Showing posts with label Anti g8. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Anti g8. Show all posts
7/17/07
Anti Capatalista
It was the linking of the arms, over 200 hundred rows made up of 8 to 12 people each and a sister from Berlin who whispered ‘because of the snatch squads’ that reawakened my dormant thoughts on ‘the black bloc’.
The Black Bloc is very much alive in Europe. Thanks to the rather successful abilities of these anti capitalists to come together and get angry, there have been riots throughout the ‘vieux continent’ during the last couple years.. Many. And at the anti-G8 protests this past week, riots were the topic of conversation on quite a few people’s lips. Maneuvering nationality, the various communities, collectives, federations and groups of anarchists and autonomists who gathered and lived together in Riddelich-the ‘radical’ camp a couple kilometers away from where the oligarchs of the G8 were meeting- and who presented their experiences and thoughts on the subject.
With pride les ‘totos’ from France shared stories of helping start the spontaneously resistance after Sarkozy’s election leading to over 100 cars burning, the riots that occurred in the banlieues, as well as the fights against the CPE. Folks from Greece told their stories of the fierce battles in Athens from the universities and various blockades they organized against the State. Hordes of fighters that descended from Copenhagen reminded people that street fighting was still on going since Ungdomshuset eviction two months ago and after Rostock, Saturday June 2nd, the Germans had another riot to add to their canon1, as well as the almost had riot of Plan B(erlin) of Friday the 8th. Alas, those of us from the small North American brigades had very little to offer in terms of experience sharing.
Having the occasion to participate in a shock therapy insurrection was obviously enough of a incentive to come together last week against the G8, but there was the underlining pretext of anarchists being able to have a collective report back on their various experiences of the last year or so. To tentatively sketch out conclusions as well as to immediately take action. The first demonstrations and the first ‘upsurges’- came out of an understanding of what methods to use with the German cops, but above all what strategies are used by the various tribes- the British, Italian, French, German, etc. The debate no longer centered around abstract scenarios but rather came out of experiences that were absolutely real.
For some, the riot ended the myth that the German ‘Autonomen’ had disappeared, supposedly gone were the helmeted rebels of the 80’s, while for others, all it took was the impressive cohesion of the ‘German’ bloc and its imposing defensive configuration (that was lacking in many of the other savage teams and who could easily be broken apart from their gaps and holes in their lines). Regardless, they were in the multi hundreds, our German comrades who hadn’t seen such a large masked contingent in a decade. Indisputably there has been a change in what can be a given on the international front between the black bloc and all the various police apparatus’s and those they protect.
What could have possibly caused such a change? If repression (post-911) could have caused in one form or another a reflect rejection of offensive tactics these last few years, how do we understand the sudden determined resurgence? In Europe no less, where the methods of control are being used in ways, that historically, are without precedent? It seems relevant to ask why North America, again, is flailing in its ability to join in this regained enthusiasm for riots?
The last time we went to a ‘black bloc’ demonstration in Canada was a while ago, whether one explicitly called for such in Ottawa during ‘Take the Capital’ (in 2002) or one that implicitly suggested for you to wear black and blend in with your fellow brother and sisters that were pissed off, such as the West mount demonstration in Montreal organized by Clac Logement (may your revival be swift and expedient!) in 2004. Sure there have been the crumbs of riot resistance that have swirled around Canada in the last 6 years-there were punks who smashed some windows after the annual COBP demonstration against police brutality this past March 15th, but there certainly was not an unspoken decision in the minds of anarchists to come together and get angry and use the tactic of ‘striking at the heart of capitalism and making them very scared’, as an impassioned Italian put it during one of the frequent 100+ attended spokes council meetings for autonomist affinity groups. That time has seemed to pass by us, unbeknownst to us as to why. One reason we are assuming, and putting out there is because the discourse has been severed, and the conversations don’t happen because people don’t really believe it is a possibility. Even with the student strike of 2005, nightly barricades at the CEGEP Vieux Montréal and the different blockades and occupations, we cannot recall a premeditated move towards a riot. Burning cars and fighting the cops in Canada? Well there was Queens Park and Quebec City (abit none of us ever called these events Plan Q) but these seem to be distant in memory and out of reach for us to build upon. How do you show, either collectively or individually that capitalism and that the whole system that upholds it is sucking our souls and killing millions of people around the world? The national mythology of Canadians being moral, kind, and above all peaceful people leaves very little room to articulate rage and anger.
After Genoa the perspectives for riots seemed beyond reach for most anti-capitalists around the world. But voilà! a couple years later, with a heavier handed police presence than ever seen before, the movement seems to have refound its abilities to use riots as a tactic. We suggest that the different dispositions in Europe and North America towards the present climate, certainly is impacted by the repression incurred to different forms of organizations.
There is a direct link that must be established between the various modes of organization, the types of relationships we live, and our disposition towards riots.
A riot played out reveals certain types of links which are essential in its mode of operation. The mode of spontaneously organizing into small affinity groups-thus the black bloc being only one possible manifestation- we can find at the heart of each smoky taking over of the streets, whether it be recently in Algeria or in the banlieues of France. No doubt affinity groups (like a gang of friends) never stopped being the central means of organizing aspects of ones daily life for the majority of anarchists in North America, but it seems it has been drained of its content, in terms of a organizational form to launch or elaborate upon a revolutionary strategy. When are we ready to come to terms with the fact that affinity groups don’t really go beyond collective living, leisure time, and for those who are lucky emotional support? Maybe this mode of operation had its strength taken away after the severe blows of repression were given, that were felt by many radicals, creating a condition that got folks favoring models less disposed towards direct confrontation, and more towards organizations and models that are more formal and ‘open’ organizations that have been created after those of the ‘anti glob-militant’ structures in hopes of not getting clobbered. As well, the idealization that often exists towards Assembly structures does not create a disposition for elaborating riot tactics. This reaction within ‘activism’ does not seem to have had the resonance on the continent east of the Atlantic. Maybe it’s from having a longer tradition of autonomous movements, more critiques of radical democracy as well as more mutual aid- cooperative modeled groups (extreme gauche, situationalist).The swift resurgence of black blocs at this recent G8 summit is primarily the result of a strong attempt to reestablish some consistency to the type of relations it functions through, and to give it strength again. It actualizes out of ones point of view towards riots, the war that is being fought and how to fight it. This position requires that one must consider organizing to carry an offensive in the streets that is no longer simply symbolic, to not remain stuck in the standard form of the ‘demonstration’.
Similar to love, a riot can sometimes take us by surprise, when we think we are not prepared, but that if one has an open disposition towards love, like riots, it will allow one to seize the opportunities, and the situations. It would be in vain to say that we can prepare a riot, though we can at least prepare for riots: do what it takes to help ignite the fire.
If the global elites picnics’ continues to be the pretext for meet, greets and confrontations, it seems that there is no longer any possible ambiguity: simple anti-globalization activism is no longer acceptable. One can no longer cling to ‘another world is possible’ but rather must elaborate on ideas and actions for a ‘world that is antagonistic because it wants nothing to do with this destructive system’. No more leftist, hollow indignant demands, but real affirmations. In Québec, we have been feeling this ambiguity from the anarchist movement becoming less blurred. The breakdown of the CLAC is one indicator. We are touching the end of a cycle, and we must find or rediscover forms, and establish new links. We can no longer avoid the questions surrounding taking an offensive position. 2
Recently with blockades in 6 Nations, Tandenagah and Grassy Narrows rightly going up for demands anyone with a basic understanding of colonialism of Turtle Island would view as legitimate, have been of course been portrayed in a racist, non sensical, a-historical barbaric way by the corporate media, and the main stream left by and large continues to be silent on these serious attempts to criticize and curb the on going gobbling of capitalism. There has been a concerted effort by anti-capitalists, radicals and anarchists to develop relationships, links and work in solidarity with these communities but I have not attended a solidarity action where the undercurrent was to take it back and get the establishment more than a little worried.
Plan B(erlin) was the decision to get the heck out of the demobilizing zone of fields and forests that surround Heillingdamm and bring the fight to the city. During the time of the G8 there were 9 helicopters that flew over us at all times, hundreds of tanks, dogs, horses, thousands of police, a jet and an unknown amount of undercover agents that added to the massive fence that made the wall of QC seem like an architecture undergrad class project in comparison. Plan B did not lead to a riot in Hackesche. Markt. But it did lead to the rich tourists, locals and merchants feeling very uncomfortable in this nouveau ultra yuppie area in east Berlin, where only 17 years ago one could find squats and couches to rest on during the on going nightly street parties. Thanks to gentrification one would be hard pressed to realize the rich history of the neighborhood between the now situated Häagen-Daaz shop, Mercedes’ Benz showroom and glitzy clothing stores. Instead of a riot we got a hovering helicopter and hundreds of national and city police. Arguably it would have been a suicide mission to try to ‘start the riot’ as we were practically on a 1:1 ratio of black blockers to cops. And they do have the guns. But from 9pm till 3am, that part of town didn’t have the same ignorant life is beautiful feel of bling bling and consume till you vomit that so many similar upper class neighborhoods around the world carry with them. . No. There was the strong stench of resistance; that this system isn’t working and people are not going to be remain silent. Maybe plan B was not the utopian full scale riot, where the residents and workers came out and ‘the masses’ take to the streets but last night, while watching a little of the old TV, seeing Italian brothers and sisters lighting the match in their city with Bush’s arrival (bravo!) a comrade from Poland let me know that, well, 14 cars burnt on Friday was better than none, a welcomed surprise to me.
There is going to be another student strike in Québec soon. There will be another G8 in Canada in 2010, the same year the Olympics will be in British Colombia. Will radicals and anarchists be talking about organizing riots? Will we be wearing black and linking together to make sure that the police cannot break us and take one of us?
There is still time to reflect, but we can’t hold off forever. The situation is must too critical. New methods are being drawn into our practices, and there are theories and studies that let us peer into the cracks that will be widening soon. In France, what has been heating up, and recently bubbled over could be felt in various texts and actions on a lesser scale beforehand. While not surveying every single new publication, it doesn’t take a brain surgeon to see there is increasing interest in people like long time forgotten Blanqui, an agitator from the XIXth century who was a riot advocator, who has been recently republished with a new preface, bringing new light to his ideas. As well, there is the bestseller, maybe thanks to the sexy title ‘the Insurrection to come’ that people are buying and talking about.
In Québec, the latest expanded version of ‘Les Black Blocs’ by Francis Dupuis-Déri has just been published by Lux Edition, and in Toronto, A.K Thompson will soon publish ‘Black Bloc, White riot: Anti Gloalization and the genealogy of dissent’ both being books that focus their discussion on tactics within the Canadian context. We very much hope these will encourage debate and discussion of strategy and tactics. We say it often, we are living in the belly of the beast. We must ask ourselves what will it take to get angry and fight? If it is not rioting in the streets, what is it? If the time of the black bloc is dead in Canada, what is to replace it? Or are we to let our sisters and brothers in Europe make the rich and the Establishment nervous without us?
Sincerely,
Two companer@s from the Calisse Brigade.
June 10th, 2007
Further reading:
‘Maintenant, If faut des armes’, Auguste Blanqui,
Réédité par la Fabrique Éditions, Paris, Févririer 2007
L’insurrection qui vient, par Le Comité Invisible,
La Fabrique Éditions, Paris, Mars 2007
Les Black Blocs’ par Francis Dupuis-Déri
Lux Edition, Montréal, May 2007
‘Black Bloc, White riot: Anti Globalization and the genealogy of dissent’, by AK Thompson
To be published, Toronto, September 200
http://hatetheg8.blogspot.com/2007/06/anti-anti-capitalista.html
6/6/07
Plan B has started already: join to the battle of joy
Erstellt 06/06/2007 - 01:44
There are certain moments when it seems appropriate, without it ever being a matter of calculation, to address everybody in a manner as simple and direct as possible. One of these moments has arrived.
We want to speak briefly about what happened on the 2nd of June in the city of Rostock during the demonstration against the G8. We speak, of course, from a partisan position, but one forged of multiple voices which at certain moments manage to become singular. One of these moments has arrived.
This 2nd of June, thousands of people didn't wait for the ritual which we have so often been subjected to in this movement to play itself out: mobilizations, demonstrations, less than symbolic actions, conferences crowned with pat conclusions long ago prepared by some obscure functionary. Nor did they accept donning the worn out postures of those who pretend to be concerned with the state of the world and abandon themselves to a pious compassion for the most misfortunate.
These thousands, on the contrary, did not content themselves with reacting or resisting, but took the initiative, consciously attacking the places where, day after day, capitalist exploitation and the material effectivity of the global civil war are extended. The G8 is not only the expression of the domination of capital over the world, a theatre of dubious quality where the leaders put onto the stage another ritual, one that serves to codify their rule over the lives of subjects.
The G8 is the symbol of the suffering inflicted daily on millions of people. That we should be reproached for our violence when it is they who have their hands full of blood!
In the end what happened was very simple: free beings decided to collectively and practically oppose the symbols of capitalism and the baleful face of the state incarnated by all the police of the world. The assemblies and long speeches, if they are not followed by irruptions in the streets of our metropoles, produce only suspicion and resignation.
We want to also recall another truth in relation to the combatants in the battle of Rostock: they are women and men originating from every corner of the world and have no need of an identity card to recognize each other, constitute gangs, and experiment new forms of life. We are the nationless who seek to destroy the frontiers - as much material as symbolic - which separate our lives, thought and bodies. We are made of multiple singularities who desire to join in order to create the conditions of a more ecstatic life. We come from everywhere, it is why we are everywhere. Those who affirm the contrary are brazen-faced liars.
There is another truth: under every black mask was a smile, in every stone thrown against the common enemy there was joy, in every body revolting against oppression there was desire. We don't harbor sad passions and resentments, if that had been the case we wouldn't have fought and resisted for so long. Thus don't be deceived, look at those with whom you are connected, or whom you love; perhaps you will find one of these bodies, one of these smiles, one of these hands engaged in the struggle. Joyful passions placed in common and joined to the assault on command - such is the secret of the battles waged in the heart of the asymmetrical conflict which opposes us to the sadness of the weapons and bodies of power. Individually we are nothing, together we are a power. Together we are a commune: the commune of Rostock.
We all arrived here with a personal and collective history, a history of struggle and battle waged in every corner of the earth. We don't want this event to be perceived as a simple continuation of the old cycle of struggle which, since September the 11th, has known so many disappointments. We believe on the contrary that the 2nd of June was the signal of a powerful and determined rupture with this phase of defeat and that this battle inaugurates new offensives. That this breach permits us to flee together to the other side of the mirror, the side of freedom.
And now comrades, we block the flows...
Long live the commune of Rostock and Reddelich!
International Brigades
Source URL:
http://dissentnetzwerk.org/node/3039
6/2/07
Prelude to the G8: Tearing it up in Hamburg
by Anti-G8 Action Faction
Tuesday May 29th, 2007 10:42 AM
On their way to block the G8 summit in Heiligendamm, anti-capitalists from all over Germany and the world stop in Hamburg to confront the Asian-European Meeting (ASEM).
By the Anti-G8 Action Faction
HatetheG8.blogspot.com
May 28th 2007
Finally, something was happening.
We were on the move again. It's been a while and we're a bit out of shape, but it's all coming back now. After linking arms in flanks for five hours straight in a huge, permitted march, we were getting antsy. As the first major demonstration in the lead up to the G8 summit in Heiligendamm, everyone wanted to start it off right. The city of Hamburg needed to send a message to the world that they have the "violent demonstrators" under total control.
The cops must maintain discipline and it will all go smoothly. The protestors wanted to tear the city apart, to show the G8 leaders that they are not welcome here, and anyone who tries to host them will have to pay. With a thousand black clad anarchists in the front and thousands of others behind, the tension was thick. Screaming "fight the system, fight the state, fight capitalism, fight G8," the demonstrators were not willing to comprise either their vision or momentum. But who would provoke who first? Would the cops use the water canons? Would the anarchists break through the lines and go off the script?
Will the G8 2007 be the opening salvo of a new cycle of struggle against capital, perhaps the final one given the scope of the current ecological crisis? For two years the German autonomous movement in general and the Dissent Network in particular has organized across the world, from the USA to Turkey, for this coming week of action. The stakes have never been higher: until now the "War on Terror" has cast a pall over the movement, yet in Germany we anarchists and autonomists could again re-seize the stage of history by scoring a decisive victory against capital.
Move swiftly. Stop. Fight a bit. Grab something. Then Run. Turn around. Watch out for the Snatch Squad. Which ones are they? Wearing all black with red diamonds on their back. Shit, there they are. They're gonna try and grab us. Move! But who are those ones? Don't worry, it's just the green team. Green team? Yeah, green uniforms, they're like the national guard. They won't arrest you, they'll just tussle a bit. And them? Who? The darker green and dark blue. Oh them, well, they're here to stop you. Be careful.
The modern incarnation of the autonomous movement is distinctly anarchist, mostly young, and quite, quite punk. Even though the movement had been ebbing over the last few years, it appears the arrival of the G8 in Germany, combined with the police raids in early May on anti-G8 centers of activity, have united the often divided and self-critical Autonomen. To the chagrin of the police, the raids also backfired in the popular press, and now it appears that most of the media, and even much of the public, are on the side of the dissidents. Furthermore, in "Red Hamburg," the home of insurrections, pirates, and a famous anti-fascist football league, it is often hard to tell the locals from the Black Bloc while in the streets.
Shhhhhhh. What? Be quiet, they're looking for us. OK, hold it . . . hold it . . . NOW!
The police are nervous, very nervous. And rightfully so! For months, the cars of the officials have been burned, and now internationals are streaming into the well-run convergence center in Hamburg, the former theatre "Rote Flora" that has been squatted for nearly two decades. The dynamic of the police is Freudian to say the least: the police would like nothing better than to release their inner fascist and ruthlessly clear the streets of all protesters. Due to such factors as public opinion and their brutality backfiring on them in the courts, they simply cannot just beat the protesters without pretext. So, instead, the officers express their frustration with an anal-retentive attention to detail about the smallest of the rules regarding banner size, demonstrators masking-up, and so on; they often stop demonstrations for up to thirty minutes or more for the most minor of infraction of the "rules."
The bridge was a trap and everyone knew it. That's exactly where they wanted us to end up and there we were. Yeah some fireworks were shot off, rocks thrown, and a couple arrests, but come on, it was their turf. We had no chance. They've surrounded the Rote Flora. What? The convergence center, you know, that huge squat. Are they going in? Not likely, I think they'll get a beating if they try. Barricades are going up, let's get behind them. The water canons are coming out. Well, move. Down this alley way! Ok. Wait, are we all together?
This leads almost any march or demonstration to be an exercise in frustration, a chess game where both sides try to bend, but not break, the rules through a strict process of negotiation. Or at least until breaking the rules is advantageous. While marching, German anarchists more or less engage with the police in careful negotiations until the permitted demonstration gets as close to the desired location as possible (such as a financial district, a fascist demonstration, or in this case the EU-ASEM Summit meeting in the town hall), and then, all bets are off. The demonstration will then generally be aggressive towards police lines, attempting to wreck havoc by escaping off the official route as a bloc, or break into small affinity groups to build barricades and attack police cars. There is also an apparent tradition of regrouping the night of the action for even more fun in the streets.
I think I'm trapped. Don't panic. Look around. They're gonna do a mass arrest. Ok, black-clad cops over there. Try this. Nope, green cops. Damn, turn around. Fuck, the blue ones. Ok. Surrounded. Where's my group? Doesn't matter, I need to find a way out. Option 1: join the bloc and fight your way out. How many of us are there? Not enough. Option 2: act stupid and sneak by. Let's see if that works.
Police tactics in Germany seem to be a combination of psychological warfare and shows of overwhelming force, with the emphasis on "show," for they seem unable to act unless provoked and do not generally mass arrest protesters, but just surround the march on all sides to maintain "order." Police can be divided into distinct groups. First, there are the local and federal police, who wear blue and green. Within this group there are inexperienced "barrack-based" police who can be identified by an "A" on their helmets. However, the real reason to be worried is the intensive surveillance done by the police (although unlike the UK, there are few CCTVs anywhere), who send undercovers to demonstrations to identify those who have broken laws, and have uniformed cameramen directly outside to tape protestors and identify them (using rather clever techniques like identifying Black Bloc members by their shoes). There is also a special police snatch-squad unit, dressed all in black like stormtroopers, who will quickly and brutally move in and make arrests like sharks. However bad this sounds, it is important to note that the procedure German police use in crowd control is actually quite predictable, and as long as one stays in tight groups, one is unlikely to be snatched. The German police are far from invincible despite their pretensions, and a victory over them should be possible.
Close, too close. I know. We were gonna go back and get you. What? That's insane, they would've grabbed you too. Hey look, they're sending in more. Did they declare a state of emergency? I heard that too. Shit, there's waves and waves of them. Back to the Flora? No, its' not safe. Ok, then, disappear.
A massive thousand person Black Bloc at ASEM, cop cars destroyed, a skirmish in front of the convergence center - not bad for a day´s work. Now, there are many debates over what exactly to do over the next few days. The demonstrations are so decentralized and yet actively planned, that it is hard for even the German anarchists to predict where the sites of intense struggle will be: there are convergences in three cities, an anti-fascist counter-protest against a thousand fascists in the streets AND a huge rally in Rostock against the G8 on the same day, decentralized blockades of roads and airport blockades, as well as countless marches and demonstrations near Heiligdamm and in Rostock. Regardless of the particulars, the energy amongst anarchists in Europe has been built to a frenzied height, and if one thing can be assured over the next week- there will be a reckoning.
Thousands of us in the march. Hundreds rampaging in the streets. About eighty-five arrested. Not bad for a start. Nope, not bad at all.
http://hatetheg8.blogspot.com
http://www.block-g8.org/
http://www.dissent.org.uk/
5/29/07
Protests in Germany against the G8 summit
Over 5,000 people marched through Hamburg against the Asia-Europe Meeting (ASEM) and the G8 summit. When the route was all settled with police the march started. The march was led by a "black block" of over 1,0000. In Germany it is illegal to cover your face but everyone dressed in black with hoods, hats and sunglasses.
Flares and fireworks were let off along the way.The police peppersprayed the crowd and the march was stopped by water cannons several times but then went on again. The organisers finally decided to end the march early as a protest over police tactics. There had been arrests and other harassment. The march began to disperse but the cops blocked the street. People tried to break through the lines then eventually sat down in the street. Dozens of people were arrested today.
Small demonstrations formed and riots erupted around the left-wing district of Hamburg. At one stage, a cop lost the plot and, after his car was attacked by protesters, he pulled out his gun to fire a shot in the air. A paint bomb was thrown at him and he got back into his car and drove away.
More: Report http://indybay.org/newsitems/2007/05/28/18422048.php
Photos http://indybay.org/newsitems/2007/05/28/18422079.php
Timeline 28.5.07 http://de.indymedia.org/2007/05/178833.shtml
http://g8-tv.org/
http://de.indymedia.org/en/
5/23/07
"A New Day is Dawning for Globalization Critics"
Around 100,000 demonstrators are expected at the G8 summit in June. DW-WORLD.DE spoke with Sven Giegold, one of the founders of Attac, a group which describes itself as a skeptical of globalization, about the protests.
DW-WORLD.DE: Leaders from the world's most industrialized nations meet every year at
In Germany, around 900 police officers recently raided 40 sites linked to left-wing activists believed to be preparing attacks on the summit. Interior Minister Wolfgang Schäuble has also threatened to have potentially dangerous protestors taken into custody for up to two weeks before and during the summit. Do such measures intimidate or incite G8 opponents?
We see more people mobilizing. The measures were clearly illegal and have motivated people to go to the summit who were previously not even considering it. There's a danger, though, that the assurances by participants -- Christian groups, trade unions and environmental organizations -- that the protests will be peaceful will just get lost in the shuffle.
What is the aim of Attac and other G8 opponents in Heiligendamm -- a complete blockade of the summit?
Some of the groups want to show their symbolic protest on the streets; others really do want to completely block off the summit. With 16,000 police officers and a security fence costing 12 million euros ($16 million), that won't be successful. Attac relies on peaceful protests, but we also support civil disobedience -- such as sit-ins at access routes -- among our activists. Civil disobedience is simply part of social movements, such as the civil rights movement in the United States or Gandhi's movement in India. We want to base our protests on this tradition.
Demonstrators will not be able to directly approach G8 participants since protests are now forbidden within 200 meters (657-foot) of the security fence, and that area will be widened during the summit. Attac has filed a legal suit about these no-go zones. Why?
We haven't filed suit about the security fence per se, although we reject it as a symbol of the separation between the rich and poor. We have filed suit against the additional no-go zone where demonstrations are now banned. It's an impingement on the constitutional right to assemble in public that we can't even demonstrate within view of the summit area. We will take our case all the way to the constitutional court.
At such short notice?
We have received signals that a binding decision will be handed down before the summit begins. Unfortunately, the protest ban was announced at such short notice that it has been difficult to use legal means to appeal the prohibition. That's an additional restriction of the principles of a constitutional state.
Some of the protestors have threatened to break through the security fence. At the G8 summit in Genoa in 2001, a demonstrator died and 400 others were wounded. How likely do you think it is that something similar might happen in Heiligendamm?
We think the danger is minimal. But one can never rule out the possibility that a few protestors may turn violent, and given the way the police are acting at the moment, that chance has not become less probable. We also have to keep in mind that the police started the violence in Genoa. If demonstrators break the law, then police have to react -- that's clear. But it isn't legitimate for a free government to annul the presumption of innocence and take people into custody or deny them entry into the country as a preventative measure. That creates an atmosphere in which peaceful protests become less likely.
Criticizing globalization is no longer only a matter for the left. Peter Marx, secretary general of Germany's nationalist NPD party, has dubbed 2007 the "year of nationalist resistance to globalization" and called for protests against the "summit of fat cats." Do you fear that false alliances could evolve in Heiligendamm?
One can't speak of alliances. The protests that we and others of the civil society are planning are based on the idea of a different kind of globalization. None of us wants to revert back to the concept of a nation state. Right-wing extremists want more of a "Germany for Germans" or "France for the French." That's not our vision: we want international relations that are based on solidarity, democracy and environmental consciousness. There won't be Nazis where we'll be protesting, and they are definitely not welcome among us.
What does the G8 summit mean for the anti-globalization movement in Germany?
I am not aware of an anti-globalization movement in Germany. We want a different form of globalization and therefore call ourselves globalization critics. I do believe that, with this G8 summit, a new day is dawning for the movement. It's interesting that the movement is not being mobilized by the big groups who will be traveling by bus to the summit. The protests are being organized much more by smaller, local initiatives. After this summit, no one will be able to say that social movements are lacking in Germany and that people cannot be mobilized. One is going to have to reckon with this movement in the future.
Sven Giegold is a co-founder of the Attac network that seeks a different form of globalization. He is a member of the German national coordinating committee.
5/15/07
Police raids inspire left-wing protests
By Stefan Nicola
UPI Germany Correspondent
BERLIN -- German police raids of the far left seem to have backfired and strengthened the anti-globalization movement, less than a month before Berlin hosts the G8 summit.
Some 880 police and 20 attorneys of Germany's Federal Prosecution Office last week raided roughly 40 properties in six German states for the most comprehensive raid against the far left in recent years.
Police searched left-wing strongholds in Hamburg and Berlin -- cities with a long-established left scene -- in connection with investigations of two terrorist groups that allegedly want to disturb or even prevent the June 6-8 G8 summit.
Among the raided properties were offices, cultural centers, bookstores and even a left-wing merchandising shop. If Berlin wanted to intimidate the far left, it seems to have failed; in the wake of the raids, several far-left groups have received more support than before the security move.
Thousands of people have since marched in protest against the raids to protest what they saw as an attempt to criminalize otherwise legitimate anti-globalization groups. Berlin managed to victimize the far left after it surfaced that none of the 21 arrested was being held more than one day; it also searched the properties of several senior citizens, sparking protests from the left-wing opposition, who called the raids "out of scale."
The left has since said the move will increase the number of protesters and thus further threaten security.
"One of the consequences of the police operations was to mobilize people," Peter Wahl of the anti-globalization group Attac told Germany's ZDF television. "We have received a lot of e-mails from people saying 'at first I did not want to go to Rostock ... but now I am ready.'"
Berlin says it is ready, too.
Up to 100,000 people are expected to flock to the summit venue in Heiligendamm and to nearby Rostock to protest the negative effects of globalization.
The German government has introduced several measures besides the raids to guarantee security: It has installed a $20 million fence around the Heiligendamm Baltic Sea resort to keep protestors out, and the same is to be done at the country's exterior borders: Interior Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble of German Chancellor Angela Merkel's conservatives said Germany would reintroduce border security checks to stop potentially violent protesters from entering the country.
Normally, under the Schengen agreement, travelers entering Germany from a Schengen member country do not have to present their passports, but the checks can be reintroduced in light of an elevated security threat.
The minister has also threatened to have supporters of violent demonstrations arrested for up to two weeks during the summit if there is reason to believe that they are planning to commit a crime.
"Regional police authorities are considering taking recourse to so-called preventative detention," he told Germany's top-selling newspaper Bild.
The government had threatened to use the law against hooligans during the FIFA Soccer World Cup in Germany last summer.
Schaeuble warned that just because Germany was not subject to terrorist attacks during major events such as last year's World Cup, that "doesn't mean we will be spared this time."
Hans-Christian Stroebele, a senior Green party lawmaker, harshly condemned the minister's comments.
"What the interior minister currently does is the opposite of de-escalation," he told German news channel n-tv. "He is fueling the conflict, and I can only urgently call on him not to release new threats with each day."
The growing unease has also resonated with police officials, who are worried that the country's force will be overstretched during the summit.
Authorities are planning to deploy more than 17,000 police in Heiligendamm and the nearby city of Rostock, where most of the protest events and mass demonstrations will be staged.
Because of recent staff cuts, the G8 assignment will overstretch the police, which has to guarantee security for the rest of the country as well, Konrad Freiberg, the head of the police union GdP, told Sunday's Bild newspaper.
"The G8 summit is the biggest police assignment of all time," he said. "More than 100 activities and events will be staged parallel to the summit."
As for the rest of the country, "Criminals don't go on a G8 break," he said.
Besides the fear of far-left violence, Berlin shouldn't underestimate the high threat of an Islamist terror attack, Freiberg said, citing the example of the 2005 summit in Gleneagles, during which the London subway bombings were executed.
5/3/07
Uneasy echoes of Berlin in G8 wall
The £8m fence has turned the resort at Heiligendamm into a high-security zone. Photograph: Thomas Haentzschel/AP
· 7.5-mile fence round resort in Germany angers locals
· Thousands of protesters expected at June meeting
Kate Connolly in Heiligendamm
Tuesday May 1, 2007
Guardian
Looking for a cunning business venture after the fall of the Berlin Wall, Frank Neumann had the foresight to go into fencing - predicting the demand the new free market would create for chic enclosures to cordon off everything from private gardens to sports arenas.
Now, 18 years on, Neumann and his team of workers are putting the finishing touches to their biggest commission yet - a 7.5 mile long, 2.5-metre (8ft) high steel fence topped with barbed wire, video monitors and sensors to detect movement. The daunting construction snakes through fields of rapeseed and contains enough steel - 500 tonnes - to make a ship.
This barrier is transforming the elegant 18th century beach resort of Heiligendamm on Germany's Baltic coast into the tightest high-security zone the country has known for the G8 summit on June 6-8. Access through it will be controlled with airport-style x-ray machines and only those with passes will be allowed in.
Building a barrier on such a scale in the former communist part of a country divided by a wall for 28 years was always going to be controversial, although this is either lost on Neumann or he is coyly protecting his lucrative contract to construct what officials call a "temporary protection barrier", and locals generally refer to as "the fence". "The difference is that this fence will be taken down after the summit is over," he said drily. Rostock Zoo and Hamburg Airport have already put in bids for the second-hand barrier.
To discourage tunnelling protesters, steel grating has been rammed into the ground beneath the fence so even the most conservative of German papers have compared its sudden appearance to the "preparations for a civil war".
Local politicians are clearly concerned. The region has the highest unemployment in the country and Heiligendamm, Germany's oldest Baltic resort, is attempting to reinvigorate its reputation as an elegant holiday destination for the rich and famous, having fallen into a state of neglect since the 1930s.
Its trademark white classical villas, modelled on those of British resorts, once played host to the Russian tsar and his family, the poet Rainer Maria Rilke, Queen Luise of Prussia and even dictators Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini, who came here on the advice of their doctors.
But instead of pictures of Heiligendamm's sweeping sandy beaches, it is the €12m (£8m) fence that is likely to go round the world as the summit's single most powerful image. "The central government told us it was necessary," the deputy leader of the state of Mecklenburg Vorpommern, Reinhard Meyer, insisted, referring to the fence as a "technical restriction". "We've done our best to explain it to the local people, but they're understandably frustrated."
The locals do not seem convinced. Two fishermen on the pier that leads from the Kempinski Grand Hotel - renovated for €200m to house the likes of George Bush, Angela Merkel, Tony Blair and Vladimir Putin - said the €100m being spent on security, including 16,000 policemen, was a waste. "When unemployment in Mecklenburg Vorpommern is so high and social welfare benefits are being cut, why should they be allowed to waste so much money for their fancy knees-up?" said one.
Anti-globalisation protesters have dressed up as bolt-cutters and lined up along the fence, an action that led to several arrests.
"They're trying to create a democracy-free zone in there and showing a lack of taste by building a barrier like this in a country that had a bad experience with walls," said Monty Schädel, of the German Society for Peace. "If these rulers believe that they need a wall to protect themselves and freedom, then freedom doesn't have a very bright future."
Conservationists also joined the fray after an 1854 villa - once the summer residence of the Russian Tsar Nicholas I - was torn down to make way for a press centre. Fundus, the investment company behind the demolition has promised to rebuild an "exact copy" but locals are not impressed. "We don't accept that they can just come and tear down a listed building to make way for a three-day meeting," said Hannes Meyer, co-founder of the citizens' initiative "Pro Heiligendamm". Marianne Prüter, 70, a resident since 1947, said: "What can we glean from this? They're good at building fences and tearing down historic villas."
Protesters are expected to gather in their tens of thousands for the G8. A demonstration and pop concert are planned in the nearby port city of Rostock and huge tent parks have been set up.
Even the wall is no guarantee of safety, however, as the discovery of a second world war torpedo found floating in the Baltic Sea close to the resort last week proved. The 1,500kg (3,300lb) bomb was detonated safely, but it did show that threats can come in unpredictable forms.
Stop G8. Capitalism. Imperialism. War.
20.03.2006 | Anti-G8-Alliance for a revolutionary perspective
http://www.antig8.tk/aufruf_en.php
Against the G8 summit in 2007 in Heiligendamm!
In the summer of 2007, the heads of state of Germany, Italy, France, Russia, Great Britain, Japan, Canada and the USA will meet for the so-called G8 summit in Heiligendamm in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania in north-east Germany. They will be well protected by police and the military, and they want to demonstrate their unity to the media. They will try to present themselves as the legitimate leadership of the “civilized world” and will organize to implement their common interests. Contrary to their actual policy they will again feign commitment to fighting world hunger, disease, poverty and terrorism. Just like at past summits, tens of thousands will protest against the meeting to show the real meaning of the G8.
G8 – peace, freedom and democracy?
The G8 summit will take place in a political situation in which the contradictions are growing in Germany as in the other G8 states. There are increasingly far-reaching attacks on the standard of living of the working class in the form of repressive laws and cuts in wages, in the social systems and in retirement plans. More and more people are forced into unemployment, precarious employment or low-paid jobs. Already millions of people live under the poverty line – even full-time employment no longer guarantees the former standard of living. At the same time privatization leads to a clear deterioration in standards for workers in this sector as well as for the general population, who pay higher prices for fewer services. Steadily rising costs for rent, heating, water and electricity, as well as the discontinuation of many previously guaranteed services in the health care system and in education are the concrete results. Women are especially affected by these cuts, as they are in a worse position in many sectors and the cuts have an especially dramatic effect on them. Because of the legal regulations from the “Hartz” laws, many women get no social support because their life partners’ income is calculated as their own – this is only one of many examples. Also many immigrants, as a part of the lower classes of society, are affected even more drastically by these developments, and as soon as they are no longer useful for the economy, they are threatened by massive state discrimination and deportation.
In addition, they are held up as scapegoats for the worsening situation and are exposed to social prejudices, exclusions and attacks. However, in the end, it is characteristic of the current attacks that they no longer affect only the marginalized social groups, but the majority of the population. Consequently more protest and resistance is appearing against these attacks in the form of mass demonstrations and strikes.
The offensive of capital takes place not only on a national level, but affects people in all parts of the world. The imperialist states have always used every means possible to forward their interests worldwide – with wars, economic sanctions or the installation or the logistical and military support of regimes faithful to them. Thus nowadays the G8 states are involved directly in imperialist wars, arm to prepare themselves for the next wars, or take part by supplying arms to conflict regions. A bitter irony is that they are currently fighting wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, against brutal regimes they once installed and supported themselves – as long as they profited from them. The victim is, in any case, the majority of the population.
With the help of institutions like the IMF, the World Bank or the WTO, with commercial agreements like GATS and with direct influence on the regimes in different countries, they secure worldwide access to cheap raw materials and manpower for themselves – at the expense of the population in the affected countries. Millions of people are forced into brutal exploitation in sweat shops, in Eastern Europe, Asia, and Africa, or the foundations of their survival are destroyed by the pillaging of raw materials available there. The dam projects in India, which led to devastating poverty and masses of refugees, or the structural adjustment programs in Argentina, which led to a wave of impoverishment, are only two of countless examples worldwide which demonstrate the direct results of the policies of the IMF and the World Bank.
The resistance of the affected people – whether against the military attacks, inhuman working conditions or the theft of natural resources – is suppressed either directly by the thugs of the big companies or by the regimes which are financed and equipped by the big companies, with their state apparatus: the police, the secret services and the military.
This work of capital or its representatives is an expression of increasing competition between big companies and the countries in which they are based, as well as increasing difficulties in further raising profits. To solve this crisis they attempt to increase exploitation and to lower the expenditures in social areas, to reshape all social relations according to the interests of capital and to secure markets worldwide – as these are divided up, the competition must increase.
The G8 summit was brought to life to defuse the inner-imperialist contradictions – specifically, for example, the customs disputes between the EU and the USA or the currency competition between the euro and the dollar – and to mark out, if necessary, the respective zones of influence. At the same time it serves to standardize strategies for exploitation and decide on measures to prevent uprisings, and to present these in propaganda as “necessary” or even “in the interest everyone”.
Those who don’t fight have already lost!
There are more than enough good reasons to use the opportunity provided by the G8 summit to demonstrate against the policies of the ruling class, whose mightiest political representatives meet there, and to bring protest and resistance against the summit out onto the streets. The mobilization must be led by those who are affected by social cuts and “Hartz” laws, privatization, wage cuts, lengthening of the working week, racist discrimination or sexist oppression and who have, therefore, an interest in changing things. However, it must also be a platform for the advanced and revolutionary movements in all parts of the world to present their struggles in the capitalist metropolises: against capitalist exploitation and impoverishment of big parts of the world population in the affected countries, against the imperialistic plundering of national resources, against expulsion, occupation and war, against the attacks of the oligarchy.
Hence, the dialogue with the liberation movements and their long experiences must also serve to develop strategies against the common imperialist enemy. Here the resistance against the capitalist offensive must stand in solidarity with the different progressive and revolutionary movements worldwide to coordinate common actions and to develop common perspectives.
From resistance to a perspective!
Protest and resistance cannot only be directed against the symptoms of the policies of the leading capitalist states. If we want to change the situation, we must analyze and understand it.
The foundations of the concrete policies of the G8 states are the foundations of the capitalistic system. These foundations are based on exploitation, competition and ownership of the means of production by a minority which holds power in society. On this basis there can be no real steps towards emancipation, because the rights and needs of people and the preservation of the environment are subordinated to the profit system. All appeals to the profiteers and managers of this system, appeals for a more social version of this system, appeals for at least minimum concessions have proven hopeless – the current worsening of the situation makes them more hopeless than ever.
The current developments also make it clear that the capitalist system with its exploitation and repression always produces the means to overcome it: the inner logic of capitalism and the supposed weakness of the exploited lead to increasing fierceness of the “class struggle from above” in the capitalist metropolises, which means that the question of real alternatives is posed for the people affected.
In this situation it’s obvious that the reformist policies of the social democracy and the trade union leaderships, which aim for a compromise between the classes, lead in this situation to a dead-end, or they position themselves openly on the capitalists’ side and begin to lose their integrative role. Based on this development, the possibility of an actual transformation of social relations towards a liberated society makes itself real. The appearance of new, mass protest movements, strikes and attempts of different forms of organization are the first signs for the fact that the times when there was a consensus in the G8 states and the social contradictions were exported are coming to an end. Besides the conflict zones in different parts of the world, where the revolutionary movements and organizations have built on decades of experience, from Nepal via India, Colombia and the Philippines to Mexico, capital finds itself in an objectively precarious situation in the metropolises as well, and the tendency is for this to increase. The preemptive internal armament and the ever more brutal methods against social protests, sometimes by attacks in the bourgeois media, sometimes by (supposed) offers of integration, sometimes by crude police actions, already show how this problem is to be solved.
However, the results of the relatively small strikes in the car industry, at airports or in the civil service at least give an idea of the power of the class of the wage-earners, and of what the results of even bigger and better-organised workers’ struggles or even a general strike could have. Also the struggles in other parts of the world, like the factory occupations in Argentina, mass protests and riots in France against the attacks on protections against dismissal, the guerrilla struggles and militant and political general strikes in Nepal or the countless other labour struggles show which forms of struggle are possible as an answer to the attacks of capital – and also must be developed here.
But for this it is necessary to bring the isolated protests, resistance and workers’ struggles again onto a political plane: to recognize the capitalist system as a cause of these developments and to strive for its overthrow. The fact that the revolutionary forces are so weak after many mistakes and defeats, especially in Germany, that they currently have almost no political influence to intervene in current developments, presents this necessity all the more urgently.
Together with racist attacks against migrants, “public opinion” is to be mobilized in a social-chauvinistic to preemptively split a possible common resistance of all affected persons.
Mobilizations like the one against the G8 summit can be an occasion to unite ourselves, to conduct discussions and gain experience. They can be used to explain criticisms of the dominant social relations and the necessity of a revolutionary transformation of these relations, as well as to bring together existing structures and thus to strengthen them. Decisive is what develops from this. Only by a continuous organizing process of the revolutionary forces on different levels, the development of a sound theory and practice, can capitalism really be overthrown and a liberated social order created. The current, temporary protests and movements must be used as an impulse for an engaging organization, to develop from resistance to a broader perspective.
Get involved in the Anti-G8-Alliance for a revolutionary perspective!
We want to use the mobilization against the G8, in a situation of increasing contradictions, to connect the defensive struggle against the current attack at home as well as globally with the fight for a liberated social order. The meaning of the mobilization for us is more than making revolutionary theory and practice visible, but also to organize common engaging structures which will continue beyond the G8 summit.
We start with the assumption that the G8 summit offers an important opportunity for the revolutionary, class-struggle-oriented and internationalist left precisely in the current situation. A successful mobilization could be the starting point for a revolutionary movement and for revolutionary organizing which would once again become stronger in Germany.
Moreover, it is our opinion that it is necessary to work on the basis of basic positions and clear demands which are directed against capital’s central points of aggression:
* Resistance against the general offensive of capital at home!
* For class struggle in workplaces, schools and universities, against social cuts, longer working hours, wage and pension cuts!
* Against the Lisbon Agenda, the Bolkestein directive, the further flexibilisation of services and working conditions!
* No imperialist war and occupation! No war against Iran! Immediate withdrawal of the occupying troops from Iraq, Afghanistan and Palestine! No to Plan Colombia! No to Plan Patriota!
* Solidarity with all revolutionary and emancipatory forces and their struggle against imperialism.
* Fight against all reactionary and dehumanising positions! Fight against racism, patriarchy, homophobia, anti-Semitism and Islam-phobia.
* No to IMF, World Bank, WTO and GATS! Cancellation of all debts of the countries of the Tricont held by the imperialist states and their institutions!
* No to the imperialist EU! No European army and battle groups! No to worldwide military interventions or and domestic interventions!
* No racism and national oppression! No to fortress Europe! For open borders! Against all restrictions on entry and residence! Equal rights for all!
* Against the destructive exploitation of nature and the environment!
* Freedom for all political prisoners worldwide! No to the so-called “anti terror laws” and black lists! Resistance is not terrorism!
Starting with these basic positions, ideas and demands, we want to build up our alliance, mobilize against the G8 summit and develop a constructive collaboration with all alliances, organizations of the left and the rank-and-file groups of the trade unions.
Groups of the Anti-G8-Alliance: AK Kultur & Klassenkampf Ostalb, Autonome Kommunisten Berlin, Breites Bündnis für Kolumbien, Gegeninformationsbüro Berlin, Gruppe Arbeitermacht, Gruppe Internationale Solidarität Magdeburg, Initiativ e.V. Duisburg, Revolution, Revolutionäre Aktion Stuttgart, Rote Aktion Berlin, Solidaritätsgruppe Oihuka, Sozialforum Hamburg-Eimsbüttel
Supporters of the call: Autonome Antifa Finsterwalde, Netzwerk Freiheit für alle politischen Gefangenen, Volkswiderstandsbewegung der Welt (Ortsgruppe Berlin)
http://www.antig8.tk/aufruf_en.php
Against the G8 summit in 2007 in Heiligendamm!
In the summer of 2007, the heads of state of Germany, Italy, France, Russia, Great Britain, Japan, Canada and the USA will meet for the so-called G8 summit in Heiligendamm in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania in north-east Germany. They will be well protected by police and the military, and they want to demonstrate their unity to the media. They will try to present themselves as the legitimate leadership of the “civilized world” and will organize to implement their common interests. Contrary to their actual policy they will again feign commitment to fighting world hunger, disease, poverty and terrorism. Just like at past summits, tens of thousands will protest against the meeting to show the real meaning of the G8.
G8 – peace, freedom and democracy?
The G8 summit will take place in a political situation in which the contradictions are growing in Germany as in the other G8 states. There are increasingly far-reaching attacks on the standard of living of the working class in the form of repressive laws and cuts in wages, in the social systems and in retirement plans. More and more people are forced into unemployment, precarious employment or low-paid jobs. Already millions of people live under the poverty line – even full-time employment no longer guarantees the former standard of living. At the same time privatization leads to a clear deterioration in standards for workers in this sector as well as for the general population, who pay higher prices for fewer services. Steadily rising costs for rent, heating, water and electricity, as well as the discontinuation of many previously guaranteed services in the health care system and in education are the concrete results. Women are especially affected by these cuts, as they are in a worse position in many sectors and the cuts have an especially dramatic effect on them. Because of the legal regulations from the “Hartz” laws, many women get no social support because their life partners’ income is calculated as their own – this is only one of many examples. Also many immigrants, as a part of the lower classes of society, are affected even more drastically by these developments, and as soon as they are no longer useful for the economy, they are threatened by massive state discrimination and deportation.
In addition, they are held up as scapegoats for the worsening situation and are exposed to social prejudices, exclusions and attacks. However, in the end, it is characteristic of the current attacks that they no longer affect only the marginalized social groups, but the majority of the population. Consequently more protest and resistance is appearing against these attacks in the form of mass demonstrations and strikes.
The offensive of capital takes place not only on a national level, but affects people in all parts of the world. The imperialist states have always used every means possible to forward their interests worldwide – with wars, economic sanctions or the installation or the logistical and military support of regimes faithful to them. Thus nowadays the G8 states are involved directly in imperialist wars, arm to prepare themselves for the next wars, or take part by supplying arms to conflict regions. A bitter irony is that they are currently fighting wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, against brutal regimes they once installed and supported themselves – as long as they profited from them. The victim is, in any case, the majority of the population.
With the help of institutions like the IMF, the World Bank or the WTO, with commercial agreements like GATS and with direct influence on the regimes in different countries, they secure worldwide access to cheap raw materials and manpower for themselves – at the expense of the population in the affected countries. Millions of people are forced into brutal exploitation in sweat shops, in Eastern Europe, Asia, and Africa, or the foundations of their survival are destroyed by the pillaging of raw materials available there. The dam projects in India, which led to devastating poverty and masses of refugees, or the structural adjustment programs in Argentina, which led to a wave of impoverishment, are only two of countless examples worldwide which demonstrate the direct results of the policies of the IMF and the World Bank.
The resistance of the affected people – whether against the military attacks, inhuman working conditions or the theft of natural resources – is suppressed either directly by the thugs of the big companies or by the regimes which are financed and equipped by the big companies, with their state apparatus: the police, the secret services and the military.
This work of capital or its representatives is an expression of increasing competition between big companies and the countries in which they are based, as well as increasing difficulties in further raising profits. To solve this crisis they attempt to increase exploitation and to lower the expenditures in social areas, to reshape all social relations according to the interests of capital and to secure markets worldwide – as these are divided up, the competition must increase.
The G8 summit was brought to life to defuse the inner-imperialist contradictions – specifically, for example, the customs disputes between the EU and the USA or the currency competition between the euro and the dollar – and to mark out, if necessary, the respective zones of influence. At the same time it serves to standardize strategies for exploitation and decide on measures to prevent uprisings, and to present these in propaganda as “necessary” or even “in the interest everyone”.
Those who don’t fight have already lost!
There are more than enough good reasons to use the opportunity provided by the G8 summit to demonstrate against the policies of the ruling class, whose mightiest political representatives meet there, and to bring protest and resistance against the summit out onto the streets. The mobilization must be led by those who are affected by social cuts and “Hartz” laws, privatization, wage cuts, lengthening of the working week, racist discrimination or sexist oppression and who have, therefore, an interest in changing things. However, it must also be a platform for the advanced and revolutionary movements in all parts of the world to present their struggles in the capitalist metropolises: against capitalist exploitation and impoverishment of big parts of the world population in the affected countries, against the imperialistic plundering of national resources, against expulsion, occupation and war, against the attacks of the oligarchy.
Hence, the dialogue with the liberation movements and their long experiences must also serve to develop strategies against the common imperialist enemy. Here the resistance against the capitalist offensive must stand in solidarity with the different progressive and revolutionary movements worldwide to coordinate common actions and to develop common perspectives.
From resistance to a perspective!
Protest and resistance cannot only be directed against the symptoms of the policies of the leading capitalist states. If we want to change the situation, we must analyze and understand it.
The foundations of the concrete policies of the G8 states are the foundations of the capitalistic system. These foundations are based on exploitation, competition and ownership of the means of production by a minority which holds power in society. On this basis there can be no real steps towards emancipation, because the rights and needs of people and the preservation of the environment are subordinated to the profit system. All appeals to the profiteers and managers of this system, appeals for a more social version of this system, appeals for at least minimum concessions have proven hopeless – the current worsening of the situation makes them more hopeless than ever.
The current developments also make it clear that the capitalist system with its exploitation and repression always produces the means to overcome it: the inner logic of capitalism and the supposed weakness of the exploited lead to increasing fierceness of the “class struggle from above” in the capitalist metropolises, which means that the question of real alternatives is posed for the people affected.
In this situation it’s obvious that the reformist policies of the social democracy and the trade union leaderships, which aim for a compromise between the classes, lead in this situation to a dead-end, or they position themselves openly on the capitalists’ side and begin to lose their integrative role. Based on this development, the possibility of an actual transformation of social relations towards a liberated society makes itself real. The appearance of new, mass protest movements, strikes and attempts of different forms of organization are the first signs for the fact that the times when there was a consensus in the G8 states and the social contradictions were exported are coming to an end. Besides the conflict zones in different parts of the world, where the revolutionary movements and organizations have built on decades of experience, from Nepal via India, Colombia and the Philippines to Mexico, capital finds itself in an objectively precarious situation in the metropolises as well, and the tendency is for this to increase. The preemptive internal armament and the ever more brutal methods against social protests, sometimes by attacks in the bourgeois media, sometimes by (supposed) offers of integration, sometimes by crude police actions, already show how this problem is to be solved.
However, the results of the relatively small strikes in the car industry, at airports or in the civil service at least give an idea of the power of the class of the wage-earners, and of what the results of even bigger and better-organised workers’ struggles or even a general strike could have. Also the struggles in other parts of the world, like the factory occupations in Argentina, mass protests and riots in France against the attacks on protections against dismissal, the guerrilla struggles and militant and political general strikes in Nepal or the countless other labour struggles show which forms of struggle are possible as an answer to the attacks of capital – and also must be developed here.
But for this it is necessary to bring the isolated protests, resistance and workers’ struggles again onto a political plane: to recognize the capitalist system as a cause of these developments and to strive for its overthrow. The fact that the revolutionary forces are so weak after many mistakes and defeats, especially in Germany, that they currently have almost no political influence to intervene in current developments, presents this necessity all the more urgently.
Together with racist attacks against migrants, “public opinion” is to be mobilized in a social-chauvinistic to preemptively split a possible common resistance of all affected persons.
Mobilizations like the one against the G8 summit can be an occasion to unite ourselves, to conduct discussions and gain experience. They can be used to explain criticisms of the dominant social relations and the necessity of a revolutionary transformation of these relations, as well as to bring together existing structures and thus to strengthen them. Decisive is what develops from this. Only by a continuous organizing process of the revolutionary forces on different levels, the development of a sound theory and practice, can capitalism really be overthrown and a liberated social order created. The current, temporary protests and movements must be used as an impulse for an engaging organization, to develop from resistance to a broader perspective.
Get involved in the Anti-G8-Alliance for a revolutionary perspective!
We want to use the mobilization against the G8, in a situation of increasing contradictions, to connect the defensive struggle against the current attack at home as well as globally with the fight for a liberated social order. The meaning of the mobilization for us is more than making revolutionary theory and practice visible, but also to organize common engaging structures which will continue beyond the G8 summit.
We start with the assumption that the G8 summit offers an important opportunity for the revolutionary, class-struggle-oriented and internationalist left precisely in the current situation. A successful mobilization could be the starting point for a revolutionary movement and for revolutionary organizing which would once again become stronger in Germany.
Moreover, it is our opinion that it is necessary to work on the basis of basic positions and clear demands which are directed against capital’s central points of aggression:
* Resistance against the general offensive of capital at home!
* For class struggle in workplaces, schools and universities, against social cuts, longer working hours, wage and pension cuts!
* Against the Lisbon Agenda, the Bolkestein directive, the further flexibilisation of services and working conditions!
* No imperialist war and occupation! No war against Iran! Immediate withdrawal of the occupying troops from Iraq, Afghanistan and Palestine! No to Plan Colombia! No to Plan Patriota!
* Solidarity with all revolutionary and emancipatory forces and their struggle against imperialism.
* Fight against all reactionary and dehumanising positions! Fight against racism, patriarchy, homophobia, anti-Semitism and Islam-phobia.
* No to IMF, World Bank, WTO and GATS! Cancellation of all debts of the countries of the Tricont held by the imperialist states and their institutions!
* No to the imperialist EU! No European army and battle groups! No to worldwide military interventions or and domestic interventions!
* No racism and national oppression! No to fortress Europe! For open borders! Against all restrictions on entry and residence! Equal rights for all!
* Against the destructive exploitation of nature and the environment!
* Freedom for all political prisoners worldwide! No to the so-called “anti terror laws” and black lists! Resistance is not terrorism!
Starting with these basic positions, ideas and demands, we want to build up our alliance, mobilize against the G8 summit and develop a constructive collaboration with all alliances, organizations of the left and the rank-and-file groups of the trade unions.
Groups of the Anti-G8-Alliance: AK Kultur & Klassenkampf Ostalb, Autonome Kommunisten Berlin, Breites Bündnis für Kolumbien, Gegeninformationsbüro Berlin, Gruppe Arbeitermacht, Gruppe Internationale Solidarität Magdeburg, Initiativ e.V. Duisburg, Revolution, Revolutionäre Aktion Stuttgart, Rote Aktion Berlin, Solidaritätsgruppe Oihuka, Sozialforum Hamburg-Eimsbüttel
Supporters of the call: Autonome Antifa Finsterwalde, Netzwerk Freiheit für alle politischen Gefangenen, Volkswiderstandsbewegung der Welt (Ortsgruppe Berlin)
4/28/07
4/15/07
Smash G8 in Germany 2007 ---
| Overview about the mobilization against the G8-Summit in Germany 2007 |
 |
--------------------
From 4th to 7th of June 2007 the G8-Summit in Heiligendamm, in the proximity of Rostock, in Germany takes place. Also the mobilization of the Leftwing against the G8-Summit already runs on full speed. Different alliances are founded,several nationwide meetings did take place, also with international participation and an approximate plan of action for the protests is already fixed. Already now there are numerous actions, which mobilize to the events of protest against the G8-summit. Because of the 100.000 expected demonstrators at the Main Manifestation in the Rostock City at 2nd of June 2007 the policeforces are preparing since some time their operation and security plan for the whole region and for Rostock. Here comes an overview over the conditions of the mobilization.
:: THE BEGINNING
------------------------------------
In October 2005 the first large meetings were held for the preparation of the Anti-G8-Proteste, among other meetings, there has been working groups at the European Social Forum or the first radical left-wing Dissent!-meeting in Hamburg/North Germany. Afterwards further meetings of the Dissent!-Network has been held in Berlin and other cities and later the nation-wide meetings of the so called "Action-Conference" initiated by the Interventionist Left with participation from ATTAC and some NGO's in Rostock. Apart from these spectra at the same time the "Anti G8 Alliance for a Revolutionary Perspective" has been founded, an alliance which participates like other groups in both of the meetings - the Dissent!-Network meetings and in the Action Conference. Apart from the nation-wide alliances also local Anti-G8-Groups and local allicances has been founded in many cities, which are/feel associated in one or other way with one of the nationwide allicances.
:: ABOUT THE DIFFERENT PROTEST-ALLIANCES
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At the first nation-wide meetings the different nation-wide wide alliances/currents of the Anti-G8-mobilization solidified:
• ANTI G8 ALLIANCE FOR A REVOLUTIONARY PERSPECTIVE
[
http://www.antig8.tk/home_en.php - nationwide allicance ] The "Anti G8 Alliance for a Revolutionary Perspective" is a alliance of different radical left-wing groups, of anarchists, trotzkists, communists and autonomous groups with internationalist orientation. Also with the slogan "Stop G8. Imperialism. Capitalism. War." the alliance wants to organize a clear anti-capitalist and internationalist as well as anti-imperialist mobilization against the G8 summit in Heiligendamm/Rostock. The alliance campaigns for one big manifestation of all leftwing people in the city of Rostock as well as for a leftradical and clearly anticapitalist and internationalist as well as antiimperialist bloc. The alliance is in coordination with other alliances and groups, which also wants a radical left-wing, anticapitalist and internationalist orientation of the protests, like for example with groups from switzerland [
link to www.aufbau.org ] or the Antiimperialist Current of the European Social Forum (turkish groups, basque groups, etc.). 
• DISSENT! NETWORK
[
https://dissentnetzwerk.org/node/49 - nationwide network ] [
https://hamburg.dissentnetzwerk.org/MainEnglish/HomePage - Dissent! Hamburg ] The "Dissent! Network" had a difficult developing phase in the first meetings, in which has been discussed, how to decide and which forms one could develop for an anti-hierachical organization and deciding-form but with a possibility to organize effectively a mobilization against the G8. In the Dissent! Spectrum different radical left-wing, anarchist as well as autonomous groups and different local connections are associated. Among other things the Dissent! Network organized the first large meetings of the Anti-G8-Preparation and the first Anti-G8-Camp [
http://camp06.dissentnetwork.org/Main_Page ] in the region where the G8-Gipfel will take place. The Dissent! Network wants to organize Convergence Centers and Anti-G8-Camps and calls to decentralized blockade actions. The framework of the Network is very broad in the meaning of action forms and the topics of leftradical protest, some topics among others are: Migration, the protest against the Military Place "Bombodrom" in the region or e.g. the idea of the Dissent!-Group from Hamburg to organize a radical left-wing internationalist congress on the day of the large demonstration at 2nd of June and the day after.• INTERVENTIONIST LEFT
[
link to cms.g8-2007.de - nationwide alliance ] The Interventionist Left is a nationwide alliance of anti-fascist groups and internationalists, and they stand for a broad co-operation of a broad left like with Attac, church-activists and different progressive NGO`s as well as with Working Groups from the Party of Democratic Socialism (PDS). Contentwise this composition was reflected above all also at the nationwide Action-Conferences [
http://www.heiligendamm2007.de/ ] in Rostock, organized by the Interventionist Left in co-operation with Attac, NGOs and the Party of Democratic Socialism (PDS), to which came up 300 or 400 delegated Members of the diverse currents of the left of germany as well es from different NGO`s. At this conferences and in the apron of this conferences most of the action plan - the "action choreographie" how it was called there - for June 2007 is already negotiated. The Interventionist Left also calls for blockades around the location of the G8-summit in Heiligendamm.• LABOUR UNIONS / PARTIES
[
http://www.linkspartei-berlin.de/nc/politik/aktuell/ - Party of Democratic Socialism (PDS) ] [
http://www.dgb-jugend.de/UNIQ116754852305525/doc1103679A.html - Youth of the labour union DGB ] [
http://www.gruene-jugend.de/suchen/320432.html?searchshow=g8 - Green Alternative Youth ] From the labour unions its above all the union youth who wants to take part also in the Protests of the Anti-G8-activists as well at the Main Manifestation in Rostock City and at blockades in the region. They will also organize a union youth camp near Rostock. From the parties like the Green Party or the Party of Democratic Socialism (PDS) there will be different protest participation, too, but almost with reformist orientation. Within the Party of Democratic Socialism there are different groups of interests, which depends from Generation or orientation toward participation in local governments. The PDS will also call to all planed protest actions, in some parts it will be the PDS who can negotiate with the local administration for large meeting areas and it`s this party who has the possibility to spend more many for the protest-infrastructure.
• ATTAC / NGO-PLATFORM / CHURCHES
[
http://www.attac.de/heiligendamm07 - globalisation-critical Organisation ] [
http://www.g8-germany.info/deutsch/index.htm - NGO-Platform ] [
http://www.deine-stimme-gegen-armut.de/ - "Your Voice against Poverty" ] The main focus in the mobilization by Attac as well as by the NGO platform is among other things the planned Counter-Summit/Alternative Summit in Rostock, the days after the main large demonstration will take place, with different globalization-critical contents. Topics how Disencumberment, gene patents, etc. will play a large role. The NGOs stands for a rather reformist orientation, in their understanding of protests they want to organize "citizen-friendly" manifestations. Like during the anti-g8-protests in Glenneagles their will be a Gelldorf-Initiative with a big concert from "Your Voice against Poverty" during the G8-Summit in the region, with the prominent german rock-folk-singer "Grönemeyer".
:: DISCUSSION OF THEORIE AND PRAXIS AGAINST G8
------------------------------------------------------
-- > DIFFERENT DISCUSSION PAPERS AND CALLS OF THE DIFFERENT CURRENTS:
- Anti G8 Allicance for a revolutionary Perspektive / Stop G8. Imperialism. Capitalism. War:
http://www.antig8.tk/aufruf_en.php - 11.November Bewegung / Block Germany! ANSWER to "22nd Ocober collective":
https://dissentnetzwerk.org/node/105 - The 22nd october collective / Towards an inventive strategy for attacking and blocking summits:
https://dissentnetzwerk.org/node/107 - Anti-G8 Action Conference: decicions are made from a small group:
link to www.antig8.tk - Anti-G8 Action Conference Invitation:
link to cms.g8-2007.de - NoG8 Kiel | Dissent! Puff Away the G8-summit!:
https://dissentnetzwerk.org/node/261 -NoLager Bremen and other antirassist groups / Global Freedom of Movement and Equal Rights for All:
link to cms.g8-2007.de - Interventionist Left / News from the Red Planet:
link to cms.g8-2007.de - BLOCK THE BOMBODROME AND 2007 G-8!:
link to www.gipfelsoli.org - Antiracist Perspectives in regard to G-8 Summit 2007 / NoLager:
link to www.gipfelsoli.org - Action Conference Rostock / Small Overview:
http://www.heiligendamm2007.de/index_en.html - A global call written at anti-G8 "Camp Inski / Dissent!:
http://www.nadir.org/nadir/initiativ/agp/g82007/ ---- LOOK AT THE DIFFERENT WEBSITES FOR MORE ENGLISH NEWS AND INFORMATION
The differentiation into different alliances - from radical left-wing to reformist - points out the different discussion lines, which has been discussed in the different nationwide meetings of Dissent!, but which did come more clearly and more conflictive to surface at the nationwide meetings of the Action-Conferences in Rostock.
While during the first Dissent! meetings the discussions mostly concerned matters of the acclamation modus and in some working groups also ended in constructive disccussions about the orientation of the leftradical mobilization - for example point of views about a clear stand against capitalism and imperialism versus focused mobilization for different topics like migration, the bombodrome in the region and about the term "internationalism" or the relation towards liberation movements or against war, in the Rostock meetings fundamental discrepancies in the howto of the practical mobilization showed up.
In the discussions of Dissent!-Network practically came out, that the Network will be a Mobilization Network of the different radical leftwing or anarchist currents who will mobilize in the context of Dissent! to different topics - like Migration, Anti-War, gene patents - in reference to each other. Main Activities will bei decentralized Blockades, Camps or Manifestations.
The discussions, working groups and plena of the Action Conference in Rostock did show, that there are many discrepances between the mobilization and activity concepts from the different currents, discrepances which not all will be solved until the actiondays in June 2007. Also there will be no possibility for a collective Slogan of the whole left movement together with the NGOs in Germany.
The range of the differences reaches from clearly anticapitalist and internationalst orientation (Anti G8 Alliance for a Revolutionary Perspektive) to fundamental reformist so-called "globalisation-critical" point of views. In the discussion about the Slogan " For Global Rights" from antirassist groups and some autonomous also differences in the general orientation against the G8-Summit became clear. While parts of the leftradical groups (Anti G8 Alliance and parts from Dissent!) stand for a clear radical opositional attitude against the G8-Summit and for the propaganda of the possibility of massive disturbance of the G8-Summit, parts of the radical left like from Interventionist Left and some parts of Dissent! want to make many concessions for ATTAC or the NGO's to force these reformist organisations to participate in the street protests. Whether this this concept will gain success is really questionably, because the top management of ATTAC and the majority of the NGO`s already are fixed in their main orientation for the Alternative Summit or "Counter-Summit" which will be parallel to all the street-protests, and Attac like the NGO`s are not favourisating one big common manifestation in the city from Rostock, the want a march from different start-points outside from Rostock.
In this discussion about the main demonstration what is planned for 2nd of June 2007 in Rostock before the G8-Summit and before the Counter Summit at the Weekend at Saturday the differences in the practical orientation became clear.
While for example the Anti G8 Alliance for a revolutionary Perspektive argued for one big manifestation of all protesters in the city of Rostock near the railway station, the NGOs and other reformists favourised many different start points and a end-manifastation point outside the city center of Rostock in an area of instustry and motorway.
A big manifestation where all can march together would be better because all currents could represent themselves equaly and all the visitors from the different currents from other countries can participate visible in the major event in the protest-choreographie.
But parts from the NGO`s and ATTAC are frightened about the possibility at a central manifestation of all protesters alltogether with the people from other countries, that the obligations from the police like the famous german police obligation not to have a side-banner at the demonstration, couln't be handled or in worther case that there will be disturbance in the city center.
Other discrepances exists in the orientation of the Counter Summit or Alternative Summit, which until now alsmost only will be prepared by ATTAC and some NGOs. While at the last Dissent!-Meetings the discussions about the counter summit ended in clear consens not to organize such events parallel to the street-protests, action-day and blockades for not to seperate the protest-movement in June, it became clear that Attac & Co will go on in organizing it parallel to these protest activities and that the counter summit shell take place during the week and not at the weekand, parallel to the official summit, with almost reformist topics.
Because there only is planned a concert in the end of the mass manifestation at Saturday, the 2nd of June 2007, parts of Dissent! - e.G. the Dissent!-group from Hamburg are planing a leftradical internationalist Conference at this day and also at Sunday (see timetable below) to open a space for a fundamental delegitimation of the G8-summit and to open a space and forum to all our foreign Guests from the different countries, which not all can stay all the following days in the region in north-east-germany.
While the timetable of the protests and events is nearly fixed, we can't speak about a definitly protest-choreographie with a definitly fixed practical and theoretical orientation.
After the last Action Conference in Rostock it became clear that many decicions are made from a small group. The group Arbeitermacht, organized in the Anti G8-Alliance described this in a report about the conference:
link to www.antig8.tk :: MOBILIZATION AND MEDIA REACTIONS IN THE RUN-UP
----------------------------------------------------
The Mobilization in Germany against the G8-Summit starts to speed up, like many homepages and articles are demonstrating. Also in different other countries the discussion about G8 in Germany and the mobilization is starting. Nearly at all demonstrations in Germany the upcoming protest against the G8 is a topic or there are held speeches of mobilization at this demonstrations. The upcoming mass manifestations like against the WORLD ECONOMIC FORUM in Davos/Switzerland, or against the NATO-Security Conference in Munich/South-Germany, or for the Revolutionary 1st of May Manifestations in Germany will also broach the issue of the mobilization agsinst the G8. There are many Information-Events and Info-Tours in Germany about the G8-topic now. [ WEF DAVOS:
link to www.1mai06.ch ] In newspapers and television the police and politicians are agitating against the upcoming protests and the police is prognosing riots because already there are many attacks against houses or cars of representants of the politicians or economy like in Hamburg or the Region of Berlin or in other cities nationwide, not only with declarations against war and colonialism but also with declarations against G8 and for a strong mobilization to the protests in June. Or there has been thrown colour-eggs and stones against the Hotel in Heiligendamm where the G8 will took place. The police declared that threatening letteres has been written to different Hotels in the region where officials from the G8 will sleep. [
http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,,2292773,00.html?maca=en-rss-en-all-1573-rdf | http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,,2292773,00.html?maca=en-rss-en-all-1573-rdf | link to www.upi.com ] :: REPRESSION
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The security organs already began with their preparations, and due to an alleged security risk there will be build a 2 meter high fence several kilometers around the meeting place of the G8. Due to Security Strategies the place of the G8-meeting is at the Baltic sea and in the south sourrounded by far open fields. At numerous ways and roads checkpoints are to be established and there will be a kind of curfew for tourists. Also because of the large security operations the ammount of the costs of the G8-Summit will be over 100 Million Euro and there will be taskforces together with international police forces like Interpol and with civil police groups from the different countries, too.
Pressure is exerted on the local administration, not to allow Camps in the proximity of the security fence and there will be many obligations for the large demonstration or the decentralized manifestations and demonstrations.
Because of the estimated repression the leftwing scene and the antirepression-organizations like "red help" in Germany did join together in working groups to build up a common antirepression structure. During the protest-days and at the convergence centeres information will be provided about german laws and antirepression-tips will be given in different languages. Lawers and a common "Ermittlungsausschuss" will be established ("Ermittlungsausschuss: A central point reachable by telefon round the clock where people can call to report about arrested people, and the "Ermittlungsausschuss" will look for lawers and coordinate the prison-work).
In the apron of the events there will be information events about repression in many different cities, the antirepression-information will be published in different languages in the above Internet-Sites from the different allicances.
:: ACTION TIMETABLE AGAINST G8
-----------------------------------------
THUESDAY, 1st of MAY:
Revolutionary 1st of May Manifestations in different cities.
from 26th of May: Convergence Center in Hamburg, eventually in Berlin too.
Beginning of June: "Block Germany", Decentralized Blockades all over Germany
FRIDAY, 1st of JUNE:
Opening of the Mediacenter in Rostock
Occupation of the "Bombodrom"
Camp und start of the caravan to Heiligendamm
SATURDAY, 2nd JUNE:
MASS DEMONSTRATION in the city of Rostock, near Central Railway Station
Start of the Camp against G8
Internationalist Conference in Rostock
SUNDAY, 3th of JUNE:
Actionday in Rostock,
Internationalist Conference in Rostock
MONDY, 4th of JUNE:
Actionday against War and Rascism
Camp against G8
THUESDAY, 5th of JUNE:
Actionday agsainst war / eventually blockade of the airport in Rostock-Laage
Start of the Counter-Summit in Rostock
Camp against G8
WEDNESDAY, 6th of JUNE:
1st Day of the G8-Summit, Blockade-Day in different Areas
Counter-Summit in Rostock
Camp against G8
THURSDAY, 7th of JUNE:
G8-Summit, 2nd day in Heiligendamm
Counter-Summit in Rostock
Camp against G8
Blockade-Actions / March from different small local cities to Heiligendamm
End Manifestation
FRIDAY, 8th of JUNE:
G8-Summit, 3rd Day
End of the Camp against G8
:: MAPS:
----------------------
Google Maps - Heiligendamm und Rostock
link to local.google.com Local Map Heiligendamm:
link to www.nadir.org
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