Tom Keefer writes

"THE ANTI-G8 PROTESTS IN CALGARY:

SOME CONTRIBUTIONS TO A CRITIQUE OF THE ANTI-GLOBALIZATION MOVEMENT

By Tom Keefer, July 2nd, 2002. (tom@tao.ca)

[Synopsis: An analysis from an anarcho-communist perspective of the
anti-globalization movement in the context of the G8 protest in
Calgary
with a special focus upon the impact of Sept 11th, and
contradictions
between the movement's reformist and revolutionary tendencies.
Contains a
discussion on the weaknesses of the concepts of "anti- capitalism"
and
"diversity of tactics" as expressed by the movement's radical wing.
Tom
Keefer is a member of the North -Eastern Federation of Anarcho-
Communists
(NEFAC) nefac]

THE LONG SHADOW OF THE TWIN TOWERS

It is clear that after a string of successes (beginning with Seattle
and
carried on in Washington and Quebec City), that the anti-
globalization
movement has lost ground in its ability to mobilize large numbers in
North
America in the wake of September 11th and the attendant "war on
terrorism"
launched by US imperialism. The forces of reaction have been
strengthened
by the attacks of Sept 11th, and many of those we would seek to
rally to
our cause have lined up behind the flags of patriotism or have been
intimidated into silence by a dramatic increase in state
surveillance and
repression in conjunction with the mass detention and deportation of
"suspect" Muslims, Arabs and undocumented immigrants.
From the perspective of the global capitalist ruling class, the
development of the anti- globalization movement has been one of the
most
threatening forces to its hegemony in past decade. With the
collapse of
the Soviet Union and the seeming end to any alternatives to the
consolidation of world imperialism, the mass protests against
capitalist
globalization have broken the illusion of a national and global
consensus
in favour of privatisation, de- regulation and corporate rule, as
well as
holding within them the seeds of real alternatives to capitalism.
Within
this movement, the rise of anarchist principles and ideology, the
organizing of grass roots, democratically controlled affinity groups
and
federative structures willing to step outside the bounds of
legality, the
eschewing of tactics of lobbying and reformism and the turning
towards
direct confrontation with the defenders of the status quo, have
alarmed
the capitalist class and its social democratic appendages to no end.

The capitalist class clings to power above all else, and threatened
by a
rising anti-globalization movement, it has sought to portray
"violent"
anti-globalization activists as part of the same attack on "western
civilization" as the suicide bombers of the Al-Qaeda network. In the
wake
of the September 11th attacks, the capitalist state has taken the
offensive in linking up the "war against terrorism" to the
criminalization
of the radical wing of the anti- globalization movement.

In the lead up to the June G8 summit, under the guise of defending
state
interests from the twin evils of Osama Bin Laden and violent
protestors,
the Prime Minister of Canada, various military officials, and local
politicians all announced steps that made even simple protest
illegal at
the G8 events in Kananaskis and Calgary. In the context of the
largest
military operation to take place on Canadian soil this century,
protestors
were warned that they would be shot on sight should they breach the
conference's security perimeter, and in Calgary, all public protests
of
the G8- with the exception of a labour/community march and a picnic-
were
declared illegal assemblies by the Mayor who promised hundreds of
jail
cells as homes for any activists bold enough to disobey him.

SOCIAL DEMOCRATS, TRADE UNION BUREACRATS AND NGO MANDARINS

Hand in hand with attempts to smash the anti-globalization movement
through state repression have come numerous attempts to co-opt and
integrate the liberal "main stream" elements of this movement into a
"loyal opposition" limited to critiques of the worst excesses of the
system and proposing only mild reforms. Just as one wing of the
movement
has moved into criticizing the capitalist system as a whole and has
advanced the question of its abolition; the mirror image of this
tendency-
generalled by social democrats, trade union bureaucrats, and NGO
mandarins, has also sought ascendancy within the movement by seeking
to
corall protest within the bounds of legality and to mitigate the
system's
outrages through the charade of electoralism and surface reforms.

The ruling class is aware of this split, which historically speaking
has
been present in every social movement, and has sought to buy off the
reformists and to increase their strength by providing hundreds of
thousands of dollars in direct funding to large numbers of "non
governmental organizations", their conferences and "people's
summits" as
well as by seeking to create and solidify a "dialogue" between
state,
capital and "responsible" NGO's capable of reining in and isolating
the
young malcontents and their allies. Perhaps one of the most visible
manifestations of this tendency of betrayal can be seen at repeated
anti-globalization protests where the labour bureaucracy has
repeatedly
and consciously lead tens of thousands of their members into
isolated
areas far away from the scenes of action and protest, to misinform
and
demobilize them through lengthy speeches and boring music, and to
physically separate "their" members from radical protest elements
through
the muscle of their marshals.

ORGANIZATION OF THE PROTESTS IN CALGARY

As has often been the case, the activist "leadership" that organized
the
latest protests against capitalist globalization in Calgary was,
split
between a would be more "radical" youth wing espousing the values of
"anti-capitalism" and of a "diversity of tactics" and a more
conservative
layer made up of labour, community and NGO activists which sought to
organize "non- confrontational" and educational events. As both
groups
accepted that protest directed at the summit location itself in far
off
Kananaskis was unfeasible due to the difficulties of blockading a
remote
backcountry location under the threat of severe state repression,
organizers settled on a focus in Calgary itself.

Broadly speaking, the youth focused on street protests (J- 26) aimed
to
disrupt the interests of the corporate interests behind the G8 while
the
established social democratic leadership held an "alternative" summit
and
sought to bring out their members to a large, non-controversial
protest
and a picnic in the park. Throughout the course of the week of
protests
and educational activities, approximately 3000 and 4000 people
participated in the range of activities against the G8 in Calgary.
There
was a small degree of support from the local population of Calgary,
but no
major groundswell of popular support, and no widespread "buzz" in the
air
in the weeks before the protests as there was in Quebec City.

A significant reason for this low turnout was no doubt the
difficulties
that many local activists faced in trying to organize events on the
scale
and with the same expectations of previous anti-globalization
protests,
away from the continent's major population centres and in
communities with
a much weaker tradition of radical organizing. Nonetheless, even
though
organizers had been working on the G-8 protests for almost a year,
there
was very little communication with out of town activists as to what
was
going on, about what to expect, and in what specific ways those
coming
from out of town could be of assistance.

Mainstream media organizations played up the risks of "violence" and
gleefully trumpeted the military and police preparations being
undertaken
to repress dissent. Participation by coherently structured affinity
groups active in the lead-up to the protests with a clear idea of
what
they wanted to accomplish was also almost non-existent. There were
approximately 20-25 affinity groups present at the last
spokescouncil
before the G8 summit opened, and they seemed to be for the most part
very
loosely organized as well as not incorporating the majority of
participants in the actions of J- 26.

The focus of the J-26 direct actions was against the corporate
sponsors of
the G8, and was aimed at creating maximum economic disruption to the
down
town core. It would seem that the media inspired hype in the weeks
before
the protests was more effective in doing this that the J-26 protest
itself. Businesses were boarded up, special security measures were
taken,
and workers were told not to come into work in "business clothes" due
to
the threat of "violence" from protestors. The plans for J-26 were
based
upon having a so called "snake march", an idea apparently derived
from
OCAP's campaign of economic disruption in November of 2001 in the
province
of Ontario. Unfortunately, the "snake march" proved to be little
different from a typical disorganized protest march with organizers
bereft
of sound equipment and lacking a clear sense of what to do.

The radical youth leadership that organized the direct action
"disruptive"
actions against the G8 was largely made up activists from anarchist
based
"anti-capitalist" youth groups based in Calgary and Edmonton who it
would
seem leaned heavily on the activities and ideological perspectives
of such
anti globalization based groups as the Montreal based Convergence of
Anti-Capitalist Struggles (CLAC). The political orientation of
Calgary
based organizers group could be largely summed up by two political
concepts which for them underlined the best way to confront the G8:
a
commitment to "anti- capitalism" and to a "diversity of tactics".
However,
there was never any clear political elaboration or discussion of
what
these terms actually meant, rather, these terms came to be treated
as
fetishized commandments which had fallen from the skies of Quebec
City.

THE POVERTY OF "PROTEST PORN"

An "anti-capitalist caucus" was held to incorporate "anti-
capitalists"
involved with the J-26 actions. Unfortunately, other than a vague
consensus that they were opposed to "capitalism" there was no
understanding or agreement by this caucus as to what exactly
capitalism
is, how it operates, or how and by whom it can best be opposed.
There was
next to no meaningful discussion of how class, race, patriarchy and
struggles for native sovereignty impacted upon capitalism or
movements for
its abolition, nor was there any discussion and analysis of what
capitalism could be replaced with and what role could be played by
various
social movements and the working class (who, in withdrawing their
labour,
can bring about an immediate cession to capitalist production.)

Instead "anti-capitalism" became a strategy of producing "shocking"
and
symbolic spectacles- "protest porn" -which had the effect of neither
shutting down the corporate center of Calgary, nor of reaching out
to
un-politicized workers and linking up to their struggles or
concerns.
Some of these actions included a "die-in" in a park, getting naked in
front of the Gap, having a group of people take off their clothes
and
cover themselves in mud and grunt as they cavorted through the
streets,
and the playing of two 5 minute games of "anarchist" soccer on a
downtown
intersection following the snake march protest.

It thus seems that an "anti- capitalist" strategy was believed by
most
attendees of the anti-capitalist caucus to consist of either an
irrelevant
fashion statement or an apolitical and unplanned clash with the
forces of
authority, and given the balance of forces confronting activists in
Calgary, most chose to opt for the former. From the caucus one
would
never have guessed of the existence of something called the working
class
and that it might have any relationship to capitalism worthy of the
name,
or that the broad masses of that class need to consciously mobilize
themselves for the creation of a fundamentally different kind of
social
system, should any anti- capitalist struggle seek to be ultimately
successful. Nor did it strike members of the caucus that perhaps
some of
the many people we were supposedly trying to reach with our message
might
be interested in hearing about what kinds of alternatives we might
propose
to the capitalist order that we criticize so voraciously.

The actions proposed in both the spokescouncil and the anti-
capitalist
caucus, would have been appropriate (or would have been at least a
benignly irrelevant) had Calgary in fact been shut down by
protestors due
to a broad based and effective conjuncture of social upheaval and
confrontation with the forces of state and capital. But in the
context of
a social movement in the process of becoming isolated from its would
be
supporters by a state orchestrated campaign of repression, and given
the
crying need for the movement to deepen and extend its influence at
this
critical junction, these actions were a useless diversion at best,
and a
stupid farce at worst.

"Actions" like this serve only to draw a line between the radical
"anti-capitalists" and ordinary working people who while exploited
by
capitalism, can see pretty clearly that a movement made up of naked,
grunting, mud covered middle class "earth people" has little to
concretely
offer them in overcoming the oppressive conditions of their lives.
Similarly, how a handful of people playing soccer, watched by a
passive
mass of 500 others for a short period of time in the context of a
crassly
commercial and profoundly nationalistic ongoing World Cup event
constitutes a relevant representation of "anarchism" or for that
matter,
"anti-capitalism", was never explained by anyone inside the caucus.

The police realized their position of strength sooner than the
protestors
realized their weaknesses, and having already succeeded in keeping
the
activists on the defensive through draconian security measures, they
saw
no need whatsoever to intervene against the marches and protests
being
planned as long as no effective forms of protest occurred (i.e.
civil
disobedience or direct action). They were tolerant of a badly
organized
"snake march" wandering around town for some 4 hours on the 26th,
and
tolerant of the anarchist football players for an hour or two after
that,
tolerant of anti-McDonalds protestors, and indeed as long as the
whole
affair remained a minor inconvenience, they were unwilling to tip
their
hand. Instead, roving squadrons of bicycle cops cordoned off
potential
targets of vandalism, while riot police were kept carefully hidden,
and no
arrests were made. From reports after the fact in the mainstream
media it
was clear that the police were aware that they would lose the
propaganda
war should they start breaking heads without any provocation
whatsoever.

The reason for the relative police inaction, is that there is still
widespread if passive support for the anti-globalization movement,
and the
forces of order could not risk that the brutally oppressive nature
of the
capitalist state would be further thrown into relief by attacking
deliberately peaceful protestors. Resistance to police repression
in
Seattle and Quebec City and the representation of this resistance in
popular culture severely undermined the legitimacy of the state, and
in
Calgary as long as things "didn't get out of hand" the police were
content
to regain legitimacy through such media stunts as providing free
bottled
water to dehydrated activists, and to portray themselves as
consensus
building "partners" with the "responsible" section of protestors in
keeping the event "safe" and "respectful" of the interests of all
parties.

In both the "anti-capitalist caucus" and in the larger spokescouncil
there
was very little willingness to organize direct actions or civil
disobedience activities similar to those that have happened in other
anti-globalization protests. In the case of the Calgary protests, a
clear
and open discussion of the actual state of struggle, the level of
state
repression, and what our goals and tactics were to be given that the
summit couldn't be shut down, was necessary - but totally
discouraged.

The fact was that the defining moments in Calgary consisted of
spectacles
devoid of meaningful political content. This was a direct reflection
of
the success of state repression on one hand, and our poverty of
political
analysis and inability to respond by modifying tactics and strategy
on the
other. In the immediate run up to the summit, it became clear that
the
forces of law and order were well organized and prepared to unleash
a
campaign of mass violence and arrest upon any effective form of
protest.
This was compounded by the fact that anti-globalization activists
were in
a state of strategic retreat and tactical incoherence.

The protest organizers were idealistically hoping for a simple
replay of
the protests of Quebec City, and were either unable or unwilling to
take
into account global, regional and local changes that had occurred
and
which had altered the balance of forces in the interval. At first,
the
organizers refused to entertain any suggestion that the concept of
"diversity of tactics" could be flawed when considered from a
revolutionary perspective. Yet several days later, under the
pressure of
events, the organizers abandoned this principle, deciding that they
would
permit no "civil disobedience" or direct action during the course of
the
J26 snake march and "economic disruption". While this may have been
in
fact a correct decision in order to incorporate last minute
participation
from labour to save the march from an embarrassing lack of numbers,
it
should have been clear weeks if not months earlier on that this was
the
case, and direct action alternatives to the snake march should have
been
prioritised instead. As it was, direct action was ephemerally
relegated
to the realm of various imaginary affinity groups who would be free
to
organize there actions free from the support of those who came out
for the
snake march.

A DIVERSITY OF RADICAL LIBERALS

The concept of a "diversity of tactics" (an understanding that a
full
range of tactical options from civil disobedience to physical
confrontation with the police) which was an unshakable basis of
unity of
the direct action grouping that organized J-26, first came to the
attention of the movement when the sell out wing of the anti-
globalization
movement sought to eliminate more militant direct action groups
(such as
CLAC-CASA) from participation in the movement in the lead up to the
Quebec
City protests.

It should be clear to all revolutionaries that a wide variety of
tactics,
up to and including physical confrontation with the agents of the
ruling
class will be necessary if we are to defeat this system. It should
be
equally clear that a process of self discipline and democratic
determination of how and when to use "violent" tactics is of
paramount
importance in order that it be effective. Otherwise, a blanket
statement
of being in support of "diversity of tactics" draws no lines between
the
black block clashing with police lines; the indiscriminate violence
engaged in and encouraged by undercover cops acting as 'agents
provocateurs' (this was a significant feature of the Genoa
demonstrations); the armed violence and bombing campaigns carried
out by
groups like ETA or the Red Brigades (or, in Italy again, by the
secret
police, as in their bombing of the Bologna railway station); and
finally,
the kind of operations that might be mounted by Al-Queda agents
should
they happen to target a pro- globalization summit.

This refusal to actually define what kinds of "violence" we see as
necessary and useful and in what conditions, will not only leave us
open
to attack from the state but will give right wing propagandists a
golden
opportunity to lump us in with Al-Queda and co. and to justify our
wholesale repression. The concept of "diversity of tactics" is
problematic
for its extreme liberalism and its tendency to avoid self
discipline,
mutual accountability and the important debate as to which tactics
at a
given moment are actually necessary to achieve victory or to avoid
defeat.
A movement where anyone and any group carries out "violent" attacks
on the
state and capital whenever they please and regardless of whether or
not
its actions are harmful to the overall movement is no movement at
all.

Supporters of "diversity of tactics" may argue that any attempt to
limit
anyone else's tactics is "authoritarian", but if we are not able to
democratically come up with a strategy that works given our
particular
conditions, it is clear that our movement, in lacking any kind of
self
discipline will never succeed. It is clear that reformists, social
democrats and trade union bureaucrats will try with all their might
to
keep protests "respectable" and "legal" and will seek to strangle all
forms of protest which break from passive symbolism or lobbying.
Nonetheless, we must be clear that to defeat the tyranny of
capitalism
with its riot police, SWAT teams, army, secret services, our use of
"violence" will be undeniably necessary for own self defence, not to
mention our eventual victory. This does not mean that success can
be
achieved from going head to head with the forces of repression- that
is a
recipe for disaster. What we need is an ability within the radical
movement of being able to democratically decide what level of
confrontation is tactically necessary given current conditions and
to be
able to carry it out on our own terms and within the limits that we
set.

As summits are held in more and more inaccessible locations and
strategies
of attempting to "shut them down" become less feasible, our movement
needs
to discover how to use tactics of civil disobedience and direct
action in
ways that accomplish objectives other than shutting down summits,
such as
through opening squats, occupying government or corporate offices,
joining
striking workers on picket lines and otherwise concretely connecting
with
ongoing local struggles which can be tied into the larger struggle
against
capitalist globalization.

To take just one example of thinking differently, if protestors in
Calgary
had sought to fight the criminalization of dissent by for example
setting
up half a dozen "free speech zones" with sound trucks in a variety
of busy
intersections in the down town area and then used these platforms as
a
means to simultaneously engage with passer by's and to disrupt
business as
usual, matters might have gone quite differently on J-26. These
free
speech zones, surrounded by phalanxes of disciplined protestors
willing to
defend them with civil disobedience and direct action would in
effect
become our own "mini- summits" engaging, dialoguing with and
entertaining
many of those not reached by our message of solidarity and struggle.
The
mass media would have had difficulty in disguising the fact that it
was
police trying to crash through our lines, and not our attacks on
them,
that was the source of "violence" due simply to the fact that
protestors
were attempting to engage in free speech.

There are many other kinds of actions acceptable to a wide variety
of
people willing to take different kinds of risks than either
passively
marching around or seeking to break through summit perimeters. What
is
key in any of these actions is a) engaging in open discussion
facilitated
by decent intelligence gathering methods to come to a correct
understanding of the balance of forces facing us, b) having well
organized, disciplined and coherent affinity groups able to take on
and
carry out specific tasks and projects within the event, and c) a
process
of mass mobilization and education that is able to bring out enough
protestors to be able to avoid wholesale repression from police.

SUMMIT HOPPING AND BUILDING A MOVEMENT

In recent months, many critiques have been made about "summit
hopping",
and it is indeed true that those who do little radical work in
their own
communities and who, lemming like, just hop on a bus and arrive at
the
scene of the protest without an affinity group or plan of action are
perhaps deserving of this critique. However, what critics of
"summit
hopping" tend to forget is that these summit protests and the
movement
they have given rise to have been the single most significant
development
in the past decade of resistance to the capitalist status quo. The
key
thing about these summit actions is that they allow us to multiply
our
strength and to reach a critical mass that we are not yet able to
even
come close to in the many isolated local struggles in which we
engage.

In Seattle and Quebec City, we were able to directly confront the
powers
that be and in doing so, were able to capture the imaginations of
millions
of people across the world in a way that has not been seen since the
struggles of the 1960's. A break was created in capitalist hegemony
and
legitimacy, and through it the groundwork has been laid for a
potential
mass radicalisation of staggering proportions. This is the real
reason as
to why the capitalist state has responded so seriously to our
movement and
why it seeks to suppress us. They see perhaps more clearly than we
do,
that these various summit protests over the past several years have
provided us with a sort of "short cut" method that has enabled us to
bring
together a wide tendency of activist currents and openly confront
the
state and capital in a manner not seen in a generation.

BY MEANS OF A CONCLUSION

The location of events in Calgary, the spectre of state repression,
and
the fallout of Sept 11th mingled with the poverty of political
analysis
and organizational abilities of the activists concerned all
contributed to
this defeat. It should be noted that many of these factors are not
as
pronounced in Europe, where protests against capitalist
globalization are
involving ever increasing numbers as well as significant amounts of
industrial action from striking workers. It is possible that the
sagging
fortunes of the North American anti-globalization movement will have
to be
revived through inspiration from "a new Seattle" coming from Latin
America
or Europe, but regardless, the only way for our movement to
consolidate
its gains to date and to further advance the struggle is to take
stock of
our weaknesses and to combat them.

In doing so anti-globalization activists must come to realize the
importance of developing a coherent political analysis capable of
understanding what "capitalism" is and how it can be overcome. We
must
realize that nothing can ever be truly destroyed until is replaced,
and
thus come up with visions of what kind of a system it is that we
wish to
replace capitalism with, as well as to construct revolutionary
organizations which can aid us in that task.

If we hope to succeed, another area in which the "anti- capitalist"
wing of
the anti-globalization movement needs to develop is in being able to
contest areas of work that has until now overwhelmingly been the
preserve
of the reformists. The building of international networks, the
organizing
of alternative summits, mass circulation periodicals, and coherent
media
strategies with deep going anti- capitalist analyses desperately need
to be
provided so that we can win the battle of ideas against reformist
ideologues who seek to use our movement for the purposes of gaining
narrow
reforms through the dead end of social democracy and electoralism.

Coming up with and popularizing truly anti-capitalist perspectives
will be
impossible without the creation of genuine revolutionary
organizations
with a mass base within the ranks of the oppressed and exploited .
In
constructing these organizations and in being able to gain tactical
and
strategic victories at various summits and protests, the creation of
ongoing affinity groups and revolutionary federations that continue
to
exist, and indeed thrive on carrying out local actions in between
major
mobilizations will be essential.

The balance sheet from the G8 protests in Calgary adds up to a clear
defeat for those in the anti- globalization camp. Even considering
the
objective difficulties encountered in organizing the protests,
measured
from the standpoint of our numbers, the self organization of
affinity
groups, internal democracy and political analysis, our tactical
successes
in causing economic disruption to downtown Calgary, and most
importantly
in our ability to intelligently reach out the general public and
express
what we are fighting for, the protests in Calgary were a failure.
The
defeat could have certainly been worse, but the anti-G8 protests in
Calgary should come as a wake up call to our movement that a
profound
re-thinking of how we combat capitalist globalization is in order.

The chief cause of this failure lies in our ideological weaknesses
and in
a crisis of self-organization and radical institution building at
the
grassroots of our movement. By entering into a period of meaningful
reflection and self organization, we can learn from our mistakes and
come
out of this process strengthened and re-invigorated to continue the
battle
against global capitalism at a new and higher level. The
alternative that
faces us is further retreat and co-option, widespread demoralization
and
the eventual demise of one of the most important movements to
challenge
global capitalism in the past decade."