Britain over the past fortnight has gone through in a highly concentrated form the experience of the movement against global capitalism. Our movement went through the protests in Seattle in November 1999 through the attacks on New York and Washington on 11 September 2001 to the great anti-war marches.
People who took part in the protests against the G8 summit in Scotland were flung abruptly from another high point of the anti-capitalist movement back into the global state of emergency proclaimed by George Bush after 9/11.
This was symbolised by the experience of those of us who returned from Edinburgh on Thursday last week, the day of the London bombings, on the Globalise Resistance train.
When we arrived at Euston that evening, we were greeted by perhaps 100 police officers, who filmed us as we got off. No wonder Al Qaida is running rings round the British state with such absurd priorities reigning in Scotland Yard.
But the bombings shouldn’t be allowed to obscure the significance of the protests in Scotland. In the first place, Tony Blair’s and Gordon Brown’s attempt to co-opt the global justice movement failed.
Upwards of 300,000, the demonstration in Edinburgh on Saturday 1 July was the biggest yet seen at a G8 summit — bigger even than the historic march in Genoa on 21 July 2001.
The organisers of Make Poverty History had tried to suppress any reference to the war in Iraq. Yet the march was covered in anti-war placards and slogans and the Stop the War Coalition mounted a highly successful rally at the end.
In many ways the London bombings have been very convenient for Blair. They helped to obscure the fact that the summit completely failed to live up to his and Brown’s promises.
This is reflected in the row between Bob Geldof and even the most mainstream non-governmental organisations involved in Make Poverty History such as Oxfam and Christian Aid. They have denounced the paltry measures against global poverty that were agreed at the summit.
Successful
Secondly, the G8 Alternatives march on Wednesday of last week asserted the right to protest at the very gates of Gleneagles. The huge police operation failed to prevent the demonstration and couldn’t even stop protesters breaking through part of the security fence.
Thirdly, G8 Alternatives also mounted a highly successful counter-summit in Edinburgh on Sunday 2 July. Some 5,000 people attended the counter-summit. The participants were overwhelmingly from Scotland itself.
They packed into plenaries and workshops to follow and take part in an immense variety of different debates. I spoke alongside George Monbiot at a huge workshop organised by Globalise Resistance on alternatives to neo-liberalism.
The workshop involved a stimulating discussion about how to ensure that the planet has a future.One thing that struck me was the youth of many of those taking part.
The Stop the War Coalition mounted a very moving Naming of the Dead rally on Calton Hill in Edinburgh on the Sunday evening.
Many of those there could only have been 11 or 12 at the time of the Seattle protests. They were becoming part of a movement whose origins they were too young to remember properly.
Like the European Social Forum in London last October and the victory of the left no campaign in the French referendum on the European constitution, the Scottish protests offered a spectacular confirmation of the enduring strength and the wide diffusion of anti-capitalist consciousness.
We have also been given a very strong reminder that the anti-capitalist movement can only remain effective if it challenges not simply corporate globalisation but also imperialism and war.
A heavy responsibility falls on the shoulders of those in the movement to find ways to continue to give expression to opposition to capitalism and war and to help it grow. It is here that, amid the horror that increasingly grips the world, the real hope for a better future is to be found.
http://www.socialistworker.co.uk/article.php4?article_id=6958
People who took part in the protests against the G8 summit in Scotland were flung abruptly from another high point of the anti-capitalist movement back into the global state of emergency proclaimed by George Bush after 9/11.
This was symbolised by the experience of those of us who returned from Edinburgh on Thursday last week, the day of the London bombings, on the Globalise Resistance train.
When we arrived at Euston that evening, we were greeted by perhaps 100 police officers, who filmed us as we got off. No wonder Al Qaida is running rings round the British state with such absurd priorities reigning in Scotland Yard.
But the bombings shouldn’t be allowed to obscure the significance of the protests in Scotland. In the first place, Tony Blair’s and Gordon Brown’s attempt to co-opt the global justice movement failed.
Upwards of 300,000, the demonstration in Edinburgh on Saturday 1 July was the biggest yet seen at a G8 summit — bigger even than the historic march in Genoa on 21 July 2001.
The organisers of Make Poverty History had tried to suppress any reference to the war in Iraq. Yet the march was covered in anti-war placards and slogans and the Stop the War Coalition mounted a highly successful rally at the end.
In many ways the London bombings have been very convenient for Blair. They helped to obscure the fact that the summit completely failed to live up to his and Brown’s promises.
This is reflected in the row between Bob Geldof and even the most mainstream non-governmental organisations involved in Make Poverty History such as Oxfam and Christian Aid. They have denounced the paltry measures against global poverty that were agreed at the summit.
Successful
Secondly, the G8 Alternatives march on Wednesday of last week asserted the right to protest at the very gates of Gleneagles. The huge police operation failed to prevent the demonstration and couldn’t even stop protesters breaking through part of the security fence.
Thirdly, G8 Alternatives also mounted a highly successful counter-summit in Edinburgh on Sunday 2 July. Some 5,000 people attended the counter-summit. The participants were overwhelmingly from Scotland itself.
They packed into plenaries and workshops to follow and take part in an immense variety of different debates. I spoke alongside George Monbiot at a huge workshop organised by Globalise Resistance on alternatives to neo-liberalism.
The workshop involved a stimulating discussion about how to ensure that the planet has a future.One thing that struck me was the youth of many of those taking part.
The Stop the War Coalition mounted a very moving Naming of the Dead rally on Calton Hill in Edinburgh on the Sunday evening.
Many of those there could only have been 11 or 12 at the time of the Seattle protests. They were becoming part of a movement whose origins they were too young to remember properly.
Like the European Social Forum in London last October and the victory of the left no campaign in the French referendum on the European constitution, the Scottish protests offered a spectacular confirmation of the enduring strength and the wide diffusion of anti-capitalist consciousness.
We have also been given a very strong reminder that the anti-capitalist movement can only remain effective if it challenges not simply corporate globalisation but also imperialism and war.
A heavy responsibility falls on the shoulders of those in the movement to find ways to continue to give expression to opposition to capitalism and war and to help it grow. It is here that, amid the horror that increasingly grips the world, the real hope for a better future is to be found.
http://www.socialistworker.co.uk/article.php4?article_id=6958
Comments
Hide the following 9 comments
ropey
12.07.2005 21:15
As for the significance attributed by the author, well I know that he is writing for a tabloid of the left, Socialist Worker, but missing out on the 5000 strong Eco-Camp or the thousands that took direct action to prevent the summit from happening as planned by the G8 is really lame.
Simply ignoring the thousands who weren't at the G8 Alternatives march and counter-summit is pretty ropey work for someone who is a university professor. You're not going to build a revolution (let alone a Trotskyist one) without considering the social, political and cultural forces that will affect it. Or perhaps there's a secret master plan up there in the cliques of the SWP leadership?
Krop
Callinicos waffle and spin
13.07.2005 07:48
Callinicos' has certainly spun the G8 Alternatives summit pretty heavily. I attended some of the summit events (although obviously what I saw may not have been fully representative of the whole event - but then I doubt Callinicos' view was). As per usual with these type of things, the best events tended to be the small workshop sessions where there was some debate among speakers and participants. However, turning up to hear four speakers give their own very similar views on an issue (e.g. Trade and Aid) in a large hall and then listen to speakers from the floor stand up and parrot their own party line does not make for fascinating watching and means you learn almost nothing. At the two large scale events I went to there seemed to be very little meaningful discussion and debate. Of course, that is very difficult when you've deliberately set the event up this way. One of the early European social forums had a debate between Negri and Callinicos on the multitude vs working class issue. Why could debates likes this not have been arranged? Why could more people with different viewpoints not have been invited?
Leam
Eco village
13.07.2005 09:32
The eco village was a great contrast to the Gleneagles summit. Made with little money and resources it was a living illustration of a possible future society. Waste was recycled, there were compost loos and around 100 people cycled to the site, with most others using public transport. Decisions for the camp were made by concensus.
The G8 simply lived it up in a posh hotel with no commitment to the environment or anything else. When are we going to start seeing some of the G8 cycling to their events? For their protection they had 11,000 police officers at a cost of 120 million pounds plus some army standby stuff and a huge civilian army organising everything from making their food and transport to making their beds. They controlled and patrolled the area with huge number of expensive vehicles and 3 or 4 helicopters too.
Despite their massive advantage in battle they used the lowest of tactics, arresting medics and legal observers who had not done anything wrong and preventing NHS nurses from entering the eco village. Such tactics are not even acceptable in warfare yet they used them to simply stop protest.
Vans of cops flew open their doors to knock cyclists off their bikes hurting and injuring people before stealing their bikes. They threatened to use Tasars and arrest everyrone. And of course they searched everyone constantly on the bogus claim of searching for weapons - amongst a movement which has never used weapons.
Despite all this the G8 summit was majorly disrupted on Wednesday and was a great triumph of courage over fear.
If the above writer knows nothing of this then he is missing something of great historical significance.
steve
Read this
13.07.2005 10:26
steve
a better world?
14.07.2005 10:36
Autonomists climb down from your ivory towers, Alex doesn't know about what you do, he writes about what he does know....and just as you big up direct action by smallish groups of people with little connection to the wider working population, Alex bigs up the possibilities of the movement bringing in huge numbers of ordinary people...of course you will be part of the revolution too but if your honest, a small part, the direct action crowd in the UK haven't changed their ideas for years, it involves the same layer of unemployed/highly-educated/mainly white/crusty/techno/punk counter cultures they always have, that's not to say some of your actions aren't inspired and interesting, but without attempting to connect to the great mass of ordinary people who don't want to live in a squat or grow their own food, it can only ever be that.
Bolivia shows that far from autonomist free-wheeling disorgansations workers and peasents when really confornted with state power need to disciplined, organised and prepared to fight.
scottish health service
Indeedy
14.07.2005 20:19
History won't repeat itself dude.
historian
Climbing down from my ivory tower...
15.07.2005 11:31
What you’re saying here is just complete and utter c**p. Number one I’d imagine pretty much the vast majority of people in Britain had some clue (however ill-informed) about the direct action that took part in Gleneagles. I’d certainly imagine that a Professor of politics who is involved in the anti-globalisation and was, presumably, present at the protests would “know about what we do”.
Secondly, I think most people on the direct-action side of things have engaged with what the rest of the movement were doing. Many have critiqued the MPH approach, discussed the merits of the march at Gleneagles, attended other events etc. They’ve certainly come up with better positions that Galloway’s blanket condemnation of civil disobedience. These things have been the source of discussions for ages. Yeah, there is a tendency to, in your terms, “big up” direct action but it is often done by means of a comparison with the effectiveness of other approaches, i.e. an engagement with other approaches. Callinicos’ article, by contrast, does not give this impression. To give him credit he has done in the past (I remember post-Genoa articles on autonomism) and I’m presuming he will do so in the future, but this article was so one-sided as to be embarrassing. Why, in the name of f**k, would anyone buy a newspaper to read such a pathetic piece of writing??
Thirdly, my main issue with his article (as you can see), is that it didn’t reflect my experience at the alternative summit at all and seemed ridiculously over-optimistic. For him it is all crowds turning up to listen to top-notch speakers. For me, with the notable exception of the workshops I attended, it was all about sitting in a big auditorium listening to speaker after speaker condemning the same things, making the same points and getting interrupted by applause after mouthing the same tired clichés. If the absence of meaningful debate between speakers and from the floor is, to coin a phrase, “what democracy looks like” then the future of the left is not too promising.
P.S. An alternative reading of the history of Bolivia over the past few years could come from the fact that people have continually put their faith in traditional leftist organisations and continually been sold out. Who is the new hope of the Bolivian left? Evo Morales. Who has been doing everything can to keep a lid on revolution so he can come to power? Evo Morales.
Leam
Genoa and MPH
16.07.2005 13:23
On the French Referendum...
17.07.2005 11:27
John