How to deal with Anarchists in a summit!

[Fietsketting]

The chaos on the streets of Toronto this weekend has left me bewildered. Since the Battle of Seattle during a meeting of the World Trade Organization in 1999, nearly every big international summit meeting has left a trail of tear gas, pepper spray and broken glass behind it. (One of the relatively peaceful gatherings was the G8 summit held in our own backyard, at Kananaskis, in 2002.)


Seeing how chaos seems imminent at practically every turn, why is it the participants in these debacles — both protesters and law enforcement — have maintained their tactics in the last decade?


We should have learned by now it’s a recipe for disaster and that everyone needs to change the way they act.


If leaders insist on holding summits like the one in Toronto, it’s time we find a way to keep related protests from descending into senseless violence.
Let’s agree anarchists are anarchists and there’s no telling them what to do. With that out of the way, we can focus on the demonstrators.
There is no problem with protesters trying to get their messages out peacefully.


There is a problem when protesters turn a blind eye to anarchists in their midst.


Something I learned back in my college days gives us a clue as to why peaceful anti-summit protests nearly always take on an angry, destructive tone within moments of them hitting the street.


At Quebec universities in the late ’90s and early ’00s, the people who organized these kinds of demonstrations lived by a mantra of inclusion and many of them found it repulsive to exclude anarchists from their marches.
They wouldn’t budge, even if the armed, black-clad, balaclava-wearing criminals would undoubtedly cause the activists’ words and good intentions to be lost in a haze of smoke and tear gas.


Things haven’t changed much in the last 10 years.


While inclusion is laudable most of the time, there is no sense and no honour in harbouring anarchist thugs bent on violence and destruction.
Demonstrators need to know there is no shame in ratting out people who are simply using them as cover to cause mayhem. The public might even end up taking protesters more seriously.


While the mob-generated violence in Toronto was reprehensible, law enforcement often didn’t help matters.
More than 900 people were rounded up in repeated mass arrests. To give you a sense of scale, more people were arrested in Toronto this weekend than during the October Crisis in 1970. Among those arrested were legitimate, non-violent demonstrators.


Some weren’t even protesters at all, with reports of local residents and journalists caught up in the sweeps.


This is no way to prevent trouble. It contravenes people’s right to assembly and free speech, sows the seeds for further anger and violence and clogs the justice system.


We try to nab terrorists before they do harm. Let’s treat anarchists the same way. It is their intent to destroy and terrorize, after all.
Police need to infiltrate anarchist groups and collect intelligence.
This would give cops the info they need to selectively target their actions and even take preventive measures to keep the anarchists from setting foot in any protest.


There is a way to allow protesters to dissent while making sure world leaders are kept safe and keeping the criminal element from overtaking the agenda.


We just haven’t quite got it yet.




Source: http://www.calgarysun.com/news/columnists/ricky_leong/2010/06/28/14550066.html

Sounds quite funny but it worries me that even on the socalled revolutionairy left there are groups and people who actually embrace this stance. Several even here on the forums.

At least he got thing right!

[¿Que?]

Since you didn't use blockquotes, I didn't realize until the end that you were quoting an article. I felt kind of like a monkey with a rubics cube.

What a piece of work that article is tho. These protests are as much about dissent as they are about disruption. To the author, the protests are nothing more than symbolic gestures of defiance. While I'm all in favor of symbolic gestures when appropriate, I think he fails to realize that the main goal of protesting these summits is disruption. The police know this, the world leaders know this, and most protesters I would hope are aware enough to understand this. The author, on the other hand, I think is confusing the protests for a Woodstock concert!

[Fietsketting]

Since you didn't use blockquotes, I didn't realize until the end that you were quoting an article. I felt kind of like a monkey with a rubics cube.



Fixed.

[Subcomandante Marcos.]

Anarchists are the only ones who actually do anything.

This rat reporter is a bourgeois prick, who belongs with the neo con pro war assholes.

Anarchists time and time again turn out and show the rest of us how it ahould be, riots are custeristic, as fred hampton said, but if Anarchists are using violence without getting workers hurt, i support it.

At the same time, it is important to build up mass struggle,without leading the people into a flurry of battons and tear gas, finding a medium is the key.

I fanyone rats, cuts their balls off

[Bilan]

Anarchists are the only ones who actually do anything.

This rat reporter is a bourgeois prick, who belongs with the neo con pro war assholes.

Anarchists time and time again turn out and show the rest of us how it ahould be, riots are custeristic, as fred hampton said, but if Anarchists are using violence without getting workers hurt, i support it.

At the same time, it is important to build up mass struggle,without leading the people into a flurry of battons and tear gas, finding a medium is the key.

I fanyone rats, cuts their balls off

And what is the point of the riot if it does nothing but get people - who would be better used helping to develop workers struggles, organising in their workplaces, etc. - arrested?

[Subcomandante Marcos.]

And what is the point of the riot if it does nothing but get people - who would be better used helping to develop workers struggles, organising in their workplaces, etc. - arrested?



thats my point, they should form groups to draw the pigs away from the rest of the protest, then, unleash hell.

[Ravachol]

There is a way to allow protesters to dissent while making sure world leaders are kept safe and keeping the criminal element from overtaking the agenda.


Anything else would be a bloody disgrace chaps! Round up that Anarchist riff-raff! :rolleyes:

[Bilan]

thats my point, they should form groups to draw the pigs away from the rest of the protest, then, unleash hell.

That is just a shit idea. One, it does nothing for the struggle (in any way, shape or form) and two, it will only be an excuse for the pigs - who have much more weapons than we do - to beat the living shit out of people. "Drawing pigs away" is not a good idea, it is a shit idea; worse still, going to summit protests to do that is suicide.

[Blackscare]

Well as much as I think that rioting anarchists without any clear goal are silly and even damaging to the Left, it's a very dangerous route to have members of the Left advocating infiltration and subversion reminiscent of COINTELPRO or the like.

There's nothing to stop the government then turning around and doing the same to socialist parties, etc.

There is a HUGE difference between taking measures on the ground to prevent security breaches, etc, and then infiltrating political groups. The latter opens up a whole new can of worms beyond simple "security operations"; intel gathering on political activities, legal reprisals against members (whose identities, whereabouts, and other sensitive information could be obtained), etc etc.

This guy is essentially advocating what could be the seeds of a new McCarthyism.

[Jimmie Higgins]

thats my point, they should form groups to draw the pigs away from the rest of the protest, then, unleash hell.That would take organization and who are you to tell me what to do?

But seriously, at the DNC in 2000 and every large protest of this kind I have been to since - the black bloc's desire to break off and confront people somewhere else hasn't stopped the cops from cracking down on everyone (before or after confrontation too). Generally the cops and the media try and use black bloc "violence" as an after-the-fact justification of their violence towards our demonstrations.

What this article does show is how when a movement isn't progressing, people often turn to blame other groups in a movement for that failure. I think the same thing can be said of the insurrectionist-oriented who blame the passivity of others )or even workers themselves) for not allowing their "spark" to be the garbage-can on fire that starts the revolution.

IMO, one side is impatient and the other side is too patient. Neither the perfect riot or the perfect banner, slogan, or giant puppet of George W Bush is going to "spark" the revolution. What we all need to do is some boring base-building among our co-workers and co-students to reach-out to the millions who are questioning the system as well as the potential tens of thousands who want to do something. From that point, our decisions about tactics, confrontation, peacfulness, etc should be considered.


Well as much as I think that rioting anarchists without any clear goal are silly and even damaging to the Left, it's a very dangerous route to have members of the Left advocating infiltration and subversion reminiscent of COINTELPRO or the like. Agreed. Very important point.

[Rusty Shackleford]

Anarchists are the only ones who actually do anything.



and what the fuck are organizations like the PSL and ANSWER Coalition doing then?


At the port of oakland, various tendencies were represented. anarchists, PSL, IWW, ISO, RCP, IBT and so on.

they were all doing something. ANSWER was there organizing security and brought the sound system and so on but all other organizations and tendencies were doing something. but by far the minority were the anarchists of which some would have been prone to rioting
(by your stance, is "actually doing something"). and they were not excelling in any field of activity. so, based on that experience, i can negate your claim that anarchists are the only ones doing anything and i can also add, they were not excelling in anything.

im not trying to disrepect them but when you make such a claim, they prove you wrong.


EDIT: i want to note that im not exactly sure who organized the event and im not going to blindly claim that the PSL and ANSWER were the only ones who did anything. that is false. everyone who participated was doing something.

[bcbm]

And what is the point of the riot if it does nothing but get people - who would be better used helping to develop workers struggles, organising in their workplaces, etc. - arrested?

done right, you won't get arrested and if you do, they won't be able to pin anything on you and you'll get a nice settlement from a class action lawsuit in a few years.

[Adi Shankara]

Personally, I am not above the idea of Anarchists going for a more violent approach--let's be honest, violence does solve things...yes, it isn't always apparent but society changes for the better afterward. examples, from the riots that keep nazis from holding demonstrations in Germany, to the Cochabamba riot, violence is a sometimes necessary part of society.

when the infamous "battle of Seattle" was held in 1999, it made the corporate government power complex think twice about resistance; what was expected to be an easy weekend went down as one of the most successful riots in history.
which is why, while I don't condone nor advocate violence, I think that more can be done from the anarchist side when they are attacked by police. when people hear the words "peaceful protest", they think "without teeth", or "don't care enough to spill blood over it". that's why our anti-war protests in America get ignored and Bush continued to be president, while in places like Georgia and Latvia, they have caused several governments to fall.

Anarchists, and indeed, communists, need more teeth. I'm not saying that they should indiscriminately attack police or whatever, but I think anarchist groups should look into buying LRADs and tear gas canisters (where and when available), etc. and not be afraid to defend if attacked--people could die, yes. but only then would it be recognized as a legitimate war between state and people, and if I knew it would bring about real social change, then it's something I'd gladly put my life on the line for.

EDIT: For the record and legal purposes, I'm not calling for any riots, nor endorsing any riots, nor calling for violence to be held. simply, I'm advocating self defense.

[Blackscare]

violence does solve things

Directed violence in specific situations, such as in the midst of a revolutionary mass struggle where power must be seized from reaction, is necessary.

Rioting without a mass movement behind you is really just an abstract gesture, not all that different from sign waving when it comes to material impact on a movement. Although, unlike waving signs, rioting without mass support (or rather, rioting that is not indicative of a mass movement having reached critical mass while in direct conflict with reaction), most often just turns the public away from what you're trying to say. In any case, the situation as described above in parenthesis isn't really "solving" anything anyway, it's just sort of the inevitable flashpoint.

The battle for Seattle 'made corporations think twice'? Come on, that's not tangible at all. Thats the equivalent of losing a sports game and claiming a moral victory.

In the situations you listed where rioting lead to the overthrow of a government, it was precisely because these riots happened in the context of a mass movement that was already on it's way to critical mass.

Rioting only ever really serves a progressive purpose when it is a symptom of something larger. The problem with anarchist rioters in the USA is they think that it is an act that can instigate something larger.

[Jimmie Higgins]

When Seattle happened and was a success some people understandably wanted to repeat it. At this point it should be clear that just doing the same tactic without organizing anything out of it is just producing diminishing returns. Also, without a political understanding being promoted, this focus on tactics means that many people see anarchism/radicalism as a set of tactics rather than a way of understanding the world and so it's actually helping people to understand radical politics less.

The other thing to keep in mind about Seattle is that it did not come out of nowhere - it was an explosion of a movement, but that movement had been simmering for a long time in the anti-sweatshop movement, the large (and organized) anarchist federations of the late 90s, a reformist left that was beginning to break with the Democrats after Clinton's neo-liberalism, trade-unions who were finally beginning to take on social-issues in the US (the immigrant freedom-rides), a small but significant revival of union struggle (Justice for Janitors and the UPS strike) after years of bitter bitter defeats, environmental movements, and many other struggles happening at the time.

So it was not the breaking of a few windows that made Seattle significant - it was the convergence of all these movements and their ability to locate the commons source of all these problems in the neo-liberal system as represented by the large trade organizations. It was the failure of anything to develop out of that (as well as 9/11 which split the radical and liberal in this general movement - and disoriented all the people who had been saying that corporations trump the state and so wars won't happen like in the past) has prevented the left from reaching further heights than that at these kinds of protests.

So I think we need to not look at Seattle to figure out how to move forward again, but look back at the pre-Seattle organizing. Right now we are again at a time where there is a big political vacuum, a lot of dissatisfaction with Democrats/Labor, and wide-spread questioning of the logic and abilities of capitalism.

We also have people tackling austerity and layoffs on a lot of different fronts from public worker union struggles to the student movement against cuts - rather than rioting, I think our job right now needs to be pulling all these threads together to build a stronger movement, one that can't be dismissed as one industry of "greedy workers" or one campus of "selfish students" but actually shines the light on the whole system and how the elite of the powerful countries are literally conspiring to make us pay for their broken economic system.

[bcbm]

The problem with anarchist rioters in the USA is they think that it is an act that can instigate something larger.

i don't think anybody thinks the next riot will be the one where we start the revolution.


rather than rioting, I think our job right now needs to be pulling all these threads together to build a stronger movement

as though you can't do both

[What Would Durruti Do?]

And what is the point of the riot if it does nothing but get people - who would be better used helping to develop workers struggles, organising in their workplaces, etc. - arrested?

If you've been paying attention you will have noticed that it has been the peaceful protesters who have had to deal with brutality and arrest.

[Bilan]

If you've been paying attention you will have noticed that it has been the peaceful protesters who have had to deal with brutality and arrest.

I do know that, and I have been paying attention, thank you.
And if you had been paying attention, you might have realised that the "violent" attacks by demonstrators were on one street, which suspiciously had few (and some reports say no) police.
It was a justification for police brutality.

Key point. Justification.

I'm not demonising the black bloc kids and saying they should be arrested, I'm saying it's a bad tactic. And it is.

[What Would Durruti Do?]

I do know that, and I have been paying attention, thank you.
And if you had been paying attention, you might have realised that the "violent" attacks by demonstrators were on one street, which suspiciously had few (and some reports say no) police.
It was a justification for police brutality.

Key point. Justification.

I'm not demonising the black bloc kids and saying they should be arrested, I'm saying it's a bad tactic. And it is.

The cop cars left as bait for the protesters (not all were trashed by the Black Bloc) were a justification for the billion dollar security budget which was the major complaint heading into the G20 by Canadian citizens.

Police brutality happens at ALL of these summits, no matter what the Black Bloc does if they even show up.

It is the peaceful protesters who put themselves in harms way and refuse to fight back.

Therefore, it is the PEACEFUL protesters who need to re-think their tactics.

[Wolf Larson]

thats my point, they should form groups to draw the pigs away from the rest of the protest, then, unleash hell.

Didn't you just make a thread chastising those who 'fetishize' violence ;)

jab jab....stick and move....

[Blackscare]

didn't you just make a thread chastising those who 'fetishize' violence ;)

jab jab....stick and move....


bamp.

[Bilan]

The cop cars left as bait for the protesters (not all were trashed by the Black Bloc) were a justification for the billion dollar security budget which was the major complaint heading into the G20 by Canadian citizens.

Police brutality happens at ALL of these summits, no matter what the Black Bloc does if they even show up.

It is the peaceful protesters who put themselves in harms way and refuse to fight back.

Therefore, it is the PEACEFUL protesters who need to re-think their tactics.

And you don't see a problem with taking the bait?
If the violence always happens, we shouldn't play into their game. I'm not saying we should only be defensive, as that is dangerous in itself. But being on the offence doesn't mean we take their bait.

[bcbm]

i'm not sure why everyone is saying this was a massive police victory because it gave them an excuse to beat up peaceful protesters. i think this has actually been quite a bit of egg on their face because with almost one billion dollars they couldn't stop a couple hundred people. you can argue that they allowed this to happen to justify whatever but it still makes them look like fools and making cops look stupid is always good.

[Eastside Revolt]

i'm not sure why everyone is saying this was a massive police victory because it gave them an excuse to beat up peaceful protesters. i think this has actually been quite a bit of egg on their face because with almost one billion dollars they couldn't stop a couple hundred people. you can argue that they allowed this to happen to justify whatever but it still makes them look like fools and making cops look stupid is always good.

Actually it was more like 300 militants, running around with about 700 supporters.

That's why the pigs couldn't stop it, so easily...

[Fietsketting]

And you don't see a problem with taking the bait?
If the violence always happens, we shouldn't play into their game. I'm not saying we should only be defensive, as that is dangerous in itself. But being on the offence doesn't mean we take their bait.

No you should just sit down and hold a peacefull protest. That'll teach em!

Theres one big piece of bait right there, its called the conference centre!

[What Would Durruti Do?]

And you don't see a problem with taking the bait?
If the violence always happens, we shouldn't play into their game. I'm not saying we should only be defensive, as that is dangerous in itself. But being on the offence doesn't mean we take their bait.

When did I say I didn't see a problem with it?

Unfortunately I am not the glorious leader of the anarchists and cannot control them.

If you put police cars in front of a crowd of rioters, it is not hard to guess what will happen. Angry mobs are angry mobs.

While I agree that taking their bait probably isn't the best thing to do, I don't see the point in fretting over irrelevant state-created issues. These cop cars are a non-issue because they have nothing to do with the G20 or G20 resistance. They are just cop cars.