Something That Comes Together At Protests

[curt]

The Black Bloc & Violence vs.Useless Symbolic, Peaceful Demonstrations. Want a Revolution? Well, get ready for some very ugly times. It aint gonna be pretty.

[curt]

I begin my day with a strong cup of coffee, a fortune cookie and the Black Bloc.......

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Bashing the Black Bloc?

We believe that part of the purpose of this magazine is to address issues that anarchists may find controversial. This essay represents the opinion of one member of the WSM - we hope this will add to the debate, and would like to receive responses from other anarchists.

Although the basic idea of the Black bloc has been around for years, it only really entered the public consciousness after the Seattle demonstrations. But after two years of Black Blocs at all the major summit protests, has the Black Bloc tactic reached the end of its usefulness? What role should anarchists play in the anti-globalisation protests? Are they still relevant at all?

The four main summits of the last four years - Seattle, Prague, Quebec, and Genoa - have all been different, and the Black Bloc has been different at each one. The Seattle protest, though it involved far fewer people than some of the later protests, was probably the most effective. Because it was the first protest of its kind the police and the summit organizers weren't prepared, and protestors were able to block access to the summit for most of the day, causing major disruption. The Black Bloc played a relatively small part in the blockade, but received a major part of the news coverage. The two types of action - blockades and property destruction - pointed to a new kind of protest, protest that was visible, illegal, and more concerned with getting results than with making a symbolic point.

Since Seattle, summit organizers have been more prepared, and they know that they'll have to deal with protests, so each summit has seen an increased level of security. In Prague, all entrances to the summit were guarded by the police, making it impossible for the protestors to mount an effective blockade. Different sections of the protest had different reactions. One group, the Pinks, marched around the conference center, and didn't try to breach the perimeter (though they did enter the summit area when they found an unguarded section). Another, the Yellows, were led by Ya Basta, and chose to take symbolic action. Their attempt to simply push their way through the police lines could never succeed, but was intended to show that they were going beyond simply passive demonstrations. The third block, the Blue block, wanted to take more direct action, and tried to punch through the police lines to get to the summit, or at least the subway station that would be transporting the delegates, blockading them inside the conference center. In their willingness to destroy property, and actually fight the police, this group consciously thought of themselves as an anarchist Black Bloc.

In Quebec, the level of security increased again, and again the situation changed. The erection of the perimeter fence, and the raids on squats in the days before the summit, raised the stakes even higher. Like in Prague, the protestors responded by dividing the protest area into zones, so people could choose the level of illegality and confrontation with which they were comfortable. Here, as in Seattle, there was a separate Black Bloc, though unlike in Seattle this Black Bloc concentrated on attacking the summit, confronting police and trying to get through the perimeter fence.

Most recently, the Genovese protests, on the day of direct action at least, operated on the understanding that different tactics would be used by different groups of protestors, each in different areas. Although poor advance co-ordination was a factor, the major problem protestors faced in Genoa was the large, and very active, police presence. As well as having formidable perimeter fencing, the police attacked the protestors on their way to the perimeter, stopping some groups from getting near the fence and forcing other elements of the protest together. The Black Bloc, which intended to try to break into the summit, ended up destroying banks and shops in the streets of Genoa.

With every summit, with every escalation of security, the conditions that made Seattle possible are getting further away. In Seattle it was possible to have large numbers of people taking part in an action that wasn't especially illegal or confrontational (any more than a Reclaim the Streets or Critical Mass) and yet directly achieved its aims of closing the summit. But now that the barricades have gone up, protestors seem to be left with two alternatives - return to symbolic, peaceful protests, that have no (direct) effect, or move on to very illegal and highly-planned protests that might be directly effective. (And every time summit security is increased, the level of illegality and planning required to breach that security is also increased.)

Alongside this growing problem there is the constant question of the Black Bloc. Its difficult to even define what the Black Bloc is, let alone to decide what part it could play in the summit protests. It may have started out as a purely anarchist grouping (though one which many anarchists avoid) but it's not a permanent grouping, it's just something that comes together at protests. Being in the Black Bloc just means being willing to break the law, destroy property, or fight with the police to achieve the aims of the protest. As such, many non-anarchists will happily join the block, to the extent that one of the Black Blocs in Genoa contained a group of Maoists.

The Black Bloc's willingness to destroy property may be what sets them apart from other protestors, but there is also some division within the block about what this should mean. On the one hand, there are those willing to use 'violence' for a particular purpose, to take down a fence or barricade, or get past police lines, as part of disrupting a summit. At the other extreme are those who think that opposing global capitalism means opposing all of its manifestations, and attacking shops, cars, and the police whenever possible. Most people seem to be somewhere in the middle, not having a problem with people attacking banks or chain stores, but sometimes questioning whether it's being done at the expense of more important things, or thinking that people should take more care in their choice of targets.

The continuing increase in the level of summit security is going to particularly affect the Black Bloc. We saw in Genoa that the police are ready to stop large, amorphous groups like the Black Bloc from getting close to a summit. So, added to the choices of symbolic, peaceful protests, or highly planned, very illegal protests, anarchists can also join a Black Bloc which, from the outset, won't be able to do any more than attack shops and banks.
Revolutionary cells?

There is already an activist tradition of going underground to carry out actions. Arson attacks on corporate property generally aren't advertised in advance, any more than Animal Liberation Front raids. If secrecy is the price of effective action, then plenty of people are willing to pay it. But is it worth it?

What made the Seattle blockade effective? At first glance, Seattle - and all of the summit protests - have been important because they used direct action. Protestors didn't restrict themselves to polite lobbying of politicians, or to polite demonstrations that stayed within the approved routes - they set out to stop the summits themselves. But stopping the summits isn't much of a goal in itself. No-one believes that stopping the WTO or G8 from having these large meetings will actually stop them from operating. Nothing happens at these meetings that couldn't be organized some other way.

The summits are themselves symbolic acts - opportunities for the powerful to assert their authority, publicise and legitimize their institutions, and reinforce the belief that their way is the only way for the world to run. This means that the protests against the summits are also symbolic actions, no matter how effective they are. In themselves, they don't change the world, any more than the summits do. But they demonstrate an alternative - they show that you don't have to leave decisions up to others, that it's possible for large numbers of people to come together and organize themselves, that direct action and direct democracy are possible.

That is the real point of the summit protests, and that's what we must remember when we work out how to deal with future summits. Mass democratic participation is not just a tactic to be adopted or discarded - it's the most important thing about these protests. That's what's wrong with, to take one example, some of the plans being circulated for stopping the G8 summit in Alberta. It's all very well to suggest that groups of anarchists should live in the woods for the month before the summit, planning various acts of sabotage - some of the plans may even be workable. But why bother? What is the possible gain from a tiny group of people adopting tactics that, by their nature, exclude the vast majority of people? It's not going to stop any decisions being made by the G8, because those decisions will be made anyway, somewhere else if not there. And there is no 'public relations' victory to be won - that was won the day the G8 admitted that they had to meet in such an isolated location.

The same arguments can be made when the summits are in more accessible locations, protected by lines of fences, armoured cars and riot police, rather than miles of wilderness. By their adoption of such extreme security measures, the G8/WTO/World Bank admit that they have lost a lot of public support. The summits no longer function as self-congratulatory press conferences when they are held in a militarized zone, to the extent that even people who support the World Bank or the G8 wonder what purpose the summits serve. So we have to ask what we would be gaining by disrupting them, especially given the tactics that would be required.

For all that activist cells and secret societies have long been part of the revolutionary tradition, they are deeply problematic for anarchism. While Leninists and authoritarians of all descriptions have no problems with decisions being made by an elite minority, a central tenet of anarchism is that decisions should be made by the people affected by them. That kind of democratic control is ruled out if the movement, or the anarchist part of it, goes underground - we'll be left with small groups doing what they think is in everyone's interests, instead of everyone getting a chance to make their own decisions.

It would be disastrous for anarchism in the long term too. Again, the Leninists think it's possible for a small group of people to take control, and usher in a better society, but it's not that simple for us. Anarchism has to be the free and conscious creation of the majority of people in society, which means that a lot of people are going to have to be convinced that it's a good, workable idea. That work is almost impossible if we can't show our faces in public, if at every demonstration the anarchists are hidden in the crowd. The bourgeois media will always be happy to portray anarchism as mindless violence - if we don't show that there's also a positive side to anarchism, no-one else will.

That doesn't mean that we have to become absolute pacifists, or that we have to rule out all violence/property destruction, before or during the revolution. There may still be cases when 'violence' is the best solution to the problem - fighting fascism for example. But there are costs to this course of action, and all too often they seem to be ignored. The decisions about which tactic to use isn't based on what's best for advancing anarchism, its about how exciting it is to mask up and break things, against how boring it is to try to persuade people. If the Black Blocs continue at summit protests, will it be because people have weighed up their pros and cons and decided they are the most effective tactic, or because people like to dress up in gas masks and bandanas?

Of course there's another reason for the Black Block. As well as using violence/property destruction as a means to an end, to try to break police lines and close down a summit, there's an argument that destroying corporate property (or just private property) is a useful goal in itself. (Though it can also end up advancing other goals - I'm sure one reason so few cities are keen to host summits these days is because of the level of small-scale destruction they can expect to endure. They can seal off the conference centers, but they can't barricade every business in the city). How could it be alright to attack a World Bank meeting, but wrong to attack a high street bank? They are both elements of the same system, just operating on a different scale. How can it be wrong to attack a summit that paves the way for sweatshops, but wrong to attack a company that is directly involved in those same sweatshops? Or to attack a shop that sells sweatshop-made goods? Or sells food produced in equally horrendous conditions?

There is some legitimacy to these arguments. Sure, breaking up a McDonalds isn't going to stop global capitalism, but neither is breaking up a summit meeting. We don't accept that damaging property is the same as injuring people - in fact, it's a pretty sad reflection of our current society that the two are equated - so why is this even being argued about? If a company participates in, or just supports, the oppression of actual, existing people, what's wrong with breaking their windows? Why should we shed tears for Nike?

On the other hand, what does it actually accomplish? Smashed windows won't even dent the profits of a multinational, especially not if they can pass the cost on to someone else. Broken windows don't convince anyone either. If they come at the end of a long campaign, people may understand why a particular shop was attacked, but otherwise it's just seen as random. (And, in Genoa at least, some of it was completely random) So it comes back to the same question again - are we choosing based on our wish to see an anarchist society? Or are we just blowing off steam?

It's not quite that simple, because there's something to be said for blowing off steam. There are so many restrictions on life in capitalist society that it's worth taking the chances you get to throw off those restrictions. Being an anarchist activist shouldn't mean sitting through endless meetings and paper sales, we also have to seize our freedoms when we can, and if a demonstration can be turned into a party, that's great. But one demonstration isn't going to change society, and no matter how good the party is - or how destructive the riot is - as long as capitalism continues all our victories can only be temporary. So we've got to keep a balance, making sure our short-term gratification isn't making our long term goals harder to reach. We're fighting for the whole world, and not just for a week.

Perhaps the biggest challenge the anti-globalisation movement faces at the moment is to realize that this first round is over, and we've won. Summits will never be the same again - instead of open displays of power and confidence, staged in the major cities of the west, the World Bank, WTO, IMF, and G8 have to meet in the Canadian wilderness, or in a repressive state like Qatar. They've been forced onto the defensive - they're the ones that have to justify their existences, and they have to do so from behind lines of barricades and riot cops.

As they've withdrawn, we've gained in confidence. The world is full of networks of activists, sharing information and working together on a scale few would have dreamed of a few years ago. And these networks have been built democratically, from the ground up. Delegates and spokescouncils, ideas that few had heard of a couple of years ago, are now common currency. Many new groups organize without leaders as a matter of course, and more and more people are questioning the idea that people need rulers at all, whether they call themselves capitalist, socialist, or communist.

But things can't continue as they are for much longer. We can't continue to use the same tactics against the same targets and expect to keep being successful. So what's going to change? So far the movement has been open, democratic, and has mostly used fairly peaceful direct action. As these tactics prove less successful there will be calls to change. To prevent police infiltration, some will cry for appointing small groups of leaders who will decide how demonstrations will be run, rather than having open discussions. Others are withdrawing from discussions altogether, preferring to stage their own actions. And if these trends catch on the result will be that most demonstrators will be reduced to passive participants, cut out of the important decisions, reduced to spear-carriers in someone else's army.

The alternative is to change targets. Instead of focusing on the major summits, take smaller actions against a broader range of targets. Military installations, corporate AGMs, refugee detention centers ..... the list goes on. All of these things are important to oppose, and they can't all have as high a level of security as the summits, which means we don't have to resort to undemocratic tactics to take them down. And for the big, spectacular actions? Cities themselves. J18 or Seattle style tactics still work fine if you don't have to get past serious barricades, which means that people can get involved - and involved in making decisions, not just following orders - with a minimum of training and experience.

As anarchists, we have to remember why we're involved in the first place. We need to improve the situation immediately, taking what victories we can whenever we can. That's part of the reason we emphasise direct action, because it should have immediate positive effects. But we're also in this for a larger goal, to create an anarchist society. That means convincing people that anarchism is possible, not just by argument, but by showing how anarchist decision-making can really work, how people can make decisions themselves without relying on experts and professionals to do their thinking for them. So we have to remember the importance of making campaigns accessible, and keeping them democratic. This is not a revolutionary situation, and most of the people protesting with us aren't about to devote their lives to living in squats or going to meetings. So we have to make sure that this doesn't stop people from having a say in our campaigns, that we're not putting up barriers that end up creating an unofficial leadership that's as bad as the Leninist 'official' one. And that means fighting to continue the type of campaign, and the sorts of organizations, that really involve people, rather than allowing ourselves to be pushed into a ghetto.

Additional writings on globalistion and reports from some of the European black blocs will be found at http://struggle.ws/wsm/global.html

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G8 summit protest in Rostock, Germany, June 2, 2007. Everyone knows what is "police", but what is a black bloc?

A black bloc is an affinity group that comes together during some sort of protest, demonstration, or other event involving class struggle, anti-capitalism, or anti-globalization. Black clothing and masks are used to make the bloc appear to be one large mass, promote solidarity, create a clear revolutionary presence, and also to avoid being identified by authorities.
Black Bloc at April 12, 2003 anti-war demonstration in Washington DC.
Black Bloc at April 12, 2003 anti-war demonstration in Washington DC.
Students for a Democratic Society members formed in a black bloc during the March 17, 2007 anti-war protest in Washington DC.
Students for a Democratic Society members formed in a black bloc during the March 17, 2007 anti-war protest in Washington DC.

There is a perception, especially among the mainstream news media, that the "Black Bloc" is an international organization of some kind.[1] However, it is actually nothing more than a tactic used by a subset of demonstrators. There may be several black blocs within a particular protest, with different aims and tactics. As an ad hoc group, they share no universally common set of principles or beliefs; however, black blocs that have formed in the past have been made up largely of anarchists or autonomists, but can include many other anti-capitalist groups. Like all affinity groups, they are based on common trust between those involved, and usually share a common goal such as blocking delegates from entering a trade meeting, and a mutual understanding of shared tactics.

Black blocs are differentiated from other anti-globalist groups by their routine use of vandalism and property destruction to bring attention to their opposition to multi-national corporations and the support perceived to be enjoyed by these companies from Western governments. An example of this activity is the destruction of storefronts of GAP, Starbucks, Old Navy, and other retail locations in downtown Seattle during the 1999 anti-WTO demonstrations.

[hannah j]

[curt]

There has to be a more effective way.

[curt]

We were right, today's Black Bloc is just inches from and sometimes equal to neo-nazis:

Wiki on Black Bloc

neo-Nazi "Autonomous Nationalists" marching as a black bloc in Germany in 2007.
History

German origins

This tactic was developed following increased use of police power following the 1977 Brokdorf demonstration[5][6][7] by the German police in 1980, particularly aimed at squatters and anti-nuclear activists. These were social spaces occupied by dissidents, who preferred to create their own social institutions based on communal living and alternative community centres, seeking to create non-coercive, non-hierarchical social relations, as in anarchism. Key areas for this development were Hafenstrasse, Hamburg and Kreuzberg, Berlin. In June 1980, the German Police forcefully evicted the Free Republic of Wendland, an anti-nuclear protest camp in Gorleben, Wendland. This involved the largest mobilisation of the German Police since the demise of the Third Reich in 1945. This attack on 5,000 peaceful protesters lead many former pacifists to become willing to use violent methods. By December 1980 the Berlin City Government organised an escalating cycle of mass arrests, followed by other local authorities across West Germany. The squatters resisted by opening new squats, as the old ones were evicted. Following the mass arrest of squatters in Freiburg, demonstrations were held in their support in many German cities. the day was dubbed Black friday following a demonstration in Berlin at which between 15,000 to 20,000 people took to the streets and destroyed an expensive shopping area. The tactic of wearing identical black clothes and masks meant that the autonomen were better able to resist the police and elude identification. They were dubbed by the German media as der schwarze Block.In the Netherlands, similar militant resistance developed, however the wearing of ski-masks was less prevalent and the phrase Black Helmet Brigade was used. In 1986 Hamburg squatters mobilised following attacks on Hafenstrasse. A demonstration of 10,000 took to the streets surrounding at least 1,500 people in a Black Bloc. They carried a large banner saying "Build Revolutionary Dual Power!" At the end of the march the Black Bloc then engaged in street fighting that forced the police to retreat. The next day 13 department stores in Hamburg were set alight causing nearly $10 million in damage. Later that year, following the Chernobyl disaster, militant anti-nuclear activists used the tactic, prompting the comment "In scenes resembling 'civil war' helmeted, leather-clad troops of the anarchist Autonomen armed with slingshots, Molotov cocktails and flare guns clashed brutally with the police, who employed water cannons, helicopters and CS gas (which has since been officially banned for use against civilians)."

When Ronald Reagan came to Berlin in June 1987, he was met by around 50,000 demonstrators protesting against his Cold War policies. This included a Black Bloc composed of 3,000 people. A couple of months later police intensified their harassment of the Haffenstrasse squatters. In November 1987 the residents were joined by thousands of other Autonomen and fortified their squat, built barricades in the streets and defended themselves against the police for nearly 24 hours. After this the city authorities legalised the squatters residence.

When the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund met in Berlin in 1988, the autonomen hosted an international gathering of anti-capitalist activists. With numbers around 80,000 the protesters completely outnumbered the police. Officials attempted to maintain control by banning all demonstrations and brutally attacking any public assembly. Nevertheless there were riots and expensive shopping areas were destroyed.

[curt]

Black Blocs for Dummies (according to your on-line anarchist community)

Fom Alex Jones' POLICE STATE II: THE TAKEOVER - Seattle WTO Protest, three part video excerpt which should clearly describe to you what I too feel is the true purpose of the Black Bloc as it stands today. This is NOT the same Black Bloc we saw develop towards the end of the massive anti-atom movement in Germany in the late 70s, early 80s. Today's Black Bloc has become A TOOL for the establishment. And they have no clue what I'm talking about. They have no time to listen to what I'm saying. They can't even begin to grasp how badly they are now being used to defeat the very movements they have been attempting to influence. Time to take your masks off, time to show your faces and time to stop being a TOOL for the fucking elite. Never mind AJ, in these clippings, he's pretty much got it right. But ONLY because of the place & time.

[pan]

The ludicrous suggestion that post-Seattle security measures that have made protests anywhere close to the actual site without aggressive illegal activity is a victory demonstrates what fools they are: round one is over and everyone has lost because of a few assholes in black. Far from demonstrating that collectivism can be democracy at its best, anarchism is firmly perceived as black costumed thugs bent on senseless vandalism with no real point. They delude themselves into thinking that they are "helping the cause" but all they are doing is giving legitimation to the continued erosion of our civil rights.

[pan]

Note to self: don't dress like Il Duce's black shirts when attending a demonstration.

[BO]

and...don't wear one of these...

[BO]

Fighting oppression will never be pretty...

"It is unfortunate that the efforts of mankind to recover the freedom of which they have been so long deprived, will be accompanied with violence, with errors, and even with crimes. But while we weep over the means, we must pray for the end." --Thomas Jefferson to Francois D'Ivernois, 1795.

nuff said.

[pan]

But, as was made clear in the first essay, some if not most of the black block aren't really clear on what they are fighting for other than the right to smash windows.

Symbolic gestures can be powerful if they are well considered (think Abie Hoffman) but they can easily be counter-productive. I'm no Leninist (love how the anarchist writer framed it as "you are either with us or a Leninist") but do feel that it is essential to have a plan when creating symbolic events. Collaboration and utilizing free choice are great but there should be a strong rubric in place to guide the actions of the participants.

Seattle WTO "riots" have more symbolic value to the oppressors than to those of us who resist the megaconglomerate military/government/industrial complex. Sure the vandalism ensured media coverage but, to anyone who already wasn't convinced otherwise the event made them less sympathetic to WTO resistance.

[BO]

Could be wrong, but I remember the anarchists targeting some of the more representative enterprises of globalism--MacDonalds, Nike, Starbucks. Not exacting on a par with trying to raise the pentagon, but I certainly got the message.

But, what struck me as the most dramatic moments of the Battle in Seattle, were the confrontations with the police. If you remember, the police were rather indiscriminate in who they were pepper-spraying and shooting rubber bullets at. Many innocent bystanders were hurt as well as peaceful protesters.

Violence begets violence. When the police begin to use force indiscriminately, you can't hardly blame those for using violence back. I certainly would if my wife or kid took a rubber bullet to the eye for doing something that was within their rights to do.

I think Seattle-ites ought to be pretty damn proud for shutting the WTO down. I hardly think it was a worthless exorcize. To the contrary, I think it stands for a symbol of what can be done--warts and all.

[pan]

Many innocent bystanders were hurt as well as peaceful protesters.

And that is why it played well and made "our side" sympathetic..