I think the success of the direct action blockade in Seattle, the success of J-18 in London, and the success of the rioting in Prague was down to the fact that the prole mob held the element of surprise, of initiative. The State in Genoa successfully adapted to all direct action tactics. A blockade was useless against the fortress-city. Ya Basta! found the police violence too much for their non-violent self defence. While the Black Bloc was broken up both by being surrounded in their sleeping areas in some cases and in others by surprise attack. Others opted for symbolic tokenistic protest or for marching as a rally part of another direct action altogether (i.e. the base unions and much of the Italian Anarchist movement whose orientation was toward a march in support of the strike wave). Of course rioters have no answer for live ammunition once that particular Rubicon is crossed. Furthermore the State violence, in particular the raid on Diaz school, has had the effect of intimidating people away from similar summit protest actions.
On the plus side there was a massive reaction from many Italians, with large protests in most cities and seemingly many more people arriving for Saturday's march. The police violence appears to have undermined the legitimacy of the Italian government. Reports suggest that a similar situation is to be found in Sweden in regard to the State violence at the Gothenburg demonstrations.
Slightly more cynically it was certainly an education for many people in the reality of State power (State violence/State control as the song says) and just how much the paper that says 'democracy' and 'rule of law' is worth. Today the capitalist complacency, the P.R. exercise surrounding summit meetings has well and truly been disrupted.
However we need to recognise the improbability of closing down conferences of this nature in the future when the full forces of the State are deployed to protect them, as was the case in Genoa. Certainly these major mobilisations need new tactics , or modification of existing tactics, but should we not be putting these energies in to somewhere else where we might now achieve more. Such as local action against specific things effecting the community and also international mobilisations but perhaps now directed at other targets (i.e. in support of a particular local action), or a move back to the J-18 tactic of simultaneous actions across the world. In any case I think summit protests will probably continue thus so does the question of how we as anarchists respond to them.
Certainly I think one thing sorely lacking in Genoa was any attempt to propagandise the multitude of activists there &endash; this despite the provision of space for info-shops in the G.S.F. convergence centre. Don't get angry at the liberals and lefties get organised and convince, the only way to defeat these essentially pro-capitalist elements is to wage 'a battle of ideas' in favour of libertarian ideals.
Clearly the answer to the question where do we go from here? is to put down roots into the wider non-activist community and turn what has been a protest movement into a social movement. Summit protests have probably had their day, given that there will be no more fluke shutting down of conferences. Nonetheless while they exist we should be there using the opportunity to spread anarchist ideas.
There is of course a major political division within the "Seattle", "anti-globalisation", "anti-capitalist", "Summit-protest" , call it what you will, movement.
On the one hand you have N.G.O.'s, leftist parties, and Trade Union bureaucracies, aiming to, through "peaceful protest" (in inverted commas because this often precludes any direct action, non-violent or otherwise and also because I think you will find most genuine pacifists on the other side of this division) put pressure on governments to introduce reforms, or to give a place at the negotiating table/in the management of capitalism to the reformist leaders so they can introduce reforms.
To do this you have to appear 'reasonable', i.e. 'reasonable' within a Statist and Capitalist paradigm.
In other words what 'peaceful protest' translates as is ineffective marching, essentially lobbying en masse.
On the other hand you have people, anarchists and radical environmentalists, who see each protest as a step towards the transformation of society, through raising awareness and empowering people through direct action. Obviously the radicals pose a threat to the reformists.
Both because they can gain influence at the reformists expense and because they refuse to play by Capitalism's rules.
Not helping are fairly blatant attempts to divide the movement by politicians and the corporate media.
I'm now going to look at which approach is actually the more effective. The strength of reformism is that it seems likely that a few changes could be achieved far more easily than a total revolutionary change. Actually this is often not the case, for example, the Green Party's idea of having a guaranteed minimum income supplied by the state to every citizen, with this income to be set above poverty levels. Of course if this was introduced the amount of taxation necessary to pay for it would be such that it would produce massive capital flight, there would be no incentive for businesses to invest or operate at all in the country and it is highly likely that a lot less people would work also.
So some reforms are unworkable cause they go against the logic of capitalism.
Others actually make little difference, take for example Votes for Women. Which incidentally only came about, at least in Britain, through a massive campaign of illegal direct action and property damage. This legislative change changed women's lives and the status of women very little. Likewise aiming to see an end to the debt ignores that the money this would free into the hands of "Third World" elites would most probably be spent on the same things the loans were spent on in the first place, i.e. ostentatious consumption, arms, and industrial and infrastructural projects benefiting a tiny minority of the population. Indeed members of some of these dynasties have personal fortunes which could pay off their states debt.
One aspect of the reformist approach is getting their people in there to manage Capitalism (e.g. in government, in a consultative role at World Bank meetings). The recent German experience gives us a perfect illustration of the futility of this. The German Green party in government is managing capitalism, German industry needs nuclear power, German business needs war, thus the German Green party, if it wants to be in government must accept nuclear power and N.A.T.O.. The very things the removal of which was central to it's agenda of reforms.
A government of a capitalist society cannot go against the logic of capitalism. Thus what appears a lot easier to achieve than a total social revolution is actually unattainable.
Unattainable that is through reformist means, a campaign of direct action was hampering the nuclear industry (and of course it could have been hampering it a lot more if less energy had been wasted on the legalistic respectable avenues the system holds out for us). Similarly a campaign of direct action could prevent the participation of any state in a war.
There were pseudo-protestors in Seattle, Prague and Barcelona, in fact we could be as absolutely sure before hand that there would be similar in Genoa as we could be sure that there would be baton charges, tear gas, armoured personnel carriers and the other accruements of state repression. Why then is the existence of pseudo-protestors dominating post-Genoa commentary? This is for a number of reasons. Firstly, recent Italian history (which I will not be addressing in this essay as I have dealt with it previously; see: http://struggle.ws/freeearth/fe3_italy.html
Secondly, genuine confusion (for example, I have seen one report questioning how can we believe that the Black Bloc were anarchists 'cause they had a marching band with them!, I happen to like marching bands!, maybe they mean something else in different cultures, and this is perhaps a product of the self imposed isolation of radical elements in Genoa).
Thirdly, it does seem that Black Bloc property destruction did get out of hand, whether this was the product of State agents or pissed up youths is anyone's guess (but the presence or non-presence of State agents is a very different issue than the portrayal of the Black Bloc as an instrument of the State).
Fourthly, politically motivated disinformation put out by various Leninist parties, such as the Socialist Worker's Party and Italy's Communist Refoundation Party.
I'm going to deal with issues internal to the Black Bloc first .
It is important to that any tactic apart from it's intrinsic value or lack of value is only as good as how it is put into effect, who puts it into effect and where it is put into effect. The Black Bloc originated in Germany in the 1980's as a bloc with the intent of overcoming lefty and liberal dominance of protest movements (and the legalistic ineffectiveness that comes with it) and taking direct action against the police and neo-nazis rather than accepting their violence or perversely asking the State to do something about it. It was pioneered in Germany by Marxist Autonomen (who do have similarities with Anarchism but contrary to what you have read in the lefty and corporate press are not Anarchists).
It was later imported to the United States with a slightly different intent, that of overcoming the situation where anarchists had little public face at demonstrations as left/liberal groups had a tendency to ban them from speaking platforms consequently the appearance of a bloc of people all dressed in black marching together was a sort of advertisement for those people's ideas.
In the United States the Black Bloc then has meant a range of tactics depending on whatever event, for instance, I think it was primarily in North America where the property destruction tactic was added on (but not exclusively so).
For the benefit of the confused I should stress that a bloc simply means a gathering of people at a demonstration with similar intent, the black bloc is not an organisation, and the black bloc at one event may mean something different from at another event (generally speaking though it tends to be the most militant section of the crowd).
The black bloc in general is not exclusively anarchist, it was not an anarchist idea and anarchists do not have a monopoly on militant direct action therefore the presence of Maoists, Basque Nationalists or whatever does not represent some sort of corruption of the Black Bloc.
Furthermore it appears most anarchists in Genoa were with syndicalist rank and file unions and not with the Black Bloc.
Obviously it is preferably to think that some of the stupider actions were carried out by police agents but we actually do not know that (I will address this issue later).
As I understand it, the idea behind property destruction is twofold: Firstly some people see this as a way to court publicity, which it certainly does &endash; incident free demonstrations are rarely covered. I do not think we should be trying to get the corporate media to do our job for us as it will only be hostile.
That said anarchism has a far higher public profile now, than before the likes of Seattle, and J-18, largely down to property destruction, which is fair enough, but if this continues it will be a public profile of anarchism equals property destruction and nothing more.
Secondly, it is seen as a empowering direct action (the same as shutting down a conference), using physical force against symbols of capitalism.
Personally I think if it ever had a use, it's use value is over, certainly if we are in a situation where the property destruction is at an event which had a clear target of far greater symbolic importance, where the area is residential rather than a central business district and certainly in a situation where something starts with banks and so on being trashed but ends up with traffic lights being trashed.
The most important thing to remember is a good deal of the property destruction in Genoa happened not in an area like the City of London, where the banks or whatever have as their customers other businesses but in a working class residential area where I think for a few days people had a very hard time trying to find a working A.T.M. (plus people's flats and cars burnt etc..).
This is just counter-productive, about as counter-productive as I can imagine, the amenities of a community being smashed up. If we cannot be sure that property destruction (which I'm not much in favour of in the first place) will be properly targeted and not degenerate completely into rioting vandalism it needs to be knocked on the head completely.
Moving on to co-ordination it is clear from events in Genoa that being 'the most militant section of the crowd' (or the Black Bloc) is not enough, the lack of a greater unifying element coupled with the lack of prior organisation enabled the State to splinter the Bloc in the long march to the Red Zone, led to a situation where people pissed off at the actions of others in the Bloc fucked off and it also allowed stupid actions to take place.
This I feel was a problem which primarily occurred 'cause of the long distances involved, the lack of decent maps and the complete isolation of the Black Bloc from the Genoa Social Forum. Whereas in Prague there appears to have been no more organisation but a lot less isolation and a lot less city to cross, so the Bloc had it's own path and a more or less immediate target for it's energies.
A stewarding section to direct the path of the Bloc and prevent stupidities would have helped a lot, as would have the local movement providing a organisational focus (i.e. them having done the planning in the months before hand rather than planning being done by internationals in the days before hand), and a 'spokescouncil' in effect weeks prior to the days of the events itself eg. discussion between delegates of groups and organisation sending people to the protest. In other words a lot more co-ordination.
The first thing it is important to remember is that of all the factions at Genoa only the White Overalls and the Black Bloc attempted to address the problem of police violence, others seemed content to assume that peaceful protestors meant peaceful police, or seemed content to marshal their followers into a situation where they would inevitably be the victims of state repression and then content to blame another section of protesters for the inevitable.
The second thing it is important to remember is that authoritarian left wing groups have a long track record of crying 'provocation' , 'state agent' at people whose actions or ideas are a threat to their bids for power.
The (Irish) Socialist Worker no.156 baldly asserts "There is now overwhelming evidence that the Black Block was given free rein to do anything it wanted in Genoa."
This is so obviously absurd it amazes me to think that anyone could think the reading public (albeit the Socialist Worker reading public) so uniformed as to believe it. Needless to say, none, that's it none, zero, zilch, sweet fuck all, of this "overwhelming evidence" is actually produced for inspection by Socialist Worker.
Given that this crap is actually being regurgitated by the so-called alternative press and not just the corporate media, perhaps, scary thought the thought is, it is being believed. So let's examine the claims.
"Free rein to do anything they wanted" remarkably the state and media have managed to keep silent the story of how the Black Bloc fought their way into the Red Zone, hospitalised half of Italy's police force (and I think half of Italy's police force were there) and guillotined several world leaders. "Free rein" I think the S.W.P. imagining that a free rein for protestors includes the use of live ammunition gives us the clearest indication yet that the policing policy of a future S.W.P. run workers utopia will greatly resemble that pioneered by their idols.
The only "overwhelming evidence" I have seen is "overwhelming evidence" of the death of a young man, who was most likely a Black Blocker, given his actions, politics, lifestyle and clothing.
Looking back at history they say that: "Small anarchist groups were occasionally infiltrated by neo-fascists and the secret services who tried to persuade, bribe or black mail them into carrying out their own acts of low-level terrorism."
This manages to ignore that the "left-wing terrorism" in this period was overwhelmingly Marxist-Leninist in political content, e.g. the Red Brigades. Furthermore far from low-level this included the kidnapping and murder of Aldo Moro, the Prime Minister, and "terrorism" is completely rejected by most anarchists (there may have been anarchist "terrorism" in this period of Italian history, I say may 'cause I'm not sure and open minded enough to include it as a possibility however it was completely overshadowed by the Leninist and Fascist variety!). Furthermore the Black Bloc tactic has nothing to do with "terrorism", as the S.W.P. well know, as they, like all good Trotskyists, know they difference between individualist terrorism and mass action.
The English Socialist Worker criticizes the police for not taking action against potential Black Bloc people prior to Friday's action and basically give the impression that it was entirely composed of police agents, or infiltrated to the extent that it might as well have been. This rag goes on to deliver a stunningly brilliant criticism of masking up, it apparently makes you an easy target for infiltrators, such as the massive amount of police and fascists within the Black Bloc (again no evidence is produced), of course not masking up makes you an easy target for gas and cameras, but this simple fact seems to have eluded the vanguard.
Ironically another group of Marxists has claimed on Indymedia that part of the Russian-Ukrainian delegation invited over, and funded, by ATTAC , who the International Socialist Tendency, i.e. the S.W.P. abroad, marched with, included leaders from the 'Red-Brown' movement which is basically the Russian version of the International Third Position/National Bolshevism/Strasserite Nazis, these were not infiltrators but were perfectly open, above ground, and prominent in the delegation! . Interestingly there were no denials of this post on Indymedia but just responses from people supportive of the 'Red-Browns'. Incidentally some of the "Red-Browns' in question apparently included Putin supporters, invited by ATTAC, who condemn the violence of the Black Bloc! .
Actually other Socialist Worker reports would seem to contradict this black Bloc=agents of the state acting with impunity 'analysis'.
"We learned that the streets around it had been absolutely devastated, with hand to hand fighting between the Black and Blue Blocs." (Blue Bloc meaning police). (from 'Belfast with Sunshine' http://www.struggle.ws/global/redjoe.html )
Three observations: One there may be genuine confusion and disagreement, for example (and all of the following happened): Credito Italiano, a credit union, no actually it's a bank. An independent cinema, no actually it's a porn cinema. A multinational oil company, no actually it's a small shop. Smashing traffic lights, a police agent? Or someone who thinks if you smash traffic lights tomorrow there will be traffic jams thereby taking up resources which could be used against us. Smashing bus shelters, a police agent? Or someone trying to spread glass across the road so as to hinder the movement of rubber tyred police vehicles. Moving bins into the middle of the road, senseless destruction or barricade making?
Just a little illustration of the fact that two eyewitnesses may be looking at the same thing but seeing something very different.
Again the main problem was where the property destruction was happening and the fact that there was a far more important target, i.e. the Red Zone.
The Second observation. There have been reports of an absence of anarchist graffiti where some of the decidedly un-cool property damage had taken place, whereas elsewhere there was thrashed banks adorned with anarchist graffiti.
Does this suggest - Police agents? Fascists? Or perhaps just non-anarchist rioters!!!! Yes they do exist. Where was the heaviest fighting and most of this property damage such as cheap cars being used for barricades &endash; the White Overalls march! Where there was only a small number of Black Bloc, the main body being elsewhere. Allow me to quote from someone who was on that march "Then barricades would be built, with dumpsters, cars, anything at hand. ( my emphasis) The front lines would retreat nursing wounds and poisoned eyes. The more seriously injured would be carried to ambulances. One man was carried by with blood splurting from his eye where a canister had hit him. New people rushed to the front, while others tore up the pavement for ammunition. A tall Irish man fell back saying " We almost got through, we almost did it, we just need a few more people!"
Another surge, everybody rushed forward on 2 or 3 different streets. Some riot cops got stranded in their retreat and hand-to-hand fighting ensued. The people fighting are not necessarily in black, some are masked. Some have helmets. It is not the Black Block, and there are no agent provocateurs. This is a militant energy driven by people who have said- Ya Basta!, fuck the police, rage, energy, resolve." (from 'Death and Terror in Genoa' http://www.stuggle.ws/global/genoa/ramor.html )
The assurance that there are no agent provocateurs involved in this situation is interesting isn't it?
The third observation, a comment on the June 18th disturbances in London, from the pages of Organise! The magazine of the Anarchist Federation, "Some idiots just attacked anyone/thing in the City, regardless" (Organise issue 52).
Finally if you are saying that little evidence exists to justify the hullabaloo about police agents, then can this be construed as a stubborn defence of the Black Bloc? Hardly, for that means that the extremely stupid damage which took place and furthermore the disorganisation which meant that Black Bloc was divided and parts ended up mixed in with other blocs and so on was the responsibility of the Black Bloc and not the police!
We cannot expect what amounts to a mob riot to be 'picture perfect' and if we want more than a mob riot we need to organise accordingly. Equally we cannot expect the State to be peaceful.