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Title: After the Dust Settles Author: Jack White Date: 2004 Language: en Topics: summit hopping, protest, Red & Black Revolution, Czech Republic, Canada, Italy, interview Source: Retrieved on 9th August 2021 from http://struggle.ws/wsm/rbr/rbr8/summitlessons.html Notes: This article is from Red & Black Revolution (no 8, Winter 2004)
In recent years anarchism has had a re-emergence in the popular
consciousness. For many people what was a piece of social history, a
slogan used by cartoon terrorists or a word associated with punk rock is
now a form of political struggle no matter how hazily understood. One of
the reasons for this has been the role anarchists have played in the
anti-globalisation movements and especially in the large
anti-globalisation demonstrations in the recent years.
Despite the very real problems associated with the idea of âsummit
hoppingâ and spectacular protest these manifestations have provided a
public face of anarchism and at least as importantly have given
anarchists an opportunity to work together and with likeminded groups in
relatively large numbers. The impact of these demonstrations has been
global, showing many that despite the end of the Cold War and the
subsequent much heralded âend of historyâ that there is resistance to
the neo-liberal project and that social struggle has not gone away. The
rise in radical activity in Ireland, amongst other places, shows that
events in far off lands can also influence and promote resistance at
home.
What is often overlooked is the impact these events have in the country
they take place in. Each manifestation has been different and each has
affected the âhostâ grouping differently. This article is not supposed
to be a definitive account or survey on what happens to anarchists when
the face of global capitalism comes to their town rather it is a sample,
a necessarily brief study of some of what certain groups went through
during the organisation, participation in and fallout from these events.
The main sources for this article are interviews carried out over email
with Alice Dvorska of the Czech Slovak Anarchist Federation
(www.csaf.cz), Nicholas Phebus from Groupe Anarchist Emile Henry, a
local affiliate of the North Eastern Federation of Anarchist Communists
(NEFAC www.nefac.net) and Fabrizio and Stefano of the Genovese
Federazione dei Comunisti Anarchici (www.fdca.it).[1] Unfortunately due
to space restrictions I have had to edit their responses in places and
paraphrase them in others.
I first asked about the anarchist movments in the three cities. While
the movement was relatively young and small in Prague and Montreal, in
Genoa there was a longer legacy of anarchist struggle.
Historically there was an active anarchist movement in the Czech part of
the Austro-Hungarian Empire in the late 19^(th) and early 20^(th)
centuries. Originally individualistic, it was later connected with
anarcho-syndicalism and mining strikes. The movementâs foci were
anti-militarism and anti-clericalism. It also had an important cultural
dimension with several well-known poets and writers claiming to be
anarchists.
Anarchist organisations and magazines were prohibited at the beginning
of World War I. Some struggled for the establishment of a Czech state
independent from the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Czechoslovakia was founded
in 1918 and many of the anarchists joined the Czech Socialist Party and
later the Communist Party. Failed assassinations of government Ministers
led to repression of the remainder and signified the end of the
traditional anarchist movement. After that it was not possible to speak
about the anarchist movement until the end of the Bolshevik totalitarian
regime.
The first anarchist organisation, the Czechoslovak Anarchist
Association, was founded in October 1989 in Prague, a month before the
fall of the Communist regime. The first anarchist squats appeared
between 1991â1993. The main issues of the movement were anti-fascism,
animal rights, environmental issues and the alternative culture
connected with squatting. In the second half of the 90s the movement
became more organised and raised new issues â e. g. class war and
workersâ struggles. It was also in this period that the first attempts
at anarchist organising began in Slovakia. In 1995 the Czechoslovak
Anarchist Federation (CSAF) was established with a more specific
theoretical and organisational structure. Between 1996 and 1997 there
were two breakaway anarchist groups, first the Organisation of
Revolutionary Anarchists â Solidarity (ORA-S) and then the Federation of
Social Anarchists (FSA). Both of them had a considerable impact on the
development of theory and on turning the movement towards social
problems and social anarchism.
An important impulse for Czech anarchism was the first street party
which took place in Prague in 1998 as part of a worldwide day of
protest. Anarchistsâ reclaiming of the street turned into a radical
demonstration of around three thousand people, struggles with the
police, and an attack on McDonaldâs. This massive protest and subsequent
police repression shocked the Czech public as this was the biggest
protest after the Velvet Revolution in 1989. It also addressed the issue
of globalisation in the Czech Republic for the first time and brought
anarchists attention to the issues involved.
The public perception of anarchists never was really positive in either
of the republics, with the general media image being mostly of violent
radicals and extremists.
The anarchist movement in Quebec is mostly a new movement emerging from
a series of struggles fought around issues of neo-liberalism from the
mid-1990âs on. No more than a few hundred largely unorganised
individuals were involved, mainly in anti-poverty, anti-police brutality
and student activist issues. There were two regular tabloid newspapers
with readerships in the hundreds, one a relatively new
radical/insurrectionalist paper called Le Trouble and the other an older
libertarian socialist paper bordering on reformist called Rebelles.
There was an old anarchist bookshop in Montreal and two groups who
distributed literature. There were also a number of anarchist influenced
small single issue âmassâ organisations. There were 2 (or maybe 3)
specifically anarchist groups, both of which were in NEFAC and had 6 to
10 members each. Anarchism was largely unknown to the general public,
even if there was a number of public exposures and even if a book on
anarchism became a bestseller around that time. Anarchists, however,
were known and generally respected in leftist, youth and community
activism circles.
The anarchist movement in Genoa and in Liguria in general has always
been fairly active. Between the wars anarchists controlled the local
Labour Chamber in Sestri Ponente, which had 12,000 members. During the
fascist dictatorship they organised strikes in the factories and
shipyards and were involved in the Resistance, in the Garibaldi and
Matteotti brigades and also in autonomous groups like the SAP [2]
Pisacane and SAP Malatesta.
After the 2^(nd) World War, the Genoese anarchist movement entered a
long period of crisis (as did the Italian movement in general) which
continued right up to the late â60s. In that period the anarchist
centres filled up with young people eager to become activists.
Throughout the years the libertarian communist wing set up groups such
as the Libertarian Communist Organisation (OCL), the Revolutionary
Anarchist Organisation (ORA), the Ligurian Libertarian Communist
Federation (FCLL) and, finally, the Federazione dei Comunisti Anarchici
(FdCA).
Before the G8 protests the anarchist movement in Genoa was similar to
the rest of the country. There are two organisations, the Federazione
Anarchica Italiana (FAI) and the FdCA which represent a minority, both
in anarchism and on the local political scene. Fabrizio: In Genoa, the
FAI group is made up of a few individuals who come together on specific
social campaigns or for certain historical or cultural initiatives,
while the FdCA aims to rebuild an anarchist communist presence in Genoa
and tries to act as an organised political force. There are also a few
informal groups of comrades who usually meet in the Biblioteca
Libertaria Francisco Ferrer where they organise debates, book
presentations and film evenings. Then there is the Pinelli Social
Centre, which is strongly libertarian and which engages in a lot of
political activity in its locality.
your city?
Alice reported that in Prague the idea of organising against the meeting
of the IMF and WB was first floated at a meeting of the CSAF. She said
that the idea was vague at first since no-one knew exactly what the IMF
wasor had any idea of what big international protests looked like or how
they should be organised. After gathering information a plan and
schedule were developed which took until January 2000, when more
structured and concrete meetings started to take place and more people
got involved. This was when the idea of a loose group where people could
take part on an individual base without having ideological or other
problems between their particular organisations was accepted. This was
called the Iniciativa Proti EkonomickĂ Globalizaci (INPEG, Initiative
against economic globalization) and involved individuals from CSAF,
Solidarity (ORA-S), Socialisticka Solidarita,[3] Deti Zeme
(environmental NGO), Amnesty International and other groups as well as
non-organised individuals.
Alice: The majority of the people were anarchists however. There were
some problems between the anarchists and Marxists from Socialisticka
Solidarita before, but we decided to work together because the whole
thing was so big, that we felt we need to unify our efforts. However we
refused to collaborate with other Marxist or Trotskyist organisations,
that were more strict and dogmatic.
The Czech movement (even if it got help from Slovak comrades) was, and
still is, quite small compared to other countries. After some time we
realised that it was simply too much work for the more or less 30 Czechs
who directly participated in INPEG so we asked internationals for help.
Our first volunteers came in spring and were from Britain and Norway. It
was also important to show the Czech public that we are organising
ourselves on an international level â there was never a protest joined
by internationals before in our country.
Nicolas: CLAC started to organise, in Montreal, almost two years before
the Summit while CASA started maybe a year and a half before hand.
Radical reformists started to organise at the same time but it was way
longer to get the mainstream left to start to do something about it.
There was a large coalition called OQP-2001, which was made of local
mass organisations and political groups. We started by working with them
but we left early as we felt they where not democratic and they where
dogmatically non-violent. We did however continue to have people there,
delegated by their mass organisation, like me. I donât think OQP-2001
was dominated by anyone but the Trotskyites did indeed have a strong
influence in it (but they were red-baited a number of time), at the end
of the day, however, it was the bigger and richer mass organisations
(unions mainly) that determined what was acceptable and what was not.
While we were not that big (never more then 50) we ended up having as
many skilled activists as OQP-2001 so they where forced to deal with us
on an equal footing. CASA was anarchist initiated. The NEFAC local
proposed it to another anarchist group. We met a number of times to
write an appeal and a proposed Aims and Principles (modeled on CLAC
A&P). We then held a large public meeting and proposed it there. It was
not supposed to be an anarchist group, it was âjustâ anti-capitalist,
anti-authoritarian and in favour of a âdiversity of tacticsâ [4] We got
75 members right away (but many of the reds left early to concentrate on
OQP-2001). Unlike CLAC, however, we did not use consensus and we were a
little bit more formally organised (Was this due to a platformist
influence, or experience gained in mass movements? Probably both).
Although it was not officially like that, the only group we really
collaborated with was CLAC. We organised everything together and held
numerous joint general assemblies. The rest of the crowd was just
following the plan we had set up or finding a way to fit in. We did
indeed try to be super-democratic by holding two large âconsultaâ
conferences. But how are you supposed to organise with hundreds of
people from all over the place, some of them there on an individual
basis, other than with delegates? We ended up basically
proposing/imposing a framework and everyone just used it, adding a
special touch here and there. It was really chaotic!
Fabrizio: For the anti-G8 protests in Genoa, the anarchists here started
preparing well in advance. There were initiatives in many parts of
Italy. Here, we could mention two: the national demonstration organised
by the Anarchici contro il G8 [5] network and the 1^(st) National
Festival of Alternativa Libertaria (the FdCAâs newspaper). These were
two particularly visible events for a movement which was, for once,
united and which left inter-group rivalries aside. But they were above
all two occasions when the anarchist movement was able to address the
people, far from the militaristic situation on the streets of Genoa
during the G8. The vast majority of anarchists, those who were not
organised and those who were part of the FAI or FdCA, showed great
political maturity on those occasions.
Stefano: The Genoa Social Forum was made up of quite a mixed bunch:
political parties (Rifondazione Comunista), trade unions (FIOM, COBAS,
etc.), various sorts of associations (ATTAC, environmentalists, etc.)
and other sections of the movement (such as the Disobbedienti, then
known as the Tute Bianche). After the G8, some of the local structures
remained active, such as the Genoa, Ponente and Val Polcevera Social
Forums. These were mostly led by elements from Rifondazione Comunista or
Catholic groups. The Social Forums, however, have basically been a
failure as they havenât been able to remain independent of institutional
politics and in fact are more often than not used as a springboard for
aspiring politicians.
Fabrizio: A majority of anarchists viewed the counter summit as a circus
which would feature the same old comedy acts we have all too often seen,
and not as a real political match. The criticisms which came out of the
Anarchici contro il G8 network were of course directed at the summit
meeting, but also at the usual itinerant opposition rituals. For months,
the debate, with people like Casarini and Caruso [6] at the heart of it,
was centered on how to break into the Red Zone! Not only was that ever
likely to happen realistically, it could never have represented a real
political objective. The most hardcore elements, such as the so-called
Black Bloc or the class autonomists, found themselves more or less in
agreement with the Disobbedienti[7] on this point, whereas anarchists,
on the other hand, believed that the counter summit should have become a
political opportunity to focus on the big questions of the day, such as
social injustice, exploitation and war. To challenge the State on the
streets in military fashion was pointless, especially since the battle
had already been lost, given the amount of repression which was
unleashed in those days. It should have been a chance to come together
to develop a class-struggle, social opposition to neo-liberalism. This
is why Anarchici contro il G8 decided to take part officially in the
demonstration organised by the grassroots unions which took place in
Sampierdarena, quite some way from the infamous Red Zone. I believe that
the anarchistsâ position on that occasion was serious, responsible and
represented an authentic revolutionary force.
when organising protests on May Day. What was your experience?
Alice: There were different levels of police harassment/repression:
entry into CZ (Italians, US Americans and others)
together with the Interior Ministry and minister.
Nicolas: The harassment was on many levels. Many people where followed
and harassed. Some where fined, others arrested on bogus charges. That
was the municipal police. The Canadian secret services tried to scare
activists by visiting radicals at home (they went to several CASA
peopleâs places, including mine). The federal police tried to foment
division within the broad movement, meeting with mass organisations and
warning them against us and inviting them to spy on us for them. The
provincial police went even further and infiltrated everyone, including
NEFAC (yeah, a police officer even attended our congress). This led to
more serious repression as a whole affinity group from Montreal was
arrested en route to Quebec City. They got heavy convictions and spent
months in prison. Several NEFAC members where arrested just prior to the
action or in the middle of it and there was evidence of long-term police
surveillance (one Boston comrade was told his whole travel route from
Boston to Quebec City). One of our members in Quebec City did some
prison time and was on house arrest and then probation for a long time
after his conviction.
In Italy, after the disruption caused by protesters in Seattle, Prague
and Gothenburg the state embarked upon a series of previously unforeseen
security measures. The centre of town (the Red Zone) was completely
sealed off and a further âyellow zoneâ was established where people were
subject to random searches. Warships were stationed in the bay and
missile arrays were erected. As if in response to these measures the
Italian media began to report various bomb and letter bomb scares as
well as arms and explosives finds.
Stefano: Italy has a long history of State terrorism (what is known here
as the strategy of tension[8]) and anarchists have always been at the
centre of this repression. Most people are aware of this, and certainly
all those who remember the events of the â70s. In my own experience, I
have to say that most of these stories are not taken too seriously.
Fabrizio: But I suppose we shouldnât be too surprised, after all, at the
start of the last century a Japanese anarchist was accused by the
government there of causing an earthquake! I donât think people really
believe these stories any more.
decision?
Alice: We agreed on the basic plan in one of the international meetings
before S26 [9] and it was a result of a discussion that took about 11
hours, horrible. We agreed on a carnival-like meeting on Namesti Miru (a
square in the center of Prague) that would later spread into 4 marches
(yellow with Ya Basta!, pink with socialists, silver-pink with people in
pink and silver carnival costumes and blue with anarchists) that would
surround the Congress center and block it so that the delegates inside
wouldnât be able to leave it â we justified this with the argument that
we will keep them inside until they decide to shut down the IMF/WB.
I think we were influenced by earlier events a lot, as this was the
first protest of this kind we ever had in CZ and we relied a lot on the
help and experience of internationals. On the other side we wanted to
keep it understandable for the Czech public, so this was one of the
reasons why we refused to do any violent actions in the name of INPEG.
We got inspired by some tactics of earlier events (e.g. blocking the
delegates in their hotels in the morning), the carnival-like way of
doing protest actions and we agreed with Ya Basta! that they would block
the Nusle bridge in front of the Congress center.
Nicolas: The idea was to have a colour code for the protests and
geographical areas so people knew what to expect. Green was absolute
pacifism and no resistance.
Yellow was non-violent but with direct actions and resistance. Red was,
well, none of the above (I think we called it âoffensive direct actionâ
but it was a code word for Black Bloc). There were a number of âgreenâ
protests leading to the Summit. Our day of actions was on April 20. This
was for 2 reasons. It was the day where most of the officials where
arriving but it was also because the union had planned a huge peaceful
march the day after and we wanted to respect that. For the 20^(th), the
idea was to have a march starting on the University campus (in the
suburbs) going down town. The march was Yellow because there was no way
to guarantee a green march thanks to the cops. At one point it was
supposed to split in 3 directions toward green, yellow and red zones.
The way the whole thing was organised was highly influenced by other
anti-globalisation protest (mainly Seattle and Prague). We wanted to
find a way where everyone could be comfortable, peacenik and black
blockers alike.
Fabrizio: The feeling that a lot of comrades had was that both the
summit and the counter summit were imposed on us. We wanted to protest
against the G8 but we also wanted to avoid simply being a part of the
no-global cauldron and getting caught up in pointless rebelling in
simulated and/or real clashes. We werenât interested in any of that. The
anarchists placed themselves on the field of play as a revolutionary
force with our own analyses and programme. There were rumours that there
would be clashes, it was a sort of open secret. The State was ready to
come down on us, but was clearly in a much stronger position, militarily
speaking. After Gothenburg, there was also a realisation that someone
could die. So, yes, anarchists preferred to join the union demonstration
(and not only anarchists) and we announced our intention to do so.
Anarchism was born from the workersâ struggles in the countryside and in
the factories â and that is where its place lies. And three years after
Genoa I still stand by that choice.
successes and failures of your action?
Alice: I think the biggest success of the actions was that the Summit of
IMF and WB was brought to an end one and a half days earlier that it
should have and the protests were one of the reasons. We also got a lot
of media attention and despite of the negative image we got we were able
to transmit one basic information to the Czech public â there is
something like the IMF and WB and a lot of people here and in the world
donât agree with their activities or the whole present economical
system. Unfortunately the majority of mainstream media and journalists
werenât interested in the reasons why we are against IMF/WB policies so
we tried to transmit this information with the help of our own media.
S26 was also the biggest protest action of this type ever in CZ and the
number of 12,000 people is really high for our conditions.
We also had some problems of course. I think that the two biggest were:
promise and did not act according to the plan of the four marches and
instead of joining the pink one they joined the yellow march which
resulted into a very strong yellow (maybe 6,000 people) and weak pink
one (maybe some hundreds of people) and this lead into an incomplete
blockade of the Congress center.
but we didnât expect this level of violence. The other thing is also
that the violence in Lumirova street was completely useless and didnât
make any sense from a strategic point of view. Later it was just a good
excuse for the police brutality that followed. I also got the feeling
that those people who were violent (mostly internationals, but also some
Czechs) later just went home and left the Czech INPEG people on their
own with the problems that resulted from the violence (bad image, police
and Nazi harassment, verbal and sometimes even physical attacks on
streets which continued for at least for half a year).
Nicolas: It went pretty well as planed but there were two marches from
the start. I think there was between 8 and 10,000 people (and thatâs for
a march called for by explicit anti-capitalists and pro-diversity of
tactics organisations). As soon as the march hit the wall, the black
bloc tore it down. That was cool. I was in the Green zone and it was
marvelous with literally thousands of people from the neighborhood out
there to âoccupy itâ (we â the Comite Populaire- said that the best way
to protect the hood was to occupy it with a Street Party and not leave
it to the cops).
On the 21^(st), however, things did not go as planned. First, we had
several organisers arrested. Second, most radicals did not answer our
call to do an anti-capitalist bloc in the union march; many just went
directly to the wall to besiege the summit and police. Third, there was
a sea of people (between 40,000 and 50,000) and we where completely lost
in it, unable to regroup more then a few hundred people.
Many, many, many unionists (a third of the march, half?) however did
come with us to the conflict zone and participate in the fun (the union
leadership led the rest to a parking lot miles away for the conflict
zone!). On the 22^(nd), we organised some âclean up teamsâ in the
community. That too went well.
Stefano: The Genoa demos made it very clear to a wide audience that
there was strong opposition to the neo-liberalist programme. In
particular, many young people were drawn for the first time to the world
of politics as a result of what the movement was saying. On the other
hand, the powers-that-be were able to shift media attention onto the
problems of public order, thereby hiding the message that the movement
was trying to project. In the days and weeks that followed, the only
thing being talked about was the Black Bloc, the devastation, the
repression, and so on.
Fabrizio: The counter summits have provided publicity for the summits,
that much seems clear. If the big guys canât meet in Paris, then theyâll
meet in Alaska, or they wonât bother meeting and just talk to each other
by phone. Whatever else they may do, they wonât stop the oppression and
exploitation just because a bunch of boy scouts and Tibetan monks hang
off the railings of the Red Zone, or because the Black Block set fire to
a few cars and smash a few shop windows.
It is difficult to say what anarchists in general thought of the Black
Block. Obviously anyone who declares themselves to be anarchist is free
to do what he or she feels is best regarding action. We simply thought
it was better not to get dragged into a military-style confrontation,
something which the government was clearly hoping for.
We did not think it was in any way productive to launch an assault on
the Red Zone (like the Disobbedienti and friends) or to indulge in petty
acts of rebellion, like setting fire to cars and smashing windows. From
day one, it was our intention to communicate with the people of Genoa
and of the world. The problem is not to be seen, it is to be a real
opposition. And we can only be that if we work within the real movements
which are developing in society, in the world of labour, 365 days of the
year. We are not interested in appearing to be an opposition; we want to
BE the opposition.
anarchism in your country?
Alice: I think that it (public opinion of anarchists) got worse than it
was before. I mean the media would talk about us in a bad way even if
there wasnât any violence, but this gave them a brilliant excuse.
On the other hand it is very difficult to say what the public was
thinking about anarchists or the protesters in general. If I can speak
for my own person â the only real arguments I had afterwards were the
ones with my mother. My friends, students and teachers from university
or people I met on the streets/in the pubs that recognized me were more
curious than hostile and were asking questions about how it was and what
I think about the whole thing. So one thing was the media hysteria which
was huge and the other thing was the people I met and most of them were
OK. But of course I met also some hostile people and heard about
problems other INPEG activists had afterwards e.g. in university.
Nicolas: Hard to tell. We discovered that we could have a mass appeal
and that we were not forced to spread our message in the hundreds but
that it could be done in the thousands and tens of thousands. We won a
lot of sympathy in the public â we won the battle of ideas against
everyone â but we did not have the critical mass to capitalise on this.
We were overstretched by the Summit and a lot of comrades literally
collapsed after it (there were a few real burnout and some depressions
leading to hospitalisation). It was intense. No anarchist institutions
in Quebec City survived the Summit; everything was shaken to the
foundation. It was a cataclysmic event. It took us close to a year
before we started to have a stable and effective NEFAC local again (and
it was no stronger then before, just not exactly the same people).
In retrospect, I think we were strengthened by it. There is now a bigger
scene than before and I would say the number of anarchists activists has
doubled if not more. We are now strong enough as a movement to sustain
an infoshop which never happened before.
It did, however, have a catastrophic effect on our relation with the
other left groups. Before that, we had cordial relations with them and
we used to do a lot of stuff in coalition with all the revolutionary
forces. Now we do everything on our own (and both sides have generally
better results then we did together). We donât even go to each othersâ
events. The division is there, deep.
Stefano: There was a demo shortly after the summit (to mark the death of
Carlo Guiliani) â a vigil in Piazza de Ferrari in the heart of the Red
Zone, right beside Palazzo Ducale where the summit took place. The
square was jammed with people, many from outside the movement. On the
first anniversary in July 2002, there was a huge march in Genoa â huge
not only in numbers, but also in the strength it expressed â for many,
me included, it was a sort of liberating rite. That march was also
noticeable for the size of the anarchist sector, though a part of the
movement (including the class autonomists) chose to march separately on
more radical positions.
Fabrizio: I think the anarchist movement is seen with new interest
today. Anarchist communist positions in particular are viewed with
greater sympathy, above all by those who have been disappointed by the
neo-social democratic policies of Rifondazione Comunista. There has been
a great deal of repression against all sectors of the anarchist
movement, particularly against the Pinelli Social Centre which has been
the target of several police searches and fascist attacks.
The FdCAâs website has witnessed increased traffic in recent years and
we are making new contacts all over Italy. In fact, our federation has
grown, both in quantity and in quality. There is a great deal of
authentic respect for our political positions, positions which we bring
with us into whatever area we feel is willing to listen.
Despite our growth the FdCA remains a small organisation in a big city
like Genoa and in the Ligurian region and we are still unable to make a
big impact in politics in the area. The people who joined our federation
after the G8 did so, not only because of what we did during the summit,
but also, and mainly, because of our political initiatives after the G8.
I honestly donât know if the same can be said for the FAI in Genoa or
for the rest of the anarchist movement in the city, because once again,
Iâm afraid, relations with these groups are few and far between.
what would you do differently?
Alice: Apart from some details I would change three things and I think
that also the other INPEG people would change this:
this means to be more careful in what we are going to tell the media.
Now there also appears the idea of media boycott during protests â
simply to refuse any contact with them (this is not my personal opinion,
but some people like it).
were kicked out of INPEG).
plans and thoughts ended with S26 and we didnât think about how to deal
with the consequences.
Nicolas: I would not put all my eggs in the same basket (but did we have
the choice?) and I would try to defend the integrity of the organisation
(NEFAC) so that we have continuity. But then, I am not sure that would
have been possible at the time.
Fabrizio: As far as we are concerned, very little, if anything. If it
were possible, we would have tried to succeed in convincing our comrades
of the uselessness of getting involved in what proved to be a trap â the
demonstrations where it was known there would be trouble, and which
eventually led to the death of Carlo Giuliani. The various police forces
and the government were simply waiting for it to happen. What we have to
do is forget all that, ignore the provocation and above all, patiently
work towards the building of a class-struggle anti-capitalist movement,
rather than a free-for-all anti-globalization movement with everything
but the kitchen sink.
---
Seattle (1999): Meeting of the World Trade Organisation (WTO)
Prague (2000): Meeting of the International Monetary Fund (the IMF) and
the World Bank (WB) on September 26^(th) (also known as S26)
Gottenberg (2001): Meeting of EU heads of state and anti-Bush protest in
June.
Quebec (2001): Meeting of 34 heads of state at the Summit of the
Americas in April.
Genoa (2001): Meeting of the leaders of the G8 countries in July.
Dublin (2004): Meeting of EU heads of state.
---
Anarchist groups
Umbrella group organising protests;
economic globalization)
Anarchist groups
Federation (NEFAC)
Umbrella groups organising protests
Anarchist groups
Umbrella groups organising protests:
---
[1] All unreferenced quotes are taken from these interviews. I also used
previously published texts, see rest of footnotes for details.
[2] SAP stands for âSquadre di Azione Partigianaâ which could translate
as âPartisan Action Squadsâ
[3] Czech sister organisation to our own Socialists Workers Party.
[4] Diversity of tactics: respect for and pursuit of a wide variety of
actions from marching, through civil disobedience to property
destruction and beyond.
[5] âAnarchici contro il G8â was made up of: 14 FAI groups, FdCA, FAS
(Sicilian Anarchist Federation), Circolo Durruti (anarchist group
connected to USI syndicalist union) and about 40 other ânon-alignedâ
anarchist groups from all over Italy. Its structure was the typically
libertarian horizontal form, with assemblies making decisions.
Interestingly enough it had one typically âplatformistâ feature â
collective responsibility. This feature strongly characterized the
network throughout its existenceâ.
[6] Casarini and Caruso: leading figures in the Disobbedienti.
[7] The Disobbedienti are a group with ideological roots in 1970âs
Italian autonomist politics and Zapatista solidarity. Heavily involved
in social centres and squatting they have also become a large part of
the Italian anti-capitalist movement and are into defensive and symbolic
acts of resistance.
[8] The name âstrategy of tensionâ usually indicates the period roughly
from 1969 to 1974, when Italy was hit by a series of terrorist bombings,
some of which caused large numbers of civilian deaths. The authors were
right-wing extremists maneuvered by intelligence and military structures
aiming at providing a pretext for reactionary elements to strengthen
themselves against an increasingly strong and effective working class
movement.
[9] S26 stood for September 26^(th).