To: Retort From: LW Nov 30th, 2009
I can't resist responding to the exchange about occupations in the context of this week's Seattle-WTO 10th anniversary observances. At the risk of making a long story ludicrously short, the questions about occupations seem to be about insurrectionary vs. movement-building tactics. The Seattle protest was shot through with acrimony about exactly that difference. "When we smash a window, we aim to destroy the thin veneer of legitimacy that surrounds private property rights. At the same time, we exorcise that set of violent and destructive social relationships which has been imbued in almost everything around us. By “destroying” private property, we convert its limited exchange value into an expanded use value." -
N30 Black Bloc Communiqué, Nov. 30 1999 http://www.theanarchistlibrary.org/n30-black-bloc-communiqué "[T]hese anarchist folks marched in there and started smashing things. And our people actually picked up the anarchists. Because we had with us longshoremen and steelworkers who, by their sheer bulk, were three or four time larger. So we had them just literally sort of, a teamster on either side, just pick up an anarchist. We'd walk him over to the cops and say, this boy just broke a window. He doesn't belong to us. We hate the WTO, so does he maybe, but we don't break things. Please arrest him." -
Lori Wallach of Public Citizen, interview in Foreign Policy (Cited by Jim Davis in Yuen, Katsifiacis, Burton Rose, The Battle of Seattle) "In particular, Bakers without Borders and Co-optation Watch hold Medea Benjamin accountable for, "Publicly siding with the police and municipal authorities against direct actions performed at the World Trade Organization protests of 1999. Administrative authority in an organization that hordes funds raised for community organizations in Guatemala. Exploiting and dominating movement space, resources, and publicity in the global justice and associated movements." -
Medea Benjamin Gets Pied At US Social Forum, 7/1/2007 http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2007/07/01/18432091.php The organizers of the Seattle sit-in and blockade knew well in advance that a black bloc was planning to form and attack corporate property during the demonstrations: black bloc organizers discussed their plans at the main Direct Action Network organizing meetings. These two constituencies were not able to work out a mutually acceptable plan, and ended up organizing separately. DAN did not tell their street-level recruits that these other actions were expected, and when the day came they condemned and disavowed them: the next morning's protest newspaper was headlined "Violence mars otherwise peaceful protest." T-shirts were printed up in a rush reading "This is a non-violent protest," in hope of salvaging DAN's media strategy of performing a Gandhian mass civil disobedience. Every post-Seattle protest (and many before) has been troubled by conflict between roughly these two forms of protest action, including actions at political party conventions, G-8 summits, ANSWER marches against Bush's wars, and next week's Copenhagen climate actions. Movement-building organizers emphasize cultivating a base, controlling a message to appeal to potential supporters, and winning concrete institutional changes, often at the expense of solidarity with activists with conflicting approaches and acknowledgement of the inadequacy of reform. Insurrectionists emphasize a deep critique, uncompromising confrontation, and direct action without demands, and often underemphasize tactical goals and base building. The mutual mistrust bred by many experiences like Seattle is a major obstacle to effectiveness. Neither of these tendencies is likely to go away any time soon, and they are probably most effective as complements to each other. Unfortunately, the acrimony and resentment are thick, communication has broken down, and many younger organizers do not know the background behind the lasting split between nonprofit-style organizers and black-bloc-style organizers, only that the other side can't be trusted. This split can be seen as anarchists vs. liberals, but shouldn't be. Anarchists and non-anarchists can be found in both camps. A handful of things that have been tried in the recent past: At the eagerly anticipated sequel to Seattle, the April 2000 IMF/World Bank protest in DC, the black bloc reached consensus to do no property destruction as a demonstration of goodwill, and dedicated themselves to solidarity in defense of the summit blockaders. Mutual goodwill did not emerge. In the subsequent Quebec City and Prague actions, organizers used a "red/yellow/green" zoning system to help guide protestors to more and less confrontational protest situations. This strategy was sometimes successful, especially in Quebec, where Seattle's factional acrimony didn't really happen despite much rioting and police violence. On the other hand, designating "red zones" can be sort of like asking to be attacked by police. The recent Republican Convention protests in Minneapolis/St. Paul developed an agreement for all participants to refrain from attacking each other in the media. Unfortunately there was little participation from large nonprofits and unions at that action, which made it small and vulnerable to intense police repression. The current student movement is a part of this history, and hopefully will learn from it. (It's all also part of a much longer history, of course, including Kronstadt and factional fighting in the Spanish Civil War...) Some references besides the 2 above: David Graeber, Direct Action: An Ethnography Carol Moore's pacifist position paper at http://www.carolmoore.net/sfm/ Paul de Armond's tactical analysis of Seattle at http://www.albionmonitor.com/seattlewto/index.html St Paul Principles http://forums.e-democracy.org/groups/stpaul-issues/messages/post/FUidQTi29jeWQz0ynLp28 The Coming Insurrection http://tarnac9.wordpress.com/texts/the-coming-insurrection/ David and
Rebecca Solnit's new book, The Battle of the Story of the Battle of Seattle,
which I haven't read yet |