arch/ive/ief (2000 - 2005)

My first port of call was Indymedia, which is a left-wing attempt to bypass the bourgeois media. I found it notably well organised though that did not stop crises from breaking out from time to time. The main hall in Cinema Nova, central Brussels, where it was based, was packed with PC's and people typing away on them or talking into mobile phones, and the walls were covered in A3 posters written in coloured marker giving contact details and information about events, rapidly updated as and when necessary.

My belief that most of the left cannot organise its way out of a wet paper bag was dealt a blow by this spectacle. Incidentally, anarchists, Trotskyists and Stalinists seemed to be able to stay in the same room without blood erupting onto the carpet, a fact which was also welcome though surprising.

I went to the huge TU march on the 13th, which I believe was in excess of 100,000 people. One of the things I like about the really big marches is that it is so much easier to hand out leaflets, even when your hands are turning blue with cold. At such a march you also got some idea of the latent power of TU's and the working class generally, if it could be but harnessed.

The march on the 14th was predictably smaller and mainly consisted of the usual suspects, but was still impressive. I estimated about 25,000 participants. There was also trouble, though I did not witness it personally - just some Belgian gendarmes in riot gear rushing off to some kind of trouble which I could not see.

The following day I went to an anti-war march from the Free University of Brussels. This was the smallest of the three, with perhaps 5,000 taking part. Later I went back to Indymedia and met a Belgian activist I know. She said she had been one of those detained by the police the previous day. She showed me pictures she had taken of suspected agent provocateurs who had mostly disguised themselves as anarchists, and said these provocateurs were responsible for at least part of the trouble that day.

All in all, these days were a worthwhile event which highlighted the left's strengths and weaknesses and also showed that the state is not idle.

Felix