[Gipfelsoli Newsletter] Hokkaido -- Genoa -- Heiligendamm
International Newsletter
gipfelsoli-int at lists.nadir.org
Wed Feb 6 15:31:17 CET 2008
- About No! G8 Action Info-tour
- Restrictions on using parks in Hokkaido, Japan
- Japan to boost G8 security after whale standoff: official
- Japan mulls deploying Patriot-3 missiles during G8 summit
- Italy, Cosenza. Sud Ribelle trial
- What Would It Mean To Win?
- Manuela Zechner/ Anja Kanngieser: Negotiating speech and
organizational practices
- Who is a Threat to Whom? G8 Summits and Increasing State Repression
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About No! G8 Action Info-tour
In July 2008, heads of the states that monopolize two thirds of the
earth’s wealth will gather at Lake Toya in Hokkaido Japan. The so-called
G8 is embodiment of the global governance that has consistently driven
neo-liberal reformation at the same time as spreading poverty, violence,
hatred, segregation, and environmental destruction across the globe. We
can no longer let it continue. The Japan based network of
anti-authoritarians and anarchists, No! G8 Action was formed in May
2007, right before the G8 2007 in Rostock, where it learned from the
European anti-G8 protest. Then it began to prepare its own projects. One
of its focuses has been a coalition-building called G8 Action Network
which connects various types of radical groups and coordinates with
certain NGOs for certain projects.
Now it strives for bringing Japanese and East Asian impetus into the
stage of the global anti-capitalist struggle.
The info-tour is part of the effort. In collaboration with the German
Dissent info-tour group the Japanese members have visited countries in
the Asia-Pacific region such as South Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong, the
Philippines, and Australia. Two members have toured three cities in
North America: New York, Montreal, and Toronto. Within this coming few
months the group will go over to major European cities and the cities in
Canadian/American Pacific North West. The presentation consists of
following subjects: (1) general problems about the G8; (2) Japan’s
status in the global governance; (3) about No! G8 Action and its
coalition building; (4) about cultural and intellectual projects; (5)
action Plans;(6) facilities for foreign visitors; (7) Japanese police
behavior and Immigration situations; (8) call for action. Within this
framework, the presentation sheds light on the history of Japanese
imperialism and surviving ambition to control Asia by spreading
neo-liberal policies and trade agreements. Today’s highly commodified
and controlled social space shall be scrutinized as well. While it deals
with the particular issues vis-à-vis Japan and East Asia concerning
militarization, neo-liberal reforms, free trade, society of control,
environment, and minorities such as resident Koreans, Chinese, foreign
workers, and the Ainu People, the common ground of the struggling people
of the world over are going to be embossed in the form of problematic
interrelation. The presentation lasts about two hours (with discussion).
It employs a power point presentation and screening of footages taken
from Japanese lives and struggles today.
You can contact the Infotour here: no-g8 at sanpal.co.jp
Related web-links:
* NO! G8 Action: http://a.sanpal.co.jp/no-g8
* G8 Action Network: http://www.jca.apc.org/alt-g8
* Japan G8 Media Network: http://g8medianetwork.org/en
* Hokkaido G8 Summit Citizen Forum: http://kitay-hokkaido.net
* Japan G8 Summit NGO Forum: http://www.g8ngoforum.org/english
* Indymedia Japan: http://japan.indymedia.org
For signing up to Asian Anarchist Network:
https://lists.riseup.net/www/info/a_a_n
For signing up to anti-G8 International email list:
https://lists.riseup.net/www/info/g8-int
Basic info about Anti-G8 2008 Action:
http://gipfelsoli.org/Home/Hokkaido_2008
Basic info about G8: www.g7.utoronto.ca
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Restrictions on using parks in Hokkaido, Japan
News from NO! G8 Action Japan regarding the negative campaign towards
the anti-G8 movement, which is being labeled as extremists/terrorists by
the police and mass media in Japan.
Sapporo City is the largest city in the area which the next G8 Japan
will take place. It is about a two-hour drive to Lake Toya, where the
actual site will be. Sapporo is the city where demos and symposiums are
planned to be held proir to the G8 Summit.
A number of networks will announce a joint protest statement, as well as
undergo protest actions as a unified opposing group against Sapporo
City, and aim to ultimately win the permission of usage of the parks
through judicial action on the bases of violation of the constitution.
Unfortunately, we expect further repression from various levels, both
national and municipal and will keep you updated on the situation
surrounding the anti-G8 movement in Japan.
Source: email
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Japan to boost G8 security after whale standoff: official
TOKYO (AFP) — Japan said Friday it would look at how to better guard
against extremists at the upcoming Group of Eight summit after a
standoff with militant anti-whaling activists in the Antarctic Ocean.
Japan late Thursday handed to Australia two activists who had boarded
the whaling ship in a protest against Japan’s annual hunt, which is
opposed by most Western countries.
Chief Cabinet Secretary Nobutaka Machimura said that Japan “must closely
review the case” of the two-day whaling showdown with the militants of
the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society.
“Opinions have been raised as to whether the actions by the Japanese
government against such very extreme non-governmental organisations were
OK,” said Machimura, the top government spokesman.
“In examining this case, we want to make sure that such dangerous acts
will not be repeated, especially in light of the upcoming summit,” he
told a news conference.
In a nod to the passions over whaling, Machimura said: “We must be
reminded, however, that whales are a unique theme.”
Japan plans to kill some 1,000 whales in the Antarctic using a loophole
that allows “lethal research” on the giant mammals. Japan makes no
secret that the meat winds up on dinner plates, and accuses Westerners
who object to the practice of cultural insensitivity.
Japan will host the annual summit of the Group of Eight – Britain,
Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia and the United States –
from July 7 to 9 at the mountainside hot-spring resort of Toyako.
The pristine location on the northern island of Hokkaido was chosen in
part to highlight the fight against global warming but also to ensure
security for what is set to be US President George W. Bush’s last G8 summit.
G8 summits have become raucous affairs with mostly Western activists
holding noisy demonstrations on a range of issues such as economic
globalisation.
[http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5grby55KCZTlqFVRa44cF5wZ4nHZQ]
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Japan mulls deploying Patriot-3 missiles during G8 summit
Japan’s defence ministry is considering the possibility of deploying
Patriot-3 missiles around the venue where the next summit meet of the
Group of Eight (G8) most industrialised countries are to be held, media
reports said Wednesday.
The missiles could be deployed at bases of the Self-Defence Forces (SDF)
around the summit site located beside the Toya Lake of northern Japan’s
Hokkaido prefecture, the Industrial and Economic News daily reported.
The ministry is also planning to deploy frigates and missile-equipped
boats in the nearby bay and Aegis destroyers in the Sea of Japan and the
Pacific Ocean, the newspaper said, adding that airborne warning planes
and chemical defence troops may also be sent to Hokkaido.
The defence ministry and the SDF have been assigned by the Japanese
government’s anti-terror and security mission to take care of the
security arrangement for the G8 summit slated for July 2008.
[http://www.indiaenews.com/asia/20080109/90542.htm]
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Italy, Cosenza. Sud Ribelle trial
Sud Ribelle trial: calling for 50 jail years
50 penalty years, are inflicted by the public prosecutor for the 13
charged people of Sud Ribelle trial who are accused for various reasons
of subversive association.
We’ve arrived to the end of the trial which is taking place in Cosenza
(Italy) and sees 13 persons as involved ones, accused for various
reasons of subversive association, in order to avoid the exercise of the
government functions of Italy during the global forum in Neaples and the
G8 in July in 2001 and to create a wider association composed by
thousands people intended to subvert violently the constituted economic
order of the state. No bad at all as frame!
Since its beginning this trial will be remembered as tragically
ridiculous, grotesque, as a typical Italian comedy indeed.
It doesn’t laugh only during the public prosecutor Fiordalisi closing
speech. He’s wishful to take for himself some glory times. It’s just a
shame he’s darkened by controversy about Prodi.
The inflicted sentences are about from 2 and half years and 6 years. For
every charged person security measures also are been demanded for every
charged person, to be translated into probation for a 1 to 3 year(s)
time. There are also farces during the trial procedure. In 2002 some
petty police civil servants travel through all the prosecutor’s offices
of italy around with the hope to find an available one which could put
on trial the activists network that organized the against-summit of
Naples in 2001. During this travel every office threw the door in their
face except for just one which belonged to the Cosenza Prosecutor Office
and public prosecutor Fiordalisi as well, whose eternal memory is linked
to 4 inquiries of the Italian magistrature council about him and to
other particular inquiries. He was to close the inquiry of Jolly Rosso
ship which was part of COMERIO project, about which Ilaria Alpi also was
following the track.
15th November 2002: tens of activists homes in Naples, Cosenza, Taranto,
Vibo Valentia, Diamante, Montefiascone (italy) are at night devastated
by searches of policemen. The result is as follows: 20 arrested people,
other notified ones for house arrests. Then computers, books, phone
enviromental and telematic tappings belonging to 43 people ended to be
involved in this case.
Once again we have to say “no remorse anymore”: as for Genua as for
Naples it couldn’t be any remorse at all for whoever tried to oppose
him/herself to the world economic power. Therefore, for demonstrating to
the 13 charged ones that they are not alone, we will be on the streets
in Cosenza on 2th February.
History belongs to us!
SupportoLegale
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What Would It Mean To Win?
film, 2008
Zanny Begg & Oliver Ressler, 40 min.
“What Would It Mean To Win?” was filmed on the blockades at the G8
summit in Heiligendamm, Germany in June 2007. In their first
collaborative film Zanny Begg and Oliver Ressler focus on the current
state of the counter-globalisation movement in a project which grows out
of both artists’ preoccupation with globalisation and its discontents.
The film, which combines documentary footage, interviews, and animation
sequences, is structured around three questions pertinent to the
movement: Who are we? What is our power? What would it mean to win?
Almost ten years after “Seattle” this film explores the impact this
movement has had on contemporary politics. Seattle has been described as
the birthplace for the “movement of movements” and marked a time when
resistance to capitalist globalisation emerged in industrialised
nations. In many senses it has been regarded as the time when a new
social subject – the multitude – entered the political landscape.
Recently the counter-globalisation movement has gone through a certain
malaise accentuated by the shifts in global politics in the post 911
context.
The protests in Heiligendamm seemed to re-assert the confidence,
inventiveness and creativity of the counter-globalisation movement. In
particular the five finger tactic – where protesters spread out across
the fields of Rostock slipping around police lines – proved successful
in establishing blockades in all roads into Heiligendamm. Staff working
for the G8 summit were forced to enter and leave the meeting by
helicopter or boat thus providing a symbolic victory to the movement.
“What Would It Mean To Win?”, as the title implies, addresses this
central question for the movement. During the Seattle demonstrations “we
are winning” was a popular graffiti slogan that captured the sense of
euphoria that came with the birth of a new movement. Since that time
however this slogan has been regarded in a much more speculative manner.
This film aims to move beyond the question of whether we are “winning”
or not by addressing what would it actually mean to win.
When addressing the question “what would it mean to win?” John Holloway
quotes Subcomandante Marcos who once described “winning” as the ability
to live an “infinite film program” where participants could re-invent
themselves each day, each hour, each minute. The animated sequences take
this as their starting point to explore how ideas of social agency,
struggle and winning are incorporated into our imagination of politics.
The film was recorded in English and German and exists also in a French
subtitled version. “What Would It Mean To Win?” will be presented in
screenings in a variety of contexts and will also be part of the
upcoming installation “Jumps and Surprises” by Begg and Ressler, which
will present a broader perspective of different approaches to the
counter-globalisation movement.
Concept, Interviews, Film Editing, Production: Zanny Begg & Oliver Ressler
Interviewees: Emma Dowling, John Holloway, Adam Idrissou, Tadzio
Mueller, Michal Osterweil, Sarah Tolba Camera: Oliver Ressler
Animation: Zanny Begg Sound: Kate Carr
Image Editing: Markus Koessl
Sound Editing: Rudi Gottsberger, Oliver Ressler
Special thanks to Turbulence, Holy Damn It, Conrad Barrett
Grants: Bundesministerium für Unterricht, Kunst und Kultur, College of
Fine Art Research Grants Scheme, Sydney
[http://www.ressler.at/content/view/120/lang,en_GB]
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Manuela Zechner/ Anja Kanngieser: Negotiating speech and organizational
practices
Negotiating speech and organizational practices: field notes and
reflections from two counter-G8 (2007) initiatives.
Based on empirical research around two events that happened in response
to the G8 meetings in Germany in summer 2007, this paper examines
relations between the organizational practice and the discourses that
set up and guided both these events. One of them was a meticulously
coordinated blockade action ("Block G8") close to Heiligendamm, and the
other a theory-inspired "summit" calling initiatives to unalign from the
education agenda of the G8. While the "Block G8" was an action with a
clearly determined goal (blocking several roads), the outcome of
“summit” was left open. Both events endorsed practices of
self-organization, aiming to function in a horizontal, transparent, open
and inviting, as much as in a critical, manner.
Despite the different objectives of the events, their aims appeared
similar, and indeed some similar problems and organizational
symptomatologies emerged in their course. By investigating and
juxtaposing the conceptualisations and praxes of "Block G8" and
"summit", we hope to address strategies for negotiating the conflicts
that arose, so as to further the potential for translations of such
rhetoric into practice and vice versa.
Over a three week period during the end of May into mid June 2007, a
variety of political and cultural events took place in anticipation of,
and response to, the G8 meeting in Heiligendamm, Germany. These included
alternative summits, workshops, conferences, plenums, art exhibitions,
concerts, and of course demonstrations and protests. Two of these
events, the summit: non-aligned initiatives in education culture and the
Block G8 blockade action have, despite their radical differences, struck
us as particularly compelling as they confronted correlations between
speech and praxis in regards to self-organization and accessibility, and
the discourses surrounding these.
Throughout and after the two events we considered questions around
recent conceptualizations of alternative (non-state affiliated and
neoliberal-critical) organizational models and how these can be
practically realized. For instance, how can other worlds be possible,
and what would these require in terms of shifts in organizational
strategies and alignments? How can ideas of horizontality and direct
democracy function when put into practice in different milieus? What
kinds of symbolic capital come into play in different milieus? What role
does visibility play with respect to such events and how do they try to
circumnavigate the problems emerging from a need to be visible? And how
can we conceive of methodologies for organization that avoid replication
of relationships of dominance, specialization, and exclusion?
What we were specifically interested in was how we could trace and
address the lines of coincidence and rupture occurring between what was
said and what was practiced. We chose to investigate concepts that have
gained momentum in recent years, yet are idiomatic in the rhetoric of
different organizational practices including neo-liberal economic and
social policy as well as critical activist movements: such as
transparency, accessibility, collaboration, flexibility, and
heterogeneity. We wanted to investigate how discourses around those
terms are embedded in the organizational practices of particular G8
counter movements that we participated in, and what could be learned
from the symptomatologies that arose.
This text presents a few of our reflections arising from these two
specific initiatives, which we both participated in to varying degrees.
For this reason we are only able to speak about what we experienced
during the events and their immediate aftermath; what we saw, felt, and
heard, and what evolved through processes of conversation with others
that were present. In addition to these experiences locate our analysis
in official documentations; calls to action, websites, flyers, brochures
and media coverage to further locate our analysis. The research we
conducted is therefore embedded in contexts that are necessarily highly
situational and relational, and consequentially partial and fragmented.
Much of this investigation was informed by dialogues and queries, by
attempting to negotiate through and around tensions between theory and
praxis, or rhetoric and action. While we would certainly not argue that
theory or rhetoric in itself does not have the potential to create or
intervene in events, our primary concern here was the practical
realizations of organizational ideas designed to provide alternatives to
dominant hierarchical and representative democratic structures. This
focus on the very material aspects of the events and how they developed
means that much of this text is informed by observant participation,
which is in part manifest by an unfortunate (and perhaps superfluous)
relegation of theory to a supplementary position. However, our intention
with this text was simply to contemplate some of the structural
mechanisms of these two organizing bodies, and to offer our initial
responses not as conclusions but as impetus for ongoing exchanges on how
we could realize alternatives to the exploitation and domination
characterized by the velocity and ubiquity of global capitalism.
A contextualization: the new organization of dissent
The question has always been organizational, not at all ideological: is
an organization possible which is not modeled on the apparatus of the
State, even to prefigure the State to come?
Both the summit and the Block G8 emerged explicitly from within
socio-political and cultural networks concerned with addressing
inequalities associated with neoliberal capitalist conditions. In
concurrence to this, a concern of such networks has been the
reevaluation and reinvention of political resistance, in order to shift
away from ideological and organizational structures that replicate
hierarchies culminating in dominance and exclusion.
These new organizational models adopted by resistance movements
(particularly those critical of global capitalism and economic
rationalism) have increasingly developed over the past decade or so.
Aspects of these have been visible, for example, since the Zapatista
uprising in Chiapas in 1994, and spectacularly during and post the
anti-WTO protests in Seattle in late 1999. This has been in part
influenced by the acceleration of globalization, which has prompted new
technologies and socio-political and cultural mechanisms through which
activism has been integrally transformed. The Seattle protests inspired
and shaped much of the protest actions in the succeeding years, such as
counter-G8 activities and protests, specifically through its use of the
Internet achieved a gathering of unexpected scale.
What denoted those events such as Seattle as indicating a paradigm shift
in the articulation of protest was what was later conceptualized as the
“movement of movements”: the temporary convergences of multivalent
disparate international individuals, groups and organizations to voice
dissent against corporate driven globalization and exploitative models
of free trade. This movement not only consists of protest but also
incorporates counter-summits, World Social Forums, all kinds of
networks, initiatives, activities and structures.
What became clear in the Seattle event was the emergence of new networks
and webs of resistance, which were comprised of linked constellations of
participants and priorities united in response to the global
inequalities created through neo-liberal trade policies and economic
rationalism. These networks were predominantly established by
independent factions in attendance, detaching themselves from the
constraints of traditional representative parties and institutions.
Critical of the operations of power in such structures, these networks
manifest alternatively to the archetypal hierarchical organization or
party models. As David Graeber notes, it is no longer about seizing the
power dynamics of the state, but more about “delegitimizing and
dismantling mechanisms of rule while winning ever-larger spaces of
autonomy from it.”
Unlike forms of decision making and representation reminiscent of
sovereign governance, networks (as was clear in Seattle) do not have a
leader; command and control mechanisms are fluid and decentralized, and
are nebulous and open enough to be able to accommodate diverse interests
and agendas within an aggregate focused on a singular target. The
concentration on ideological affiliation and conflict is replaced with
an intention to create different methodologies and forms for
organization, participation (as opposed to delegation), consensus (as
opposed to majority) and exchange. In this process, a proliferation of
hybrid organizational instruments and techniques are constantly being
tested and debated.
For Michael Hardt it is precisely this network format, and the arenas
opened up by these experimental organizations, that allowed different
groups with different agendas to come into contact with one another in a
productive way during the Seattle protests. Hardt argues that such
networks replace oppositionality with multiple positions; the dialectic
is superseded by triangulations of third, fourth and indefinite points
of connexion. As he states,
This is one of the characteristics of the Seattle events…groups which we
thought in objective contradiction to one another – environmentalists
and trade unions, church groups and anarchists – were suddenly able to
work together, in the context of the
network of the multitude.
Although Hardt’s account here may be interpreted as somewhat generous,
the adoption of the network format does actively move to transfigure the
ways that activist groups and agencies relate to one another, to greater
or lesser success. What is attempted through the spaces opened up by
these explorations and re-imaginings of constituent powers is a
re-invention of notions and practices of consensual and direct democracy.
The G8 in Heiligendamm, Germany, June 2007
So how was this recent history and context of the global resistance
networks manifest in Germany? The two case studies we are examining
represent constituents of these international alliances. Both proclaimed
to be invested in realizing non-hierarchical organizational processes,
which involved the deliberate concatenation of heterogeneous
participants, new forms of action, transparent processes and open
accessibility.
The Block G8 blockade was instigated during the final days of the
weeklong counter G8 program in and around Rostock and Heiligendamm. The
larger program consisted of numerous demonstrations attracting crowds of
protesters (around 80.000 for the International Demo on Saturday June
2nd; around 15-20.000 at the migration demo June 4th), workshops, an art
space, concerts and an alternative summit as well as opportunities for
more informal meetings. Three camps were constructed for the campaign at
which action trainings, info sessions, plenums and social events were
also held. The blockade began on the official inauguration of the G8
summit for 2007, on Wednesday 6th June. It was conceived to span the
duration of the meeting, which it succeeded in doing. The blockade
itself consisted of thousands of people sitting and standing, sleeping,
dancing and generally socializing on main transport avenues to the
meeting place. The event itself seemed to be met with great pleasure by
those taking part and it was often relayed that the blockade had the
atmosphere of a festival, which was strengthened with sound systems in
some parts and a sense of solidarity and caring throughout. The blockade
occurred in unison with autonomous blockades, however for many, due to
the magnitude of the participants, it became an iconic event. By the end
of the series of interventions, it became progressively difficult to
distinguish the boundaries of Block G8 from many of the other blockading
actions.
The summit around “non-aligned initiatives in education culture” was an
event held in Berlin prior to the G8, and may be seen as an attempt to
organize a meeting in a context similar to the World Social Forum. This
format was not based upon protest but resembled more of a congress or
conference. It drew upon specific ideas, histories and discourses (e.g.
non-alignment, summit, self-organization, un-learning, etc) which
involved much academic reference and language. The three days of summit
were comprised of 60 parallel events that included presentations,
caucuses, and workshops. It was re/presented by a language that
structured these as radical fora for exchange, debate and action. This
was to become possible via access to large amounts of space and a
gathering of around 200 people from divergent backgrounds and approaches
(art, academia and pedagogy, activism, union organizing, hacking,
journalism, sex work, etc), the generous offer of spaces for those to
meet as well as the availability of some travel grants. Through the
presence and placement of various established academic personalities and
a somewhat centralized way of programming, a dominance of certain
discourses and practices emerged that seemed to exclude a range of more
activist and grass roots approaches and viewpoints.
What relates these two events in our minds, aside from the
organizational intentions, was how certain characteristics of
centralization and governance managed to permeate the actualizations of
what were, at least discursively, promising speculations for practical
mobilization and action. While rhetorically almost faultless, some of
the manifestations of these sentiments left space for more to be
desired. While both events were often pleasurable and provided ample
opportunity for dialogue, learning and creativity, we find it important
to analyze some of the tensions and contradictions that erupted in order
to locate the quite considerable potentials of such endeavors. For, when
judged under value parameters of success or failure, these initiatives
become less interesting than when their symptomatology becomes exposed
for reflection and further experimentation.
Block G8
Before and during the counter G8 mobilizations, which took place over a
week in Rostock and Heiligendamm, extensive coalitions of affinity
groups and movements were formed to collectively organize and assemble
blockades designed not only to disable the traffic of delegates,
workers, goods and services to and from the meeting, but also to make
the breadth and density of the resistance against the G8 and its
mechanisms internationally visible. Comprising one segment of the larger
weeklong constellation of counter G8 demonstrations, workshops and
actions taking place in and around Rostock and Heiligendamm, the
blockade was interesting to us due to its potential longevity and
consequences as a protest action. Additionally, more than any other of
the actions it was a direct gesture of mass civil disobedience, designed
to sustainably reiterate dissent and resistance through the many diverse
and not necessarily associated networks and individuals intending to
remain in cooperation and solidarity until the objective of blockading
as many roads for as long as possible had been attained.
The predominant call for blockading came from an alliance of over 128
groups including radical left, church, environmental and anti-nuclear,
trade unions, youth political parties, non-violent action groups and
anti-fascist and anti-racist groups conceived under the slogan of “Block
G8. Move. Block. Stay”. Whether this was intended to function as the
principal blockade of the event is unclear, however what was clear was
that due to the sheer quantity of different groups involved in, or
supportive of, the organizing process and enaction, and the aim to
blockade to function through corporeal mass over any other means, the
high number of activists taking part (over 10, 000 covering two major
roads leading to the summit, with other autonomous groups blocking two
other thoroughfares) ensured both mainstream and alternative media
attention.
In order to generate as much participation as possible, a number of
calls for the blockading action were circulated by some of the
organizing groups, including an umbrella Block G8 call, as well as from
FelS (Für eine linke Strömung/ for a left wing current), the
Interventionist Left, and various Antifascist factions. Common to all
was a particular evocative rhetoric of global solidarity, heterogeneity
and liberation from ideologies of domination and discrimination
associated with capitalist and state machinations. Assurances were made
to radical and open modes of organization that not only acted to
“delegitimate capital’s domination, neoliberalism, and therefore the G8”
but also, “ultimately implies at the same time to reinvent the left and
the social movements”. It was also argued that the event would arise
from new conceptualizations, as outlined in the Block G8 FAQ,
Block G8 is a completely new concept, woven together from our manifold
experiences, incorporating the advantages of many strategies of various
political traditions.
In order to look at how a relationship between a delegitimation of
neoliberal capitalism and radically new strategic organizational models
could be discerned, it seemed necessary for us to examine the rhetoric
surrounding “horizontal” and consensual, post representative methods of
social and political organization in regards to the Block G8 campaign,
and directly address issues of flexibility, accessibility and
transparency that were made visible.
Organizing Block G8
In their call to action, the Interventionist Left made reference to a
broader context of political activism that we have introduced as
inferred by the term, which,
…since Seattle, has been called the “movement of movements”. “We” refers
to a global constellation of emancipatory politics that extends beyond
the left, as well as the older and newer social movements.
Typical of the concept of the “movement of movements” and the resistance
against global capitalism are certain strategies for cooperative
organization and action. In analyzing the construction for the Block G8
event, we found it important to do so in the context of what is inferred
by the “movement of movements” and how such a discourse operates as
indicating alternative models of decision-making processes. As outlined
in the introduction, associated with the “movement of movements” is a
mode of political organization that espouses horizontality,
self-organization, networks, consensus, direct democracy, and
multiplicity, over hierarchical or sovereign models, and
representational politics.
Unlike previous modes of organization in which ideology or the party was
central, this form of organization relies heavily on transitory
convergences of manifold micro networks, individuals and affinity groups
coming from different spaces of the “left” spectrum, from conservative
to autonomist, under a common goal or intention. In the case of the
organization for the Block G8, this was reflected in the diversity of
the groups in support of, and involved in, the development of the campaign.
Aligning itself with this conception of the movements of movements, the
praxis of the G8 organizing bodies made attempts at overcoming some of
the problems associated with previous “vertical” organizational
processes. However, despite the rhetoric of flexibility, heterogeneity,
horizontality, and non-representationality, it became clear to us that
some material tensions and limitations nonetheless actualized and
required further extrapolation and exploration.
“This is what democracy looks like?”
One of the catch cries heard resounding throughout many counter summit
demonstrations in recent history has been “this is what democracy looks
like!” One of the explicit calls by FelS was for “equal rights for
everyone”. In thinking about this organization of dissent, it seemed to
us to be urgent to investigate what some of the practical realizations
of such sentiments might mean for the internal structural mechanisms and
strategic processes of the Block G8 action specifically, and more
generally in the context of a mass mobilization necessarily made up of
singular and collective national and international players presenting
polyvalent interests, desires and agendas.
Like many of the recent mobilizations against state institutions and
political summits, a preoccupation with global networking and solidarity
meant that a significant number of international actors participated in
the counter G8 interventions. According to reflections from a debriefing
session held in London in late June 2007, this was estimated to be
around 30 percent. This percentage was comprised largely of European
activists but also included activists from the Asia Pacific region,
Africa, North America, South America and Canada.
The presence of international actors in the later stages of the
decision-making procedures with no tangible prior involvement exposed an
element of disjunction. The fact that the organizational process had
begun far in advance of the counter G8 events meant that as
international participants with no access to previous meetings, our
first instance of contact with the action committee occurred either
shortly before leaving for the protest or a few days later during
discussions held at the camps (specifically Reddelich).
These plenums were held frequently on the days directly preceding the
action, at an even accelerated rate on the day before the event and
primarily consisted of interlocutors or spokespeople from each affinity
group coming together to apparently consolidate logistical aspects of
the action and to act as information carriers between the macro and
micro networks and collectives.
Flexibility
After conversing with a number of people involved in the meetings as
members of affinity groups, participants of the actions, and through
different debriefing forums, certain apprehensions were brought to
light, surrounding issues of flexibility, heterogeneity and transparency.
Because of the specific geographical location of the organizing
committee (based in Germany), many of the international actors were
absent for the long term planning of the blockade. When it became
possible to engage in discussion, the procedural operations and forums
in which they occurred appeared to be fundamentally striated. Amongst a
number of the people we spoke to, there was a general feeling that this
inability to be active in the process led to an alienation and exclusion
from the decisions that were made. It was frequently commented that it
seemed as if the strategies had been rigorously predetermined and
sedimented so that any attempt to offer suggestions or alternatives was,
while met with hospitality and generosity, nonetheless basically
impotent to effect changes. This in itself was not surprising, or even
particularly unreasonable. Clearly it was necessary to develop
structures and establish certain protocols in order to mobilize a
sustainable and functioning mass blockade. What was difficult however
was that despite the rhetoric of flexibility and horizontality, as
international participants there was an impression that as a central
organizing committee had been previously established, it was almost
impossible to gain access to or intervene in the action process.
Block G8 did not at any time allude that this would not be as such, and
were in fact were openly supportive of actions occurring autonomously to
their central blockade. Nor did they advocate themselves as the
paramount action. Through all the disparate media they presented
themselves as but one option for intervention. Despite this there was
the impression that the blockade was to take centre stage, at least
quantitively, and all other actions were destined to remain peripheral
and diffuse. This may have, in conjunction with a range of other
factors, consequentially become the case due to their sheer presence and
visibility in comparison to other initiatives which was partially due to
their necessarily high levels of organization and public recognisability
(which extended to include a website, newspaper and other material
publications, action training days, regular meetings, t-shirts, jingles,
banners, badges etc).
Heterogeneity
In one debriefing issued in late June 2007 by some autonomists in
Berlin, an acknowledgement was made that due to problems plaguing their
own organizational and collective processes and to poor information
infrastructures, a number of activists had ended up supporting and
participating in the main blockade rather than constructing autonomous
actions. It is also not unviable for us to imagine that other
individuals, or affinity groups, unaffiliated or unfamiliar with the
constellation of established social and political movements, were also
spontaneously drawn to the Block G8 initiative, not only in solidarity
but perhaps also due to confusion, lack of information, or experience.
The intention of the Block G8 to be inclusive of all people wanting to
participate in the blockading action meant that it was perceived to be a
safer option for activists either less experienced in blockading or not
desiring to partake in more aggressive direct action, which constituted
almost the majority of attendees. Unfortunately this gesture was tinged
with the slightly paternalistic tenor of the organizing process, which
ultimately transferred the responsibility of logistics from the
participating individuals to the action organizers. Throughout the calls
the diversity of the blockade was explicitly asserted. As was written in
both the Block G8 FAQ and the call to action
The Block G8 alliance is composed of people and groups with very
different backgrounds experiences…thousands of people from different
political, social and cultural backgrounds can take part.
While the legitimacy of encouraging people from all different
orientations and positions to participate in unison is not being
critiqued here, what became apparent to us in the execution of the
blockade over the two days was the assumption of a homogenization of
interest and criteria for action on the part of the organizing
committee. This was particularly dangerous, as due to unrelated and
potentially unforeseen situations, the Block G8 mobilization became at
some stages the most viable and influential option for action for many
activists. This was signified by its population in quantitative
comparison to other autonomous actions and blockades.
In one London debriefing the comment was made that there might have been
a sentiment present of “they [Block G8] would block people who broke
their guidelines before blocking the roads?” This expressedly highlights
one of the downfalls of the high visibility (and hence allure), and the
rigidity of organization that marked the blockade. Whilst espousing a
discourse of diversity and multiplicity, it seemed that some
participants felt as though once committed to supporting the blockade, a
number of constraints or restrictions were immediately imposed, negating
any larger sense of heterogeneity, choice or space for contradiction.
What became apparent was an increasing impression of closure and
finitude leaving some feeling frustrated with an inability to be
differently (perhaps more actively) involved. This was exemplified
during the blockade through the spontaneous caucuses held to decide
further courses for action (which even at some points began to include
core Block G8 groups), and in the flow of individuals and affinity
groups between the main blockades and other locations, lending
solidarity to smaller and more precarious barricades and campaigns.
Transparency
The tendency toward inadvertent homogeneity and the reactions
surrounding closures in dialogues and dissatisfaction to some extent
intersects with what we might consider as contradictions of transparency
that were also present. As the Block G8 FAQ stated,
It is important for us to create a situation which will be transparent
for everybody.
For the Block G8 action, transparency was presented as a strategic means
by which to not only mobilize more members of the public to support, and
engage in, the mass blockade, but also as an attempt to gain visibility
as a tactic for de-escalation of state repression. What becomes clear in
analyzing both the texts and praxis of the Block G8 is that the notion
of transparency is very nearly conflated with visibility and magnitude.
Whereas media and information on very customary elements of the action
were made available publicly, and while it was possible to partake in
action training, buy a t-shirt, make a banner, download the jingle, or
print out and distribute flyers, it was difficult to meaningfully
participate in the organizing process remotely (despite the clear online
presence of the campaign), and it was almost impossible to find
logistical data: proceedings from meetings, information on quality and
quantity of input from supportive and/ or participating groups,
financial sources, and methodologies of decision making.
The practical motivation for designating decisive facets of the process
vague for protection against accusations of illegality and avoidance of
state repression is not to be overlooked here. In Berlin and Hamburg,
many activists were observed and controlled by police for months before
the event, which culminated in a series of raids and confiscations of
equipment and materials.
However, the ambiguity (and even omission of) infrastructural
constituents such as these also meant that some felt that integral
information remained obfuscated. This extended to a more pervasive
dissatisfaction when crucial information relevant to the action was not
disclosed to all participants until the very last minute. Sharp
criticism arose from some activists on discovering that the organizers
had notified the police of the termination of the blockade but had not
made either the termination point, or the negotiation with the police,
public to all participants themselves first. For many, this culminated
in a feeling of being non-consensually represented, and in some cases,
of resentment and futility.
The risk with making a claim to this sort of transparency is that it
becomes easy to assume that an abundance of information signifies
comprehensive disclosure. When organizing a situation like the blockades
at a summit protest such as a counter G8 it can be tempting to speak of,
and for the multitude, to speak of singularities moving together to
create something new, but to reduce the thousands of individuals into a
faceless mass who can be assumed to have the choice to participate,
unthinkingly surpassing the reality of individual desires, experiences,
knowledge’s, suggestibility and insecurities and how these can effect
that choice.
This unintentional overlooking of such factor’s, along with other
crypto-representational maneuvers was present in another event prior to
the Block G8 campaign, the “summit in non-aligned initiatives in
education culture” (hereafter summit), and it is to this that we now turn.
Summit: non-aligned initiatives in education culture
Summit was a three day event (24 – 28th May 2007) organized by a group
of six people involved in art, theory, and to some extent activism
(Florian Schneider, Irit Rogoff, Kodwo Eshun, Nicolas Siepen, Nora
Sternfeld, Susanne Lang). The promotional materials that were released
in relation to summit (texts and calls for participation, websites,
posters in Berlin, printed program, flyers as well as interviews and
calls on mailing lists and in journals) were written with attention to
contemporary cultural, arts, activist and political debates. The summit
appeared foremost as a project that was inspired by theoretical
propositions, and interconnections between educational and activist
practices. It aimed to offer a framework for the relation of rigorous
theoretical proposals to initiatives in education, activism and art.
In what follows, we will isolate some of the notions and phrases that
were used in setting up the event, and reflect upon how they came to
shape the event itself and the forms of action and organization they
insinuate. One of the main problems we aim to address with this paper is
the relation and correspondence between discursive and organizational
modes of structuring events or projects. How can a discursive proposal
come to determine the facilitation of a project, and vice versa?
Attempts to generate new concepts and forms of action occurred at the
intersection of various discourses and practices. The privileging of
certain concepts over others was not only indicative of individual
positionalities but also of a more general distribution of power within
the framework of event. Our interest here lies primarily in looking at
the vocabulary and theoretical framework the summit engaged and the way
these assertions and ideas played out in terms of the practices of
organization, hosting, collaboration, inauguration and sharing within
the event. This of course begs the question of how this discursive way
of setting up the event was envisaged in the first place: whether it
meant to be precise, or act more as an inspiration to get to speak and
think more creatively about certain things. Creativity needn’t conflict
with precision – it is however exactly this relation between a creative
or performative discourse and its possible relations to concrete context
and practice that is at stake.
Collaboration
The use of the notion of collaboration in the context of the summit-
much like with other concepts- was informed by the prior activities and
research of the organizers. In the case of collaboration, a text by
Florian Schneider , as well as an interview with him and Irit Rogoff
mark two points of reference. In the latter, Schneider says
SUMMIT is definitely [sic] a collaborative environment which can be used
in order to generate some more fragments of a contemporary theory of
collaboration. The theme of collaboration intersects with questions of
"interest", "hospitality", "seriousness", "curiosity" etc. on which we
are planning a series of specific workshops.
From this we surmised that the organizing committees idea of
collaboration is based upon a shared acceptance of different ideological
positions and intentions, participation and negotiation, as is stated in
several summit texts as well as the text by Florian Schneider.
The intention seems to be not to define collaboration as such but to
keep elaborating on it, to see what kinds of contracts, expectations,
and histories make for what kinds of collaborations. The processes of
finding this out would themselves be collaborative. If we see
collaboration as a transversal, open, consensus-based and transparent
practice that is critical of its own organization and dynamics and
dependent on constant feedback between its participants, we might
examine this in relation to the organization of summit. Familiar
questions arise: how does one set up an open collaborative project
whereby not only all those involved self-authorize to collaborate, but
also actively invest in and decide upon the course of a project? What
would it mean to open spaces for collaboration within a three- day
formal and informal meeting just before the G8? On one level it would
mean making spaces that are accessible and self-organized, self-
reflexive, self- regulating as well as connected to current political
events and debates, and strategies from activist as much as educational
contexts. The notions structuring the event would have to be proposed as
open guidelines. The summit set out to facilitate this via an open
internet platform that was accessible some months prior to the event,
where the shaping of both discourse and event could be witnessed and
interfered with. An events program that partially auto- curated through
an open call for proposals of activities was accessible online, and the
suggestion of specific formats such as caucus, workshop, conversation
and working group as much as the involvement of persons and initiatives
associated with activism as well as academia, education, and art (see
the summit program) seemed to reflect an ethos of collaboration. Still
that was not the end of it: if collaboration were a common framework or
moment but not a shared strategic or ideological position, how would the
summit constitute such a space?
The question is: How can we find new ways of analyzing, recognizing,
decision making and working together without a common ground from which
to operate?
It takes some common ground to bring people together for a “summit on
non- aligned initiatives in education culture” of course, and while the
motivations and backgrounds of participants may have been diverse, the
majority of participants came from the worlds of academia, art, critical
theory, and to some extent activism (people involved in all kinds of
autonomist practice). We would locate one of the main problems of summit
in the fact that a large number of the most visible participants knew
eachother via Goldsmiths College London (specifically the Visual
Cultures department), with which many contributors and attendants were
affiliated (three people from the facilitating committee work within
Visual Cultures department). This would have to be directly addressed in
order to avoid a clustering of certain visible persons and the
uncontested establishment of a dominant discourse. It came to appear
problematic insofar as it conflicted with what non- alignment (which
will be further examined) insinuated.
The last night at the summit (Sunday 28th May) witnessed a heated debate
around the representation of smaller as well as local initiatives, a
felt imbalance between established theoretical positions and less
visible activist projects or praxes as well as a questioning of the
summit’s engagement with the imminent G8 meetings in Heiligendamm and
initiatives and actions that were concurrently happening in Berlin and
elsewhere. During this spontaneous discussion, intense exchange and
reflection on the event itself came about, whereby a wide range of
participants and delegates became vocal and confronted each other as
well as the organizers. Much of our critique draws on the comments and
suggestions of those who had felt at odds with the setup of summit, as
most visible during the final debate.
The ways in which the hopes for an open space were disappointed were to
our minds largely linked to the dominance of certain discursive modes
within the main theatre hall at the HAU1. The hall somewhat functioned
as the representative site of what the summit was programmed to be. It
was the only space with a centrally curated program, while the other
self-curating events (one could register these up to the last minute)
could be proposed on an open and on-going basis and were programmed into
various spaces around the main hall (according to requirements for
technical equipment which was well installed in café, workshop spaces,
and foyers) as well as in two art-affiliated spaces nearby in Berlin
(Bootlab, UnitedNationsPlaza).
The program set out by the organizing committee featured a list of
prominent names, no doubt of benefit to the attendance and visibility of
summit, however the associated events often did not leave space for
feedback and hence did not end with lively discussion. It felt like the
various smaller self-organized workshops and presentations in other
spaces were somewhat disconnected from the more prominent and canonical
knowledge’s rehearsed in the main hall. At the HAU1 theatre, there were
mostly three events taking place concurrently, and as a central space,
the main hall attracted the largest amount of visitors. It could be
entered and exited through six doors, allowing for migration from one
event to the other, leaving people the possibility to listen and join
into talks in either space. Interestingly, despite feeling frustrated by
the course of presentations there, many people still found themselves
drawn to the main hall. This is not to say that there were not many
fruitful conversations and meetings both within and outside the main
hall, but the problem appeared to lie with communication between a high
profile program and small events and workshops. Rather than in close
exchange with the curated program, the smaller events appeared to
somewhat orbit the brilliant discourses at the center. The curatorial
strategy of running prominent presentations at the same time as smaller,
less visible sessions can function as a mechanism whereby
self-responsibility and decision making with respect to attendance are
encouraged, however the balance is a frail one. When a difference in
prominence between two or more events is too clearly visible, such
parallelism can end up involuntarily confirming and reproducing the
prevalence of one thing over another.
For those involved in activist practices particularly, there was a sense
of disconnectedness from the immediate local and political contexts
(Berlin and the G8), where there were thousands of activists protesting,
preparing for actions and running events. On day two of summit there was
a large demonstration march against the privatization of education
happening concurrently which was not noted at the HAU and other venues.
It was due to the apparent virtuosity of the main hall presentations
that a significant part of the participants felt the main representative
space was closed to intervention or other kinds of reference. When
discussing summit as a host of collaborative processes, we might
critique it on the grounds that the space for debate and questioning
that would prioritize a reciprocal learning over a univocal learning, as
proposed discursively, only partly emerged. It seems to us that further
encouraging a spirit of collaboration would have required staging the
conventions of theory and art differently, in order to share more
diverse references and experiences.
Self- inauguration
How would the different participants and public respond to the proposals
at hand, taking into account their differing backgrounds as writers,
artists, activists, theorists, union organizers, students, teachers,
etc? What does it take to self-inaugurate in a space such as the main
hall at HAU1? Irit Rogoff made a poignant comment at summit about the
kinds of capital required for accessing and participating in such
spaces- the access to discourses and vocabularies (i.e. education) as
well as the time (i.e. money) needed to participate in an event such as
summit. It seems, particularly in the context of an opposition to the
neo-liberal politics of the G8, a highly relevant and challenging
project to open out a space for thinking about, debating and sharing our
experience and engagement with the concepts of education, learning and
knowledge. A central aspect of this must be opening up these fields and
the connected sites as much as possible to persons not privileged with
preferred kinds of capital. The attempt to move learning and education
away from the infusion of individuals with cognitive capital that counts
on global knowledge markets (e.g. liberal arts education that caters to
the Creative Industries) seems at the heart of summit and was debated
quite a bit within and in relation to it. It appeared very hard to move
beyond the set of canonical knowledge’s that were proposed at the center
of the event. While aiming to be open, flexible and accessible,
discussions at the main hall required a fairly solid knowledge of the
specific discourses at hand, as debates in this space were very
theoretical. While theory must not necessarily inhibit, the way it is
set up appears an urgent problem to address.
In terms of the conditions for responding to any proposal and self-
inaugurating in this context, transparency seems key, which in the case
of summit was attempted but still complicated by the abstract ways in
which the event was outlined and formulated- it was not always evident
how summit was meant to function in concrete terms. Non-alignment, Self-
organization, Self- authorization, Self- valorization, Self-
inauguration, Collaboration, un-learning, un-organizing, urgent thought,
making theory urgent, history lessons, etc were some of the terms
structuring the debates and underlying curatorial decisions, and
attracted much curiosity and interest. They were clearly relevant as
proposals, as people from many parts of the world came to engage in them
further, with respectively different expectations and investments. It
appeared that at the event many felt unsure about inscribing themselves
in certain spaces as contributors or vocal presences, because it was not
clear what translation could legitimately be attempted between these
concepts (which oscillated between being open and rigorously invested)
and various discussion formats. While different investments and
expectations seem to us desirable, transparency remains a key point when
organizing an event that invites for participation, contribution and
collaboration. The summit website offered a kind of FAQ section,
answering five main questions in relation to the proposed vocabulary and
call for summit, which certainly helped increase transparency.
Additionally however, it seems important to address the more general
tension between modes of legitimacy and openness as such.
Non- alignment
The main question we found ourselves facing with respect to
non-alignment was to what extent the practice of non-alignment, as used
to describe the initiatives present at summit, would have to be
rigorously applied to the organization of summit in itself. Considering
that the event had been conceived in collaboration with large
institutions such as Goldsmiths College/ London University and Witte de
With/ Rotterdam, and funded by the Culture Foundation/ Germany, there
was clearly some alignment. The invocation of non-alignment was of
course in part a historical reference and not meant as a dogmatic or
separatist stance, but one might argue that since the aforementioned
institutions do constitute established centers for the production of
particular discourses around art, culture and politics, this still is
problematic. Particularly since it was the network of people surrounding
those institutions that were mainly programmed into the main theatre
hall, summit appeared as somewhat more aligned. We wondered how hosting
or encompassing other kinds of speech and initiative would be attempted
under these conditions, and how established knowledge’s would be
superseded- as the proposals of “un-learning” and “un-aligning”
indicated. If the question of (non-) alignment was to be at the heart of
the summit, then its translation into critical practices of curation,
organization, facilitation, participation and speech was to be highly
relevant to the success of the event. If the conditions and spaces for
organizing and contesting this are not made extremely transparent, the
alignments and relations between actors (specifically organizers but
also institutions) can come to obstruct processes of engagement.
Summit
The decision to run this event as a “summit” seemed to be based on the
immediate political context of the time (G8), as well as a certain
format of meeting and the roles played by its attendants:
SUMMIT is neither a conference nor an informal forum or open space. It
is designed as a gathering that borrows the grammar of the dramaturgy of
meetings of heads of state -- just a few days before the G-8 meeting in
Heiligendamm near Rostock is taking place.
SUMMIT is an experimental setup designed to find out what happens if
individuals, agents and protagonists of a multitude of projects and
initiatives come together as delegates but can no longer speak on behalf
of an institution, an interest group, a professional organization or a
branch, let alone a nation state.
SUMMIT ignores the logics of representation and replaces them with
certain notions of access, self-authorization, and collaboration, which
we analyzed as main characteristics of emerging new subjectivities that
are constitutive for the concepts of "activism" and "participation". […]
To some extent, at least rhetorically, the idea seems to be to turn the
exclusive format of a conventional summit on its head, offering the role
of delegate to potentially anyone and setting up divergent spaces for
negotiation and multiplicity. However the distinction between
facilitators/organizers, delegates/contributors and participants/
attendants/ audience was formally maintained during summit. Prior to the
event, the website encouraged people to register as delegates- which
meant initially prompting acts of self-authorization at the same time as
a representational framework for participation. This of course begs the
question of how this discursive way of setting up the event was
envisaged in the first place: whether it meant to be precise, or act
more as an inspiration to get to speak and think more creatively about
certain things. Of course creativity needn’t conflict with precision –
at stake is exactly this relation between a creative or performative
discourse and its possible relations to concrete context and practice.
In most cases, contributors as well as audience came in order to talk
about a project, practice or group- so that an exchange of strategies
and experiences could take place- however presenting themselves as
single people and not delegates. The typical summit- format as seen at
the G8 implies varying levels of access and officially assigned roles,
which was hardly what summit set out to reproduce. There were moments
however when we could clearly distinguish a periphery or second level
from a central space. The many attempts to break with this -on the part
of organizers as well as participants and attendants- were partly
fruitful, such as approaching the architecture of a theatre (stage-
auditorium, bar and foyer) differently and proposing amendments to the
presentation formats. It however remained clear that it would be down to
the facilitating committee to finally decide about the course of events.
Self-organization
There seemed to be great potentials in the modes of self-organization
proposed by the summit as well as within activist practices such as the
mobilizations against the G8. The ethos of horizontality is vital to
such projects, and the creation of conditions to get as closely at this
as possible is a difficult task. Summit undertook various attempts to
live up to practices of self- organization, 1) through making spaces for
speaking about and practicing self- organization, 2) through allowing
for a part of the program to be non- centrally organized and remain
flexible. The summit drew together a broad spectrum of self- organized
initiatives and hopefully the various debates, conversations and forms
of networking that happened (informally as well as formally), can bring
forth different links and collaborations that go beyond the three-day
space and conditions of the summit. Our attempt here is to connect to
the debate on the final evening, as continued on the website and mailing
list for a short period after the event, as this seemed a vital moment
to address.
There was the intention of producing a jointly written and edited
declaration at the end of the three days, which would, potentially, be
presented to the European Ministers of Education. The conflicts and
imbalances outlined above led to a general disagreement over the idea of
a declaration. Our impression was that this was not only because of the
participants rejection of formats such as declaration or manifesto (and
the representational politics this implies) but also because the event
only reached a level of intensive communication amongst all involved at
the final evening, marking the beginning of a broader debate about how
its editing could possibly have been done and who was to be represented
in such a declaration. The diversity of approaches amongst participants
obviously posed a challenge to any efficient writing of a declaration,
and consensus over the discussed matters was hardly achievable or indeed
desirable after only three days and amongst such a large crowd. The
scale of summit probably accounted for many of the problems that
occurred- solving these on site would have required enormous efforts and
time, and perhaps a commitment to consensus that many felt opposed to.
Aside from the idea of a declaration as a way of recording and
condensing what had been said at summit, and as a starting point for a
new project, there are possibilities of creating fora that may build on
the process of bringing together initiatives in learning culture,
operating alternatively to the commercialized systems of knowledge
production and sale. There was agreement about the urgent necessity to
establish new modes of sharing and forming knowledge, as well as
instigating and furthering platforms, databases or even parallel
institutions that would allow for a collection of different case studies
in self-organized initiatives, sharing strategies, methodologies and
tools. Open source is one of the means by which such this can become
possible, and it seems important to find organizational as well as
discursive models that correspond to such practice (such as the
open–organization guidelines ). The edu-factory, for instance,
constitutes an attempt to draw some of the projects and research around
alternatives to privatized and canonized education, and perhaps the
summit mailing list will come to serve as a means to work towards
something similar. With all the parties involved in summit, there is
certainly scope thinking these initiatives further.
Conclusion
In this text we have examined only partial aspects from two vastly
different initiatives that occurred in response to the G8 in
Heiligendamm. Despite their radical alterity, both developed similar
problems in terms of attempting to overcome problems of hierarchy and
exclusion associated with centralized representative political models.
During the course of the events we became aware of issues emerging from
the replication of certain tendencies of models of organization they
were deliberately trying to deviate from. These were broadly associated
with logistical tensions of concretely manifesting discursive sentiments
of difference, openness, flexibility, transparency, and heterogeneity.
We recognize both the Block G8 as well as the summit as attempts to
strengthen and further the neoliberal-critical movements and work upon
modes of organization that can potentially go beyond traditional
resistance. While both were problematic in their facilitation, we
believe that there is great potential in developing these kinds of
alternative methods for organization. This requires further rigorous and
active contemplation and experimentation on how speech and praxis can
function in polyvalent, sustained and transitory points of coincidence
as well as convergence, so that perhaps theory can be made urgent in
practice.
We are aware that in many collectives and initiatives traversing
different disciplines, interests, locations and knowledge’s, viable and
promising conceptualizations of organization are being developed and set
into motion. In analyzing these two specific events, we hope we can help
to widen the scope of reflection on how we actualize what we are saying
in situations of resistance and expand the boundaries of these
initiatives, so that we may collectively continue to make the
possibilities of other worlds visible.
Anja Kanngieser is a phd candidate at the University of Melbourne,
Australia. She has been working on examining the intersections between
aesthetics and activism, specifically german activist groups that use
aesthetic techniques as a means of articulating their dissent. She is
also involved in the future archive project, and works with installation
and radio.
Manuela Zechner coordinates the future archive project and is a
postgraduate student at Goldsmiths College London, UK. She works with
Critical Practice Research Cluster at Chelsea College of Art and Design,
London, as well as on various other collaborative projects in the fields
of new media/ art and education.
Published on Mute magazine - Culture and politics after the net
(http://www.metamute.org)
[http://www.metamute.org/en/node/11197]
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Who is a Threat to Whom? G8 Summits and Increasing State Repression
By Jason Kirkpatrick
The heightening and virtual militarisation of domestic policing efforts
against many US activists has clearly been stepped up since 911.
Homeland Security is linked up in a “new and improved” information
networking and cooperation system with a vast array of both foreign and
domestic intelligence gathering agencies within the USA, and
increasingly so, on an international level.
After September 11, 2001, the Bush Administration has been superseding
not only the US Constitution, but also the Geneva Conventions and other
international laws in its so far unsuccessful pursuit of Al Queda and
whatever else it deems to be a threat to the American way of life. In
the run-up to the Iraq War and during 2003 many continental European
politicians were strongly critical of American strategies and efforts to
combat its percieved threats, publicly stated as the threat of radical
Islamic fundamentalism.
However, in contrast during subsequent years European nations have been
following the lead of the Bush Administration at a drastically
increasing level, copying many of the USA’s most repressive internal
“anti-terrorist” legislation and increasing security powers. To follow
suit, European politicians are often stretching the truth and even
telling outright liesi about “new threats to national security” to
justify fresh legislation and to redefine or twist interpretations of
existing laws governing policing authority. For citizen activists, the
worst of this news is that Al Queda is rarely the focus of such excess,
but progressives, broad spectrums of the left and anarchists are
becoming the targets of repression like never before. Large-scale public
protests in general, and G8 Summits in particular, seem to be the most
loved opportunities for national governments to try out new repression
methodologies and tactics.
G8 Summits as Security Experimentation Labs
In 2005 the UK G8 Summit was the first time that police forces had
worked together with the British military inside the nation, with
military transport helicopters used to fly in riot police during a legal
protest outside the Summit hotel. Police also used and abused an obscure
law entitled “Section 60” of the Criminal Justice & Public Order Act of
1994ii, which was originally intended to be used against football
hooligans. During the G8, police widely overstepped their legal
authority by massively encircling and detaining crowds even before they
had left march staging areas. They illegally searched people, taking
names and photographs in clear violation of their alloted powers under
Section 60. Furthermore, they often detained people for up to four days
on mere suspicion, with charges mostly suspended and jail release
coincidentally being timed with the end of the G8 Summit and its
concurrent protests.
The German G8 summit of June 2007 proved not only to be the largest
mobilization in years for left and radical activists, but it was also a
high point in the use of repression by German security forces.iii Some
early evidence of this began in Spring 2006 when activists noticed one
odd person at meetings who seemed rather poorly informed, but insisted
that he wanted to be on every e-mail list relating to protest
activities. Not long after he was asked not to return due to suspicion
he was an informant, it became public that police had offered a number
of activists money in order to infiltrate the activist group Dissent!,
giving instructions to try to get passwords for e-mail lists, and to
collect information on the most militant anti-G8 and anti-fascist
activists. One activist “double agent” went on to write a detailed
account of his recruitment by the police.
Intimidation and Information Gathering
On May 9, 2007 the German Polizei and the other regional and national
special police agencies (the LKA and BKA, respectively) raided 40 homes
and other activist projects across the North of Germany.iv Citing the
anti-terrorist “Paragraph 129a” which makes it illegal to be a “Member
of a Terrorist Organisation” (which is quite handily defined in a very
loose fashion), the police confiscated computers, made arrests, and took
DNA materials as well as clothing “scent samples.”v It was made public
soon after that the police actually had not even so little as a single
arrest warrant for any of their targeted suspects.
The raids prompted comparisons in the press with the old hated East
German “Stasi” Secret Police, quite a strongly unfavorable analogy in
modern Germany.vi Activists reacted to the unprecedented searches by
taking to the streets spontaneously in protest. Over 3,000 marched in
Hamburg and 5,000 in Berlin in very powerful demonstrations on the very
same night to show solidarity against state repression. The largen
numbers of protestors were seen as a very strong backlash against the
police raids, however the security forces kept up the pressure over the
following weeks.
Such misuse of “anti-terrorist” legislation is becoming more and more
rampant in Germany to intimidate activists and to garner information on
them. Some intimidation targets include young anti-fascist activists who
are already worried enough about trying to keep ultra-violent German
Nazi skinheads from owning the streets of their economically depressed
neighborhoods in East Germany. Even worse, police openly admit that such
searches help them to find out more about activist networks, and how
they function. One officer used a bird hunting analogy to comment on the
May 9th searches, “We’ve shot into the bush, just to see what moves.”vii
Political Legitimization of Unconstitutional Repression
During the final preparations up to the Summit itself the entire state
apparatus from local police up to Chancellor Angela Merkel herself did
their best in the mainstream media to invoke fear of violent protest and
possible terrorist attacks. After months of expensive well coordinated
propaganda (paid by the taxpayers), the groundwork was laid for the
implementation of never-before seen state repression led by Interior
Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble.
Since the end of World War II, the German constitution has forbidden the
use of its Military within national borders. The constitution was broken
clearly in this regard multiple times during the G8 protests. One time
was through the use of the German military on civilian roads and
highways to lookout for activists who publicly announced they would
blockade roads at the nearby Rostock Laage Airport as President Bush and
other G8 leaders arrived. There is a very well-known internet video
interview on No-G8 TVviii with activists repeatedly asking soldiers
which directive they are operating under that superseds the German
constitution forbidding their deployment within national borders.
Repeatedly, the answerless soldiers give blank looks to the video
journalist and can do nothing but uselessly shrug their shoulders in
despair.
Just prior to the massive blockades of the G8 Summit on June 6, 7, and
8th, a military Tornado fighter planeix flew at a height of 500 feet
over an activist camp on June 5th, well below the legal height of 1,600
feet. The military admitted later that this was done to take
high-resolution photographs of activists, again breaking the German
Constitution by using the military against civilians within Germany.
This event brought special critique as the first journalist questions
asking who gave the order for this flight received the reply that the
special anti-G8 police force “Kavala” had given orders to do so.
To publicly admit that the military had broken the constitution was bad
enough, but to go even further and say that the police were the ones
ordering the military what to do was totally over the top, as this is
not only unconstitutional but also wildly beyond all limits of normal
separation of policing powers and military authority since the end of
WWII. The military later retracted the statement and claimed
responsibility, but the issue has continued to be a hotly debated topic
in both the German press as well as in the Parliament. Strangely, even
the ruling SPD party proclaimed the flight to be unconstitutional in the
largest German news weekly.x
Policing efforts during the massive anti-G8 protests saw nearly 1,500
activists rounded up and thrown into small temporary prisons. According
to a popular leftist newspaper called simply “The Daily Paper” (die
Tageszeitung), the bulk of the protestors were released immediately
after the G8 Summit was over, with charges generally being dropped
completely or suspended for the vast majority due to “insufficient
evidence”. However, the entire exercise was a well planned out
experiment for the government and security forces in how to round up and
imprison an undesireable population (in this case G8 protestors), and to
largely get away with it.
Repression continues even after World Leaders go home Sadly, the
repression has not ended alongside the closure of the G8 Summit on June
8. Soon afterwards there were more arrests of individuals suspected of
“militant” actions, some of which had previously included such innocuous
actions as throwing paint balloons at buildings. The July 31st arrest of
Sociologist Andrej Holm bordered on the surreal. One legal ground for
his arrest was that in his academic writings he had used the word
“gentrification,” and apparently this exact same word had been used
previously in communiques written by militants over previous years.
Another reason listed in government files for his arrest was that he had
access to libraries where one could research the kinds of issues
discussed in militant communiques.
Luckily for Holm a massive international campaign organized largely by
academics as well as local support within Germany stepped up the
pressure and he was released from prison within three weeks.xi Other
activists are not so lucky and many sit in German prisons on similar
scant evidence, often via twisted use of the supposedly anti-terrorist
Paragraph 129a legislation.
What does the Future Hold?
What is next for German progressives, activists and leftists? More
radical elements are kicking off a large scale campaign against
repression, most notably against the coming 11th European Police
Congress of January 29-30, 2008, in Berlin.xii Activists are raising
awareness about Europe-wide security efforts to undermine human rights
and increase observation and repression against citizens. US policing
agencies and the FBI are often mentioned as keynote participants at such
conferences, and were mentioned clearly in German press as participating
in policing conferences leading up to the German G8 Summit.
In Asia, the Japanese G8 Summit is coming up July 7-9, 2008. Both
Japanese and German activists there have already reported heavy
harrassment including being followed across the entire country by as
many as six plain clothes police during an Anti-G8 Infotour in October
2007.xiii The German BKA has publicly made two visits to Japan in recent
months since the German G8, and the German police are training a new
Pan-Asia police force called “Asiapol” which includes security forces
from every nation in Asia, including Burma. With the Japanese police
already having the powers to detain suspects without evidence up to four
weeks merely for questioning, one wonders what difficulties anti-G8
activists in Japan will face before G8 2008. Regardless, they are
intensely organising for large scale protests with their own Anti-G8
Infotours across Asia, in Europe, and in the USA in Spring 2008.
The agents of repression are no longer operating within the borders of
single nation states. They are also clearly not interested in heeding
either international or national laws governing either civil rights, or
their own operations. A necessary tactic is to go on the offensive, and
to clearly and firmly make it known that such repression will not be
tolerated, not in Burma, not in Germany, not in Japan, and not anywhere.
1 Interview with Ulla Jelpke, Member of German Parliament (Die Linke),
November 9, 2007
2 http://www.wombles.org.uk/article20060324.php
3 Neue Rheinische Zeitung,
http://www.nrhz.de/flyer/beitrag.php?id=10825, May 2, 2007
4 Die Tageszeitung newspaper, November 12, 2007
5 http://www.rote-hilfe.de/themen/themenarchiv/g8_latest_news
6 Frankfurter Rundschau, www.fr-online.de, November 14, 2007
7 Zeck, Das Krawallblatt aus der Roten Flora, page 7, Sept./Okt. 2007
8 http://g8-tv.org/index.php?play_id=1721
9 German Parliament ”Answers of the Federal Government”, page 10, Nov.
7, 2007
10 Der Spiegel, Spiegel Online, June 19, 2007
11 Die Tageszeitung, November 12, 2007
12 https://gipfelsoli.org/Multilanguage/English
13 Interview with Anti-G8 Infotour member, Nov 20, 2007
Further graphics are available to accompany this article with
reproduction. For requests regarding reproduction of this article,
contact the author at: jfkeuro at gmx.net
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