Tried to submit the following on the arushandapush website (http://arushandapush.blogsome.com/) - doesn’t seem to have worked:
During and since the events around the G20 conference there have been, apparent to me, manifestations of often quite intense responses to the actions of some people, frequently and reductively identified as the actions of ‘Arterial Bloc’. Quite a few people who identify themelves as critical of the G20 and even as supporters of or participants in anti-g20 activities have gone out of their way to criticise or condemn (the actions attributed to) Arterial Bloc.
By contrast, those articulating positions either defending these actions or just not outright condemning those involved have been largely on the back foot, and have made efforts to be measured and polite in response to aggressive criticisms that did not, on the whole, reflect any parallel efforts. The public remarks of Socialist Alternative’s Mick Armstrong, happily reproducing seemingly all of the cliches of anti-protester discourse up to and including those concerning a xenophobic construction of ‘outside agitators’, are only the most extreme example of the collapse of the supposedly oppositional into reactionary and conformist choices which can only assist the state in its repressive actions against those being deemed beyond the pale.
Largely absent from all of this is any critique of the actual roles of those claiming the position and authority of ‘organisers’ of anti-g20 protests and activities, the dishonesty, manipulations and slimy interests of not merely most of the socialist groups involved, but also those constantly deploying the rhetoric of anti-hierarchical organisation, of spokescouncils and affinity groups, even of anarchism.
The Stopg20 meetings were saturated with this dishonest crap. The media spokespeople that the collective claimed it didn’t have used the authority of their relation to the stopg20 collective to falsify the form of organisation of anti-g20 activities, to outright lie about events in order to distance themelves as official and legitimate protesters from the Arterial Bloc. These creeps - hello, Marcus - acted in mainstream media interviews as if Stopg20 had some collective commitment to ‘non-violent’, ‘peaceful’ protest when the discourse of ‘diversity of tactics’ explicitly included acknowledgement that some would quite possibly be intending and/or willing to adopt a different set of political assumptions about what constitutes an acceptable action. In Stopg20 spokescouncils people were invited to some of the meetings at which it was clear that this was to be the case: the affinity group/spokescouncil process means that many organising decisions are made at meetings separate from the stopg20 meetings and the separation in this case can only be used to demonstrate some inherent and principled political separation by falsifying the way in which everything was organised, and by attributing to stopg20 decisions that were not made or even, so far as I know, proposed. This being the only way to do it, this is what was done.
The central limit on such discussion at stopg20 spokescouncils, proposed by one of the central figures of stopg20, was that caution should be used because the space might not be safe from the eyes and ears of the state.
The retrospective construction of ‘legitimate protesters’, and of mythical official commitments to non-violence, was the work of people like Marcus who used the stopg20 ‘media collective’ to very loudly and publicly bullshit. Those who identified with Stopg20 allowed the creation of media spokespeople despite claiming in meetings that there would be no spokespeople, and did not contest the lies of such spokespeople even as these lies helped to define a public rhetoric of exclusion and demonisation that went well with the arrests, charges, denials of bail, etcetera that are documented on this site.
These tendencies were evident in advance, including the use of seemingly radical rhetoric to give a particular political capital and cover to quite other practices, very conventional notions of politics and forms of organising that have distinctly unappealing content and trajectories, as we have seen yet again.
In many ways the kind of repulsive actions we have seen since the g20, by ’socialists’ and even by ‘anarchists’, were the kinds of actions the stopstopg20 affinity group suggested were likely, in comments on the Stopg20 spokescouncil which took place on the Wednesday night prior to the G20 meeting - comments which appeared on the Stopg20 website (www.stopg20.org) and on the stopstopg20 site (stopg20.blogsome.com).
Those most active in Stopg20, whether ‘media collective’ people or not - those who played these public roles after Saturday’s events or who let others do so when they could have tried to prevent it or publicly contradicted the lies being spewed out, who could have at least publicly and clearly denied the spokesperson status of those involved and not permitted the deliberate lies about Stopg20 to go totally unchallenged - those who have been silent since on the politics of these practices - these are people who should not be trusted.
We need an actual analysis of why these people lie and will lie again - the form and content of politics/activism which constitutes material interests in notions of ‘democracy’, ‘representation’, ‘community’, practices of network-building/recruitment and parallel development of political capital and authority - an entire array of assumptions and dynamics, in many ways common to the self-described ’socialists’, ‘anarchists’, ‘autonomists’, or whatever that make up such scenes (and will try to form them again for ASEAN), that should be deconstructed, or maybe I just mean pulled apart.
Benjamin
In order to prevent this post being an exercise in nit-picking, we have decided to post an article by Monsieur Dupont. We consider that this article succinctly delineates the kind of politics dominant in the organisation of “StopG20” activities.
That article, which discusses the politics of a counter-summit protest in Prague, can be viewed here.
We were prompted to post this article, as well as some ‘nit-picking’ points, by the experience of Wednesday night’s Stopg20 spokescouncil, as well as by the numerous suggestions from people that Arterial Bloc and/or A Space Outside represent elements within stopG20 counter-posed to those about which we have been whinging. The Dupont article is our lazy way of giving some context to our criticism, a way of enframing our picking of nits.
[the media affinity group]
The most dominant contributors to the (un)lively discussion at the StopG20 spokescouncil were Marcus and Phoenix – representatives of the Stopg20 ‘media collective’. Handling the media on behalf of the Stopg20 group – whilst recognising that that organisation is, for all intents and purposes, nothing – they are the ones who seem to be doing much of the talking to the media, directly and by the editing and transmitting the media statements of other affinity groups. These people, after outlining their role, reassured everyone that in each of their engagements with the media they deflected comments about potential protestor violence by making cunning remarks to imply that “police cause the violence”. This formed part of an intent to “refocus media attention” onto (what they consider to be) the “real issues with the G20”. These real issues are ‘basic things’ which (they asserted) everyone would agree on. This lowest common denominator position is one that is made possible by the effacement of all criticism of G20 that is contradictory or otherwise incompatible to that of the left-liberal-green position. This effacement means that the left-liberal-green position is made hegemonic, where differing positions are simply the over-zealous extension or incomplete approximation of that position.
Our non-representatives thus claimed that they were, in fact, effectively representing us. After all, if they were really only speaking as themselves, why would they have to reassure us that we would agree?
In short, this media affinity group have constituted themselves as a “media collective”, acting as a centralised point for all media contact, from which they make statements which are always attributed to StopG20 spokespeople. Disingenuous statements about not acting as StopG20 spokespeople appear as a thin cover for the most conventional activist practices regarding the media. But, since no-one else seemed to have a problem with this, what is the function of this rhetoric beyond attempting to pre-empt criticism?
[the police liaisons]
Then there was the most astonishing announcement of the spokescouncil. The ‘Police Liaisons’ (though more than one group seemed to have met with the police) informed the group that the police will try a new tactic – police officers will be in the crowd, wearing yellow vests. This was not treated as a problem, and the idea of attempting to prevent this was not raised. After further revelations on the activities of the police liaison group it became clear that they were working with the police in efforts to ensure that the event was totally in control of organisers and the police. Their efforts are directed at ensuring the stopG20 events are perfectly managed - to be as alienating as possible and devoid of any possible confrontation or any activity other than the quite contemplation of commodities.
[‘Safe community space”]
Perhaps making the job of the police liaisons irrelevant are the efforts to ensure there is to be what is now apparently referred to as a ‘safe community space’. The primary rally will end at the police barricades where an event will take place at which participants are to be asked to respect the desire of organisers that this be a ‘safe community space’, because ‘the community’ will be there, some of whom are from ‘multicultural groups’, and, in case this isn’t enough, because ‘children’, ‘injured people’ and ‘the elderly’ will be there. Contradicting the media collective’s smug implications that police initiate all violence, participants who wish to engage in any confrontation are asked to do so elsewhere, outside of the area to which the rally is to be directed and in such a way that such confrontation is not to be connected to this area or those within it. Who will listen to bands and perform street theatre at the g20 from behind the police barricades.
We imagine anyone being rude to police will be told to stop because this is the ‘safe space’ and such rudeness might endangering it, as police wander through the reclaimed streets of this temporary autonomous zone.
What seems clear is that those ensuring that there will be a ‘safe community space’ are attempting to ensure that, if something other than obedience towards organisers were to occur, it will be immediately crushed by the participants themselves, through moral blackmail or whatever means is necessary. This is all necessary so that the ‘community’ attending can watch those bands, listen to those speakers, and browse the items at the ‘Really Really Free Market’, so that they can experience “protest culture”.
This is unlikely to be necessary, given an apparent absence of any groundswell in favour of a more confrontational politics – except perhaps for a bit of martyrdom. As usual, the concept of ‘community’ (people said that this event would be the primary ‘community outreach project’ of the stopg20) is used manipulatively as an imaginary category demanding passivity. A couple of people made very short interventions to suggest that the safety of compliance might be illusory but also that the safety conceivable as an assertion of collective power might not be possible at this point.
(Speakers were listed: unfortunately ‘our African speaker’ has pulled out at the last minute, but efforts are being undertaken to replace them.)
[affinity(support) groups]
Somewhat apart from the absolutely managed activities of the G20 protest are the efforts of the ‘autonomously organised’ affinity groups. Roughly these groups can be divided into a gaggle of support groups, who admit that they won’t be doing anything except asking people to ‘use’ them for their own purposes so that they don’t feel like they are wasting their time, and a number of groups dedicated to ensuring that confrontational attitudes with the police are quashed immediately. (For example, Zombie Bloc are willing to block roads if people want, by shuffling on to them, living dead style, while Carnival Beyond Capitalism people are more likely to define a large space in which people can be actively policed by both the organisers and by actual police wandering around the Carnival just as they would after capitalism. Or beyond it.) In many ways both of these activities seems to revolve around the imagined existence of a group that will be undertaking a direct assault against the G20 summit. The existence of which, so far as we can tell, only exists in the fantasy (either nostalgic or paranoid) of current participants. These may have been paying too much attention to the media hype about another S11, about ten thousand people coming, etcetera, which is currently being ratified by protest (non-)spokespeople who wish to use this simulation of impending action to launch their message into the media even as the authorities wish to use this event to try out new methods of policing. Neither side wishes to articulate the truth, which is that neither side actually expects many people to show up or seriously believes that those who do will be undertaking any large-scale collective confrontation with the forces of order. (Significant portions of those ‘organising’ are constituting themselves as forces of order, though in the case of one affinity group this will at least be only in their heads as they announced they would be meditating to ‘send’ niceness into the G20, the protest and the city as a whole.)
[A Space Outside and Arterial Bloc]
Perhaps contradicting these general tendencies is the existence of the Arterial Bloc and of A Space Outside. In their ‘call-out’ the Arterial Bloc make the assertion that they are not interested in “being martyrs” - something entirely refreashing in this organisation of flagellation. However, from the look of stopG20 efforts at present, that is exactly what they will be engaging in. The only people that stand alongside them – in relative political terms – are the A Space Outside people who are likely to be busy trying to get attention at harmless media stunts inside or outside ‘bad’ corporations, or else doing media stunts aimed at drumming up fear for the impending climate change apocalypse. Most likely the Arterial Bloc, with their traditional counter-summit desire to confront the G20 conference, will end up either wasting their time at a lame festival, getting fed to the cops by the non-violent types, or smashing themselves against police barriers. Thus, given the current balance of forces inside and outside the protest, the most likely outcome of their activity is indeed martyrdom. Or boredom.
Despite all this there is still room for humour. One affinity group, in an act of solidarity with third world peoples, will camp out in cardboard boxes and eat rice whilst holding signs asking for the admittance of environment ministers and political leaders of third world nations to the G20. They will be doing this whilst attempts are made to differentiate StopG20 from Make Poverty History…
Tonight, we revealed ourselves to the ‘serious’ StopG20 group. We went along to a spokes-council meeting and introduced our affinity group, the stopstopg20 affinity group, to the people in attendance. Unfortunately, attendance at the spokes-council was down – numbering around 10ish.
We prepared a short statement – more a collection of connected points – that outlined our intended activity and the reasoning behind it. Unfortunately, my inability to deal with nervousness induced by crowds in a public speaking situation meant that I rambled on each point and meandered through the collection as a whole.
So as promised (to the ten or so at the meeting) and for those not at the meeting… here are the points that we were going to read out…
- Increasingly everything we do is becoming work, becoming labor for capital. And Increasingly we are being surrounded by nothing but commodities. This has occured to such a degree that it may be that we can only define our world through commodities.
- This is a situation that is true for our resistance to capital as well – increasingly participation in organized resistance equates to automatic recuperation into capital.
- It is in this context that stopg20 (the serious one) has been formed – and what we are witnessing brings new meaning to the term going through the motions – as the success of the late ninties in anti-summit convergences is searched for.
- What we see here is a collection of images acting as resistance – the signifier standing in for the signified. The only political content of the stopG20 organisation appears to be to gather together everything that appears ‘left or progressive’ or ‘anti-American’.
- By refusing to acknowledge the futility of sacrifice to objects and continuing to collect possible objects for submission to the alienation and exploitation inherent in capital are perpetuated and reproduced, as capital is reproduced.
- StopG20 is a representation and scaffold for the spectacular-commodity of resistance in place of lived experience. And is therefore a spectacle that distracts us from making decisive in roads against capital.
- We believe that the most fun and worthwhile activity as part of an anti-capitalist life is to assault the spectacular-commodity that is the StopG20 object.
- Therefore we, ‘StopstopG20 is embarking on an attempt at disrupting the recuperation of resistance into one of the many objects that are the ‘left wings of capital’ – be they the Venezuelan state, Greens, fair trade, the remnants of social democracy or any other silliness…
Welcome to our stopg20 blog, website of the stopstopg20 affinity group, a wave of proletarian self-activity that is tidal in scope, founded on the rejection of nationalism, capitalism, recuperation, and the left-wings of capital whether states (Cuba, Venezuela, whoever) nice businesses/ngos/charities (fair trade transnationals, Make Poverty History, whatever) or the institutional remnants of social democracy (…and now, we present, a trade unionist!)
the main enemy is at home
…in the Left.
