2007-06-29
26.6.2007
As in the former years the 8 representatives of the capitalist world said good by at their summitshow in Heiligendamm with balloonlike promises, without any obligations. This is true at least for the public reations issues, that helped to propagandistically prepare the summit, to present the G8 as rescuers of the world and good Samaritans. The vague declarations of good will for more money put into development, into AIDS-help and so on made it hard even for the most uncritical journalists of the bourgeois media to sell the summit as a success.
For this show they bunkered themselves behind fences for more than 100 million euros, secured by 17 800 thugs payed by the state, and by the military. On 40 squarekilometers aroun Heiligendamm the german government established a situation similar to war: While it is said to be still in the process of discussion to call in the military for inner conflicts, soldiers are already preventively put into action on our streets, in the air and on water against the inner resistance, equiped with machine guns, armoured scouting tanks, battle helicopters and warships. They were positioned on bridges, crossroads, fields paths and they bringing in troops to the fields with helicopters. Tornados, which are used in the war in Afghanistan, rumbled over the camps in low level flight as well. Breaking the constitution? The elite doesn´t care. Only some left politicians and journalists scandalized this breakthrough of militarisation of society.
Since two years we, as part of the radical left, together with left and progressive groups and organisations of all spheres of society, had been focussing on an international mobilisation to protest against the policies of profit and war of the capitalist countries, and to disturb their summit: Thousands of motivated people from all over Europe and other parts of the world came. Most of them in the conviction to make use of the vested right to protest guaranteed by the constitution. Many other came in rage and anger, as they knew: multinational capital defines what is considered as rights.
The state displayed his full repository of repression as well as the its menacing will to use it, and finally made brutal use of it in different situations. Cops and special units searched persons and their belongings more than once a day, made protestors march in espalier, was beating and harassing people, and locked them up in guantanamo-like cages. The injured people with truncheons, water canons, gas and pepper spray, restricted the freedom of movement, stopped busses and trains, and registered personal data en masse.
Under conditions like these it was more than inevitable that on the Demonstration of the 2nd June the first stone took off: Be it by an agent provocateur or that we did not find a more powerful tool in our disempowered rage to at least cause some destruction to this violent apparatus. Who is sawing the seeds of violence will gain a harvest of hatred.
Considering the fact that Germany is at war and that the society is getting militarized step by step, that exploitation was intensified and that neoliberal policies pushed forward material, mental and social empoverishment of the population, that torture and secret prisons are well known to exist, considering this it is more surprising that there are so few stones thrown.
We don´t want to exaggerate our protests in the North and present them as the big won battle, but when did it happen the last time, that people gave a shit about all those prohibitions, bans, limitations, intimidations and offences of the police and just did, what they intended to do? This collective step of thousands across the border of the things allowed by the police – that has been accepted for many years – is a refreshing perspective for the development of future struggles against capitalist impositions.
Having reached the fence can´t be seen as a triumph by us, despite the joy of seeing the roads entering Heiligendamm blocked.Obviously state power tactically offered the “red zone” as “battlefield” or “playground” to us. This is not to forget about the people severly wounded. Beginning two month before the summit KAVALA started to declare the space in front of the fence a
“red zone”. A psychological barricade which Block G8 was determined to overcome. It was not the fence being the target. And for sure this “red zone” could not be entered without the determined opponents of the summit encountering the brutality of the robocops, but they made use of the potential of repression displayed in a kind of measured out way, in an effort not to completely destroy their public image. But they constantly showed their readiness for more repression: we can treat you differently and we will crush you, if there is an opportune time. I was visible to everybody: We definitelly live in a policestate, where it is not even necessary anymore to change or invent new laws according to alleged necessities. And it was at no point in time clear to the blockaders when and if they would be attacked, beaten up or evicted. They didn´t allow themselves to be intimidated by this and trusted in their well prepared strategy. The first beginnings of an organised mass militancy came to be visible.
More than that the split up and multi-spectred left got in closer contact through common political practice of organising and realizing the protests. But maybe all these connections are dissolving again until the next big event. But there also is the possibility that the positive experiences shared lead to bigger circles of discssion and closer networking.
One striking experience is: it is not possible and even avoided to sharpen political positions in discussions across the spectres, in order not to endanger practical cooperation. The collective organisation of protests against imperialist mega-events does not contribute much to the political advancement amonst the left spectres. Our own attempts to to on the aganda the systemic connection of exploitation and imperialist war, to raise awareness for it did not take effect beyond very limited boundries of our alliances.
Despite the strong endeavours of security and state authorities, espacially of KAVALA in MeckPomm, to intimidate the population and to initiate a process of dissotiation with the protests amongst them, the people in the region did not close their minds to the protests, but showed practical solidarity in many situations. They did that despite the fact that mainstream media again worked as mouthpiece organ of manipulation of those in power. The double-tongues of those hypocrits hysterically condemn the throwing of stones, these are the same people that give the orders to bombings and shootings, who welcome or accept torture and rape, who create in cold calculation of their profits hunger, poverty and devastation. Despite this, the reactionary interpretation of the burgeois media did not prevail completelly, at least not after the protests. Video coverage of independent participants of the protests demask what the press adopted from police reports. And as always in struggles, positions get clear in the fight and therefore it is a nice success that the media collaborators within the left took of their masks, got critizised by the grassroots as unbearable helpers in the divide-and-conquer game, that partly they were thrown out. This happened at Attac, die Linke, IL and ALB. The debates about it are not finished yet.
There is no reason to party…
But also the small victories we win together against the authorities boost our courage, give us joy, are the reviving potion in our everyday classwar.
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