by Wu Ming 1 (22 July 2001)
I was in Genoa, I came back worn out, angry, disappointed
and feverish, with the ligaments of my knees destroyed and completely out
of voice, and I say: do not go hunting anarchists, do not criminalize the
international Black Bloc. It is our duty to draw distinctions between the
Black Bloc and what happened in Genoa. It is our duty not to charge with
being a carabiniere in disguise anyone who took direct action in Genoa.
Pogroms and paranoid conspiracy theories do not belong to our culture.
Last friday in Genoa were some German anarchists
of the Schwartze Block. They hit such precise targets as banks and big
corporate offices. They had no intention to attack other demonstrators.
On Saturday a Dutch journalist of Vrij Neederland magazine met them while
they were packing and maybe going back to Germany. They told him they were
pissed-off because of what other "men in black" had done. In fact what
went on saturday had very little to do with the BB's modus operandi: the
BB has a method. One may disagree with them, and yet they have a method
and go their own way without interfering with other forms of action. On
the contrary, in Genoa the carabinieri escorted the trashers all day long,
and never charged them, not because they were too fast and informal, as
someone commented. No, they had all the time to go inside banks, trash
them accurately and set them on fire, an operation which requires more
than a quarter of an hour. In the meanwhile, the carabinieri hanged on
in the street, _waiting for them_. When the trashers went out, the magical
mystery tour went on. The carabinieri quietly accompanied the trashers
to the places where many other people (belonging to the GSF) were demonstrating
in other ways, as if they were walking their dogs. There are hundreds of
testimonies. All along the path the men in black attacked small shops,
set fire to cars that certainly didn't belong to millionaires, destroyed
very little gas stations and so on. Then they were unchained in the
square where hundreds of members of the Lilliput network were doing a sit-in.
The carabinieri followed them and beat up women and children, boy scouts,
peaceful demonstrators.
Then carabinieri and trashers left again and
went to the convergence center in Piazza Kennedy. The carabinieri assaulted
the place, then the merry party directed to Brignole station and bumped
into the demonstration by the civil disobedience bloc, which was still
far from the Red Zone. The carabinieri charged the demonstrators. In the
meanwhile, some of those fake Black Blocsters broke into the ranks of the
white overalls and assaulted some comrades. A very big comrade from Venice-based
squat "Rivolta" was knocked down by a guy that surely was a very well trained
martial artist. After that, the carabinieri kept attacking the demo for
seven hours, while people were trying to go back to Carlini Stadium. The
last attack took place less than 600 yards from the camping. The men in
black had completely disappeared.
This has nothing to do with the praxis of the
Black Bloc. In fact many people saw these fake black blocsters coming out
of carabinieri vans, putting on the balaklava and starting to raise hell,
trashers discussing plans with marshalls, carabinieri giving crowbars to
fake black blocsters etc.
The press is reporting these stories, and the
national TV is showing shocking footage.
On June 19th, after Gothenburg, the White Overalls
of Bologna and the Wu Ming collective put into circulation a document titled
"Stop the Encirclement of the Black Bloc". Here it is:
"The Black Bloc is no bullshit. It should not be trivially associated with vandalism and irrational devastation. It is an informal network of affinity groups, mostly - but not exclusively - anarchist ones, and it extends all over North America and continental Europe. They've been active for years, elaborate strategies and tactics and are willing to transform them in relation to contexts, alliances and aims. It should be clear that so far the Black Bloc hasn't manifested itself in Italy.
As the recent history of the movement proves, the Black Bloc are not static and can adopt different tactis and seek "cross-fertilization" like they did in Quebec City during the anti-FTAA mobilisation. In those days they acted in full respect of the town and its inhabitants, and concentrated all efforts in tearing down the "Wall of Shame". They even chose to use symbols and practices devised by the white overalls (pads, shields, position holding etc.) and co-operated with other affinity groups in the street.
In Gothenburg the Black Bloc talked with the white overalls and decided to take action in a common frame including more peaceful protesters. Troubles started when the vast majority of spokespersons and coordinators were "preventively" arrested during the thursday night raid. The morning after, the cops cut in half the demo and isolated a section of it, which was labelled as "Black Bloc". These demonstrators could only defend themselves by throwing stones, and a few shop windows were broken [...] The peak of police violence was reached at an apparently peaceful moment: on friday night, when the cops surrounded a park where hundreds of youth had organized a rave party. They attacked the ravers, which tried to resist unbecomingly [well, you can't always be stylish], then the police fired. Certainly the rave was not organized by the Black Bloc.
Black Blocsters are political activists, we may disagree with their praxis and theory, but we don't deem them as brainless Pavlov dogs foaming at the sight of truncheons.
Moreover, they are more fanciful than people think: a few months ago Black Blocsters split off a demo in Buffalo, entered a destitute neighborhood and picked up garbage. When journalists asked what the fuck they were doing, they answered: "You wrote that we would trash the town, we decided to pick up the trash!".
We're witnessing a very serious attempt at criminalizing this section of the movement. We refuse to save our ass to the detriment of the Black Bloc, we regard them as a fully legitimate part of the movement and refuse any distinction between "good protesters" and "bad protesters".
White Overalls of Bologna / Wu Ming"
My opinion is not even an opinion, for it is fully supported
by testimonies and video documentation: last friday six or seven infiltrated
carabinieri channeled and directed the (just, albeit blind) anger of hundreds
of anarchist kids who should have known better. The same thing may have taken
place saturday. Reluctantly, we decided to keep people with clubs or stones
out of our demo. We certainly rejected several real provocators who called
us "cops" and probably were cops themselves. Most likely we happened to beat
up the occasional wrong guy, who knows? If that happened we're very sorry,
but we had to defend our affinity group and prevent infiltrations and aggressions.
A Black Blocster told my fellow comrade Wu Ming 5: "You like to give orders,
uh? You communist!". Well, that hurts. I can assure you that we DO NOT like
to give orders.
Instead of starting a witch hunt, we should keep in
mind that not all anarchists are black blocsters and not all black blocsters
are cops in disguise. On the other hand, it is necessary to re-think a tactic
that can be infiltrated and deviated so easily. This is up to the people who
adopt that tactic, but it also concerns those who suffer the consequences
of such permeability.
