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GreenPeace/GreenPolice: A communique from the COP15 Black Bloc

The Imaginary Party | 28.12.2009 17:10 | COP15 Climate Summit 2009 | Analysis | Climate Chaos | Ecology | World

This communique was given out by a portion of the Black Bloc during the march to the Bella Centre on Saturday at the protests against the U.N. COP-15: There seems to be a common logic between the government delegates, the NGOs who control the march, and even the radical ecological activists: we are all saving humanity together. Who would not want to fight for this? And even if you did not, do you even have a choice?

This communique was given out by a portion of the Black Bloc during the march to the Bella Centre on Saturday at the protests against the U.N. COP-15. Shortly after releasing this communique, windows of the Danish stock exchange and Foreign Ministry were broken. When the police attempted arrests, the Black Bloc was physically prevented by some members of Climate Justice Action from joining the "System Change Not Climate Change" bloc. While the COP15 is over, the debate over the role of internal policing and the "non-violence" code of Climate Justice Action has just begun in the European autonomous movements:

Amongst thousands of people who want to save the world, we are getting together to march to the Bella Centre, but something feels wrong. The slogans just seem too familiar. "Traditional wisdom and new technology must go hand in hand." Haven't we been reading them on the ads all over town?

Everyone is playing their role in the summit, just like in a movie. And there are even different versions of the same stage, distinguished mostly by their budgets. The building of the Klimaforum resembles a space station mixed together with a contemporary art museum. Amongst the graffiti, drugs and reggae music in Christiania, the dream is cheaper but more entertaining. Inside the perfectly sterile and opulent Bella Centre, the NGOs are working hard with the delegates on a treaty to rescue us all. Outside, the same faces tell us on loudspeakers to apply "political pressure" to influence the negotiations.

There seems to be a common logic between the government delegates, the NGOs who control the march, and even the radical ecological activists: we are all saving humanity together. Who would not want to fight for this? And even if you did not, do you even have a choice? No one seems to have the time to take a pause and think about what we are supposed to save, what "humanity" means. What does it imply to have faith in the existence of a single political unit that binds us all together? In the united and pacified world imagined in Copenhagen, politics become obsolete. What if the mobilization of the entire city and even the protests were nothing but an immense peacekeeping operation?

In times of war, there is a call for submission behind every call for unity. Everyone agrees that capitalism is in crisis, that the previous forms of management will not suffice. This summit may be the most obvious sign yet of the shape of the management to come, where everyone's contribution is obligatory. This step could be described as social engineering. An utopian attempt to produce an entirely controlled life, a totally calculable existence by making us forget that some struggles cannot be reduced to power games, that sometimes friendships are more than just economics. This living excess cannot be described but can only be experienced. What can be described though is how this operation functions: our living is first fragmented into several quantifiable bits and pieces and then resold to us as the real thing. "Hope in a bottle".

The enthusiasm with which all political stripes have been converted to ecology teaches us about the true nature of this new green universal religion. From the heart of the Bella Centre to the most passionate of activists, beyond all differences in tone, one can hear the single and only call to submit yourself. To sacrifice everything that makes life worth living in the name of life itself. To adjourn the present to save the future. To control our desires, and most of all, to not disturb the delicate equilibrium. Ecology presupposes the same conception of existence that characterizes the police: danger is everywhere, and first of all, in ourselves.

When the success of this summit depends on the participation of the population in every city centre,

WHERE DO YOU THINK WE SHOULD GO?

And if police, in all its forms, is the new essence of global politics,

WHAT DO YOU THINK WE SHOULD DO?

The Imaginary Party

Comments

Hide the following 17 comments

Most Activist Movements Have Been Hijacked!

28.12.2009 18:26

These large well funded organisations like the 'greens' have all sold out as far as I and many of my friends are concerned. They have become polite, middle class talking shops... along with well organised and well behaved demonstrations with slogans that echo the green politicians and their parties.

This has all been predicted by thinkers like Aldous Huxley in his 1962 lecture, The Ultimate Revolution... well, worth listening to. Where he states quite clearly that he saw the development of a 'Scientific Dictatorship' where through the use of various mind control techniques, people would learn to "Enjoy their servitude".

How can we have a popular freedom movement with tamed, docile people... it's a joke!!!

Little John


Blocking

28.12.2009 20:35

I was on the march on 12th and part of the system change bloc. I didn't see or hear or anyone 'physically blocking' people from joining the system change bloc. Of course I may just not have seen this happen, but i'm surprised i didn't hear about it later in the week, or that it wasn't brought up at any of the evening meetings etc. Someone from the sound truck did say that the bloc was a non violent bloc, but that is different from physically stopping folk from joining the bloc.

Anon


its not fair, but its true

29.12.2009 12:41

blac bloc will free us...
blac bloc will free us...

the blac bloc always gets sold out. its a massive shame, when in the past fluffies and greens have looked to blac bloc for protection from police, now they seem to wish to distance themselves, so as to not associate with so called "extremists". for fucks sake, freeing us all,humans and non-humans, needs extremists!! liberating the entire planet from its shackles will take an extreme uprising the likes of which have never even been contemplated!! (except by state funded think tanks!)

to be honest, from now on, i'll more than likely be conducting BB style affiliation tactics on my own or in small groups,and not at demo's at all. these days people in the crowd would probably hand you over to the pigs, rather than conceal you or support you.

its true that blac bloccers are a minority, yet we are on the side of the majority who want to free the world, we want change, real revolution, with the community efforts AND the bricks through corporate windows, with the sustainable communes, the anarchic principles, AND the violence of revolutionary calling, all mixed together.

We know that when we start bricking in windows and fighting the police that others say, "look, there they are again, causing trouble for us". when we should all know that is not what the BB effort is about. blac bloccing is about reflecting anger, protecting peace, engaging injustice and true revolution. that sums it up, in a nut shell, give or take a few other points.

the flip side is that the blac bloc is autonomous, so therefore no one is really the blac bloc full-time, yet we are at the same time always BB in our heart. its fluid, with no obvious leaders or rules. but the principles are well known and not for negotiation. Before 9/11, just after carlos guiliani got murdered in genoa, the blac bloc were hailed as the ones to help push the movement even further into the realms of our enemies. yet straight after 9/11 no one, or should i say, none of the bleeding hearted liberal green types with more of a political agenda than most, would go near the blac bloc with a shitty stick, except for hard core followers and revolutionaries such as myself. i will never sell out on the BB tactic at demo's, i'll just venture further underground and hope to meet my fellow militants down there...........

francesca


Talk about playing your role...

29.12.2009 15:42

I was on the march on the 12th and that little black bloc was so stereotypical that it verged on parody. 100-150 people totally separate and alienated from the other 100,000 people on the march. Treating everyone else with complete contempt and outright hostility and glorifying in the pose of wadicality. It's a real shame to see how fucked up a once valuable tactic can get. What started off as an anti-identity tactic is reduced to a conservative, unchanging identity, look at the way I dress, this means I'm the most wadical. Give me a fucking break, I've never seen a group play their allotted role so faithfully.

100 yards into the march and the prepared performance begins, 5 or 6 windows are smashed and some fireworks are thrown at the police. The crowd moves out of the way for about 3 minutes then it is all over and everything gets back to normal. It was as if noting happened, and that was because nothing had. The windows were repaired before the march reached the Bella centre. That is how incorporated, how expected, how normal the black bloc tactic has become.

I'm sure there are still circumstances when the black bloc tactic could be useful but it has so many problems attached to it and it is tied to such conservative, identitarian politics that there can be no tactical innovation around it.

Of course we all know the next part of the script, the release of a pompous, self-pitying whinge about how the rest of the march sold them out by not joining in. Well that is the whole point of the black bloc for fucks sake, it is a self-fulfilling prophecy. No one else can join in because you are a tight group with a dress code who want nothing to do with the rest of the people there. What the fuck do you expect to happen? “I say that looks like jolly good fun would you loan me a firework? I’ll just nip off and buy some black clothes and then meet you all back here in twenty minutes, OK.”

Anyway the black bloc tactic won’t go away any time soon, after all its main purpose is to self-replicate. There will always be some new kids who haven’t smashed a window or thrown a brick and I’m sure it’ll give them a big kick. The trick is to work out how those emotions can be tied to a transformative politics rather than the pose of militancy.

Find a new tune.


to francesca

29.12.2009 15:48

well say francesca ...you are tottally right !!!!!!!!!!! the best thing is WE ARE EVERYWHERE ....LOVE AND RAGE napoli

bones


@ find a new tune

29.12.2009 16:09

you obviously dont read what people write properly. i was trying to offer the real side to the BB...not an apology or winge about the usual arguments. i wasn't even at jokenhagen, but some of my comrades were. i never said anything about anyone selling out at jokenhagen, i said the BB get sold out. ie. now on the indymedia forums, is when they get sold out. at demo's, of course the BB know that some dont want aggro and damage and fights. but, well, the libertation is all about fighting, so, in a way, i suppose i am saying sorry. sorry that you have no real idea of the frustration and anger that boils over in millions of us when we know that true freedom is literally one more rock throw away...it'll just be the biggest, greatest most glorious rock that will ever have been chucked. The greatest shattering of windows and barricading of the streets that will have ever commenced. the biggest fire to ever have burned and the single most important revolution on this planet, EVER. and what happens after that is up to those that are here to see it and live it.

people winge when they let politicians get away with fraud and murder and war, yet when people act against those tyrannies they are shot down, in some cases literally (alex, carlos and others), and then secterianist dividers seek to keep us down and talk about the tactics that could save us all instead of implimenting them or offering another solution. to be fair, you, 'find a new tune' should perhaps find a new planet, one that could sustain our life styles without needing to ruin our habitat FOR EVER. then maybe your reformist, therefore weak, politics will have an outlet.

with out overthrowing the 'system' you seek to reform, you will never be granted true freedom. so get on the wagon, rather than trying to de-rail it. we do not need secterianism at this juncture (ie. post joke-15)...

francesca


two things

29.12.2009 17:49

Black block need to be more than just autonomous groups causing damage. It needs to have collective strength, a coming together of people who are not prepared to roll over for the middle classes or the police.

And if we do not have black block, what do we have? Nice peaceful middle class protesters that are ignored as usual. Back block is not perfect - but I do not have a better answer.

And those that are constantly running down black block as kids out for a kick are doing the police's job for them. Black block is a strategy and a politic. And we need it.

bb


Give up bloctivism.

29.12.2009 18:26

Oh dear Franny I can see my critique of pomposity didn't strike home. A little tip, using pompous language doesn't automatically mean you can speak for the rest of the world. And if critiquing tactics is sectarian but calling everyone who disagrees with you a sell out and a reformist with "weak' politics isn’t sectarian then I’ll sign up for sectarianism.

But there is no way I’m going to be drawn into the most stale of all debates - violence/non violence. As far as I’m concerned ‘black bloc as identity’ is just as fucked up as ‘pacifism as principle’. Lets talk tactics and strategies not principles and moralism. Militant identity politics so easily falls into militant liberalism.

Instead lets start with ‘the system’ and how we can overthrow it. I’m anti-capitalist and I’m pretty sure that capitalism doesn’t rely on having unbroken windows. So I’m not sure how breaking a window will lead to that ‘biggest of all rocks’ – revolution. I’ve come across some pretty stunted views of revolution over the years but revolution as one big window smashing does confirm my black bloc as parody argument.

Franny, I dare you to say something that isn’t cliché, something surprising. Why not talk about black bloc as tactic, admit that there are such and such draw backs but then explain why you think it was the correct tactic in Copenhagen and why it succeeded or failed there.

One of the drawbacks with black blocing is that it doesn’t generalise the militancy but isolates it. It sets up militants/activists as specialists, only those who already part of the group or scene can join in. We have avoided this tactic in the UK and in the past when we have had riots on demonstrations the whole crowd feels attacked and identifies with the more militant demonstrators, you could look up the anti-Poll tax struggle in your history books.

Anyway have a nice time looking for fellow militants further underground, l presume you don’t mean forging links with the National Union of Mineworkers (now if you want to know about a generalised period of militancy you could also look up the miners strike).


Find a new tune.


Find a new tune.

30.12.2009 13:07


Find a new tune is ethier a epic troll or some silly middle class hippy librel

roddes


individuality = dressing in black, yeah?

30.12.2009 14:13

Dead Kennedys - Riot

Rioting—the unbeatable high
Adrenalin shoots your nerves to the sky
Everyone knows this town is gonna blow
And it's all gonna blow right now….

Now you can smash all the windows that you want
All you really need are some friends and a rock
Throwing a brick never felt so damn good
Smash more glass
Scream with a laugh
And wallow with the crowds
Watch them kicking peoples' ass

But you get to the place
Where the real slavedrivers live
It's walled off by the riot squad
Aiming guns right at your head
So you turn right around
And play right into their hands
And set your own neighbourhood
Burning to the ground instead

Chorus
Riot—the unbeatable high
Riot—shoots your nerves to the sky
Riot—playing into their hands
Tomorrow you're homeless
Tonight it's a blast

Get your kicks in quick
They're callin' the national guard
Now could be your only chance
To torch a police car

Climb the roof, kick the siren in
And jump and yelp for joy
Quickly—dive back in the crowd
Slip away, now don't get caught

Let's loot the spiffy hi-fi store
Grab as much as you can hold
Pray your full arms don't fall off
Here comes the owner with a gun

Chorus

The barricades spring up from nowhere
Cops in helmets line the lines
Shotguns prod into your bellies
The trigger fingers want an excuse
Now

The raging mob has lost its nerve
There's more of us but who goes first
No one dares to cross the line
The cops know that they've won

It's all over but not quite
The pigs have just begun to fight
They club your heads, kick your teeth
Police can riot all that they please

Chorus

Tomorrow you're homeless
Tonight it's a blast

Jello


Pain in the roiddes

30.12.2009 23:19

So its sectarian to discuss tactics and strategy but it also means you are either an epic troll or a silly middle class hippy doing the police's work for them.

Well I've been involved in anarchist/autonomist/direct action politics consistently for the last 25 years, I've been in several riots and have even taken part in a couple of Black Blocs, although they weren't called that back in the day. I'd say that the kick you get out of them is one of the best things about them, they can be radicalising for the participants and can, in certain circumstances have a much wider political effect. Its just when they become run of the mill, controllable and predictable they become less politically useful. Does that prove my credentials or is it just any disagreement that makes you an epic troll.

Of course the black bloc developed as a tactic to prevent identification by the police, it was a tactical thing and made a certain sense amongst the German Autonomen scene, of the late 80s early 90s, which was isolated but large enough to take action on its own. And in certain circumstances, such as large scale anti-fascist stuff, you could argue that its tactical advantages outweighed its drawbacks. But when it is followed dogmatically and imported into situations such as that march in Copenhagen it turns into farce. In fact it turns into a parody of the tactical flexibility from which it developed. From anti-identity it’s turned into an identity, a mark of separateness that doesn't draw the people around them into militant action but alienates them from it. At worst this turns into a militant pose whose only role is to make the participants feel superior to those around them. “If you are not doing what I'm doing then you are a silly middle class hippy.”

What makes it a parody of a parody is that back in the day the main advocates of Black Bloc type actions amongst the Autonomen were the anti-imps (anti-imperialists) heavily influenced by the Maoists (upsetting though this news will be for the anarcho-purists). The argument you would hear back then was "There is no working class in Germany" instead they were fighting in solidarity with the Third World, this meant they could just fuck off and dismiss everyone they came into contact with. (This is a bit of a stereotype but the anti-imps were fucking annoying). Now of course we can actually come into contact with and organise politically with members of huge and militant movements from the global south. They were involved with the reclaim power action, actively participating in developing an action consensus that isn't black bloc but isn't pacifism. Now on another thread these people are dismissed as "poverty professionals and self-appointed representatives of the people". Best stick to animals, they can't answer you back and complicate things.

That's what I mean by identity politics, you can't just expect the whole world to turn into a version of you. We have to change ourselves through encounters with other people just as they will change through encounters with us. That is actually what matters most at events like Copenhagen and why despite certain tactical shortcomings the reclaim power action was a much better approach to take. I wasn’t personally involved in organising that action BTW.

I was only moved to write about this because the bloc and the whinge afterwards was, in this instance, so pathetic and predictable. The funny thing is I happened to hear that some of those most involved in organising the small bloc that did the window smashing and released that communiqué are actually pissed off and embarrassed about misjudging things so badly. That won’t stop knee jerk defenses by people who self-identify with it but there you go.

Find a new tune.


erm...

03.01.2010 14:24

@ find a new tune: is that you henry?
anyway who ever you are. i obviously meant blac bloc as a tactic as part of a grander revolution, which also includes revolutionising our personalities and our communities.the smashing the windows is a part of de-constructing the mess, or transitioning it, that capitalism has given us. then building real sustainable communities that can thrive peavefully, released from the state, i just assumed you knew that. we were discussing the BB, not every aspect of the wider revolution - which will happen on many varied fronts, and will include the BB whether people like it or not...so get over it...................

fran


wake up and stop fighting each other

04.01.2010 11:49

you'd think that after "25 years" of involvement in radical politics this guy would have more sense to be harrassing young people (who are going through their own radicalisations) in the comments section of IMC.

summit mobilisations are a key part of our ongoing conflict with corporations, capital, police and state. we opened this point of confrontation for a reason, it has its limits, but so does all areas of activity.

anyway, c ya

new notes


Complicated innit

04.01.2010 20:44


I was there on the 12th and saw the windows go in at very close hand. I have been involved for a long time and maybe its patronising, but my first reaction was 'how cute!'. The small number of mostly apparently (from body language) terrified people, the 3 fireworks (one dropped and picked up again from a super-shakey young hand) and 4 rocks and less than 60 seconds of 'mayhem', were, well, just not well judged.

Bascially nothing worth commenting about.

Then there is this Comunique. Not much insight there either.

The big question is: why was there a black bloc on the march on the12th but not evident on the 16th? Why go on the legal march, with the speeches from NGO's to complain about, and not on the civil dosibedience/direct action, and the peoples assembly of which most NGOs ran a mile from? Why not go where the greater sense, and likely actuality of, conflict was to be?

Interestingly, the reason why was becasue lots of people involved in the Reclaim Power event on the 16th, who have been part of black bloc and know lots of people spent a long time (months) dissuading people from forming a blck bloc or encouraging one to form (of course lots of the same individuals went), for strategic and tactical reasons.

The good news is that this means many do see black blocs as a tactic, and can be engaged with on a tactical level. And without some tactical thought there is merely ritual, which is what the fireworks on the 12th reminded me of.



Complicated innit


o.k people

06.01.2010 17:37

find a new tune you are actually out of order and trying to antagonise fran, i read your first posting a little of the second, got bored. it seemed to me you are trying to argue your way out of this movement, a few polite excuses and excesive insults hurled like a 'smooth sophisticated pebble', but really more like throwing your waste in her face.
personally i find people like you distrustfull, saving your anger in indignancy for the computer screen while remembering the march with its wity slogans and how fervently you waved your placard in the face of 'really hard levels of repression', as lots of fellow activists froze their ass off in a chicken pen in valby. where you even in copenhagen? if not, like me, you really shouldn't bandy your arguments so self righteously and cool it maybe.
the movement, if that's what you want to call it, has many wide ranging and different facets, which in effect make sure it all stays operational i.e not everybody gets busted. i write this now not as a modern intelectual who has read this that and the other but as a street activist who has seen it first hand.
so all in all just give people a break from the high profile insults and learn to appreciate peoples efforts when necessary i.e when people actually bother to turn out in freezing conditions, get arrested, sat for hours humiliated in the streets, then hauled of to a chicken pen in valby whether they are black block or not.
i noticed you observed the windows were put back before the march arrived at its destination, like you were applauding this effort, and you wander why people like fran have simpathies for those who feel sold out. if you were first hand in copenhagen you would have been told that the windows belonged to the stock exchange and this for me is symbolic, those who live in glass houses blah.
i'm not critisising yours or frans efforts within the whole movement, if i knew what you both have done for the cause over all i would probably take my hat off to you both, but i will repeat myself boringly for you just cool eh!

anon 2


to those who 'dissuaded black blocs'

06.01.2010 19:43

however wrote this:

"Interestingly, the reason why was becasue lots of people involved in the Reclaim Power event on the 16th, who have been part of black bloc and know lots of people spent a long time (months) dissuading people from forming a blck bloc or encouraging one to form (of course lots of the same individuals went), for strategic and tactical reasons."

- you and those who spent "months" dissuading people from forming a black bloc or participating, are partly responsible for all the ease with which cops put out any resistance. you are fucking scum, end of. if i or my comrades ever come across people like you we'll fight you. fuck off

you find it also 'cute'? patronising piece of shit, hang yourself.

bye bye

actually