>From
The Ecologist, Vol 31 No 7 September 2001
The carnage at the G8 summit in Genoa was a
turning point for the growing movement against globalisation, says Paul
Kingsnorth. The direction it takes now will either make it unstoppable or
destroy it for a
generation.
It's easier to be wise when you're
still alive. Nevertheless, the death of the 23-year old Italian protester Carlo
Giuliani at July's anti-G8 protests in Genoa was a murder waiting to
happen. And happen it did, in the most horrific way. Shot through the
head by an armed policeman, then run over by his reversing jeep, Giuliani's
body lay on the road for hours, his blood a river in gutters that were made for
rain. I was three streets away when it happened, washing tear gas from my eyes
with lemon water, and I saw the white faces of those who had been there,
flooding past me; escaping. Soon after, I saw the press reports and the angry,
shocked reactions of the activists on the streets. The growing movement
against globalisation and the hijacking of democracy had its first martyr.
Or did it? Some of the grassroots
movements in the South, who have been fighting these battles for years, might
beg to differ. Less than a month before the G8 summit, three students in Papua
New Guinea were gunned down by police as they staged a protest against the
World Bank. Last year, in Cochabamba, Bolivia, two people were shot dead during
mass demonstrations against water privatisation, which forced the government to
renationalise the water company that had increased its prices by 200 per cent,
forcing local people to drink rainwater rather than die of thirst. Dozens have
died in the Zapatista communities of Mexico, which have been fighting the 'death
sentence' imposed upon them by the North American Free Trade Agreement for
seven years. In India, as
the monsoon
raises the water levels behind the Narmada dams, we may soon see hundreds of
deaths amongst the Satyagrahi who have vowed to drown in their villages rather
than succumb to forced relocation for the sake of industrial growth.
The killing in Genoa was really the first
killing amongst the anti-globalisation movement in the West; the first
dead white man, from a `civilised' country. But the tragedy of the shooting is
not the most important aspect of what happened at the G8summit; it has merely
helped to bring into focus hard questions about both the future of the
movement, and the system it is fighting against.
The real story here is about legitimacy
and power. The legitimacy of the G8 leaders and the iniquitous global economic
system they support, but also the legitimacy of the germinal movement against
it, which is growing at stunning speed. The power of those in the governments
and corporations who are busy enclosing, privatising and profiting from the
world; but also the debate about power which this movement must now have if it
is to grow stronger and build a real base of popular support.
But first, the facts. To be on the streets of
Genoa during the summit days was the closest thing to being in a warzone that I
ever hope to experience. I was at the anti-World Bank/IMF protests in Prague
last September, and what happened in Italy made them look like a tea party.
For months, the new far-right
government of medìa-magnate prime minister Silvio Berlusconi had been preparing
for this. He had ordered nothing less than a militarisation of the city centre,
where the eight leaders slept on their luxury yacht, European Vision, and
hobnobbed in the flag-decked Ducal Palace. Between 15,000 and 20,000 soldiers
and police were deployed, armed with live ammunition, rubber bullets, tear gas
launchers, water cannon and armoured personnel carriers. Christopher Columbus
airport, named, with a painful irony, after the founding father of enforced
globalisation, was fitted with surface-to air-missile launchers in case of
`terrorist attack'. Anti-terrorist scuba divers patrolled the harbour.
The city centre was designated a `red
zone', with only residents, journalists and politicos allowed to enter. A l0km
long security fence, five metres high, was set up around the perimeter of the
zone, behind which the carabinieri gathered, their machine guns on prominent display.
The cost of this to the people of Genoa was reckoned by the authorities at 250
billion lire - about $110m.
It was, simply, a four-day police state. Ask
what sort of `democratic' system needs these kind of measures to protect
itself from 200,000 of its own people, and you already have your answer. For
weeks, some activists had been denouncing the measures as 'fascism'. I didn't
agree; fascism is not a word to be used lightly. By the time it was all over,
though, I had used it myself a dozen times.
Rethinking the world
The future of the world was being decided in
Genoa that week. But not by the eight suits in the Ducal palace; the real ideas
which will shape the future were being discussed by a diverse group of thinkers
and doers down in a complex of tents on the seafront. And they gave the lie to
claims that this movement is all about opposition, not solutions.
For five days before the G8
summit began,the Genoa Social Forum (GSF), the umbrella group of 500 Italian
and European NGOs who organised the demonstrations, had set up a series of
workshops, talks and plenary sessions about alternatives to the global economy.
Key thinkers and economists like Walden Bello, Susan George and Nicola Bullard
laid out their alternative economic models. Activists with real achievements
under their belts, from the MST in Brazil, Indian farmers groups, unions and
others talked of strategies for change. Every subject was covered; the meaning
of democracy, ecological worldviews, building a popular base, reforming the
global economy. It was the GSF that week, not the G8, who were pushing the
agenda with the tide of history behind it. But they have a long way to go; what
came next showed that very clearly.
Carnival and crackdown
It all began on Friday 20 July; the day the
summit began. As Air Force One roared over our heads towards Dubya's official
airport reception, to the cheers of thousands giving it the finger on the
ground below, the day began. I joined the determinedly peaceful pink and silver
`tactical frivolity' group as it began its march towards the red zone.
Protests like this follow a familiar pattern: different groups, with different
tactics, take different routes towards their goal. Sometimes they mix,
sometimes they don't. That day, all the groups involved - numbering 20,000,
according to organisers - had vowed to penetrate the red zone and demonstrate
outside the Ducal Palace.
The pink and silver group made their
way up towards the red zone on a route agreed with the authorities. Pink fairies,
samba bands, radical cheerleaders, an old man dressed as the Pope, a `peace
car' and hundreds of whistling, singing activists danced through the winding
streets. They reached the red zone fences, sat down and sang. A man handed
flowers to the police, who threw them to the floor without smiling. This was
carnival, not war; not even the tooled-up police saw them as a threat. But if
any protest highlighted the split - and it is a split - within this movement
between the 'spikies' and the `fluffies' it was this one. Down by the Brignole
station, you could see why.
Black...
There, the
`Black Bloc' were doing their work. Quite who they are is unclear to most
people. Even within the Bloc there are divisions about what to damage - just
the big banks and similar `symbols of capitalism'; or everything you can? Only what to damage,
though. All of them are out for what they like to think is war.
Dressed all in black, marching what
looked like a goosestep to the sound of military drums, the Bloc emerged from
the sidestreets in tandem. First they went for the banks. They broke the
windows and threw the computers out onto the streets. Then they smashed every
window in sight. I nearly ended up in hospital when a masked-up Bloc-er with an
iron bar took exception to my camera. When they set fire to the litter bins,
filling the air with dioxins and pure black smoke, the police disconsolately
fired tear gas at them. Within minutes, it had done its work. When I could see
again, I saw what they had done.
Every
petrol station on their route was trashed. Cars and trucks were set alight.
Every shop front was wrecked - not just the big multinationals, but the small
shops too; shops owned by the ordinary people of the city. More bins burned,
bus shelters and phone boxes fell. Off- licences were broken into and the wine
stolen and drunk. No-one was even pretending this was political anymore. And it
benefited no-one but the G8, who happily used it as an excuse to tar us all
with their Black Brush.
The real shock, though, was the police
reaction. Five hundred vards away, at the Brignole station, around 500
police were marching in circles, slamming their batons on their riot shields
like Zulus at Isandhlwana. And what did they do? Apart from that first
round of tear gas, they did precisely nothing. And it all became clear to me at
that moment: Berlusconi's show of police and military might wasn't there to
defend the lives of the ordinary people of Genoa from the savagery of those
proto-fascists in black. It was there to defend the powerful in the Ducal
Palace, way behind the
fences.
...and
White
Meanwhile,
down at the station, the 'Tute Bianche', or White Overalls, marched in from the
east, with the sun in their eyes. The Overalls were, for my money, the bravest
people in Genoa. Five thousand of them advanced towards the police lines at
Brignole. They pushed, and they pushed. But it didn't work the way it should.
And then the war started.
Protesters rushed the police. Tear gas
canisters shot through the air. They pushed the police lines back and blockaded
the road with barricades of wood and rubbish bins. The police drove their vans
through them at top speed; everyone scattered. It was a wonder no-one died
then. Out came the stun grenades. The tear gas was so thick I could hardly see.
The police retreated. Protesters captured a stalled police van and set it
alight. The police regrouped and rushed them. When the gas cleared, I saw an
unconscious Carabinieri carried back towards me and laid on the pavement, his
face pale, his eyes closed.
And then, the shooting. At first, the
police tried to claim that Giuliani had been killed by a stone thrown by
protesters. But when the pictures came out, they couldn't pretend any
longer. They'd been batoning journalists all day in an attempt to prevent
footage of what they were doing. But it
didn't work.
Freedom of the press
It was hard to believe it could get worse,
but it did. The next day, the international solidarity march through the city
was broken up by police charges and helicopters firing tear gas from the skies.
Then came what, in my view was the worst of it all.
Up on a hill, two miles from the red
zone, in a building agreed with the authorities, the GSF had its
headquarters. Also in the building was the alternative media centre,
where reports from the streets were filed during the summit. Across the road
was a school where activists slept and planned peaceful actions.
At midnight on Saturday 21 July, 200
police sealed off the road and invaded the buildings. They batoned journalists,
smashed the computers, beat up the GSF lawyers and raided the building, taking
away disks, films, computers and even the knives and forks used to
prepare the GSF's pasta lunches. In the school, meanwhile, a literal bloodbath
was taking place. People were batoned as they slept. Blood smeared the walls
and the floors. There was no provocation; it was sheer, bloody, police
brutality. A British journalist was held down in the road outsíde whíle two
police clubbed him unconscious. They left him in a pool of blood. Bodies were
carried out of the school in black bags and on stretchers. Over 30 people ended
up in hospital, one critically injured. Amnesty International declared that it
would investigate. The authorities tried to defend themselves by saying that
`violent actions' had been planned in the buildings. I was in them every day
for a week, and like hundreds of others - including the police themselves - I
know that this was a lie.
Meanwhile, across the city, in the car
park where they had been camping and planning their riots, the Black Bloc were
left to sleep in peace.
Words,
words, words
The G8's reaction to this stunning level of
official repression said more about the moral bankruptcy of its leaders than
all the slogans of the protesters. Berlusconi defended the midnight raid, and
shored up the police lies with more of his own. George Bush managed to call the
shooting 'regrettable'. Tony Blair blamed the protesters for hijacking
`democracy', and not being 'interested in dialogue'. Quite what the leaders of
the G8 have to teach us about democracy is anyone's guess. Blair was elected by
just 25 per cent of his people, while Bush wasn't elected at all. Chirac and Berlusconi
are under investigation for corruption, while Putin's presidency was handed to
him casually by his drunken predecessor without consulting the electorate. This
is what democracy looks like?
And what did the G8 decide behind those
lines? Well, they decided on an inadequate fund aimed at eliminating AIDS in
Africa without threatening the multinational pharmaceutical firms which profit
from it. They decided that global warming was a problem but that,
realistically, there wasn't much they could do about it. Oh, and they agreed to
launch a new trade round - the thing that most of the activists feared most,
and which the GSF speakers had been denouncing all week. The thing that will
strengthen this movement more than anything else, as a further wave of
corporate power-grabbing forces millions more off the land, into the dole
queues of the West and the burning shanties of the South.
'The most effective poverty recluction
strategy,' read the official, end-of-summit communique, `is to maintain a strong,
dynamic, open and growing global economy. We pledge to do that.' It is these
words, issued Canute-like from behind those lines of steel and lead, which make
it clear why this movement is needed; now more than ever.
What
now?
Genoa seems to have initiated a sea-change in
attitudes to summits of this sort; perhaps even to global governance and
economics in general. Even the mainstream media in Britain - even some
politicians - are now openly questioning the legitimacy not only of the G8 as
an institution, but of all such opaque, global forums.
For the movement, this is good news.
But it brings with it hard questions. What was achieved? Where do we go from
here? And, most of all - what are we for?
History is shifting around us at
dizzying speed. On every continent, increasing numbers of people are reacting
against the destruction of the natural world, the privatisation of
resources, and power-grabbing corporations. Increasingly, they see themselves
as part of a global struggle against the corporate-driven economic system which
needs these things for its very survival. Five years ago, this movement
barely existed. The moment is rapidly approaching for it to shift up a gear, to
make real changes. If it fails, the chance will be lost for another generation.
The question is: how? And Genoa has thrown that question into sharp relief by
highlighting both the strengths and weaknesses of the movement.
Talkin` bout a revolution
The first question concerns violence. It is a
hard fact, uncomfortable for fluffy white liberals, that no real, radical
social and economic change has ever been achieved without some level of
violence. The Labour movement, the franchise movement, the womens' movement,
the anti- apartheid movement, even Gandhi's Indian liberation movement - were
all born through some level of blood and fire. It is a hard fact, too, that the
serious debates about globalisation we now see in even the dimmest newspapers,
and which politicians and corporations are beginning to fear, would not have
come about through any number of polite plenary sessions, negotiations or
respectable press releases from blue-chip NGOs. It is the turmoil on the
streets of Seattle, Prague, and now, Genoa, which have thrown them into sharp
focus.
Nevertheless, much of the violence in
Genoa was both self-defeating and disempowering. There is a big difference
between tearing down symbolic fences and hurling rocks at policemen; between
destroying a bank and destroying a small greengrocers; the same moral difference
as that between destroying GM crops and sending letter bombs to
vivisectionists. The real problem in Genoa was that the vast majority of
people - happy to haul down the fences around the red zone and peacefully,
symbolically, loudly and crazily occupy the halls of power - were hemmed in on
both sides by the fascist tactics of both the police and the Black Bloc and
their allies.
And this is what brings us to the real
issue - not violence, but power.
Power
struggles
What Genoa highlighted most of all was the
division between the old and new in this movement - a division which can only
grow and which will soon split the movement in two. And so it should. For only
that way can we begin to gain the popular base we need to justify the change we
demand.
The old left was out in force in
Genoa - communists, the Socialist Workers Party, and plenty of others.
Still calling each other 'comrades', still talking about the 'proletariat', and
still demanding a revolution for which they have no popular support. They
talked of power as if it was something concentrated at the top of society -
something to be seized by them, and used in the interests of 'the people.' As
if this had ever worked before. As if this wouldn't inevitably lead to the
oppressed becoming the oppressors. Along with some of the hard nuts and Black
Bloc-ers on the streets, this 'old' movement is part of the problem, not
the solution - the past, not the future.
The future, in Genoa, and in the
movement as a whole, is to be seen in the growing voice which demands that
power be looked at in a totally different way: not as something to be used by
an elite on behalf of everyone else; not as something to be concentrated, but
as something to be dispersed. Fuelled by movements in the South where this has
worked for centuries - tribal people, villagers, farming communities and others
- it looks to a future where power is dissolved and localised. A future, in
other words, of genuine democracy. This is the new movement. As yet, it has no
manifesto and no leaders. Maybe it doesn't need them.
What it does need to do is distinguish
itself from the old left, the Statists, the car-burners and the petrol-bombers
who claim to be part of the same struggle. They are not. You believe in
the people, or you believe that the people need to be controlled - either by
armed police, fences and corporate power, or by 'Peoples' States', militaristic
violence and revolutionary dogma. That is what separates the movement of the
future from the remnants of those of the past. That is what this movement must
now, unashamedly, become. If it fails, we will all have faíled, and our
children will be left to pick up the pieces.
Paul Kingsnorth is currently writing a book
about the new glohal resistance movement, to be published by Simon and Schuster
in spring 2003.
--
Chris Keene, Coordinator, Anti-Globalisation Network 90 The Parkway,
Canvey Island, Essex SS8 0AE, England Tel 01268 682820 Fax 01268
514164
--- Coordinación europea - European Coordination - Coordination
européenne.v