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Dublin Mayday: Why we pushed through police lines

05.05.2004 13:31 | May Day 2004 | Analysis

We are some of the people who participated in the bloc that pushed through the police lines on the demonstration to Farmleigh.

Anarchist Confrontational Bloc!
Anarchist Confrontational Bloc!


This bloc was not formed spontaneously. It came as a result of a meeting the night before, called by both international and Irish people planning to join the march who did not wish to march under the guidelines issued by Dublin Grassroots Network.

We have no leaders and we reject authority. We believe it is neither possible nor desirable to tell others how to behave on a demonstration. We also reject the media division of demonstrators into “violent” and “non-violent”. In a world where hundreds of thousands of people die every year due to the economic policies of global capitalism, the discussion of the “violence” of a push through police lines or property damage on a demonstration becomes an irrelevance.

Violence comes from the state. Violence comes from a system where profit takes priority over humanity. Our attempts to rise above the attempted division of “good” and “bad” protesters reflects the attitude of many of the discussions and manifestations of the global anti-capitalist movement over the last few years.

The consensus decision of the meeting was to form a bloc without guidelines that would march together with our fellow protesters from the Dublin Grassroots network to Farmleigh House where the 25 leaders of Fortress Europe were meeting.

Demonstrations where people are herded from one place to another, miles from where decisions are being taken, can be ignored. We took our protest to Farmleigh House to directly disrupt the gathering of the EU. We did not ask permission to do this and we don’t need to.

We feel that it is appropriate on a weekend of demonstrations against borders, to confront the lines of police creating a border between ourselves and those who create the policies which result in the deaths of thousands of desperate people on the borders of Europe, and the internment of many more in detention centres.

The militarisation of Dublin to prepare for the summit is not shocking. These 25 politicians have to meet behind these lines because of the violence and poverty their policies create. It is right that they should experience the same fear and look out onto the same razor wire fences and military controls that face the thousands of migrants and refugees forced to leave their homes.

Our intention was to reach Farmleigh and make our protest with dignity. We knew we would have to face militarised police to do this. We decided that we would not cause property damage and we would not be an aggressive bloc or attack the police. However, we decided not to turn and walk away as soon as police blocked our path and not to allow ourselves or others to be attacked by the police without offering resistance and self-defence of ourselves and those around us.

We knew that not everyone who participated in the demonstration would be aware of our meeting or in agreement with our decisions and we did not seek to control the behaviour of others.

When the police formed a line to stop the demonstration at the Ashton Gate roundabout the Dublin Grassroots Network stopped their march 200 yards from the lines.

Some of us who wished to confront the decision to prevent our protest from going ahead then calmly formed organised lines behind a banner, locked arms and marched and pushed through the first line of police. We did this to show that we will not be intimidated by a show of force and we will not allow state violence to silence us. Many of the people who stood and faced the police were ordinary women and men from Dublin.

We would like to thank the solidarity of people, who despite their decision to stop and not confront the police, nonetheless waited for those who did, so that we would not become isolated, and so we could march back to town, as one.

At anti-summit demonstrations around the world, States have shown the extent of military force and violence they are prepared to use against people who question and confront their “democratic” regimes. On Saturday the actions of the riot police using water cannons from the North of Ireland and baton charges to attack a demonstration, making indiscriminate arrests and refusing people bail for minor offences like breach of the peace and trespass shows that the Irish state is no different.

Resist state violence
Our passion for freedom is stronger than their prisons!

Comments

Hide the following 20 comments

Well done!

05.05.2004 13:55

and onward and upwards!

TC
- Homepage: http://twotins.tripod.com


Good Work.

05.05.2004 14:15

It doesnt matter that the liberal left moaned about what you all did, it was soemthing which needed to be done, or are we to run from the state for ever?

WTY


It was great!

05.05.2004 14:31

In my opinion and given the circumstances there was nothing else to do and try on Saturday evening. All these "Knowing better" people should have been there and under the circumstances it wouldn't and couldn't have been better than what you/we have done. All the media hysteria and the tense atmosphere! It was absolut the best which could be made out of this fucked up situation, and it was dignified, empowering and encouraging. Furthermore the local citizens seemed to be very supportive of this action and happy in the way it happened, judging from most responses feeding back on Sunday and the street party on Monday.

Am glad to be home though.
:-)

nope


Excellent article

05.05.2004 14:33

I think this article explains very well why we need to confront the police lines on demonstrations and not let the state and media define people into legitimate and illegitimate protesters.

Congrats to everyone who went to Dublin, sorry i wasn't there.

Miss Point


Solidarity

05.05.2004 16:15

These were fantastic people. I was proud to be a part of it.

b there


Violence

05.05.2004 19:25

Which is why ye threw a bottle a female policewoman's head. The cause of equality has surely advanced in that regard

K


well done

05.05.2004 20:08


1st fuck off K you troll
you protest your way
let others protest theirs
the ban-guardi has probably put the boot into alot of people so deserves what she got
she was another footsoldier of the state nough said
anyhow to what i wanted to say have you posted that article to indymedia.ie ?
you should if not already there

rezista


well done

05.05.2004 22:39

keep up the good work.
I myself decided not to join you dublin and do other stuff, my best wishes were with you.

maybe I will join you another time.

sb


another perspective

06.05.2004 01:06



wombles probably will not be welcome again

 http://www.indymedia.ie/newswire.php?story_id=64869

anne otha


Great text

06.05.2004 12:15

Great text!!!!!!!!!!!!! That's like it has to be. If everyone would think about these things like this block, we could have some powerful demonstrations in the future. The time for these grassroots hippies is over, the leaders and their police should feel the power of a non-splitted network of protesters.
Don't let you provocate, just go your way. (If there's any police, thats their problem)

greetings from switzerland

sindustry


Reply to Anne Other

06.05.2004 13:34

Followed your link to the irish iny site, and in case others haven't, the comments there are on the whole supportive of the actions of the protesters. Praise for the DGN, but also for determined, non-violent breach of a polic 'border' on a 'no borders' protest. Throwing of bottles and wearing of balaclavas are criticised...

anarchoteapot


not as supportive as you would like to think

06.05.2004 16:59

yes there is 'Praise for the DGN' but not so much for this anarcho-splinter group.

the debate is still going on, many had hoped there would be unity in the last part of the march to Farmleigh - this splinter group made everything turn sour and gave the state and the media exactly what they wanted.

you guys left dublin pretty quick, too bad you didn't stick around to pick up the pieces.

some solidaity you offer.

 http://www.indymedia.ie/newswire.php?story_id=64869

anne otha


anne other...troll

06.05.2004 18:24

anne other's trolling away here as well as on the irish site.
no one i've talked to had a problem with the confrontational block, fair play to all the internationals who came over (not to say that there wasn't dub heads on the cb), reckon they showed us respect with their action and the grassroots respected that in return

see ye for the G8!

redandblackjack


Violence in response to Violence...

08.05.2004 09:05

For all the talk of raising above 'good' and 'bad', I cannot see how a violent response to violent actions is justified. Nothing changes, because if you were violent, it is a lot easier to portray your group as a 'dangerous' group, and people don't like being threatened. Most of the time it causes them to rally around the status quo, however reprehensible that may be.
If you look at the successful Martin Luther King protests in the 60's, they were all simply non-violent and non confrontational, and they got a positive result. A violent protest simply achieves nothing, because you are portrayed to everyone else as violent extremists, and they see the whole movement as such. Before you say we don't care what other people think, you should. You need those impressionable people to support you if you really want to change the world.
A final thought. If you are so proud and so brave in what you did, why exactly did you cover up your faces? If you are so strong in your principles, why do you feel the need to hide your indentity? A movement will only achieve something is all it's individual members are as strong as the whole group, and if you are only standing up to the state as a group but not as individuals, then you need to think about what you intend to achieve.
Oh, and please don't post just to insult me. If I want sarcasm or grief I'll talk to my friends. Reasoned debate please.

Kieran


DGN support

08.05.2004 14:33

As far as I know a fair number of DGN activists actually took part in the 'pushing' block. DGN's march and guidelines were intended to let people who were afraid of confrontation to take part in the march _without_ stopping more militant action from taking place and without letting more militant people be isolated. The general feeling among DGN people is that the weekend went as well as could possibly be hoped for. The discipline and restraint of the pushers was appreciated by all. The wombles are welcome back any time as far as I'm concerned and I know that most of DGN people share that feeling.

Chekov


It's all good

10.05.2004 11:57

I think this article is excellent. The people who attempted to cross the police lines are brave and justified. The arguments by everyone afterwards are stupid. We need all kinds of protests to get rid of this system. If you want to dress up and play samba in the streets and disrupt traffic, spreading an 'alternative' word then good, if you are brave enough to fight the police in the streets then good too. Every kind of opposition helps and, from this article, it looks as if those that say the anarchists are a bunch of young lads who want to smash things are wrong. This was a well thought out and politically motivated action. What with all the dodgy security measures everywhere nowadays we need to fight on this level or before we know it, we'll be watered down and unable to do anything.

Unity is strength. Well done!

Living it everyday


diversity is strength

10.05.2004 15:21

Respect to the 'pushing' bloc. I wasn't in Dublin and if I were, I don't know if I would have had the courage to join them. However, I fully support their action which was well reasoned and (self) disciplined by all accounts. All protest MUST be confrontational, otherwise it isn't protest, just a day out to ease the conscience. That doesn't mean it has to be violent of course. To say Martin Luther King and Gandhi etc were 'non-confrontational' is simply wrong - Gandhi for instance stood up to the British empire and told them to piss off. There were numerous confrontations in the streets, but Gandhi's reasoning was to take a beating rather than respond in kind. It proved a successful tactic in the circumstances. That is non-violent confrontation, not non-confrontation. In comparison to the economic and military violence purportrated by the 'leaders' inside Farmleigh, and the fact that the police were their entirely voluntarily, pushing through lines seems pretty non-violent. Throwing rocks from the back is cowardly, counterproductive and likely to earn someone else a kicking.

If the crowd had wished to adopt a Gandhian approach, they could have marched right up to the police lines and sat down. That would be confrontational but non-violent. The police would have probably attaked within 15 minutes, some people would inevitably defend themselves and the corporate media would get the nice image of a black-clad 'foreign anarcho-terrorist thug' 'rioting' which is what they expect to see and hence report. Any effective protest will be condemned by the mouthpieces of the powers that it threatens. The corporate media are capitalists. They are not going to ever present an anti-capitalist argument as anything better than the hopelessly naive sentiments of misguided youth. We have to build our own channels of communication (such as indymedia, social centres) and resist ourselves, not rely on the corporate media to inform people of what we are for, because they will misrepresent us.

No social change has ever come from asking politely. It must be taken, which requires confrontation. The degree of violence involved is largely determined by the willingness of the State to repress - in a fascist dictatorship few would advocate NVDA - you'd just be put to the wall and shot, and so would the solidarity demo etc. The violence/non-violence debate is important, but it is crazy to condemn people for *pushing* as a bloc with linked arms when thousands die each day of hunger despite a global food surplus. If we are serious about significant, even revolutionary change then we must accept the need for confrontation in some form. If we do not, we are clearly purging our consciences of guilt while continuing in complicity. Those of us who accept the need for confrontation should support those with the courage to do it, even if we lack that courage ourselves.

in love and resistance

non-womble species of rodent


Skillfully explained

12.05.2004 21:15

Wanted to say that the quality of debate on tactics here is great. Love to see a bit of partisan blood being spilt as well ;)
I particularly liked the opening article (written with the passion of someone back from the frontline) and I think the reasoning behind it has strength. Also, nice one to the author of 'Diversity is strength' as you have really brought - for the first time that I have read - this issue of confrontation and non-confrontation rather than violence and non-violence as the premise for the debate.
A refreshing wind blows through Indymedia :)

Dan Anchorman
mail e-mail: nowhere@particular.org


graded responce to violent protest

13.09.2004 20:31


you really just dont get it,

get real jobs and stop acting like spoilt children, obviously all from the global equivelent of Dublin's Blackrock, Dalkey, Delgany, Foxrock & Howth..... to much of daddy's cash in ur pocket and time on ur hands to travel the world creating havoc in the name of some bullshit idealistic crap thought-up over vast amounts of blow and booze............

grow up

boy in blue


Violence may be the way unfortunately

22.10.2004 19:40

I really admire the people in Dublin for doing what they did, even if it were by violent means. I use to believe that violence was not the way to get your point across, but unfortunately when it comes to protesting against capitalist society and so forth, I feel it's the only way. The big cats aren't going to listen unless there is violence, and it may have to go further than mere 'pushing' if we are to be heard and seen as a threat. We are an oppressed society because of these people, we should fight for what we believe in, things won't change otherwise. Standing with a banner isn't going to hurt them, they can too easily ignore that. They have too much to lose if they did listen.

alys