>- -I think this is broadly recognised which is part of the reason
>- -the protesters divided Quebec into Green, Yellow and Red zones
>- -to facilitate people who wanted to take part but not to get
>- -arrested or tear gassed. Unfortuantly the police didn't
>- -recognise that division.
>Of course they didn't
Err yes, the problem is irony doesn't carry well over email and my 'unfortunatly' was intended to be read ironically. The cops don't respect these sort of divisions - this however should be blamed on them.
>Which is why the laissez-faire "everyone do their own
>thing" approach to coalition activism does not really make sense in the long
>term. It is in the interest of the state to undermine such divisions, to
>use the actions of the most militant minority to justify repression against
>the less militant activists.
There is a lot to discuss here. For starters the model being developed for these summits is a concious break with the 'coalition activism' of the past, at least in terms of the radical sections. This is why no less then three coalitions built for Quebec with a reasonable level of hostility between Salami (who organised the big but tokenistic march) and CLAC (who organised the 25% who protested at the fence or tried to penetrate the fence). This is probably a better approach then trying to unity everyone in a single demonstration.
This isn't simply a debate about how militant tactics should be. It's a much more fundamental debate centred on two issues
1. Are we about reforming the WTO etc or abolishing it.
- If you want to reform the global bodies in some sense (including replacing them with an alterntive structure) then the mobilisations are primarly about showing you have support in order to influence those with the power to make these reforms.
2. Closely related, are we about creating leaders to fight for us (Nader etc) or are we working towards building a movement that will break with the leader model of change.
The debate about physical confrontation and property destruction is in reality a debate around these questions. Most of those who favour the traditional lobby/leader fear confrontation because it undermines their credibility with those in power (and they worry about 'public opinion'). Some do see an advantage in it as it allows them to say 'look what happens when you don't take us on board'.
For those of us who don't favour this method these are not issues that concern us for the most part. So even moral pacifists tend to support some of the more confrontational acts even if they don't take part in them.
If you look at the so called 'non-violent' perspective on Quebec (where the BB was pretty disciplined) you'll clearly see that the 'pacifists' divide into two clear groups as outlined above. So in general those in the CLAC section (ie who took part in Yellow, Green or Red) blame the police for the violence in the safe sectors. Those leading the Salami march try and blame the black block etc for provoking the police.
>But splitting the difference and saying each group do it's own thing is just
>a ridiculous naive approach to politics. The issue is not militancy versus
>passive action but of collective responsibility for how one's actions effect
>others. What I object to among some of the Black Bloc is not really that
>they break windows, because there are windows in the world deserving
>breaking, but that they are so fundamentally anti-solidaristic towards other
>activists, that they oppose democratic accountability and coordination as a
>movement.
It's percular to read people post about being 'anti-solidaristic' when they are also saying 'blame this section of the demonstration, not the police'. All the more so because 450 people are arrested.
But beyond this I'm glad you use the word 'some' above. In general it sems to me that the majority of the BB is quite happy to be in solidarity with other protesters. That after all is what the whole purpose of the Green/Yellow/Red zones in Quebec were about (and to a much lesser extent Blue/yellow/pink in Prague). If the cops fail to respect these zones then we should blame the cops. Mainstream _business_ commentators in the Canadian press managed this, its quite remarkable that people on the left have such difficulty. Again I suspect this reflects political diferences that go much deeper then the degree of confrontation used at a particular event.
>In the short term, such laissez-faire activism can look spectacular on TV
>but leaves little chance to building the long-term strategy it takes to
>challenge corporate-backed state power. I recognize that this is the core
>political disagreement between socialists and anarchists, in that socialists
>generally believe that majority votes should be binding and that it takes
>broad-based organization to challenge power.
The Boleheviks reacted to the election of soviets with a non-Bolshevik majority by dissolving them, they reacted to a 15,000 - 3 vote in kronstadt in 1921 with war. I don't know if you count these as 'socialists' but if you do then things are more complex they you imply above.
In reality most anarchists are not against majority votes, we are against the idea that in all circumstances the minority are required to obey the majority. This might sound controversal but on issues like racism and abortion rights many on the left would agree with this. My own introduction to activism was partly through defying the strongly anti-abortion majority of the Irish population and supplying 'abortion information' to Irish women. [A relevant example because it involved disobeying the majority not merely arguing for it to be changed). And in the next months I'm part of a group bringing a ship here that will be equipped to carry out abortions. See http://struggle.ws/ws/2001/64/abortion.html
And in the case of the demonstrations this concept of majority and minority is pretty meaningless _except_ where there is a physical mass assembly in advance of the protest. In Prague where this happened the organisers (INPEG) definition of the protest as 'non-violent' was effectively replaced by a majority deciding it was OK for Ya Basta and others to attempt to push through the police lines.
But even here it does not necessarly make sense that the majority of a group organising a demonstration in a city should have some sort of veto on all other events that take place that day. I think where there is a clearly non confrontational majority then the BB and others need to take this into account and act in a way which does not use them as shields.
>Anarchists just think it's recreating the same oppressive structure with a
>nicer face, which is true to a certain extent, but the anarchist alternative
>of voluntarism, despite lots of noise and drama, doesn't deliver real change
>over the long term. It's too easy to divide and conquer, since it can't
>plan for the future since there is little long term accountability.
I think you need to read up on anarchism a little. There is a lot more to the movement then the Black block or indeed what you have in N. America.
I'd disagree quite strongly with Chuck around this. As far as I'm concerned the BB is a very limited strategy which works in terms of a demonstration but not beyond this. What is needed is coherent anarchist organisation(s) which organisea millions of members on a continental wide basis. The current sutructure of the US anarchist movement has to radically change if it is to build this. It's method of operation also has to change, most importantly thru getting involved as anarchists in trade unions and communities.
Andrew
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International anarchism
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