 |
Nachbereitung auf Deutsch |
|
|
After the summit – an anti-G8-evaluation
Gegeninformationsbüro  June
26, 2007
As in the former years the eight representatives of the capitalist world left
the summit show in Heiligendamm with empty promises and no obligations. This
is true at least for the public relations issues, which helped to propagandistically
prepare the summit, to present the G8 as rescuers of the world and good Samaritans.
The vague declarations of good will for more money put into development, into
AIDS-help and so on made it hard even for the most uncritical journalists of
the bourgeois media to sell the summit as a success.
For this show they bunkered themselves behind fences for more than 100 million
Euros, secured by 17 800 thugs and by the military. On 40 square kilometers
around Heiligendamm the German government established a warlike situation: While
it is said to be still in the process of discussion to call in the military for
inner conflicts, soldiers are already preventively put in action on our streets,
in the air and on water against the inner resistance, equipped with machine guns,
armored scouting tanks, battle helicopters and warships. They were positioned
on bridges, crossroads, field paths and they brought in troops to the fields
with helicopters. Tornados, which are used in the war in Afghanistan, rumbled
over the camps in low level flight as well. Breaking the constitution? The elite
don’t care. Only some left politicians and journalists scandalized this
breakthrough of militarization of the society.
Since two years we, as part of the radical left, together with left and progressive
groups and organizations of all spheres of society, had been focusing on an international
mobilization to protest against the policies of profit and war of the capitalist
countries, and to disturb their summit: Thousands of motivated people from all
over Europe and other parts of the world came. Most of them in the conviction
to make use of the vested right to protest guaranteed by the constitution. Many
other came in rage and anger, as they knew: multinational capital defines what
is considered as rights.
The state displayed his full repository of repression as well as the menacing
will to use it, and finally made brutal use of it in different situations. Cops
and special units searched persons and their belongings more than once a day,
made protesters march in espalier, were beating and harassing people, and locked
them up in Guantanamo-like cages. They injured people with truncheons, water
cannons, gas and pepper spray, restricted the freedom of movement, stopped busses
and trains, and registered personal data en masse.
Under conditions like these it was more than inevitable that on the Demonstration
of the 2nd of June the first stone took off: Be it by an agent provocateur or
that we did not find a more powerful tool in our disempowered rage to at least
cause some destruction to this violent apparatus. Who is sawing the seeds of
violence will gain a harvest of hatred.
Considering the fact that Germany is at war and that the society is getting
militarized step by step, that exploitation was intensified and that neoliberal
policies pushed forward material, mental and social impoverishment of the population,
that torture and secret prisons are well known to exist, considering this it
is more surprising that there are so few stones thrown.
We don´t want to exaggerate our protests in the North and present them
as the big won battle, but when did it happen the last time, that people gave
a shit about all those prohibitions, bans, limitations, intimidations and offences
of the police and just did, what they intended to do? This collective step of
thousands across the line marked by the police – that has been accepted
for many years – it is a refreshing perspective for the development
of future struggles against capitalist impositions.
Having reached the fence can’t be seen as a triumph by us, despite the
joy of seeing the roads entering Heiligendamm blocked. Obviously state power
tactically offered the “red zone” as “battlefield” or “playground” to
us. And not to forget about the people severely wounded. Beginning two month
before the summit KAVALA started to declare the space in front of the fence a “red
zone”, a psychological barricade which ‘Block G8’ was determined
to overcome. It was not the fence being the target. And for sure this “red
zone” could not be entered without the determined opponents of the summit
encountering the brutality of the robocops, but they made use of the potential
of repression displayed in a kind of measured out way, in an effort not to completely
destroy their public image. But they constantly showed their readiness for more
repression: we can treat you differently and we will crush you, if there is an
opportune time. It was visible to everybody: We definitely live in a police state,
where it is not even necessary anymore to change or invent new laws according
to alleged necessities. And it was at no point in time clear to the blockaders
when and if they would be attacked, beaten up or evicted. They didn’t allow
themselves to be intimidated by this and trusted in their well prepared strategy.
The first beginnings of an organized mass militancy came to be visible.
More than that the split up and multi-spectra left got in closer contact through
common political practice of organizing and realizing the protests.
Maybe all these connections are dissolving again until the next big event.
But there is also the possibility that the positive shared experiences lead to
bigger circles of discussion and closer networking.
One striking experience is: it is not possible and even avoided to sharpen
political positions in discussions across the spectra, in order not to endanger
practical cooperation. The collective organization of protests against imperialist
mega-events does not contribute much to the political advancement amongst the
left spectra. Our own attempts to put the systemic connection of exploitation
and imperialist war on the agenda, to raise awareness for it did not take effect
beyond very limited boundaries of our alliances.
Despite the strong endeavors of security and state authorities, especially
of KAVALA in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, to intimidate the population and
to initiate a process of dissociation with the protests amongst them, the people
in the region did not close their minds to the protests, but showed practical
solidarity in many situations. They did that despite the fact that mainstream
media again worked as mouthpiece organ of manipulation for those in power. The
double-tongues of those hypocrites hysterically condemn the throwing of stones
but are the same people that give the orders to bombings and shootings, who welcome
or accept torture and rape, who create in cold calculation of their profits hunger,
poverty and devastation.
Despite this, the reactionary interpretation of the bourgeois media did not
prevail completely, at least not after the protests. Video coverage of independent
participants of the protests unmasked what the press adopted from police reports.
And as always in struggles, positions get clear in the fight and therefore it
is a nice success that the media collaborators within the left took of their
masks, got criticized by the grassroots as unbearable helpers in the divide-and-conquer
game and partly were thrown out.
This happened with Attac, die Linke, IL and ALB. The debates about it are
not finished yet.
There is no reason to party ...
But also the small victories against the authorities boost our courage, give
us joy, are the reviving potion for our everyday classwar.
Gegeninformationsbüro
|
|
|
zurück
| krieg! kein frieden
