charge, while the march at the 2004 inauguration had only a banner
reinforced with PVC pipe. PVC pipe is notoriously fragile, and has
failed militant marches several times now; the beginning convergence
point was so free from police control that participants could have
brought in massive wooden shields and other fortifications, which would
have served much better in the ensuing mĂȘlĂ©e. Likewise, the march passed
several construction sites that less hesitant militants would have
raided for materials.
Just when it seemed the dayâs events were over, the crowd leaving a
packed show by punk band Anti-Flag filled the street in a surprise march
of hundreds. Bearing torches, drums, anarchist banners, spray-paint
cans, and shopping carts full of useful materials, the throng marched
through Adams Morgan, an ethnic neighborhood suffering rapid
gentrification. The results surprised everyone, presumably including
those who initiated the march. A vast banner reading âFrom DC to Iraq:
With Occupation Comes Resistanceâ was dropped from the top of a
Starbucks coffeeshop, along with a great quantity of fireworks.
Demonstrators smashed the windows of several corporate outlets,
including Citibank, Riggs Bank, McDonaldâs, and KFC, as well as those of
a police substation and the windshield of a police car following the
demonstration; police reports estimated the damage to corporate and
police property at $15,000. Anarchist graffiti covered walls, and many
pulled newspaper boxes and dumpsters into the streets. Locals who
witnessed the march were supportive and encouraging to an almost
surprising degree, honking car horns and cheering; a worker at a local
Ethiopian restaurant raised his fist and shouted âDown with Bush! We
have to shut this city down!â
Massive numbers of befuddled riot police arrived before the march could
reach a hotel hosting an Inaugural Ball to which Bush had just paid a
visit. Most participants dispersed safely; approximately seventy were
trapped in an alley and arrested, but almost all of them were released
without charges after paying $50. Even factoring in the subsequent
backlash from those who always oppose confrontational tactics, as
militant actions go, this was a raging success. It received support from
unusual quarters, too, including members of Anti-Flag, the
representative of Iraq Veterans Against the War who had spoken at the
show, and parents of minors arrested in the alley.
So this is where we leave our heroes, escaping from downtown Washington,
DC in the middle of the night, helicopter spotlights flashing overhead
and sirens wailing nearby. Is this only a momentary anomaly in a world
of consolidated state control, or a precursor of things to come? Will
they manage to find common cause with dissidents of other demographics,
so a real, broad-based insurrection will be possible? How can they hone
their tactics and strategies to fit the current political and social
context?
From the events of the past few years, we can derive some basic lessons
about both mass and autonomous actions. We had better do soâif we donât,
the anarchist movement may have to go through this learning process all
over again.
First of all, letâs address once and for all the question of whether
mass actions are still effective in the post-9/11 era. The answer, in
the opinion of everyone involved in the development of this analysis, is
a resounding yes. The examples of the Republican National Convention and
the recent Presidential Inauguration both indicate that it is still
possible to act en masse, according to widely disseminated, publicly
coordinated plans; we have only to be more judicious in choosing when
and how to do so.
Without at least occasional mass actions, anarchist communities risk
losing the ability to combine forces, not to mention the visibility and
influence that are critical to their proliferation. At the same time,
anarchists must pick the mass actions in which they invest themselves
carefully; every time anarchists call for a mass action, it should be a
resounding success, so people will feel safe investing themselves in
participating in the next one.
What elements make for a perfect mass action? First, and most obviously,
a mass action must be massively attended. The model should therefore
only be employed when great numbers of people can realistically be
expected to show. Organizers should promote far in advance, and seek to
collaborate to this end with as wide a range of other groups as
possible; just as importantly, they should be skilled in reading the
zeitgeist, so they can pick the right occasions to call for mass
actions.
Second, a mass action must be attended by a wide range of people, and
receive a lot of media attention. When diverse crowds are present and
television cameras are running, police almost always hesitate to use
extreme force; when they choose to do so under those circumstances, it
costs them a lot, and can even end up being a tactical victory for
protesters. Organizers must nurture their ability to predict the factors
that determine police strategy: Will the police want to show their
control of the situation by making a lot of arrests, or will it be more
important to them to avoid this and instead focus on bluffing and
intimidation? What will police be expecting, and how will they respond
to the unexpected? How quickly can they apprehend new information, and
how concentrated will their attention be?
Third, a mass action should have an objective that is immediately
comprehensible and attractive, and offer a strategy that people can
easily adopt for themselves. The demonstrations against the Free Trade
Area of the Americas summit in Quebec City spread from a few hundred
militants to the population of the entire city because the tactics
employedâmasking up, throwing back tear gas canisters, blocking
roadsâwere easy to apprehend and apply, and because locals were already
angry about the police occupying their city. This question determines
whether a militant engagement ends up as a vanguardist group slogging it
out in a private war with the government or a generalized popular
insurrection.
Fourth, militants in a mass action should make sure their plans are
intelligently coordinated with those of others. As described above in
the analysis of the protests at the last two Republican National
Conventions, it is almost always better for dissimilar actions to take
place simultaneously rather than consecutively. In a best case scenario,
actions employing different tactics can be arranged to complement one
another. Healthy relationships between activists partial to different
tactics facilitate this; these require a lot of nurturing between
actions, and a lot of patience when conflicts arise.
Finally, organizers must take matters such as morale, momentum, and
crowd dynamics seriously. Under some circumstances, all it takes to turn
a passive mass into a militant force is for a few maniacs to step
forward and show what is possible; in other cases, an entire militant
bloc can be intimidated into inactivity by police bluffing. In learning
what factors enable people to take action, organizers can formulate
strategies based on realistic expectations.
In planning a mass action, organizers should look back in recent history
for similar precedents from which they can determine what to expect. At
the same time, attempting to repeat the pastâespecially when oneâs
enemies have learned from itâis almost always a doomed venture.
Organizers should consider, instead, the opportunities that have been
missed before, and try to take advantage of these. When employing a
strategy for the first time, it is important to be prepared for the
possibility that it will succeed as well as the possibility that it will
fail. New strategies generally work, and fail only because people lack
the assurance to follow them through completely; old strategies, on the
other hand, usually fail because opponents are all too ready for them,
however ready people are to apply them. Employing an old strategy in an
entirely new context can be tremendously effective; this is something at
which the anarchist movement, being internationally active and
interconnected, should excel. Also, both organizers of massive events
and individual participants in them should formulate backup plans for
different scenarios, so they can turn any development to their
advantage.
The communities in which militant activists develop must share basic
skills such as how to read a volatile situation, how to work in affinity
groups, and how and when to disperse. Activists of all demographics and
backgrounds must be encouraged to feel entitled to participate in
planning and carrying out militant actions. In addition, when conditions
are not opportune for confrontation, radicals must not pressure
themselves to do anything rash, but rather save themselves for better
opportunities.
During the lulls between mass actions, decentralized, autonomous actions
can serve to keep activistsâ skills sharp and to continue the struggle
on other fronts. As they did during the 1990âs, small-scale local
actions can give activists the practice they need to be comfortable
acting in more challenging mass action scenarios; they also connect
activists to one other, building experienced, dangerous groups linked to
broader communities. To this purpose, the best forms of autonomous
action are the ones that, rather than striking the most grievous
material blows, bring in new participants and build solidarity between
different circles so that militant activity may take place more widely.
One of the most important challenges of the coming years, during which
we can be sure police repression of all forms of resistance will
continue and perhaps increase, will be to develop ways to act socially
and publicly yet with the element of surprise. Without this capability,
participatory militant action will become impossible except once or
twice a year at mass actions, and it will be impossible to spread
militant tactics in our local communities. To this end, we have to
cultivate sites of social interaction and channels of communication that
are accessible to all but the authorities: these can include local
communities bonded by potlucks and other face-to-face contact, cultural
milieus such as politicized music scenes, and connections between
committed activists and formerly apolitical social circles. In these, we
can get to know and trust one another, and stage assaults on the
capitalist nightmare from unexpected directions.
The preceding analysis offers three successful prototypes for autonomous
yet participatory action. The first is the model employed by the
activists who carried out the G8 solidarity action before the Really
Really Free Market in Raleigh, North Carolina, in which a small,
clandestine group acts to augment the efforts of an open, accessible
group; this is perfect for carrying out complicated, high-risk plans,
but offers little opportunity for new people to be brought in and gain
experience. The second is the model employed by the activists who
conceived the protest at the Governorâs Mansion in Maine, in which a
core group takes advantage of a social setting to invite a larger number
of people to help plan and participate in an action without revealing
the most sensitive details of the target; this is a less secure, more
participatory model, offering roles for those not yet sure enough of
themselves to organize their own major actions, but still limiting
participation to an in-group. The third is the model employed by the
activists who instigated the march in Adams Morgan after the
Presidential Inauguration in Washington, DC, in which a participatory
action is initiated by a small group within a larger mass; this offers
the greatest number the opportunity to witness or participate in an
action, even an extremely confrontational one, but it also can endanger
participants, especially as collective planning is impossible.
Hopefully, over the years to come, many more activists will make use of
and expand on these prototypes, refining and combining them in the
process.
It may be some time before the next period of intense struggle. While it
sometimes seemed during the months immediately preceding and following
the election that the country was slipping towards civil war, the
atmosphere now is somewhat more subdued, as liberals lick their wounds
and radicals adjust to the post-war, post-election context. This is not
necessarily a bad thing; the anarchist community is not yet ready for an
all-out war to the death with the rulers of the world. Letâs make use of
this interval to put down firmer foundations and develop new skills.
When the next opportunities arrive to take on the powers that be, letâs
be ready, our communities strong and closely linked, our courage and
confidence in each other tried and true.
Were a reading list to accompany this analysis, it would include âHot
Town, Summer in the City: Anarchist Analysis of the 2004 RNC Protestsâ
by Alexander Trocchi, CrimethInc. International News Agent Provocateur,
and âFROM DC TO IRAQ: WITH OCCUPATION COMES RESISTANCEâWhat happened in
Adams Morgan on January 20; a report, analysis, and response to
criticism,â by the Circle A Brigade, both of which can be located on the
internet by means of google.com.
[1] Setting out to shut down a capitalist summit and succeeding in doing
so may qualify as direct action in the most immediate sense, but an
anti-capitalist movement that succeeded in shutting down summit after
summit without bringing any closer the abolition of capitalist social
relations would be a failure, not a success. Hence, such feats
ultimately have their greatest value as demonstrations of what is
possible.
[2] This is not to say that widely publicized but purely symbolic
actions are sufficient to build a movement that can pose a threat to
capitalism! To inspire others and attract future participants, militant
actions must actually strike blows and accomplish immediate goals.
[3] This was probably more of an irrational emotional reaction than a
miscalculation. To the extent that it was a judgment call, it indicates
that activists overestimated either the ability of the government to
identify and repress them or the threat the government perceived them to
pose.
[4] Another notable exception to this generalization occurred during an
otherwise placid liberal march in Washington, DC when a small group of
anarchists broke away, marched to the World Bank, charged into the
building, and trashed it from the inside.
[5] Protestors had applied this tactic at the previous FTAA ministerial
in Quebec City, and met with some success, as it was fairly new at the
time. By the time of the ministerial in Miami, however, fences had been
attacked from Genoa to Cancun, and it was exactly what the authorities
were expecting. As a general rule of thumb, itâs a bad idea to try an
approach that worked or almost worked in a similar previous
confrontation, assuming your opponents are in as much of a position to
learn from the past as you are.
[6] One person or group calling for others to act is little better than
a vanguard, and can be expected to meet with as much success as the
various communist splinter groups currently do. Calls for decentralized
actions work best when activists who are already organizing themselves
call upon others in their networks to join in, offering the opportunity
to be part of an effort that already has participation and momentum in
its favor.
[7] In another hilarious and ironic development, it turned out that
there was a theater group in New York for the protests under the moniker
Greene Dragon Society. Scrambling to give the impression that they were
in control of the situation, the FBI announced that it had infiltrated
the âGreen Dragon Groupâ over a year earlier and were abreast of all its
nefarious plans; this could only be to the misfortune of both the
aforementioned liberal group and the FBI, however, as the Greene Dragon
Society doesnât appear to have been anywhere near the puppet that went
up in flames, nor to have had anything to do with its construction. A
more likely story was circulated by Starhawk of the pagan cluster, who
was engaged in a spiral dance a block away when the dragon caught fire;
she speculates that it was the energy released from their ritual that
triggered the conflagration.
[8] In another hilarious and ironic development, it turned out that
there was a theater group in New York for the protests under the moniker
Greene Dragon Society. Scrambling to give the impression that they were
in control of the situation, the FBI announced that it had infiltrated
the âGreen Dragon Groupâ over a year earlier and were abreast of all its
nefarious plans; this could only be to the misfortune of both the
aforementioned liberal group and the FBI, however, as the Greene Dragon
Society doesnât appear to have been anywhere near the puppet that went
up in flames, nor to have had anything to do with its construction. A
more likely story was circulated by Starhawk of the pagan cluster, who
was engaged in a spiral dance a block away when the dragon caught fire;
she speculates that it was the energy released from their ritual that
triggered the conflagration.
[9] Some few anarchists, mostly of the persuasion given to hyper-radical
rhetoric and little action to back it up, were critical of this campaign
on the grounds that it was too soft on voting. Indeed, insofar as people
conflate it with actual political participation, voting is extremely
perniciousâas every text circulated by the âDonât (Just) Voteâ campaign
emphasized. That being the case, these critics seem to have been raising
a new and daring question: entirely apart from the dangerous
superstitions associated with it, can voting itself, taken in a vacuum,
be harmful? Your humble editor, anxiously concerned about such safety
issues, has done quite a bit of research on this subject and has finally
turned up some evidence that this may be the case, if only in extreme
situations. A dissident account of the untimely death of Edgar Allen
Poe, advanced most recently in the amusing miscellany Why Americans
Zigzag When They Eat, suggests that the renowned author was killed by
being voted to death. In those days, political gangs would rig elections
by shanghaiing vulnerable gentlemen and liquoring or doping them up to
make them agreeable. On election day, these unfortunates would be
frog-marched around to all the polling stations as fast as possible;
once one circuit was completed, their handlers would change their
clothes, trim their mustaches, and run them around again. The faster the
pace they kept, the more votes they were worth, so it must have been a
grueling process. (Nowadays, political gangs bypass such clumsy methods
and accomplish the same thing with advertising and voting machine
fraud.) Poe was known for his stylish dressing, but when he was
foundâdrunk, delirious, and in the process of dying of exhaustion, at a
Baltimore bar that doubled as a polling stationâhe was wearing a very
cheap suit that didnât seem to belong to him. It was an election day. So
there you have it: voting, horror of capitalist horrors, killed the
greatest horror writer of all timeâand might kill you, too, if you put
too much stock in it.