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From the history of the Black Block
Why this posting? Its in connection with the G8 that the Black Block went through the media again. As the term was used first time in 1980 noone imagined this idea to develop a life on its own and that it would go around the world. The Black Block came into being in Frankfurt and after some actions that were thought to come out of it, there were arrests. One could not keep his mouth shot and so 4 were arrested. On a demo at the 10th of August 1981 about 2000 protested against this criminalisation. Here are some pictures of it
This time the Asta [students organisation, transl.] had called for the demo and the Spontis [from spontaneous, kind of 68er forerunners of the Autonomen but lot of them somehow made their peace with the system; transl.] participated as well. This lead to some mistrust of the Autonomous, as they experienced the Spontis to dislike them so far, and when the now turn to offer help people, things seemed too quiet to be true.
Particularly as they called for not doing things to not endager the prisoners. This was opposed by others who found that there must not be peace and quiet, otherwise they would have reached what they wanted to reach with the arrests. The Spontis had called to come dressed in black, what was done by some of them, while the Autonomous came the way they always did. So it was more than the usually 300 marching through town this time. At the Eschersheimer Turm [near university campus; transl.] the road was blocked and the Asta didn´t want to take responsibility for the demo any longer. Real heavy weight, such responsibility. Then the demo contined to Westend, there was some trouble with police, some windows smashed and afterwards the police was searching the parks for people to arrest. All in all it was one of the more peaceful demos. Looking back the pictures look a bit strange. This should have been the Black Block? But this is how pictures work. We got so used to the media pictures of Autonomous masked with Hassis, and by the time the Autonomous got closer to the media images. But once in a while some seemingly unspectacular pictures show something different.
PS: Some time later the scene broke or fell apart in connection with discussions about how to deal with the hungerstrike of the RAF. Rests of the Autonomous went into the movement against the expansion of the Rhein-Main Airport and the history of the Black Block seemed to be over. But sometimes history follows its own tracks.
[de.indymedia.org]