Francis Dupuis-Deri
is Professor of Political Science University of Quebec at Montreal.
"These radicals are like the watchers who watch the arrival of a new world but, meanwhile, jostle in the world today to clear more space for freedom, equality and justice . Masked, dressed in black and attacking symbols of capitalism and the state, the Black Blocs were pinned in the media as mere "thugs" without a political motivation, or "terrorists." This criticism conceals a complex reality, which dares to interesting effort to better understand the origin of this phenomenon, dynamics, ethics, and political objectives.
Franic Duipuis-Deri paints a more complete panorama of the phenomenon of black bloc tactics in the world and is in the tradition of anarchist direct action. "
This book finally gives the words to the Black Blocs themselves.
p.90:
CLAC (Convergence of anticapitalist struggles) reminds that what may be perceived as "violent" in the West (reversing a fence, breaking a window, throwing a pebble into a policeman ) may seem quite trivial a point of view of resistance movements and protest so-called third world, where political and economic conflicts are much more polarized, where protesters rally often risking their lives and where the use of weapons as machetes and even guns is sometimes considered necessary to avoid being killed by police, soldiers or paramilitaries.
p.104:
According to anarchist anthropologist David Graeber, even more forceful actions of Black Blocs are rather spectacular than actual violence. Sociologist Amory Starr notes in the same vein:
The largest share of the violence that occurs during events perpetrated by the police. The arsenal used by riot police includes batons, chemical weapons, electrical weapons, projectiles , water cannons and stun grenades.
Graeber further contended that if it is the low amplitude of violence that kills anyone who disturbs the elite, because "governments simply do not know how to react to an openly revolutionary movement that refuses to fall in attitudes agreed to armed resistance. " Between the police strapped with a heavy armament and the anarchist wearing a simple hat and a well hidden thin black scarf, which, indeed, seems the most violent? One activist noted, moreover, in a tone puzzled:
But come: a pebble against a helicopter, a stick against an armored vehicle, and they call us violent? In all honesty, it's unmistakable: they are the real butchers, they are the ones whose hands are covered with blood ...
p.110: According to Donatella
della Porta and Sidney Tarrow, two analysts of social movements that led to their assistants some 800 talks on the sidelines of the G8 summit in Genoa, only 41% of the protesters said condemning all forms violence. As part of protests against the G8 summit in Evian in June 2003, 16.7% of interviewed protesters claimed that the damage to the property can be "effective", 40% believed that physical resistance to police may be " efficient "and more than 66% have already responded physically resisted the police or be willing to do it. For its part, this one protester in Washington in April 2000 during protests against the IMF and World Bank say the Black Blocks:
They acted as a decoy to attract the police and the diversion of peaceful demonstrators. In fact, I saw them position themselves between a line of protesters and policemen were approaching. I was really impressed by that. It is through the Black Blocs if I have not been sprayed with pepper spray.
[...] The Black Block anarchists are not violent, unorganized. They defended the crowd throughout the weekend by sending their police tear gas, leaving the action demonstrators who suffocated and dismantling pieces of fence. We should honor them.
A woman living in Boston and has participated in several events, but never resorting to force, and said:
I believe that respect for diversity of tactics is essential. Everyone must do what feels right [...] I am well aware of n to have all the answers about the debate violence / nonviolence and I will not stop people from doing what they want to do: I do not want that kind of power.
The principle of respect for diversity of tactics evokes George Orwell's dictum that 'it is not between violence and nonviolence that spends big difference, but between having or not having the taste power. "
p.115:
course, it is possible to consider that the anarchist ideology is not attractive and prefer the liberal, or even to prefer non-violent political action violent. It is also possible to disagree with the analysis and the political motivations and those and those involved in the black bloc expressed and disseminated on the Internet, in fanzines and magazines anarchists or summarized in one graffiti daubed on a wall: "Capitalism can not be reformed," "Police everywhere justice nowhere," "Peace love and petrol bombs, "" smash false dreamland "," squat the world ". But this should not be an excuse for refusing to understand the ideas and logic of those who participate in the Black Blocs. Say they are simply young apolitical and irrational is the best of intellectual laziness, at worst a lie.
p.117:
Those who participate the black bloc tactic nevertheless generally attribute a clear political direction to their direct actions. This technique allows the use of force if there is, to show viewers that neither private property nor the State, represented by the police, are sacred, and serve the poorest of the system is ready to have its solidarity with them. Even if it is not presented with the thoroughness characteristic of treated social and political philosophy, the logic underlying this type of action emerges from the action itself and the arguments for. This logic can be caught by emotion of politics, economics or strategy, without these four levels are necessarily disconnected from each other.
p.124:
Etienne, who participated in political riots in Europe:
"There is a trick that I mark every time in the riots, the gay side of the case. People, you got the impression that they are partying. Besides, they jump, they dance, it's pretty darn exuberant it's enjoyable. " David Gareb, "having participated in the overthrow of the security perimeter (Summit of the Americas in Quebec) was certainly one of the most exhilarating experiences of my life. Terms such as "exhilarating," "exciting", "orgasmic", "dope" come up repeatedly in interviews with several Barette by Clement rioters French politicians.
This feeling of joy and celebration, that is also found during the French Revolution or during the destruction of the Berlin Wall in 1989, is rooted in politics and emerges in a social context. An affinity group of the Black Bloc in Genoa said their direct action is not only a 'outlet for violent, "because the targets are not chosen randomly.
[...] direct action provides a kind of enjoyment. Let me explain the real violence is that of oppression of the state and capitalism. This oppression is still visible elsewhere: every day we pass a McDonald reminds us that there is exploitation and some are harassed constantly by police, but the balance of power is then to our disadvantage. These situations of exploitation and oppression cause frustrations that drive us to seek an outlet, found in the case.
For Paul, a French man who participated in several political riots, collective confrontation with the police can take his "revenge"
The State violence is daily. It is not as physical violence as riot, but it is present, diffuse, economic, social, institutional, police, and a majority of the people with integrity. The riot is a ras-le-bol, a first response.
A young adult a poor neighborhood of Montreal, who suffered daily harassment by police said: "I'm from the suburbs and the cops do what they want all year and it is silent," he said, adding that "hit a cop This is not violence, it's revenge. " These confessions, very hard, reveal the perceptions of a world of injustice and the need to repair from the usual victims of police brutality in particular, or the system in general. The emotion here is t the heart of the action but it is felt that due to economic and political context in particular, and, as pointed out Maxim Fortin, who signed a study on the actions of anti-capitalist movement in the Americas summit in Quebec City:
Excellent reasons why young people of the slums and ghettos of exercise 'enthusiasm for the methods used by the Black Blocks:
1) They allow them to express their anger physically, either at the location of "system" of the police, the rich, etc..
2) They reduce the possibility of being arrested even if the sanctions will be severe for those who will
3) They allow them to seize certain goods they do not often afford
4) They allow them to take part in a protest without having to get involved in militant networks often alien to their social networks and dominated by activists "white middle-class highly educated" and who often can afford to spend more time in formal activism of organization.
p.131:
Why take direct action against such a system?
Reasons? There are millions. Capitalism produces only reason to revolt against him. Any capitalist production creates pain in my own pleasures the system cost of suffering to people. This world makes you vomit, and the horrors we see daily warrant a response.
These words are clearly in the critical analysis suggests that anarchism capitalism, depicted as a fundamentally illegitimate, since it relies on the principle of an egalitarian and authoritarian hierarchical division between those who run and organize work and production of goods and services and those who work to produce them. [...] For anarchists, the only legitimate economic system is one that has as its primary purpose of ensuring to everyone the satisfaction of basic needs and allows producers to participate directly in decisions concerning the organization of work, production and distribution of potential profits. "The profit before life" in a few words summarizing the guiding principle of the capitalist system. [...] Rather than be offended by the violence of the black bloc and its allies, many people point out the unrelenting violence of the current political and economic system, and disproportion between the violence of some small and others that excessive .
p.135:
Participants in the Seattle Black Bloc e state:
Destruction of private property is not a violent action unless it destroys lives or causes pain. By this definition, private property (especially that of private multinational companies) is in itself infinitely more violent than any action against her.
[...] Launching strikes against symbolic targets has a redemptive effect, but also participates in some propaganda by deed: to destroy the goods or loot allows, first, to openly express his radical critique against some companies in particular and capitalism and consumer society in general and, secondly, to tarnish the sacred aura that surrounds our society in consumer goods.
A Quebecer who took part in several black blocs and say " break a window or a truck attack media is trying to show that material possessions are not important. Several participants were surprised to direct action, moreover, that so many people so easily s'enragent for a few broken windows, while " property does not feel pain ", as recalled some graffiti painted on a wall in Seattle, during the demonstrations of November 30, 1999. But beyond the debate in the alternative media, the message of this propaganda of the deed is usually misinterpreted by the mass media.
p.137:
The Swiss philosopher Nicolas Tavaglione further says that by their actions targeting private or public property, the Black Blocks forcing the elite to say what they feel they have the most value, property or life and human freedom: " riot confronts us with a social choice as old Europe: freedom or safety. In asking this equation, the Black Blocs are the best political philosophers of the time. "
p.138:
Anarchism considers the liberal state, politicians and police who participate in major economic summits as just as illegitimate as the capitalist economic system. Illegitimate because the liberal state and the authority of politicians based on the illusion that the political will of the people can be represented, especially if he has the right to elect its leaders. The election has yet undemocratic, since it does not allow the people to govern, but only to select teachers who will govern in his name. The anarchists then recognize in the words of Jean-Jacques Rousseau, discussing elections in England The Social Contract, explained that " the English people believed to be free, there is much mistaken, there is only so during the election of members of parliament as soon as they are elected, he is a slave, he is nothing. In the short moments of liberty, the use he makes it worth the lost . For anarchists, a person or group of individuals can not represent the will and interests of a group without a significant distortion that favors the representative rather than shown. Simply because they occupy a position of authority, elected politicians have personal interests that do not correspond with those of the people they claim to represent. In addition, experience has shown that political elites are often tied to economic and military elites, when they do not make a direct party. The representation of sovereignty So popular is at best an innocent fiction, at worst a lie aware that vindicates a speech by the esoteric power of an aristocracy which claims to be democratic elected.
Despite its egalitarian discourse, the liberal state remains held in authoritarian and hierarchical.
p.140:
" Violence is the coup de baton, forced labor, hunger, war ... it's the violence, and I do not want to exercise , "said Katy, presents several riots policies in Europe. " I am a pacifist, a non-violent, that is to say that I dream of a world without violence ," said one participant in the Black Blocks Quebec before adding:
But the world in which I live now is not violent and pacifist, so I assume it is legitimate for me to use the strength not to let the monopoly of violence in the state and because the mere disobedience civil peace is merely a victim of power, since you let the police charge you, arrest you, you file.
He concludes, surprisingly, that if " the state has no choice but to use violence, the state leaves us no choice, we also use violence against him. It is the state created by what he has created the Black Bloc .
p.172:
" All those I know and who were participating in black bloc activists are often long. They are somewhat disillusioned as they arrived at al conclusion that peaceful means are too limited and they have the power game. They decided to use violence to avoid being victims . "
p.173:
A worker in Seattle this explains
will Is there no one to take the defense of the anarchists? [...] These young men and young women would rather they not our comrades, and are not saboteurs of our movement? Should we not rather, thank the revolutionary spirits of wanting to express righteous anger and the denial of a globalized social order based on greed, violence and systemic oppression of the majority ? [...] In response to police brutality, non-violence advocated by most organizations has proved totally inadequate. [...] Finally, the protesters were not more the exclusive property of pacifists, environmentalists, unions, religious associations that anarchists. Nobody has the monopoly of the street, and yet as a man of color member of the working class, I consider it an honor for me to have rubbed shoulders during those gray days in Seattle, these young valiant rebels and idealists who understood what that meant the meeting of official figures from around the world to define, in my place and yours, what will our economic future. Young, bold, brave, pure and almost beautiful in its sinister black coats, the anarchist youth took these risks without begging or using the solidarity of anyone of us (because, otherwise, all the disapproved.)
p.177:
I'm not saying that the Bloc will end the world's problems. I am convinced, however, it is useful and important to physically confront the authorities that maintain physically a rotten system, and thus recalling that such action may be conducted.
p.191:
political leaders of the reformist movement are almost incapable of respecting the diversity of tactics because they pursue multiple objectives, the success of their individual careers, politics and media. Equality and freedom implied respect for diversity of tactics in their demonstrations would undermine-believe-they-the power of the organization they lead and, consequently, personal power is exercising. Why ? Precisely because they are reformist and want to be recognized by the state as respectable interlocutors. The spokesmen of reformist organizations therefore systematically condemn the "young thugs" because they think it's one of the surest ways to be levied by the state and the media as partners of interest .
p.198:
remains nonetheless the idea that everything would be better if all the protesters were acting "under control" as clearly expressed Christophe Aguiton, ATTAC, who said "if we could control everything, it would be better." Susan George for his part said that it must "impose totally non-violence in our ranks" for a "disciplined militancy." For those who present themselves as the leaders of this movement, the challenge is to control the base, leaving even act as auxiliary police, which services about institutions activists in Seattle Quebec and elsewhere. In this spirit of control activist associated with that of the police official, Lori Wallach, American lobbyist and director of Global Trade Watch says in interview direct actions on the eve of 30 November in Seattle, "anarchist" wanted to shatter the windows at an event where Jose Bove Roquefort distributed before a McDonald:
We had with us and steel workers Dockers at the impressive size, three to four times larger than the young. We asked them to seize an anarchist that we brought to the police, a union of "teamsters" framing each side. We told the police that the boy had broken a window and he was not with us. "We hate the WTO like him, but we do not break things. Stop him, please. "
p.214:
Obituary: they are police officers who killed demonstrators, not the reverse. In Gothenburg, the police fired live ammunition and severely wounded several demonstrators in Genoa, Carlo Giuliani (who was not dressed in black) brandishing a fire extinguisher to a police vehicle, which has earned for being shot by police with two bullets in the head at close range. The Jeep then drove the police twice on the inert body. Ironically, the next day, the G8 heads of state took ka floor to denounce the "blind violence" of protesters ...; and non-violent reformers, usually so quick to distance itself from "thugs" appropriated without apparent discomfort the memory of Carlo and the enthronement martyr of the common cause.
Shortly before 3 students were killed by police while demonstrating against the World Bank in Papua New Guinea. [...] Those injured or arrested by police or soldiers in the hundreds and more than 10 demonstrators were killed in 2000, 76 in 2001 and 10 in 2002 in the country said in the developing world. [...] Journalists in the West unaware of the killings, which allows them to submit in unison the assassination of Carlo Giuliani as "the death of the first anti-globalization protester of history" (France 2, July 21, 2001.
p.227:
In the street, the battalion of the Black Bloc and citizens in uniform paid by the State embody two worldviews, two conceptions of the human being who once opposed more in a face to face brutal in the extreme left, individuals free and equal, to the extreme right, people obedient and uneven. But the current public discourse confuses thought and misrepresents reality to the point where several demonstrators combine to madness and chaos and the police to freedom and equality. And the audience that this speech will be so well able to deceive and timid cheer to know that supporters of authority and hierarchy, order and law, and still remain masters of the house once dispersed protesters with violence.
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