arch/ive/ief (2000 - 2005)

Actions at the EU summit in Ghent had a brilliant atmosphere.
But it's very depressing that there has been so little media attention for issues such as the link between globalisation and conflict, sustained poverty promoting extremism (and in the end terrorism), and other such issues the protesters put forward. In general, media attention was very minimal.
Because the Ghent protests were very powerful because of the strong, vibrant and musical atmosphere, it was very motivating for all protesters, from the more militant and anarchist, to moderates. Protesters made a very strong effort in remaining nonviolent this time, despite their increased anger because of the bombings.

But then the morning after, reading the papers, this motivation was dented. International media gave very minimal attention to the protests, although there were at least 15.000 people which is very much, considering Ghent was only an informal in-between EU summit - it was equal to Prague or Gothenburg in numbers. Belgian media such as 'De Morgen' portrayed the thing as 'Woodstock' like, creating a new protester archetype, quoting 16 year old protesters having fun but not being able to give a very elaborate view on globalisation.
First there was the protester prototype of the violent nihilist black block autonom, when the American AFL CIO union declared solidarity there was this portrayal of the nationalist and protectionist union member just interested in his own social security, and now the main body of protesters consist of naive sixteen year old hippies.

For militants, it does not stimulate to make such a strong effort for nonviolence, to just choose for marching and reclaiming the streets in stead of assaulting the conference centre, when media only report the protests when they escalate in to riots. Remember that this movement did not start in Seattle (eg. there were 50.000 protesting the Amsterdam EU summit in'97, or 100.000 in Madrid to protest the IMF/World Bank meeting), but these protests did not effectively try to disrupt the summit. Only when militant resistance replaced peaceful protest and the WTO summit failed because of this in Seattle, media started talking about this 'new movement'. Which is included in new anti-terrorist EU measures, that state all kinds of 'urban violence' is terrorism.