'We live to tread on kings'* -- The significance of Genoa

By James Vassilopoulos

“We honour our dead not with a moment's silence but with a lifetime's struggle.''—Words on a poster showing protester Carlo Giuliani lying in a pool of blood during the G8 summit in Genoa.

There has been nothing like the anti-G8 protests in Genoa. They were a high point in the struggle for global justice. A total of half a million people participated (subtracting any overlap) in the July 19 rally for immigrant rights, the July 20 day of civil disobedience, the awesome international march of July 21, the Italian-wide demonstrations against state violence a few days later and the 250 worldwide solidarity protests.

Besides the massive numbers, there was also an increase in militancy and self-organisation. The protests were politically more radical than previous ones. There was a strong working-class component to the revolt, tens of thousands of workers attending, many not through official trade union contingents. All these factors made the protests a major escalation and consolidation of the anti-corporate and anti-capitalist movement.

Sections of the ruling class saw the significance. The September 1 editorial of the Washington Post said, “The street protests that now haunt meetings of financial institutions are not only growing larger; their message is also becoming more focused”. The anti-corporate-globalisation protests have become more than an object of great fear at summits; they are having a significant impact on national politics also.

There is a unevenness in the global movement, as reflected in the size of the protests, electoral openings for progressive parties and levels of working-class struggle. The movement is most advanced in Third World countries like Ecuador and Colombia, and in the imperialist countries in France and Greece.2

The growth and determination of the movement are driven by the inability of capitalist globalisation to give itself a “human face''. The G8 summit made no offers of further debt relief, let alone cancellation of Third World debt. The eight governments offered US$1.2 billion for the global aids fund, a tenth of what the United Nations estimates is needed to counter the crisis3. Past promises of the G8 have not been met. At the G8 Cologne summit in June 1999, debt relief of up to ninety per cent was announced for some of the poorest countries. One year later at the Okinawa summit, the Committee for the Abolition of the Third World Debt calculated that only about US$2.5 billion was cancelled—1.2 per cent of the poorest countries' debts and 0.12 per cent of the total Third World debt.

The anti-G8 protests had a huge impact, particularly on Italian politics, but also more generally on European politics, before, during and after the events. In Italy there was broad discussion and debate about globalisation, which had a big impact on mass consciousness. The capitalist press had front-page coverage about the G8 protests and the aftermath for two months. Many Italian bookshops had special displays on globalisation, including the Italian translation of Naomi Klein's book No Logo. The organisers of the protests, the Genoa Social Forum (GSF), had a pamphlet available in many bookshops. Manu Chao, one of Europe's most popular performers, played a benefit concert during the protests and marched a few days later against the police violence. This will make it easier for thousands more young people to get involved in the movement.

Intimidation fails

The Italian authorities threatened a blockade of Genoa. Twenty thousand troops were mobilised, 200 body bags were ordered, and part of the local hospital was turned into a temporary morgue in an effort to intimidate protesters. The city central business district was turned into a “red zone” or forbidden area that was closed to the public and surrounded by a wall of steel and shipping containers.

Shortly before the protests, it seemed that almost every street corner in the city had carabinieri, the semi-military Italian national police. Letter bombs exploded, injuring a police officer, and there were other bomb threats. There was even a bomb scare at the Carlini Stadium, one of the major places where protesters were staying. The GSF condemned the bomb threats and said they had no link with the protests. It did not make sense for protesters to place bombs where protesters were staying, but all this added to a climate that was helpful to a crackdown by the state.

On July 19, 60,000 people—far surpassing organisers' expectations—marched for migrant and refugee rights, chanting, “No deportations, no camps, no borders''. The march was loud and colourful—a thirty-piece brass band played. There was no police violence and no window smashing.

July 20 was the day of civil disobedience, more than 35,000 taking to the streets. Many groups sought to break through the wall and into the Palazzo Ducale, where the summit was held. Two radical union federations, CUB and COBAS, met away from the red zone and then marched towards it. Both unions called national strikes for the day.

The Non-Violent Bloc of the Lilliput Network, the Network Against G8 and women's groups staged protests away from the red zone. ATTAC (Action for a Tobin Tax to Assist the Citizen), the anti-racist group ARCI, the metalworkers' union and the Party of Communist Refoundation (PRC) held a peaceful protest of 3000 at Piazza Dante, on the boundary of the red zone.

One thousand five hundred activists from the British group Globalise Resistance organised their own attempt to invade the red zone, without protective equipment. Police responded with tear gas and water cannons, dispersing the protesters, who were chased by police and beaten and kicked.

An anarchist bloc of about 300 attempted to invade the red zone in another place, but was driven back. Over the whole day of direct action, the only group that smashed windows before the police violence started was the Black Bloc, comprising mainly anarchists, who largely hit specific targets like banks.

Nuns began a hunger strike demanding the cancellation of the debt. There was also a Pink Bloc, a mobile unit who all wore pink and did cheerleader routines.

The largest of the blocs was the one staying at the Carlini Stadium. This comprised the autonomist Tute Bianche (White Overalls), the Young Communists associated with the PRC, RAGE (the Roman Coalition Against Economic Globalisation), the Naples mobilisation committee, most of the Greek contingent, the French Revolutionary Communist League (LCR), Euskal Herria from the Basque country and Workers' Power.

This 15,000-strong group sought to march to the red zone and enter it. Organisers repeatedly stated that they would respect the city of Genoa and not smash up buildings, and that they would be peaceful, carrying only defensive devices like padding, shields and helmets. The crowd marched down Corso Garibaldi, towards the centre of town. At 3.30 pm, everyone was still festive, marching perhaps a kilometre and a half from the red zone. Suddenly, there were tear gas canisters flying through the air. The carabinieri attacked.

Four hours of disciplined street fighting followed, the protesters using anything at their disposal to defend themselves, including stones and huge recycling bins to build barricades. I bumped into the Filipino activist and academic Walden Bello; of all the anti-corporate protests he'd been at, he said, this was “the most provoked yet''. Near where we met, a few hours later the police shot in the head protester Carlo Giuliani, twenty-three years old, a Rome native living in Genoa.4

That night, at the convergence Vittorio Agnoletto of the GSF, Luca Casarini from Tute Bianche and Fausto Bertinotti from the PRC called for an enormous demonstration the next day that would respond peacefully to any provocation. The call was broadcast on Italian television.

On July 21 a quarter of a million people marched against the G8, corporate globalisation and capitalism. Like a rumbling thunder, they chanted, “Berlusconi Assassini'' and “Genoa Li-be-raâ''. Liberazione, the daily newspaper of the PRC, and L'Unita, the paper associated with the social democratic Olive Tree alliance, estimated the crowd at 300,000. Il Secolo xix, a local Genoa paper, and the leftist Il Manifesto estimated it at 200,000. It would have been even larger if groups like Christian Aid and Drop the Debt had not pulled out at the last minute for fear of violence.

The protesters not only had the numbers on the streets; they also had public opinion on their side. A poll commissioned by the centre-left La Republica found that sixty-six per cent of Italians agreed with the call to shut down the G8 summit. Another poll by the conservative Corriere Della Serra found that 40 per cent oppose “globalisation'' and 40 per cent have no opinion. The march was led by the GSF banner: “You 8, we 6,000,000,000''.

Many of the protesters were under twenty-five years of age, but there were also many from other generations. Contingents from fifty nations were present. Unions also mobilised. The radical federation COBAS brought out perhaps 10,000. There were workers from the Fiat plants in Turin. One of the largest federations, the Italian General Confederation of Labour (CGIL), had a few thousand present. FIOM, the metalworkers’ union, mobilised 10,000.

There were few social democrats visible at the protest, although there were a few thousand members of the Democratic Left, the former Communist Party, now a main force in the Olive Tree5.

Democratic organisation

Carlini Stadium is a velodrome where thousands of people stayed. In the middle of the stadium, two huge white tents were pitched on a sandy floor with aluminium scaffolding. Each tent was 100 metres long by thirty metres wide. Smaller tents surrounded these wherever room could be found, including on the sloping cycle track.

But it was more than a place for accommodation; it was, as the organisers explained, a “social experiment'', an arena for self-organisation. Eight thousand mainly young people from the civil disobedience bloc stayed here. There were nightly mass meetings of hundreds, with simultaneous translations. An open microphone went on until the early hours of the morning.

The highlight, however, was an 8000-strong general assembly on the morning of July 20. Here seven people were elected to choose tactics on the day. The politics were explained, and then non-violent direct action training was undertaken. This showed that centralism, one of the phobias of some in the global movement, could be democratic. “Being one united body is key to our success; it's important people don't make any [individual] tactical decisions because this would jeopardise the collective'', one organiser, Eva, said.

Then there was the mass direct action. Many of the Italian young people involved had radical or anti-capitalist or revolutionary politics. But there was still a broad range of young people. Invading the illegitimate red zone and attempting to shut down the G8 summit captured the imagination of thousands. Protection in the form of padding, shields, goggles and masks prepared protesters for what was to come. It also made it easier to keep mass consciousness on their side, by making clear that they were only defending themselves.

The centralism of the Civil Disobedience Bloc, like the election of the leaders for the day and the collective preparation, showed it be a very important tool of organisation. This also meant that when street fighting erupted, it was effective. Once the carabinieri attacked, people defended themselves, throwing stones and building barricades. Because of the political framework that had been set, this did not play into the state's hands by providing a justification for a crackdown.

The police, with their huge numbers, training and equipment, were always going to win this battle. The important message that was sent out is that people stood up and fought against the odds. People without gas masks or padding courageously charged the police lines.

The revolutionary left

Genoa showed an increase in the weight, role and mobilisation of the far left relative to previous anti-corporate globalisation protests. On the streets, socialists had by far the greatest profile and numbers relative to social democrats, the greens and the anarchists. Of course, the mobilisations were broad and diverse and involved much more than the left.

The PRC played a leading role in organising for the July 21 mobilisation. The PRC has about 100,000 members, a daily newspaper, Liberazione, and an associated youth organisation. Fausto Bertinotti, the PRC leader with the highest profile, clearly defended the protests against political attack and spoke at a public forum with the radical and revolutionary left. He gave an impromptu address on the night of July 20, encouraging everyone in Italy to come to the protests the next day to take a stand against the killing of Carlo Giuliani and against cop violence. The PRC also used its parliamentary positions to build the protests. The alliance between the Young Communists and Tute Bianche was key to the day of civil disobedience.

There were also significant mobilisations of the European far left. The International Socialist Tendency mobilised about 1000 people, mainly from Britain but also from Greece, Germany and Holland. The Greek Communist Party had a contingent of about 1000. There were also about 500 from the LCR of France. The Greek Committee in Genoa, in which the International Workers Left (a split from the International Socialist Tendency) played a leading role, had about 1000 people. Also of significance for left collaboration was the joint rally of 1500 between the LCR and the British Socialist Workers Party on the morning of the international march.

The socialist left had a substantially smaller role in the conference organised by the Genoa Social Forum, which attracted thousands of people, a testament to the great interest in ideas. From July 16, they discussed and debated topics including debt, trade, the WTO, work, human rights and alternatives to corporate globalisation. While there was a strong presence of radical speakers, the conference was dominated by moderate NGOs and academics. Panels often included ten speakers, which left little time for any real discussion.

Migration issues

An important contribution of Genoa was the linking of the movement against neo-liberalism with the movement for the rights of immigrants and refugees. The July 19 rally, the first major protest in Genoa, put these issues up front.

Immigrant and refugee rights must be a key plank of the anti-corporate, anti-capitalist movement. Currently there are about 25 million refugees in the world. Often they are the victims of imperialism's exploitation of the oppressed countries and of neo-liberal globalisation, but imperialist governments are building walls to keep them out. Governments promote and pander to racism through their inhumane treatment of refugees and immigrants.

In Britain there are proposals to more than double the number of refugees in detention. In Italy, Gianfranco Fini from the far right National Alliance and Umberto Bossi from the Northern League plan to introduce a xenophobic anti-immigrant bill. In Greece, there are regular reports of refugees abused by the coast guard. In one incident, 164 asylum seekers on a Turkish-flagged vessel arrived in Crete; there were reports of beatings and confiscation of personal belongings6. Malaysia plans to follow Singapore and institute mandatory caning of “illegal” immigrants and those who employ them7. In Australia, conservative Prime Minister John Howard stopped a Norwegian vessel that had picked up refugees from taking them to Australia—a move that proved electorally popular, especially after the “opposition” Labor Party endorsed it. In France, opinion polls have found that close to two-thirds of adults believe that there are too many Arabs in the country8. These issues are perhaps the greatest challenge for the anti-corporate movement.

State violence

The repression unleashed against protesters at the G8 summit was the fiercest at any such protest so far: one person was murdered; 560 people were injured, many seriously; 219 people were arrested, some in their hospital beds. Some protesters for a time were charged with attempted murder.

The police forces attacked, tear-gassed and beat up protesters indiscriminately. Every section of the protest, no matter how far away from the walled-in red zone or how peaceful, was attacked. The Italian state began the intimidation before any of the protests had started. On July 19 at 6am at the Carlini Stadium, 300 riot cops in full gear threatened to attack. At the borders, they detained and beat protesters. A thousand people from the Greek committee arrived at the port city of Ancona and were met by hundreds of riot cops. One hundred and fifty activists were turned back. The Globalise Resistance train from Britain had great difficulty in arriving.

An anonymous police officer confessed about the “Chilean night'' in an interview in La Repubblica on July 26: “I'm sorry to say that it's all true. Even more, I can still feel the smell from those hours, the smell from the arrestees' faeces.'' Bolzaneto barracks were transformed into a prison. The police officer admitted the abuse and torture of arrested protesters:

They made them stand against the wall. When they came in, they smashed their heads against the wall. They peed on someone; others were beaten if they didn't sing fascist songs. To the ladies, they said that they were going to rape them with their sticks.

Even journalists did not escape. A Sunday Times photographer working undercover recounted in the paper's July 22 issue: “Two policeman dragged me along the ground, shouted at me and then hit me some more. My cycling helmet disintegrated under the blows. Truncheons whacked my back, arms and shins.''

The repression continued after the protests. On September 18, the police carried out 100 raids against anarchist organising centres and homes. The pretext given for the raids was an investigation of the bombing of churches.

But there was an important backlash against the police violence, internationally and in Italy. Deputy police chief Asoino Andreassi, Genoa police chief Francesco Colucci and anti-terrorism chief Arnaldo La Barbera were all removed from their posts. Prosecutors in Genoa placed the Rome police chief under investigation. Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi sought to distance himself from the killing, saying that the preparations for the repression were the responsibility of the previous, social democratic, government.

Mass demonstrations protesting against police violence and the death of Giuliani a few days later drew up to 100,000 in Milan, 50,000 in Rome and 30,000 in Naples9. Hundreds of thousands of Italians saw that it was the Italian government and police who where violent and who denied the protesters their democratic rights. It is not many steps from this position to an understanding that the state is not neutral, but a protector of the ruling class and exploitation.

Black Bloc

There were perhaps 8000 anarchists at Genoa, close to half of them organised in the Black Bloc. In addition, there were thousands of young people influenced by anarchist ideas of organisation.

While many anarchists played a positive role in the protests, the most visible anarchist presence, the Black Bloc, was severely discredited in the eyes of hundreds of thousands of progressive people. They suffered a severe backlash against their political tactics. On July 20 members of the Black Bloc approached a group of COBAS workers and beat up one of the workers' leaders. Later they moved on to a square where another group, the Lilliput Network, was based; the network's leaders asked them to leave peacefully but were attacked by the Black Bloc and then by the police10.

There is considerable evidence that police provocateurs infiltrated the Black Bloc, seeking to cause as much mayhem as possible. Sometimes the provocateurs were even escorted around town by police. Father Don Vitaliano, a radical priest, said that he saw some dressed as Black Bloc members come out of a police van and talk easily with police. Gigi Malabarba, a PRC senator and Alfa Romeo militant, said, “I saw with my own eyes some people dressed as Black Bloc come out of the police station and speak to the police in friendly terms in French, German and English”, suggesting they may have come from the secret services of these other countries11.

The backlash against the Black Bloc was clearly evident at the march of 300,000, the day after the window smashing and looting of banks. When some young people dressed in black and carrying helmets ran towards the front of the protest, thousands raised their hands and chanted, “No violence''. Some carried placards with slogans like “The Black Bloc are rats”12.

A Black Bloc member wrote on July 21, “Today was the day of the big offensive and attack of the red zone.''13 This was despite the GSF for months democratically working out tactics and deciding that July 20 would be the day of civil disobedience and July 21 a mass peaceful march going nowhere near the red zone. The Black Bloc defied any democratic decisions, jeopardising the safety of hundreds of thousands because protesters had not prepared for such confrontation. The attacks of the Black Bloc meant that thousands of others were tear-gassed.

The anti-globalisation movement needs to devise strategies of political persuasion to explain why such tactics harm the fight for a better world. The argument that property damage as such can influence politics for the better is problematic. While broken windows may bring the bourgeois press to the scene, the coverage will be negative and will be designed to undermine the movement by portraying the protesters as mindlessly destructive.

It is very difficult for the media to ignore hundreds of thousands of people in the streets. But if windows are smashed and cars set on fire at a demonstration of 300,000, this allows the media to shift the emphasis away from the mass protest. Working people who see the protest on television can be confused as to whether the government or the protesters are violent, making it harder for them to get involved in the movement. A small group of people smashing windows does not increase our power. It is when millions demonstrate and strike that we feel and are powerful.

Battle of ideas

At this stage, ultraleftism, although hurting the movement, is a small danger. The larger danger is reformist ideas sidetracking the movement. This does not have to be done just through social democratic parties, which, with a few exceptions, have been antagonistic to the movement and not a part of it. Many social democratic parties that implemented neo-liberal programs have lost much credibility. The Democratic Left in Italy is a clear example. It began the organisation of the state's response to the Genoa protests, and it flip-flopped on supporting or opposing the protests themselves, when it was no longer in government.

Reformist ideas also come through trade unions and NGOs. They are transmitted through the media and through the education system. A vibrant and thoughtful revolutionary left is necessary to counter them.

The ruling class tried to repress the G8 protests but failed. No doubt this tactic will still be used to demobilise the movement, but it also launched an ideological offensive. One aspect of this is the claim that protesters are against the poor—because they are trying to stop poor countries from obtaining the “benefits” of globalisation. This accusation is reasonably easy to dispel, simply by pointing to concrete demands, such as cancelling the entire Third World debt, which could divert debt repayments into health and education and job creation.

A second ruling-class argument is that protesters are unelected and undemocratic. The Economist claimed that protesters and NGOs “represented a dangerous shift of power to unelected and unaccountable special interest groups''. This is quite ironic when “democratically elected world leaders'' do not want to have meetings near people. As Berlusconi said in the September 1 Financial Times: “International summits can no longer be held in urban surroundings''. And it is worth recalling that “democratically elected leaders'' such as Tony Blair won the ballots of 28 per cent of those eligible to vote, and George W. Bush 25 per cent.

Through struggle, new and higher forms of democracy can develop. This can occur directly through the democracy of blockades and other protests, where the people involved decide how to run them. It can also develop through alternative organisations like the Genoa Social Forum. What matters is not just the numbers these groups mobilise, but also the leadership they provide by mobilising those—in many countries a majority—who would agree that privatisations are bad, that Third World debt should be cancelled and that globalisation benefits the rich. The movement provides an important opening to critique bourgeois democracy and formulate alternatives to it.

After the July anti-G8 protests, the Genoa Social Forum continued to exist. The key organisations of the alliance are ARCI; the PRC and the Young Communists; the social centres across Italy; the Tute Bianche; militant union federations; FIOM, the metalworkers' union; the Lilliput Network; ATTAC Italy and others. It is an alliance of the radical and revolutionary left, and mass campaigning organisations. The GSF national council met in Bologna on September 9. It assessed the G8 protests as very positive and concluded that there is more “potential for a much larger and long-lasting movement against neo-liberalism''14.

Events after the Genoa protests have confirmed this. There has been a spread of social forums across Italy, often spontaneously, an increase in mobilisations and an increase in youth activism. In Rome a meeting of 2000 people shortly after July 21 decided to set up the Rome Social Forum. The Bologna Social Forum began in prior to Genoa and has already organised demonstrations and discussions. The GSF has now been transformed into the Italian Social Forum, a body for wider political discussion and coordination of actions. The national council has been dissolved and five work groups have been set up to coordinate actions and ideas. The meeting proposed a national mobilisation on November 10 in Rome, which attracted up to 150,000 people. A national assembly of the social forums met in Florence on October 20, discussing all aspects of neo-liberalism, including the US war on Afghanistan.

Revolutionaries in Greece who are considering how to take the radicalisation there further have also discussed forming social forums.

War

The September 11 events, rather than killing the anti-corporate movement, have transformed it. The movement had previously spoken about the war against the Third World with the weapons of interest rates, terms of trade, cash-crop economies and debt. Now the war of the few rich nations against most of the world's people has entered a more open phase.

Imperialism has historically waged war to carve up markets or to crush political alternatives. The war on the Afghan people has sped up the attacks. To fight for global justice, the movement must fight to stop imperialist war. As New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman wrote, with unusual candour for that paper:

“For globalization to work, America can't be afraid to act like the almighty superpower that it is. The hidden hand of the market will never work without a hidden fist. McDonald's cannot flourish without McDonnell Douglas, the designer of the F-15, and the hidden fist that keeps the world safe for Silicon Valley's technology is called the US Army, Air Force, Navy and Marine Corps.''

Another world is possible is one of the most publicised slogans of the movement. This world would be a world of peace, of equality between people and nations, a world without racism. Global justice means defending Muslims against racist attacks, which are an inherent feature of this war.

It also means campaigning against the attacks on civil liberties that will no doubt be used against the movement. There is already the beginning of a campaign by the international press to link terrorism with protests against corporate globalisation. Reginald Dale wrote in the September 22 International Herald Tribune:

The protesters who want to prevent the holding of meetings like those of the IMF or WTO are seeking to advance their political agenda through intimidation, which is a classic goal of terrorism.

Both terrorists and many demonstrators believe that the end justifies the means, a path that history has shown to lead to doom and destruction. We should not have needed this ghastly terrorist attack to teach us to be tougher in standing up for democracy, whenever and by whomever it comes under attack.

When it comes to intimidation, a few people smashing windows can hardly be compared to the capitalist state and its armed forces. The highly paid hacks who write about “standing up for democracy'' mean using the state to suppress views critical of capitalist globalisation.

The French ATTAC, in a recent newsletter said: “Despite bombing, anthrax, despair and death, trade must go on. Of all the political tools used, war is in the forefront of further liberalisation around the world.''

A statement by Focus on the Global South said: “We must link our existing and common demands on neo-liberal globalisation to an agenda that includes a clear voice against militarism and imperialism and proclaiming peace, cultural and religious freedom and self-determination.''

One of the first tests of the movement was the September 30 protest in Washington, DC. The pressure on the anti-corporate movement is most intense in the US. According to Lee Sustar, writing in the US Socialist Worker, the AFL-CIO (American Federation of Labor-Congress of Industrial Organizations) the right wing of the anti-corporate movement, supports Bush's war and is pressuring its NGO allies to follow suit. Some of them pressured Mobilization for Global Justice into cancelling the September 30 protests and holding a teach-in instead. However, the group came out clearly against the war.

In Australia on October 3, the planned demonstrations against the Commonwealth Business Forum in Melbourne and the October 5 protests against the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) in Brisbane were successfully transformed into anti-war protests, attracting thousands, despite the meetings having been postponed. This oriented the movement and showed many that there is not a pro-war consensus.

Anti-corporate protests have continued, involving hundreds of thousands of people. In Ottawa 5000 protested in a hastily organised demonstration at the meetings of the IMF, the World Bank and the G20. There were large protests in Rome, Paris, Berlin, Switzerland, London, India , Malaysia, Turkey, Bulgaria, Bangladesh and the Philippines against the World Trade Organisation's meeting in Doha, Qatar. There were also trade union and anti-war mobilisations in Belgium when the European Union met15.

After September 11, the stakes have been raised. The movement, while not compromising its radical demands and mass mobilisations, may have to be careful about the form of some protests so as to limit the risk that the movement's links with the mass of working people will be cut off.

The movement is not strong enough as yet to win significant concessions. It has, however, already had an immense impact on world politics. It has ideologically challenged the notion that there is no alternative to capitalism. It stopped the Multilateral Agreement on Investment. It stopped the next round of WTO talks for two years. Many US campuses are not buying their uniforms from sweatshops because of student campaigns.

Future challenges are to link the movement with working-class struggle, develop electoral alternatives and articulate an alternative to capitalism. The “Genoa Generation'', as Tony Blair has described the movement, continues to go from strength to strength, approaching the realisation of some of its goals. It has raised the slogan “Another world is possible'', and it is closer to making it a reality.

Notes

1. * Before any of the protests had begun, police confiscated a banner from the Network for Global Rights that bore a quotation from Shakespeare: “We live to tread on kings''.

2. In Ecuador in January 2000 an uprising by the Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities of Ecuador took over the Congress and announced that the Popular Parliaments, new institutions of struggle, were in power. In Colombia the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) still control about a third of the country. One million people voted for revolutionary parties in recent elections in France, and in Greece there was a 2-million-strong general strike in April 2001 against attacks on pensions.

3. Green Left Weekly, August 1, 2001.

4. For a fuller account, see Green Left Weekly, July 25, 2001. There is also excellent footage in Sherwood TV's documentary Genoa Stop G8.

5. For a more extensive report, see Green Left Weekly, August 1, 2001.

6. Athens News, August 17, 2001.

7. International Herald Tribune, August 30, 2001.

8. Economist, July 28, 2001.

9. A full report about the protest is at <www.nadir.org/nadir/agp/free/genova/march.htm>.

10. From “Provocateurs in Genoa at G8 Summit: Eyewitness account by Stefano Agnoletto'', <www.mindfully.org/WTO/G8-Summit-Eyewitness-Agnoletto.htm>.

11. Liberazione, July 22, 2001.

12. Geneva Stop G8.

13. At <www.genoaresistance.org.text/english/testrb.html>.

14. Letter from the GSF to the movement, <www.genoa-g8.org>.

15. Green Left Weekly, November 21, 2001.

SWP (Britain) IST LCR Italy anarchism

Subscribe to our newsletter

Search LINKS