2009-12-06
Tord Björk
For many months there has been a media hype about violence and the Reclaim power action on December 16 organized by Climate Justice Action. A week ago the focus suddenly shifted towards Never trust the COP instead and December 12.
How to respond to this media hype about the possibility of activists using the occasion including being part of demonstrations or mass action and then break out them them to make property damage often impossible to see the political message in for people in common? At the demonstration in Geneva against WTO this kind of tactics causing criticism also from Southern WTO opponents.
The international idea to abstain from commenting other tactics have been the rule so far and has many advantages. But this does not work well in Scandinavian political culture. Diversity of tactics may well work, but only up to a certain level. Furthermore you are supposed to trust those you cooperate with. If they do things completely outside the consensus feeling of what is acceptable also among most system critical groups, than there is a problem.
An example of the media discussions the last days you find below from November 25 from Information, a national daily. I have translated it badly with the help of google and made some adjustments to show how messaging might look like in Copenhagen.
I am quoted extensively in the last part of the article. Here I go against the role of not commenting other groups. Firstly I do comment on other tactics. I also address the issue of violence specifically to the COP context.
I guess one can handle this in different ways and have nothing against that other voices abstain from commenting the tactics of others. But if everyone abstains we will get political anorexia of the kind you can read in the first part of the article, a lot of people saying nothing or being alarmists.
I am quoted as starting with “The problem is that the system is violent, as we see when biofuels is stealing land from poor peasants or the oil war in Iraq,” The key point I make when criticising Never trust a COP is “And when the large NGOs are not criticizing the system, but rather trying to brand themselves they thus are reminding of the young people who criticize the system well enough, but doing riots in a way that is more about identity politics than to create change,”
This is a double critique of different tactics often presented as totally opposite to each other but here claimed to be two sides of the same coin. In this way the issue of violence is brought back partly to the system and to those that legitimize this system to continue violent practices as biofuels.
The article ends by: But Tord Björk is not afraid that the message must be drowning in smashed windows. “Why the tendency to paranoia? If not the media blows it up, this is just some small groups who may become violent in confrontations with police. But the widespread violence comes out of the results of the political decisions that do not seem to bring us out of the fossil fuel era.”
A first illustrated blog post on this subject from October you find here:
December 16 more non-violent than December 12?
Enclosed below: The article from Information on Never trust a COP.
From Information, a Danish daily
To force capitalism to its knees
By: Lars Borking
25. November 2009 | History
The autonom network Never Trust a Cop will give capitalism a deathblow, but is so secret that the people behind will not explain how to succeed by breaking some windows in the inner city.
‘Everyone talks about the climate. We do not, “reads the text on the poster from the German part of the network Never Trust A Cop. Black bloc mobilizes to smash windows in Copenhagen to curb climate change – and smash capitalism.
illustration from nevertrustacop.org
The same day as the great popular demonstration for an ambitious climate agreement will gather 40,000 people in Copenhagen a small autonom group are planning smashing some windows in the inner city. The Network Never Trust A Cop (NTAC) has plastered Nørrebro in Copenhagen, with posters, showing both a burning city hall and some stone-throwing autonomous with the text: ‘Capitalism falters – let’s make sure it falls. ”
Despite the ambitions that fails nothing, so has the network isolated itself from all others and no one will speak to the press. Either believe the people behind NTAC that they alone can topple the empire, or they have chosen radio silence, because it must be obvious to others, how some smashed windows and burning containers must help stop climate change.
“If you fail to make politics and not defend your methods, you can never get far. It is the movement’s dead end,” says René Karpantschof, a researcher in the protest movements at the University of Copenhagen, who himslef has a past as a squatter.
He has as researcher explained how violent forms of action may well provide policy outcomes, provided that simultaneously broad alliances are created and public support. But such matters have Never Trust A Cop in no hurry. On their website they make it clear: ‘We refuse to equate us with treacherous NGOs and all those self-styled’ protest leaders’, we reject all governments and all leadership.
Unknown revolutionary
Neither the unions nor among environmental organizations, one senses, who ‘Never Trust A Cop’ is and the few who do will not say a word.
“If you quote me the least, I will never talk to you or Information again,” threateningly states an activist from a peripheral Swedish environmental group that sympathizes with the political message: that capitalism is the problem and the climate summit just gives a little green varnish. The activist must otherwise go to Copenhagen to make presentations on the context, and although Information has received some fine quotes, the newspaper does not dare take the risk of losing an important source. Thus, it is not only NTAC that marginalize themselves – they also get help from people who are sympathetic towards their message.
In Climate Movement in Denmark there is complete confusion. Spokesman Thomas Meinert Larsen explains to Information:
“Just at our meeting yesterday we discussed who they are, and there was one who said that perhaps it was. what is it now, they are called, those who lived in Italy during the 2nd World War II? ”
- Fascists, the man from Informations asks skeptically.
“Yes, exactly. But if so, of course, they differ greatly from the Danish extreme left, “says Thomas Meinert Larsen doubtful.
12. december
At Greenpeace, you are annoyed that NTAC is planning to make trouble.
“Our biggest concern is that the focus seems to be about burning houses instead of whether Obama will ensure a strong climate treaty. It will harm the climate debate and entertain people with the wrong impression, “says Henrik Pedersen, campaign manager at Greenpeace.
“We get visits from eg several Pacific states which are disappearing into the sea, and they might see this meeting come to act on a few rabid,” he explains.
Greenpeace, along with many other organizations to organize the large demonstration on 12 December, and although NTAC has reported that they would make trouble on the same day, they have promised to stay away from the demonstration.
“We have a big and strong demonstration. We are talking about an event that will be backed up from around the world, “says Henrik Pedersen.
More than 400 organizations from 55 countries are behind the demonstration.
Lømmelpakken (Hoodlum law package)
Today, the parliaments reads the so-called “lømmelpakke” (hoodlum law) and ironically this is considered to help a network as Never Trust A Cop, because sentences for peaceful protests turned violently higher. Due to the law package must people eg 40 days in jail if they sit down in front of the police, as recently happened in protests against the deportations of Iraqis by Brorson Kirke in Copenhagen.
“It is clear that if we suddenly come to jail to sit down and take a hiding from the police, someone will perhaps consider whether they would instead be throwing stones at a safe distance,” says René Karpantschof, researcher in protest movements University of Copenhagen.
And vice versa. The poster of a burning city also gives politicians a convenient bogey to refer to when they quintupled the financial penalty for disorderly conduct and will throw people engaged in civil disobedience in 40 days’ imprisonment.
“The government will use these people as an example, although one would have constraints whatever,” says René Karpantschof.
The World Wildlife Fund have been uncertain about whether to risked their name by taking part in the great demonstration. Not because it fears that the rally will be anything but peaceful, but because they are not sure that people can discard the message along if someone at the same time is burning containers somewhere else.
“We are afraid that the message of the peaceful demonstration is being destroyed by riots in the city,” says Eskild Holten, campaign director of World Wildlife Fund.
But it is not here the concern lies with the Friends of the Earth, which is also co-organizers of the big demonstration.
“The problem is that the system is violent, as we see when biofuels is stealing land from poor peasants or the oil war in Iraq,” says Tord Björk, Friends of the Earth, Sweden.
“And when the large NGOs are not criticizing the system, but rather trying to brand themselves thus reminding of the young people who criticize the system well enough, but doing riots in a way that is more about identity politics than to create change,” believes the Swede.
On his blog on the Web he makes himself merry over the Danish skirmishes. He has been in Denmark for several preparatory meetings.
‘The Danish organizations have been so afraid of the civil disobedience actions that are planned in the days after the demonstration, but they had not seen.” Cluck Tord Björk. ‘. the posters in Copenhagen, which uses a violent rhetoric and mobilizes to December 12. ”
But even than Tord Björk is not afraid that the message must be drowning in smashed windows.