It's time to sit down and write a full report-back before things simmer down.
This is a personal account, with no claim to be covering all of what happened in Genoa -- just what I saw, experienced and thought during the past week. Since you all know why I do what I do I'll omit that, and please forgive me for not running a spellcheck and presenting this all in a somewhat crude fashion. I'm sending it to you as my friends, and encourage you to forward and spread around whatever of this you may see fit.
Initially my intentions for Genoa were very benign, and focused almost exclusively on my thesis. With a letter from my university and a place at the youth hostel, I planned to stay out of trouble, do some interviews and collect material, flying off quietly after the week was over. Polite, academic, detached.
It didn't really work that way.
The trouble already began at Stansted airport on Tuesday morning. After a sleepless night getting there from Oxford, I found that the border police was randomly stopping people with a ticket to Genoa and questioning them. There had already been, apparently, so much hype around the forthcoming summit that the powers that be had become a little nervous. I was stopped at the gate and my passport was taken, the guard was making a phone call when I offered him to look at my letter from Oxford. I reiterated that I was going to Genoa for research purposes and I was let through.
Once on the plane I hooked up with a fellow student, with whom I share many opinions and interests. We decided to make a pool -- my sleeping bag, his tent. Arriving at the airport we made it to the city centre which was still quiet and bought a map. I found that the youth hostel was far away at the northern edge of town and very distant from the convergence centre and the headquarters of the Genoa Social Forum. I therefore decided to ditch the hostel and moved with my friend to the convergence centre. We were directed to a park which was designated for camping in coordination with the city authorities, where we pitched our tent and looked around. There were many people there from many nationalities, including large groups from Ireland and Germany.
I moved back to the convergence centre and the nearby area where talks were taking place. Wednesday and Thursday were two very interesting days, I collected lots of material from the various organisations who came to participate in the counter-summit and had very productive interviewswith leading activists and intellectuals in the movement. I felt that my thesis is really on the right track. The evenings were spent in very long conversations in the encampment -- with individuals and groups -- not only on political matters but also talks on art, storytelling and singing. I found many new friends, all of them very deep and interesting. Especially enlightening were some of the German anarchists -- most of them decidedly non-violent and spiritual, people in their late teens or early twenties who work at youth centres and do direct action as well. We talked a lot, drank a lot and found much in common. In general, the number of contacts I made in this period has been invaluable.
On the Thursday I met the Israeli activists -- really great people -- and formed an affinity group with them. this meant that we would look after each other, stick together during the actions and make sure anyone who was hurt or arrested by chance would be taken care of. We were all dedicated to non-violence, and discussed among us what we specifically wanted to do -- deciding finally to put the focus on a call to stop arming Israel in the context of the current situation in the Territories. We prepared a banner and costumes of solders and Palestinians for the march. (You can see all our reports in Hebrew from the days, some of which I participated in writing, at www.indymdia.org.il/g8).
I had become involved in discussion of preparation around the "Pink Bloc" -- a group of international activists who wanted to do something that was not given its proper place in the GSF framework, namely, a colourful march followed by non-violent direct action. We came to a general statement of principles which was agreed on by consensus -- it was the first time I had experienced this model of decisionmaking and it made a great impression on me. The efficiency and democracy of making decisions in this way -- with hand-twinkling to indicate agreement, facilitation by a neutral chairperson and a true spirit of listening and debate -- is definitely the most participatory and encouraging mode of collective deliberation I have ever experienced. Our general idea was to proceed, on the Friday of direct action, from the convergence centre in a march that would include costumes, a samba band, posters and placards -- all organised by the different affinity groups which could each do their own thing.
After that, we planned to take on a section of the fence marking the red zone and try to get in non-violently. There were arguments on how to respond to police violence -- although we all agreed not to initiate such violence -- and it was clear, after a time, that at a certain stage the group would have to split up between people who wanted strictly no violence, like me, and people who were prepared to respond with more pro-active self defence.
The Friday began with a great atmosphere. We assembled at the convergence centre and began marching. Once in a while a decision about the next step needed to be made, and the pink flag at the front of the march was waved -- this was a signal for a spokes-council, where representatives of the affinity groups got together to decide what next. These meetings went through very quickly and efficiently. However, at a certain stage we couldn't get to where we wanted. The Italian non-violent affinity groups were crossing our path in large numbers, on the way to their sit-in, and we couldn't go up where they were going down. At the end we decided to cross the road to a piazza which was still empty, and on the border of the red zone. We converged there, and for a few minutes just walked around and made some noise. Then, out of the forefront of the march, three people got up to the fence and started throwing flowers at the police. This was a decoy. A thin girl, one seasoned direct-actioner from France, got on the fence and began attaching ropes to it in order to bring it down. The police on the other side immediately responded with water cannons. It is a picture I'll never forget as long as I live: this one girl on the fence, trying again and again to attach the ropes, water-cannoned by the police as if she were public enemy number one, and five thousand people behind her shouting as one and cheering her, not to give up. I felt ten feet tall.
I saw a column of police closing off the piazza, and then the tear-gas came. I'm pretty used to it by now, not the least because of the West Bank, but this shit is never pleasant. Some who had goggles or gas-masks tried to stay, others ran back -- including us. There were two more attempts to breach the fence but we were not enough people at this stage. the police came in with truncheons and kicks, but we managed to get away to a higher street.
After about thirty minutes the attempts began to re-converge the Pink Bloc. We had begun the day some three thousand-strong, but without proper communication it was impossible to keep everyone together. At the end we made it to Piazza Manin, north of the red zone. It seemed very tranquil, there were stalls, families on the grass, music. There were about a thousand of us, maybe more. The pink flag had been lost, so we used a palm leaf that someone had been carrying to call a spokes-council. We were thinking what to do when a squad of about thirty people from the Black Bloc showed up. I went to talk to them with another person from the Pink, just to negotiate a path for them because it was clear that the police were hot on their trail. Apparently the police had broken their lines early on, and they were roaming the north-eastern part of the city in squads not larger than fifty people. The area north of the train station, they reported, was a war zone. Not one bank, multinational office, sex shop or butchery was left unharmed -- these were their designated targets -- but apparently supermarkets, liquor stores and local shops were harmed too. Later we would see evidence of police provocateurs within the Black Bloc -- people dressed like them getting out of a police van and beginning to smash windows, etc.
I'm against violence, but one needs to understand that the Black Bloc's people's violence is not wanton. They have a concept, and when they can keep their lines intact and stick to it they do a really good job and never hurt civilians or other protesters. The Black Blockers agreed to leave on a route that would keep them and the police away from us, but they couldn't -- the police immediately arrived, and closed of that route of retreat. Driving the anarchists into the peaceful protesters, they now had an excuse to attack everyone. Families with children, non-violent catholic groups, all got tear gassed and thrashed. I lead some activists up a staircase, away from the police. Suddenly the pink flag is in my hands, and I wave it above the staircase to let other people notice the route of escape. The tear gas stings the eyes, throat and face. Below me, the Black Bloc thunders by one street away. Riot cops are following, beating everyone brutally. I see people taking shelter in an alley found by the police. They beat them real hard, going for the head.
Eventually, a pink contingent gathers again on the stairs. We move up and up; in this part of town, half the streets are stairways that rise in endless zig zag flights. Below us, we see contingents of riot cops sweep the streets. The helicopter above move on, following the Black Bloc. One of the women has been gassed so badly she's been vomiting, but she wants to stay. A whole lot of people have been badly hurt, people who clearly and unmistakably are not rock throwing, street-fighting youth, people who believed they were going to be in a peaceful and reasonably safe place. The Pink Bloc begins a long journey back to the other side of town. We're joined by some of the others from the square and by some of the Italian Pacifist Affinity groups who have been trying to hold space on this side. we start making our way back to the convergence centre, with scouts going ahead to see if the area is clear. but at a certain stage we come to a halt: the police have blocked the last kilometer down to the centre, and there is heavy street fighting to the west. We sit in the intersection, trying to figure out what to do. I've lost the Israelis by now, hoping they're all right. Rumours about the guy who's been killed start flowing in through cell-phones. We see the police closing in from the north and west, and several of us decide to hold hands and walk down, maybe get through. I am with a girl I've never seen before, walking at a brisk pace among about ten more people. She's terrified, shaking. I use my poor Spanish and some English to try to comfort her, steadily repeating that everything's gonna be alright. When we get to where the police were on the way south, they're gone. We make it to the convergence centre but move right away to the media centre -- where I agreed to meet the Israelis in case something happened, and where my stuff is at this stage.
I find Walden Bello there, he was almost run over by the police van. The girl I walked with comes to thank me, I get up and give her a little hug and she just breaks down crying in my arms. Too much stress for many people, I guess.
The Israelis arrive back safely. That night we can barely sleep -- there are so many speculations about the next day, for which a peaceful mass-march has been planned. We're awaiting some two hundred thousand people -- trade unionists, pensioners, families -- but we're sure that the violence will continue. That night we write a report for Indymedia, and thrash around in out sleeping bags. Nobody can really sleep, people are walking around thinking about what had happened, and more and more stories are heard. The police attacked and teargassed all the different groups that took part in the action. They threw tear gas from helicopters into the assembly point of the pacifist march, charged against the Ya Basta and the Network for Global Rights before they even started their actions, and injured a still unknown number of people. They deliberately mixed the different sorts of political expression, trying to create conflicts. People who were taken to the hospitals are arrested immediately after receiving first aid, unless they are in an extremely bad condition. One person who I talk to, a member of a nonviolent group, who was horribly beaten up while sitting on the floor with his hands up, went through that experience. In the police station he was repeatedly tortured like everyone else there. The police was hitting the already wounded areas of his body and battering him for no reason. Another person who was arrested and released says that they were beating everybody and forcing them to scream "Viva il duce!" (i.e. Mussolini). The police terrorism started well before the actions. Someone tells me that she was forced, at the police station, to look at a succession of three posters: a pornographic one, followed by one of Mussolini and then one of the Nazi army in action.
Saturday arrives, and until noon it seems like the march will go through peacefully. I don't join, not seeing a point of walking four hours in the sun, and stay at the media centre with a girl who is too afraid to leave there. The march begins, and I go to a high place to see it from above. I couldn't believe my eyes. The police massively attack part of the demonstration for absolutely no reason, teargassing the whole area -- including the parking lot that served as the GSF convergence centre and a nearby beach -- and some people were forced to jump into the sea just to escape from them. The march breaks up, there are more than one hundred and fifty thousand people filling the beach promenade for miles, some dispersing to side streets. The riots go on, spread again all over town. People at the back fr the march manage to retreat, others choke and get beaten up. Some Black Blockers advance to defend them and again the sights of burned cars defending retreat lines, smashed windows and wounded protesters.
Then, on Saturday night, on the pretext of looking for the people who had caused the violence, the police come outside the media centre where I am. This is the headquarters of the mainstream, non-violent NGOís in the Genoa Social Forum. Certain that they're about to raid the building, I run up to help barricade the top floor, trying to buy time to get rid of sensitive material. I get cut off, the barricade has already closed. I climb to the roof, and see them entering the school opposite the center. They start smashing people up, screams and shouts all over the place. And then they're in our building. I try to get back down and almost run straight into the hands of the police. I turn around and escape back up, I still don't know how they didn't see me. The roof is empty now, and I find a niche to hide in, some kind of a store-room that has a window off the roof. The police are now all over the building, and I later hear that all the people had to stand with hands against the walls of the halls. Police gathered all journalists, and then searched the rooms. They confiscated mini discs, digital cameras, and "weapons" -- kitchen and swiss army knives.
I spent the longest thirty minutes of my life in that enclave, certain that if I were found I'd be killed. I just breathed, avoided the helicopter searchlights and waited for it to pass. At the end it was over -- there were activists on the roof and I knew the police had gone. I step out, and see hundreds of police down the street, and ambulances coming in to clear the carnage at the opposite school. People are screaming "Assassini!" and "We won't forget". They had beaten up everyone to the extent that most of the people could not walk out and had to be carried in stretchers out of the school. I don't know how many people were badly injured because we lost count of the amount of stretchers carried out of the school, but they brought about thirty ambulances for the injured people. The police also brought at least one body bag outside, maybe two, and at the time we thought there might be more people dead.
There are, though, still three people in a coma from that attack. Everybody was either arrested or taken to hospital. According to the testimony of one person who could escape before being arrested, people were lying on the floor saying "No violence" when the police broke into the first floor where he was, and they battered people so badly that one of the officers had to intervene to stop the massacre. When the police are gone I go inside the school -- I've only seen worse in bus-bombings in Israel. There are pools of blood on the floor, windows smashed by people trying to escape in vain, a plank of wood with nails covered with blood lying next to a corner with big patches of blood on the walls.
That night all Israelis decide to leave. I help one of the key organisers write a call for solidarity which goes into email lists around the world, but when I'm done one or two people have left without me. I'm on the first floor now, and someone shouts that the police are raiding again. I throw my bag and sleeping bag out the window, onto a bush, and jump out after them. Jumping over a few fences I make it out, and run like hell to the east. I think I ran for at least half an hour, and made it to a minor station on the coast. There I get on the first train I can find, and end up in Florence. I do some emails, trying to make sure the others are OK, find a youth hostel, take my first shower in a week and get into bed. I didn't fall asleep -- I fell unconscious.
The rest wasn't so interesting. I spent a day in Florence and got back quietly to the Genoa airport and flew back. I'm now working with some people on a special movement-magazine to sum up the events and look forward. I know that many people have been discouraged by their experiences in Genoa, but that's exactly what they're after with this violence. This brutality shows the actual panic with which the rich and powerful are reacting to the clear fact that the world is beginning to listen to us. Seeing that they can no longer write us off as a marginal, temporary phenomenon, they are now removing all masks of ostensible democracy and showing their real face -- one of oppression, violence and terrorism. Well, it's not working, at least as far as I'm concerned. I'm still on my feet and fighting, and I'm hoping youíre on my side.
The Future Begins Now.
