Taking Stock
I wasn't expecting much from G20.
Before I left Sydney I sat down with myself and discussed the futility of summit protests. I admitted to myself that I felt ineffectual and embarrassed. I knew our numbers would be small and I wondered what we could possibly do that would mean anything; that would affect anything.
What I really wanted was to be able to blockade the summit and I knew that wasn't going to happen. I couldn't bear the idea of another "Carnival Against Capitalism". Another lame spectacle offered as some kind of consolation prize for not being able to do anything else.
…I don't entirely mean this. I am fully aware of the beauty of creating alternatives to those structures and processes we seek to depose. I think street parties are wonderful. "Really free markets" are lovely. But it wasn't how I wanted to protest the first Australian meeting of the top 20 world economic powers.
Fundamentally, I wanted to disrupt it. I wanted active opposition. I wanted to tear down fences (as much as a symbolic act as a tactical manoeuvre). I wanted to tear down the fences, storm the police lines and swarm through the conference. I wanted the suffering of so many people throughout the world, the iniquity, to mean something. I wanted it to matter. I wanted it to drive us to be strong.
Despite all of these desires, I wasn't expecting much.
And when the Spokes on the Saturday morning began to speak of abandoning the Hyatt altogether in favour of fast food outlets, my expectations grew even dimmer. In the face of so many police, when we were so few, it seemed to me that people were feeling scared and powerless. More concerned than confrontational.
In the face of this, the morning actions turned out to be fantastically useful. In the overturning of fences and barricades there was a palpable sense of jubilance and empowerment. With small numbers and well-working communication, we felt we had achieved something.
And it was fun.
I don't think it could be said to have been strategic in any sense – we upturned barricades only to then put them back in place as we made our way around the Hyatt, convincing ourselves and each other as we went of the strategic value of what we were doing. Retrospectively, what it did was to function as a kind of a practice run; an exploration of our powers as a bloc of 80 people in costumes. What it did was to strengthen us as a bloc, giving us practice at making decisions on the fly, even if those decisions were then disregarded in the face of opportunity. It showed us the strength of our mobility. It made us excited and confident for the afternoon activities.
And it was really fun.
But it also felt like we were a gang of adolescent puppies, exploring our strength; testing boundaries.
And it turned out those boundaries were surprisingly lax.
Which is, I think, what enabled so much of what happened in the afternoon to take place.
A strange confluence of initial police passivity and a willingness of people to engage in actively disruption that led to a series of events that have been variously demonised and valorised - events that can be summed up by the throwing of garbage bins at cops; the dismantling of a barricade system; and the smashing of police van windows/creen.
I feel that at once a lot happened that afternoon, and not much at all.
Whilst people were active in their refusal to co-operate with police guidelines for good protesters, we also posed no serious challenge to the G20 itself. We stripped away barricades, but made no real attempt to push past police lines. We smashed some police van windows, but didn't then use that alley to gain entry to the Hyatt.
Which, in a way, seems reasonable – fundamentally, there weren't many of us. But also seems like a hugely wasted opportunity. I have some sympathy (only some) for the "mindless violence" slander being bandied about, because I feel like we didn't use our violence strategically. We were (mostly) clever in disguising ourselves; we were often clever in avoiding getting smashed by police; we were not clever in choosing tactics that would benefit our greater desires for the protest, nor in fully utilising those tactics we chose. Perhaps I am being supremely egocentric and projecting the content of my desires on to others, but I tend to believe that almost everyone who took part in that afternoon, regardless of what street or barricade they were on, would have liked to have breached the Hyatt boundaries.
A quote from Woomera 2002 echoes through my mind:
"We were not fucking hopeful enough" (possibly paraphrased).
Having said that, I think the smashing of the police van was potentially the single most strategically sound move of the afternoon. Whether it was intentionally strategic or not (I can't possibly presume the motivations of those involved), the disabling of equipment used to arrest protesters is something I would love to see more of.
Partly responsible for this general strategic failure was the fact that we didn't have enough communication before the protest. Arterial Bloc meetings were rushed with so many people and so much to get through. We didn't forge a strategy; discuss tactics beyond covering up; we didn't even talk about what each of us deeply wanted from the protest. So much of what can be achieved can't be known before the day, the minute, the second in which the opportunity becomes present, or is denied. But it can be envisaged; spectrums of possibilities can be thought out, with even wildest dreams accounted for, and a sense can be gained of how much support there is within a group for seizing particular opportunities.
But there's never enough communication before a protest. Only the most dedicated and masochistic will turn up to, and sit through, endless meetings. Are we to be content, then, with our level of disorganisation, knowing that we are missing opportunities, whilst potentially grasping others that arise exactly from the disorganisation we engender?
I do think, however, that we communicated adequately with Stop G20 organisers, if not openly, then certainly in good faith about our plans. Of course, given that we hadn't planned much ourselves, this didn't amount to much in terms of content, but our intentions were made undeniably clear to them – or so we thought (it's amazing what can be denied after the fact). They were told we were going to be "confrontational" (even though we ourselves didn't yet know what that would entail); they were also told that we would make every effort to respect their protest and their desires for a "safe space" for that protest; and they were told that the way in which we would do that would be to choose a different time and/or location to the space they were to occupy. They were also told about our concerns that division would erupt as a result of the media dichotomising us into "good" and "bad" protesters, and that we were worried that media liaison people might also fall into this trap.
But it was ok, because they assured us that this would never happen.
From Dear Oblivion