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Article24
July
2001
The Genoa Tales
by Dominic Standish
The G8 summit in Genoa has sparked many modern tales about
direct action, global capitalism, and police brutality. What really
happened inside and outside the security 'Red Zone'?
Tale one: a war broke out at the G8 summit.
The Tale: Across the media, the riots at Genoa have been reported
as a 'war', some blaming anarchists and others blaming police and
security forces. 'Protesters turn Genoa into war zone', wrote the
Los Angeles Times (1).
The Truth: Several anarchist groups stated before the summit that
they intended to try to breach the four-metre fence of steel erected
to protect the delegates inside the 'Red Zone'. Their attempts to do
this failed. But there were clashes as demonstrators tried to break
through and police drove them back, firing water cannons and tear
gas.
It is reported that 500 people were injured during the first two days
of the summit, out of an estimated total of over 100,000
demonstrators. A further 40 demonstrators were taken to hospital
after police raided their accommodation early on 22 July, arresting
92, and collecting knives, pickaxes and petrol bombs. One person
was killed in Genoa and the costs of destruction have been
estimated at $120 million.
These scenes were ugly, the injuries horrible, and the death tragic.
But from the start, the media have talked up the level of possible
and actual violence, encouraging politicians, police and protesters
to get ready for the worst - and helping to turn the whole thing into
a self-fulfilling prophecy (2).
In Genoa there were riots, looting and fighting. But there were no
reports that demonstrators used any firearms, and the police didn't
use the surface-to-air missiles they had amassed before the
summit. Yes, it was nasty. But a 'war'?
Tale two: the Italian police and security forces behaved like those
from a fascist or authoritarian regime, not a democracy.
The Tale: The Italian police and security forces were said to have
acted like 'fascists', bent on attacking peaceful and violent
demonstrators alike (3). The killing of protester Carlo Giuliani, shot
by policeman Mario Placanica, is given as the primary evidence of
this. Amnesty International demanded a review of the Italian police,
while Vittorio Agnoletto, leader of the main umbrella protest
organisation the Genoa Social Forum, called for further
demonstrations on Tuesday 24 July against the government's
attempt 'to institute a police state'.
The Truth: The police and security forces routinely charged
protesters and attacked peaceful demonstrators, residents,
journalists and others. This was no doubt an overreaction to the
protests. But it is not unheard of for police to behave like this in
formally democratic countries - remember the Poll Tax
demonstrations and the miners' strike in the UK during Margaret
Thatcher's administration?
The murder of Giuliani was particularly extreme. He was shot as he
threw a fire extinguisher into a Carabinieri jeep where Placanica
was under attack by several rioters. The jeep then drove over
Giuliani's body. For several hours after the shooting, the authorities
tried to argue that Giuliani had been killed by something thrown by
a protester, even though they had a corpse with bullet wounds. And
the excellent photography of Dylan Martinez (Reuters), showing a
pistol pointing at Giuliani as he threw the fire extinguisher, helped
to expose what happened, and should go down as a key moment
in photographic journalism.
The police deserve all the criticism they got, as protests against them broke out on
Monday 23 July outside the Senate building in Rome with chants of 'Assassins'. (Also
on Monday, police made 30 more arrests in raids in
Genoa.) But this was not a conscious armed shooting with the full backing of an
authoritarian state, so much as the panic reaction of an inexperienced, isolated
20-year-old conscript officer under attack. The consequences
might be no less deadly; but ignoring the context clarifies nothing.
Tale three: the violence was organised by the Black Block movement.
The Tale: The hardcore group of anarchists has been identified as the 'Black Block',
with estimates of their numbers ranging from hundreds to thousands - even though none
of the media reports on the militant groups before
or after the demonstrations properly explained who they are or where they come from.
According to the UK Observer, they were supported by the German group FAU (Freie
ArbeiterInnen Union), AP (Arbeiter Partei or Workers' Party, affiliated to FAU), TIKB
(Union of Revolutionary Communists of Turkey), AntiKap
italist/ISCI Demokrasisi (Turkey), Ya Basta! (the international wing of Italian
anarchists Tute Bianche), and the British-based Globalise Resistance. (4). A
middle-aged man, Roberto, explained to me that they are so illus
ive and powerful because they use the modern power of information
technology.
The Truth: Some demonstrators looted, burned 24 cars and
destroyed 59 more, and smashed the windows of 41 shops, 16
petrol stations and 34 banks (according to city officials). Most of
this was mindless violence, not directed at anything or anybody in
particular. Protesters also threw objects such as bottles,
sometimes lit with petrol, and rocks. Most of these were directed
at the police and security forces. There were very few instances of
other demonstrators or residents being attacked.
Some of the protesters were probably from the groups listed above,
identifiable by their t-shirts and banners. But there were also
youths with local accents and people not attached to any group
who were simply angry for a variety of reasons. Carlo Giuliani, the
protester who was shot, was not a member of any group, according
to his friends and family. But he lived in a squat and had
occasionally dropped in on meetings. I even saw a man fighting
with fascist insignia on his t-shirt (many fascist groups are also
against 'globalisation').
The violent protesters were a mixed bunch, not solely an organised
group identifiable as the Black Block.
Tale four: a new militant anarchist movement in Italy is prompting
political violence.
The Tale: There is a growing and increasingly militant anarchist
movement in Italy based in 'social centres' that provided the core of
the G8 assaults. As Naomi Klein, author of the famous anti-
corporate book No Logo, warned: 'They are also ground zero of a
growing political militancy in Italy - one that is poised to explode on
to the world stage when the G8 meets.' (5)
At the core of the social centres are the Tute Bianche group -
named after the white overalls they wear during protests as a
symbol of their invisibility, according to Luca Casarini, widely
regarded as the group's leader. He made a declaration of war
against the G8 summit before it began, which launched the group
into a highly visible position: 'We will storm the city's off-limit zone
and we'll be ready to defend ourselves.' (6)
The Truth: There are roughly 150 'social centres' in Italy where
anarchists have taken over derelict buildings and started 'semi-
autonomous communities' - the largest being Leoncavallo in Milan.
Although several 'social centre activists' have recently become city
councillors in Venice, Rome and Milan, these communities are
largely defined by their isolation from society and from national
political life.
The lack of direction to the violence is a sign that this is not a new
political movement of anarchists. A highly politicised anarchist
movement began in Italy when the Russian Michael Bukunin came
to Italy in the 1860s. Between 1877 and 1900, Italian anarchists
murdered the president of France (1894), the Spanish prime
minister (1897), the Austrian Empress (1894), and Italian King
Umberto (1900).
On the morning of Saturday 21 July in Genoa I spoke to a group of
six anarchists from Milan, Rome and Liguria. They were very
political and knew their history. But their aims were vaguely against
'globalisation', 'the corporations', and 'the media who cannot be
trusted'. The Tute Bianche leader, Luca Casarini, has stated as
one of his key aims: 'I would like to say that I am part of the
movement for a fair market.' (7)
Weak leadership and terrorist violence has always been a
consequence of anarchist politics. But a movement that aims to
make capitalism fairer and is limited to rioting and failing to break
through barricades surely represents the degradation of anarchism,
not its militant revival.
Tale five: there has been a return to terrorism in Italy.
The Tale: Before the G8 summit began, numerous bombs went off.
Letter bombs went off at the Benetton administrative headquarters
near Treviso, in the face of a police officer in Genoa, and at the
headquarters of TG4 News in Milan, injuring a secretary. A small
bomb was disarmed in the centre of Bologna, and a petrol bomb
set a temporary employment agency on fire in Milan with the Red
Brigades' five star symbol painted on the wall, as a group called
'the revolutionary front for communism' claimed responsibility.
During the summit there were bomb scares across Italy, with
police responding to 24 bomb threats in a 48-hour period. On
Monday 24 July, another letter bomb was intercepted by police in
Genoa.
The Truth: Most of the bomb scares were hoaxes. And where there
were explosions, to use the term 'bomb' is an exaggeration. In
Florence, a bag with a ticking clock was left outside a post office;
and in Naples, a bag soaked with flammable liquid was found
outside a Deutsche Bank branch.
The above incidents were useless acts of violence by isolated
groups and individuals. They do not represent a return to the highly
organised terrorism Italy experienced during the 1970s and early
1980s. The Red Brigades and left-wing terrorist groups killed 29
people in 1978, 22 in 1979 and 30 in 1980, especially police,
judges and journalists. But the Red Brigades also kidnapped and
killed Aldo Moro, the president of the Christian Democrats and a
leading political figure of the mid-1970s. There is no movement in
Italy currently capable of such organised terrorism.
Tale six: the violence prevented the protesters' arguments from
having an impact.
The Tale: The rioting protesters prevented the key protest
messages on debt, poverty and injustice from putting pressure on
the G8 leaders. Many non-governmental organisations (NGOs),
such as Oxfam, Christian Aid and the Catholic Development
Agency, withdrew from the main organised demonstration on
Saturday 21 July after the rioting the day before, and held separate
vigils. The NGO Coopération Internationale pour le Développement
et la Solidarité issued a press statement to the G8 press office
with the headline, 'Violence steals limelight at Genoa, but G8
continues to steal money from Third World'.
The Truth: NGOs experienced the consequences of the long-term
integration of their agendas into the mainstream concerns of
governments. The NGO Drop the Debt campaigned for 100 percent
debt forgiveness for highly indebted countries, while the G7 (G8
minus Russia) have already implemented partial forgiveness for 23
poor countries and have discussed extending this further (8). I saw
nobody protesting against debt forgiveness or the Kyoto Protocols
on reducing greenhouse gas emissions. And there seemed to be
more disagreement on the environmental issue inside the summit
than there was between the G8 leaders and the protesters outside.
The principle reason that the protesters failed to put pressure on
the G8 leaders was that most of their arguments differed
occasionally in tone, but rarely in substance, from those of the
leaders.
The outcome: world leaders run scared.
In the aftermath of Genoa, Canadian prime minister Jean Chretien
proposed that next year's G8 summit, which his country will host,
should be held in Kananaskis, Alberta - a mountain resort with only
350 hotel rooms. This proposal has been widely welcomed
because it will be a more modest affair, as the G8 leaders were
quickly put on the defensive about their display of power and luxury
in Genoa while seeming to express concern about poverty and
inequality.
The G8 choice of their next venue expresses the desire for
distance between the world's political elite and the populations that
they rule. Holding the summit in the city of Genoa gave an image of
being in touch and allow
ing democratic protest, even though I could not even hear the protests from inside the
Red Zone, where the G8 leaders were meeting at the Palazzo Ducale. Now, the fact that
the November World Trade Organisation meeting wi
ll be held in inaccessible Qatar has been widely welcomed.
On 23 July 2001, UK prime minister Tony Blair was asked whether
summits like Genoa could continue. 'So these guys can come and
riot, and we the democratic leaders should conclude from that that
we should never meet again…. Not as far as I'm concerned',
retorted Blair (9). Yet world leaders do conclude that, faced with
protests, they should go in with all guns blazing - and when that
fails, that they should run away.
What a tale for our times.
Dominic Standish writes comment articles for the Italy Daily
section of the International Herald Tribune and runs Progress
Consulting in the Veneto region of Italy. Email him at
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Read on:
G8 expectations by Brendan O'Neill
spiked-issues: May Day protests
(1) 'Protesters turn Genoa into war zone', Los Angeles Times, 21
July 2001
(2) 'On eve of G8 meeting, Genoa is battening down the hatches,' Il
Sole 24 Ore, 19 July 2001; 'Fortress city waits for repeat of the
sacking of 1522', The Times (London), 19 July 2001
(3) 'I'm ready to fight...this is a war', Financial Times, 22 July 2001
(4) 'Who's who: the militants', Observer, 22 July 2001
(5) 'Squatters in white overalls', Guardian, 8 June 2001
(6) 'The road to Genoa', International Herald Tribune/Italy Daily, 28
June 2001
(7) 'The road to Genoa', International Herald Tribune/Italy Daily, 28
June 2001
(8) 'Debt relief and beyond': report transmitted by G7 finance
ministers to the heads of state and government, Genoa, 20-22 July
2001
(9) Daily Telegraph, 23 July 2001
Reprinted from :
http://www.spiked-
online.com/Articles/00000002D1B0.htm
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