SchneIssue 503/4 G8 [EXCERPT]
Date Sat, 16 Jul 2005 12:59:58 +0300


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WAKE UP!! WAKE UP!! IT'S YER SEEING THROUGH THE FOG... SchNEWSMEETINGS, SCHMEETINGS
On Sunday the chasms between the protestors opened even wider with
three separate conferences in the city happening at the same time.
In one hall: the liberal NGO's (where some excellent speakers
outlined their opposition to the G8 and the world order with one
telling us we had to put a stake through the heart of the World
Trade Organisation!) (Talk's cheap but it takes money to buy
whiskey). In another The George Galloway Personality Cult
(Respect, G8 Alternatives and the rest of the ragbag authoritarian
left) We saluted their indefatigability!! Meanwhile a broadly
anti-authoritarian gathering disagreed about what to call
themselves at Edinburgh University. Sadly there was little traffic
between camps. The bulk of those attending the G8 elected not to
participate in direct action against the summit. We have to ask
ourselves why.

FLOWER POWER

Next up was Monday's Carnival of Full Encirclement where the sheer
weight of cops stopped anything carnival-like dead in its tracks.
Hemmed into a park, clowns and black block rained flowers on the
police. Local youths showed us how it was done with flying kicks
at riot shields. The Metropolitan Police did their best to look
like an invading army, their screaming faces all over next
morning's front pages. But while shoppers looked on bemused a few
of us were there to hand SchNEWS to people eager to know what
these anarchists and anti-capitalists supposedly hell bent on
razing Edinburgh to the ground were on about.

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CONVERGENCE - FINALLY FACING MY PORTALOO

The Anti-G8 protesters were based around three convergence
centres: Hori-Zone - a rural camp of 3000 near Stirling, plus
centres in Edinburgh and Glasgow.

Horizone

The Horizone in Stirling was, um, a sterling example (sorry) of
how people can organise and make the impossible happen. The police
leaned on a whole series of land-owners who offered us space and
they caved in one by one. The site we ended up with was just
outside of Stirling, miles from Edinburgh and the wrong side of
the Ochil Hills for Gleneagles. So some serious walking was on the
way for the happy campers.

Although the backdrop was beautiful there were a few drawbacks.
First it was surrounded on three sides by a notoriously
treacherous tidal river where many people had drowned, which later
helped the cops block us in. Second it was a landfill site with
potentially explosive methane seeping out, so no campfires or even
smoking allowed on the riverbank because of the fire danger!
Thinking about it it's a surprise the whole of Scotland wasn't
declared a fire risk with the amount of methane seeping out of
certain celebrity orifices!

The site only turned up only two weeks before the summit, leaving
a few people with the mammoth job of making it liveable. Despite
the obstacles people pulled together and did without sleep for
days to make the camp not only a harmonious living space for some
three thousand protesters from all over Europe but an effective
base for action. A staggering achievement. It was truly inspiring
to see people voluntarily tackling logistical nightmares. The crew
even dealt well with the emergency caused by the police stopping
the shit-pumping trucks from emptying the portaloos for days
during their siege of the camp.

There were fifteen kitchens, all working hard to keep everyone
fed. Brighton's Anarchist Teapot and Rampenplan, a Dutch kitchen,
joined forces to form an uber-kitchen feeding a thousand people a
day. Throughout the week there were medics and legal support
tents, the Indymedia tent with free internet access, and the
24-hour 'tranquility team' (who kept an eye on the cops and any
on-site conflicts).

It was also a place where we could organise under pressure and
meet like-minded people without having to split ideological hairs.
The focus on direct action caused a remarkable chaotic cohesion.
However in some ways the strengths of the ghetto worked against
us. There were 60,000 people at the G8 Alternatives rally being
'entertained' by tired old rockers and being hoodwinked into
thinking they were making a difference. Meanwhile a few thousand
of us almost stopped the summit and outran, outsmarted, and in
some cases outfought an enormous police presence. Horizone was too
far away for the curious to wander into, apart from some Stirling
locals, most of whom were pleasantly surprised. It would have been
nice if more people from outside the 'scene' had the chance to
participate in this mostly successful living experiment, but it
would also have made planning actions more complicated than it
already was.

Edinburgh

The Jack Kane centre in Edinburgh played host to several thousand
protesters throughout the week. It certainly wasn't pretty -
walled in, with a Stalag Luft holiday camp feel due to the
watchtowers and constant security patrols. But the security turned
out to be sound and apparently mostly Welsh for some reason.
Craigmillar is a poor outlying bit of Edinburgh. Some local kids
came and helped out in the kitchen and the community centre opened
up their doors and gave people free access to all their
facilities.

The Forrest Cafe was a major meeting point with the Indymedia
centre being run upstairs.

Glasgow

In Glasgow there was a self-organised crash space. It was smaller
than the others, holding less than two hundred at a time,
including affinity groups from all over who used it as a base.

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PLANNING - WE ARE ALL OVER THE PLACE

Our disorganisation is our strength! Hori-zone the eco-village
convergence centre was a decentralised and effective entity for
planning actions. Co-ordinating protests in a consensus manner
with three thousand vocal activists seemed an impossible task.
Faff, paranoia and strange hand signals seemed to doom the project
from the start. But it worked!

"But there's all along been a chaotic, slippery quality to the
energy of this project, something that resists plans and
timetables and logical organization. By the end of the day, we
have plans, multiple plans, plans so complex and overlaid with
fallbacks that even if we're infiltrated, I doubt the cops can
understand them. We barely do. Suddenly all the plans seem
completely chaotic-but then, chaos is what we're trying to
create," said Starhawk, freelance facilitator and American
Eco-Witch. Because so much of the action was organised through
small and larger groups talking among themselves and all sorting
out their own little parts of the picture, nobody knew the whole
story least of all the cops.

Our correspondent in Glasgow had a tough time with meetings ending
up hamstrung by disagreements. In the end groups left and did
their own thing which might have been for the best.

Although we're all over the place, we can't be everywhere. SchNEWS
didn't have any info on how Edinburgh campers managed to organise
themselves, but evidently they did. ws 15th July 2005