[this is from a friend in El Salvadore, who, along with the rest of the country, is watching nyc in the next few days closely]
Please share this with my dearest comrades, troops girding for battle, fighting so that one day we will have to fight no more.
Dearest comrades in the People's Republic of New York City,
Warmest greetings from a warmest place. Just a few days left until the big mobilization takes off, or should I say ‘touches down’? Final preparations, getting overwhelmed by the details, where the hell are we going to house all these people? and oh shit, the city just denied our permit to the park! and who the hell is spreading false information about legal phone numbers? It’s like opening a broadway show, except the tickets are free and you too can play.
You’ve got a new mayor who’s got the liberal establishment enthralled just because he’s not as overtly evil as the last one was; well, now it’s time to expose him for what he really is, a servant of capital like all the rest, who will not think twice about bringing down the lethal force of state violence against anyone who dares to put into practice oppositional viewpoints. You’ve got a police force that’s been lauded by the mainstream press as “heroes of the world,” and it’s not very polite to ask the question, so what about Amadou Diallo, what about Patrick Dorismond, what about my friend who just got stopped-and-frisked for the fourth time this month, and they say Operation Condor is over? and while we’re asking questions, what exactly happened to all that gold that disappeared from the basement of the World Trade Center when nobody was down there but cops and rescue workers? And you’ve got a press corps that’s already written the articles about the protests and are just waiting to file them, that have condemned you before you’ve even begun. Que les vayan a la chingada.
Because here’s what else you’ve got. You’ve got some of the smartest, toughest and most creative anarchists in the US. You’ve got some great minds that pulled off some amazing and wild and fun stunts from Washington to Philadelphia to Quebec to as far away as Prague and Genoa. And now you’re on your own turf, goddamn it. It’s your party now, the kids are coming from all over, and it’s time to bring that muthafucker down. What if they threw a protest, and everybody came?
I want you to know something. It’s really important that you know something. Here in Latin America, we’re all watching you with baited breath. In El Salvador, for the past week, the major daily newspapers have had an article every other day about the upcoming protests against the WEF in New York City. You’re already getting as much coverage here as you are in the fucking _Times_. And you’re getting a _lot_ more coverage than the actual meeting itself, have you noticed that? (Although I must add, certain names that keep reappearing in the paper might wish to step aside and let others have their say, too. Even if you are good friends of mine and it’s fun to see your quotations translated in Spanish in the “Internacionales” section of _El Diario de Hoy_.) Here, union leaders, striking public-sector workers and organizers of women maquila workers are looking forward to your protests this coming weekend with as much excitement as they’re looking forward to the opening of the World Cup. Perhaps even more excitement ? in this year’s World Cup, our team didn’t make it through the elimination rounds; but in this year’s WEF protest, our team made it to the finals. That’s what I’m trying to say: you all there in New York, you’re “our team.” Sure, you’re a group of mostly white, mostly privileged people. But folks here are rooting for you. They look to me, as someone who identifies himself as coming out of your milieu, for the latest news. Every time Joaquin, from the airport workers’ union, sees me, the first thing he asks is how the kids up in New York are doing, whether the plans are on schedule, what the final score is going to be. (That last one’s tough to answer ? the referees are bought and paid for, and the other team gets away with a lot of flagrant fouls. Yellow cards are rarely issued against the bad guys.)
So it’s not just a catchy chant, the whole world is watching. And they’re not just watching out of curiosity; like any good football fans, they’re getting into the game, and fights are breaking out in the stands. I’ve carried this sports metaphor way too far now, and I’ll stop, because I never was good at sports metaphors anyway. But what I was trying to get at, is that just like communities in struggle in the United States are inspired by revolutionary struggle in the global south (like the Zapatistas in Chiapas), communities in struggle in El Salvador and Honduras (the only two countries I can definitively speak about) are most certainly inspired by radical protest in the global north. They see you kids taking it up to the next level of militancy, and they’re impelled, pushed forward, into taking their struggles up to the next level of militancy. And given that striking workers here were burning tires in the street before the WTO was a twinkle in Clinton’s eye, we’re talking a pretty high level of militancy. And what happens is our old slogan, “globalize resistance,” becomes true. Resistance movements feed off of each other, even if just morally and spiritually.
And if I may suggest some potential food for you kids up there (and I use the word “kids” with all tenderness and love), I’d suggest taking a good look at the kids down in Argentina. They’re really going for it this time. They overthrew five presidents in as many weeks, and now they’re working on the sixth. They’ve sacked supermarkets and liberated food, they’ve destroyed banks. Now, even middle-aged and middle-class people are getting into the “cacerolazos,” or banging of pots, and are starting to fight back against the cops when their peaceful demonstrations are viciously attacked with chemical weapons. Who started it? Who took down President Fernando de la Rúa? It wasn’t the intransigence of the Peronista governors, that’s for damn sure. At the end of the day, the straw that broke the capitalist’s back was a protest of no more than 5000 people in the Plaza de Mayo, anarchist kids, some of whom (according to their own reports) had been in Quebec and others of whom had been in Genoa. But what a protest it was ? they fought hard, and they fought diligently, and they outsmarted not just the cops but the army too, and they made it to the very doors of the Presidential Palace and left their mark on the halls of state power in black spray paint and dealt a HUGE fucking blow to neoliberal global capital and to the state and to Empire. Now the IMF is weaker than it’s ever been, FTAA is on the verge of collapsing, Hugo Chavez in Venezuela is turning up the pressure and trying to form a bloc of global south states against neoliberal domination, Brazil is about to back out of the entire FTAA altogether, in Peru Fujimori may actually face the trial that in Chile Pinochet never did ? and the kids in Argentina are still out there, every fucking day, a permanent state of mobilization, except by now they’re backed up by tens of thousands of union members, informal-sector workers, students, and even old people who just want their damn pensions back. If you just keep at it, keep out there, keep up the militancy, you will find support coming from places you would never have expected it, and pretty soon they’re sacking supermarkets from Bed-Stuy to the Hub. To strike a major blow in New York City this weekend, could give the kids in Argentina the force they need to push their struggle over the edge. Fight hard, because down here we’re counting on you. Fight hard, because it’s not just about New York, it’s about Buenos Aires too ? and San Salvador, and Managua, and Caracas, and Bogotá, and Brussels, and Manila, and Seoul, and Johannesburg. Fight hard, so that maybe one day we won’t have to fight anymore.
I’m getting very emotional as I write this email. I miss you all very much, I think of you often ? sometimes I even worry a little bit, but I know you’ll be okay ? and I wish I could be there with you. You’re the greatest comrades in the world, and I’m proud of you. I’m so proud of you. Take risks, go out on a limb, be creative, think sharp and colorful (and flaming never hurts either), and by all means dance dance dance. Tell the samba band to throw in a merengue number as a gesture of solidarity to those of us laboring under the weight of the US’s imperialist Caribbean Basin Initiative. Have fun. Kick some ass. Win.
your friend,
s