[mobglob-discuss] Detailed Evaluation of the G8-Evian mobilization and a debate to be had nonviolence

[Gordon Flett]

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A - I N F O S  N E W S  S E R V I C E 
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Four "villages", dozens of debates and conferences, 9 demos (including
one of 100, 000 people), more than 5000 people in a dozen blockades
coordinated all around the lake which stopped all traffic on roads into
Evian on the opening morning, and four nights of violence in Geneva -
clearly, the attempt to bring summit meetings back into the heart of
Europe was soundly defeated. Heads of State of course got in by
helicopter, but members of their delegations (and journalists) arrived
hours late. As for the official welcome of Bush by the Swiss president,
that had been already cancelled under the threat of a massive march
towards the Geneva airport. 

On the negative side, indiscriminate - and in a few cases
life-threatening - actions of property destruction started to provoke
deep divisions in the movement and pose questions as to how such events
can continue to happen. 

Frankly, before it happened many feared that it wasn’t going to. The
international preparatory coordinations were not very well attended,
particularly by the radical wing of the movement. The first scenario was
for the main demo to happen outside of town the Saturday BEFORE the
arrival of the G8 (in order to facilitate attendance and to attract the
European Confederation of Trade Unions
). This would have completely
abandoned the founding principle of the movement  direct action seeking
to really stop, or at least perturb, the summits  and permitted the
isolation and repression of those who insisted on acting the opening
day. 

Fortunately, the debate ended in a more satisfying consensus: Since it
was obviously impossible to get to Evian (40 kilometers away), or even
to its exclusion zone, the coordination decided that the effort to
materially perturb the summit would take the form (like in Seattle) of a
blockade of all the access routes from the Geneva airports that could be
used by delegations and media (heads of State, obviously travelling by
helicopter). 

The main demo would be on the morning of the opening and would also
participate (although in a mostly symbolic way) to the blockades, by
stretching itself from the lake to the mountain behind Geneva, thus
blocking the southern approach to Evian. A second demo would block the
northern access via Lausanne and the ferry. The international
coordination also called on all willing organizations to participate in
the actions immediately before and after the demo aimed at making the
blockade effective. The combination of the two forms of action was
conceived in terms of respect for “diversity of tactics” and the
intention to avoid all manipulation : a peaceful mass demo, desired  by
the huge majority (the reactions of participants on the day of the demo
left no doubt about that!), but closely associated with more determined
blockades for those wishing to do them. 

No “black block” type proposition circulated on the lists before the
mobilization and it seemed that there was a quite large consensus that
such actions were not indicated immediately after Genoa. The Lemanic
Social Forum (FSL) considered that “although it is true that certain
material destructions can be understood as political acts by a large
public when they are precisely aimed and explained (destructions of
GMOs, for example), more or less indiscriminate destruction during the
G8 would above all allow activists to be presented as “hooligans” and
would distract attention from the main political objective: stopping the
summit.” That said, the FSL refused to condemn other types of action in
advance and announced that it would be in solidarity with all activists
with respect to legal defense. 

The coordination also announced its solidarity with all other
non-violent actions or demos organized by others (No Border demo, etc.)
during the period. Looking back, one can criticize the fact that the
political demand to demonstrate on the spot in Evian was abandoned so
quickly, even if from a military point of view it would have been
disastrous to try and force our way there. A siege of the Geneva airport
would have been more realistic, but such a proposition (a real
declaration of war with respect to the authorities) was not really
defended, both in the coordination and in the more radical reunions.
Politics remains the art of the possible, agreed upon between the actors
who are willing to come forward and defend a point of view! The best
criticisms of the preparatory process seem to us to be:    a)  Not
enough effort was put into communicating the propositions abroad,
including in parts of the movement that were not involved in the
preparation. b) Enormous amounts of time and energy were lost in
continual and generally futile negotiations with the authorities (eg
parking for the buses), which also projected an ambiguous image of the
FSL and coordinations (ideological confusion with the State that we
oppose, negotiation on the terrain chosen by the enemy,
quasi-co-organization of the logistics), without significantly reducing
the alarmist campaign of the media. Too involved in these negotiations,
the FSL could not develop a debate with the more radical parts of the
movement. As the comrades of the anti-WEF have learned, it is better to
fix at the start two or three dates for negotiations and stick with
that. c) the lack of a strong local grass-roots campaign of mobilization
left us too dependent on the media. 

At the last minute, we feared a total flop! The big French organizations
were not enthusiastic and totally tied up in the massive mobilizations
and general strike to save the pension system and public education.
Italian activists were also announced only by hundreds, rather than the
thousands that we had anticipated. And in Switzerland a very effective
media scare campaign had provoked real hysteria (eg rumors that
“children in schools had been attacked in Genoa” or people planning to
not leave their apartment all weekend. There was even a grocer who
boarded up his shop in a village 
25 kilometers away from the city!). All the banks and luxury shops (and
many others) were boarded up  sometimes up to the second floor! Some
30,000 French, Swiss and German police and troops (and 80 helicopters)
were deployed, while our estimates for the big demo were down to 30 to
50,000
. A great many Genevans  even on the left  seemed decided to
flee. 

Then we realized that Geneva had never been so beautiful. Practically no
cars and all the places we dislike the most hidden behind huge yellow
boards. Popular creativity rapidly transformed these into hundreds of
dazibaos, covered with slogans, wit and drawings ("First SARS, then
yellow fever !", "What have you to hide?",  a psychedelic portal where
the main door of the Swiss Banks had been, etc.) Then the four
alternative villages 
(in France, Geneva and Lausanne) started to fill with several thousand
friends from all over Europe. From Thursday, the pace picked up with
dozens of debates and forums in the villages and in the cities. In
Geneva there was among other things a "Debt Tribunal" and two weeks of
true public discussions (very successful initiative!) organized in a
park on gender, "anti-terrorism" as a weapon against the movement, the
commons as an alternative to privatization and bureaucratized public
services and other subjects, with the participation of Zapatista women
from Chiapas and people of the Peoples' Global Action network from
Canada (the Postal Workers Union), the United States, Great Britain,
etc. 

One of the first demos was a "Not Welcome" demonstration for the support
people of the G8 and various vassal régimes (Saudia Arabia, China,
Mexico, Brazil
) arriving in Lausanne. Friday there was a No Border
demonstration in Geneva against free movement of goods (in front of WTO)
and for the free movement of people (in front of the International
Migration Organization 
(IOM) a little known organization that polices the forced displacement
of capital's slaves across the globe. Participants generally respected
the organizers appeal to avoid confrontational actions liable to
interfere with the political message concerning the IOM and jeopardize
the big demos. For example, hooded demonstrators managed to open the
gates of WTO, but refrained from attacking the building and the police
inside. However, there were already some people ready to break stuff in
a totally mindless way. They had to be restrained from attacking a
pizzeria as an action against
 Berlusconi (racist anti-globalizers ??!!) 

Saturday night was worse. A 100 to 200 people in black, apparently from
more than one group, left from the Usine alternative center, where
concerts were going on, for a rapid attack (about 40 minutes in all) on
symbols of capitalism in the center. Some of that happened, however the
destruction was in fact largely indiscriminate. Even some of the
participants were shocked by the level (dozens of cocktail molotovs) and
aimlessness of the violence. The worst happened in the popular quarter
immediately beside the Usine where there were no capitalist symbols at
all. Small shops, grocery stores, a child care center, all the cars in
the street had their windows smashed. A molotov was thrown into a
pharmacy in an old building, but luckily didn't ignite. With the alcohol
and other inflammable products present, the fire could well have killed
the people sleeping in the apartments above (one of which had a banner
against the war on the balcony
) Others were thrown into a gas station
(fortunately a neighbor put it out immediately with an extinguisher) and
into ordinary people's cars. 

Three more totally destroyed a small motorcycle repair shop next door.
All this in the same small street directly between the headquarters of
the Lemanic Social Forum (FSL) and the Usine! A last Molotov was thrown
against a palisade less than 50 yards from the Usine, as though to leave
a clear trace of their path. (According to the Indymedia people, the
police who raided them violently the next day seemed to really expect to
find traces of the "black block" there, and actually left quickly when
they discovered their mistake. Its true that one group was so tactful as
to leave the Usine by the Indymedia entrance, already hooded and
equipped.) Of course, all this has nothing to do with real "black block"
practice and seemed so perfectly aimed to criminalize the movement  and
in particular Indymedia and the Usine  that the FSL immediately
condemned these actions and raised the question of a possible right wing
or police manipulation. That was the most positive interpretation! But
even if people of the movement were involved in such criminally stupid
actions, that still doesn't mean that there were not manipulators among
them. Or were some people just so drunk with the power of violence that
they wanted to use their cocktails on anything at all before getting
back to the Usine? That would be even worse. 

Near the destroyed cars, was a graffiti: “Burn cars!”. Can people
seriously think that they can fight against the car culture by making
enemies of all the ordinary people who today need to have one? Wouldn’t
that not be a wee bit authoritarian and elitist? Unfortunately,
according to one interpretation, the imprecision of the targets attacked
might be on purpose. An ultra avant-gardist situationist position would
be to consider that destroying well chosen targets  multinationals,
etc.  is already recuperated by the “spectacular society”. A “real”
rupture would be to attack anything at all that participates in our
daily alienation (as though the spectacle of aimless violence was not
the daily bread of the “spectacular society”, and as though the fear of
that violence was not the mainspring of repressive politics!) Let us
hope (while awaiting an explanation?) that they were just too drunk to
think. It would be less stupid. 

Magnificent blockades! The response was fantastic. From 5 AM on, more
than a thousand people (of a variety of political tendencies) erected
barricades on the six bridges of Geneva, dividing it in two. Sunrise on
the famous lakeside and banking section  the postcard image of their
effortless domination  but this time behind barricades! Along the
riverside, a column, red and black flags waving, marching to the rescue
of a bridge menaced by the police, belting out the now traditional
slogan “To those who wish to dominate the world, the world replies:
Resistance!”. It was like a dream! In France, about 2000 marched from
the "villages" to a strategic crossroads towards Evian, where they
resisted the attacks of the police sent to clear it. In Lausanne, some 
3000 organised a Pink block, a Gray block (dedicated to building
barricades), a mobile bicycle block and a non-violent climber barricade
on the turnpike (where Martin Shaw was almost killed when police cut his
rope). All together they constituted a very determined and successful
resistance on the critical road to Evian. 

They were successful in delaying the arrival of a first convoy which
left the airport at 9 H. Authorities didn't try to send a second group
until after 10H30 (when the Lausanne blockades were beginning to be
cleared away), and were obliged to organize extra helicopter flights for
others. The last delegations only left the airport at 13H, definitely
behind schedule! In Geneva, the objective of the blockade was respected
by all, including "black block" groups, who refrained from attacking
windows, etc., during this action. In Lausanne, a good part of the
"gray" block seems to have also played the game, even dissuading others
from actions outside the objectives of the demo. 

However, there were some remarkably stupid exceptions. A small
immigrant's butcher shop was smashed and painted "Meat = murder"! A nice
demonstration of elitist intolerance and lack of respect for the demo
itself, for the collective expression that it represented. Property
destruction, like any very strong means of action, is a way of
exercising power, because it makes one speak louder than those who just
march or carry banners. Such actions, picked up by the media or seen by
passersby the next day, determine in great part the meaning that people
give to the demo as a whole. For that reason, even using forms of action
that a majority of the demo strongly reject is already quite
manipulatory and authoritarian. But if even the political message of the
action is not shared by the rest of the demo, such actions are totally
stalinist! Some people may not appreciate an attack on a Macdo during a
demo, but at least they recognize a common value. But as long as the
vegans haven't even convinced a majority of the cannibals in the
movement, they can’t impose their thing on us. Its just not a shared
value. A demo isn't a kind of free for all where anyone can break
anything he doesn't like! It can be diverse, but it has to remain a
common collective expression. That it should even be necessary to say so
shows just how individualistic capitalism has made us. 

A huge and spirited demo The Geneva blockades were gradually replaced by
the main frontier demo between Geneva and Annemasse, in France. At the
hour when most of the buses could arrive, its function of blockade was
mostly symbolic, but the idea was to have an event to which everyone -
new people, old people, families - could come and express themselves.
And a record (for our region) 100,000 people did. Despite the intense
fear campaign, people from Geneva came massively, as did tens of
thousands from grass roots committees all over France, despite their
other efforts for the strikes. In both cases, it took determination and
it could be felt in the demo. That made people really happy to be there. 

Although it didn’t really spoil the demo, unfortunately, here again some
of the young radicals who we would normally feel closest too acted with
a great lack of political finesse and respect. First, some actually
wanted to destroy a small post office (one which the local residents are
fighting to keep open !) Why?? Does Post Office = State for some
slightly simple minded "anarchists" ??? In any case, of the 100,000
demonstrators certainly 99.9% believed that public services should be
defended, even if that is just a first step. So how can a few dozen
people try to impose their message over and against that of all the
others, and then be surprised that people reject them? Is this the more
"horizontal", respectful society we are trying to build? 

It was actually less the violence as such than the pretentious and
authoritarian elitism of some of these actions that alienated the other
protestors. At a moment when we could be mobilising with the huge
majority of the population that condemns and suffers from the current
state of affairs, they proclaim their scorn and intolerance for anyone
who feels the need to have a car, eats meat, defends public services

that’s quite a lot of people! Enough to finally shut oneself up in a
tiny minority, very “pure” and slightly “no future”, because it’s true
that if we go at it that way there’s not the slightest hope of changing
anything. 

At the end of the demo a BP gas station was also attacked. Here at least
the objective was justified. Unfortunately, although all these actions
were technically well organized, no one had bothered to make a flyer,
for example to link BP to the Colombian paramilitaries or to the
environment. Its as though the people who did them didn't really hope or
care about convincing others by their actions. As though it was more
about just identifying oneself with a radical position or group, than
actually trying to win this war against capital! That is really tragic,
because this is precisely one of those very rare times when we do have a
small chance to win! Direct action can be accepted and even popular when
it is seen as legitimate defense, but for that one has to see to it that
the action is indeed understood to be legitimate! If one doesn’t
participate in the preparation, doesn’t justify the actions, only
appears masked and only replies to criticism with insults or physical
menace
 one mustn’t be surprised to be rejected and isolated. 

Apart from that, they might have asked themselves if it was a good idea
to attack a gas station with a molotov cocktail in the middle of a crowd
of 
100,000 people, where the intervention of police or firemen could have
made a real problem. And whether it wasn't better to respect the spirit
of this particular demo, which was intended for the widest range of
people. Anyhow, the demo absolutely howled with rage against this
action, some (presumably non-violent!) people even pursuing and
attacking its authors. Of course a group can always take responsibility
to contribute an action, but when it is so totally rejected even by the
demo it is supposed to be part of, it is clear that one has put one's
foot in it ! All demos aren’t obliged to include property destruction.
There ARE other possible forms of expression. Systematically imposing it
in such an insensitive and authoritarian way will rapidly make the
rejection of ALL property destruction an overwhelmingly popular position
in the movement ! Coming after the disastrous Saturday night, these
actions and the sometimes violent confrontations with other
demonstrators and demo organisers provoked a disquieting divisions and
polarisation, some people practically calling for the police to come to
clean the “violent” out of the demos, a caricature of “pacifism”, mirror
image of this caricature of direct action! With just a little bad will,
we could destroy the whole scene. 

And yet, a more popular occasion for a muck-up was not far away. As the
demo flowed back into Geneva, the police attacked it (seriously wounding
a photographer with an explosive grenade) and set off a full scale riot
and pillage session that went on all evening. As a shocked policeman
told it "Really all kinds of people got into it! In one street it was
black block, but in others it was ordinary demonstrators or kids from
the poor suburbs or even just ordinary Genevans. It was like everyone
had gone crazy. And all of them mixed in with innocent bystanders, so we
couldn't do anything!" 

One of the funnier photos is of a middle-aged man with a sweater
casually draped over his shoulders  and the anti-theft gadget still on
it! There was general agreement that this “riot”, spontaneous and
popular, was quite another thing than Saturday night. It illustrated
above all the fragile and constrained nature of the “social contract”
that keeps a large part of the population from serving themselves in the
insolent mountain of luxury piled up downtown, particularly for an ever
wider fringe of young proletarians without any real perspectives. (The
fact that the poorest of the Genevan proles come from suburbs that are
technically “french” obviously only increases the gap between their
revenues and the objects that they have been conditioned to desire.) The
massive presence of the police (not such a problem for the average
citizen, even left-wing), the same that reminds them daily of their
third class status, was probably for them a very concrete image of all
the violence in the system. Given the provocative attitude of the
police, several thousand people seized the occasion to break out of
bounds. The people who planned Saturday night may claim that their
action contributed to this popular outbreak. That is quite possible, but
it’s really a pity that their action should have been so much more
politically undefendable than the spontaneous action of the
“non-political” kids, contributing in advance to their criminalisation. 

Monday, the network against water privatization staged a demo and sit-in
for several hours in front of WTO. After having (maybe intentionally )
totally failed in repressing the more violent stuff of the weekend, the
head of police decided to make an example. German and Swiss-German
police surrounded a perfectly peaceful demo on the main bridge of
Geneva, while two other concentric circles of riot police divided up the
popular quarters between the lake and the station. The demo on the
bridge refused calmly but firmly to be searched or arrested, assisted by
negotiators from the FSL and left wing deputies. As time went by, more
and more people of all kinds started to accumulate in the streets,
curious, in solidarity with the demo on the bridge below or just
irritated by the police occupation. Street musicians started to play,
the police tried to disperse and the whole quarter was suddenly another
fantastic, spontaneous demo. Not much destruction or pillage, the mood
that night was more of playing at resisting the police, who obligingly
supplied water hoses, gas, rubber bullets and ineffectual charges.
Around midnight, the police finally released the original demo (still
hostage on the bridge). 

Tuesday, a small demo tried to march to the TV station to protest
against the repression, but Sunday and Monday had (understandably!)
really got the right scared and mad. All groups of more than 5 people
were declared illegal, and it was the police's turn to riot. Robocops
and masked plainclothes policemen disguised as black block chased and
beat up all the young people in the neighborhood. Mini state of siege in
Geneva! They even filmed the FSL's emergency meeting from a rooftop
opposite, just in case! 

Finally, Friday, the FSL managed to hold a (short!) demo against the
repression, despite the interdiction. 

In short, it was another "summit" of incredible intensity for the
movement. Thousands of people contributing all kinds of energies and
ideas to make all those debates, villages, demos, etc. happen. No doubt
millions of conversations and reflections over months. WTO summits won't
be coming home to Geneva soon! The movement is alive and kicking and
despite all the violence (obviously the only subject in the media) still
well thought of  even by some people who had their windows broken! But
that is also because more and more people distinguish between the
movement and the "troublemakers"- and that is something which should
worry the "radicals". 

Within the movement too, there is a growing group rejecting all kinds of
"violence" because of some of its more stupid manifestations. For
instance, the FSL had no problem accepting masked people in the G8
demos. That probably won't be the case next time, unless we can know
more or less what political intentions are behind them. The age of
innocence of the movement may be over. 

“Diversity of tactics” doesn’t mean that one can do anything anywhere.
On the contrary, it implies respect for the spaces and moments organized
for other forms of expression in the movement. That diversity
corresponds to the diversity of social situations and outlooks
(including gender-based) that are in this enormous movement. The young
“radicals” cannot expect their point of view and forms of action to be
respected if they show blatant disregard for others (for Indymedia, for
the pacifists, for ordinary Genevans, etc.) 

Diversity of tactics recognised in a wide movement also supposes that
"black block" actions are reasonably precise, justifiable and explained 
as they were in Seattle, Prague, etc. If they degenerate into a
No-justice-so-fuck-up-everything perspective (one graffiti said “They
burn the world, let’s burn all the cities!”), the movement will split.
Our rulers are actively trying to arrange this. The most radical
elements will then be criminalized, imprisoned, crushed - as they were
in the 70ties. The less radical will be re-absorbed into the regime.
Let’s not make history stutter! 

The anti-G8 was a big and beautiful moment. No doubt this evaluation
gives too big a place to the problems. But it is really important that
the movement discuss very seriously  beyond the habitual simplifications
for or against "violence"  the very dangerous things that happened
Saturday night in Geneva. This time it could have been "we" who killed
people! It seems as though for some there was at once an escalation in
the forms of action, an abandon of any attempt to explain or be
understood, thus opening up the range of “targets” to include more or
less anything. A radicalisation that is more desperado-nihilist than
libertarian. If this kind of thing continues, wide collectives, able and
willing to convening big mobilizations, will be hard to find  or they
will take “security” measures that will eliminate all the subversive
aspect of the movement. In that regard, there must also be debate and
auto-criticism in the movement with respect to the practice of the FSL
and the coordinations organizing the anti-G8: the sort of 
“co-organizing” with the authorities, the lack of ideological clarity
and of practice which led to errors in the always perverse rapport with
the dominant medias. To preserve the unity and the nature of the
movement, the debate must also criticize certain declarations of people
in the FSL contradictory with its stated positions: elitist
condemnations of the “violent” as not belonging to the movement, regrets
that the police did not better protect downtown or  worse  the proposal
to invite the police into future demos to root out masked elements. 

Action Populaire Contre la Mondialisation (APCM) Geneva 

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