R: AUT: The Body As a Weapon for Civil Disobedience

["Laura Fiocco" <fiocco@xxxxxxxxx>]

Why 'tute bianche' has been translated into 'white monkeys'?
(I do not like monkeys)

'Tute' means (and refers to) the dress of workers, which was blu (blu
collars).

ciao laura


----------
>Da: "Harry M. Cleaver" <hmcleave@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
>A: aut-op-sy@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
>Oggetto: AUT: The Body As a Weapon for Civil Disobedience
>Data: Sab, 4 nov 2000 14:53
>

> Or, the Consequences of Foucault
>>From Chiapas to Prague, not just in fact, but clearly in some people's
> understanding!
> Harry
> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
> Date: Fri, 3 Nov 2000 16:30:56 -0800 (PST)
> From: the slave <keith_v@xxxxxxxxx>
> To: Accion-Zapatista List <accion-zapatista@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> Subject: The Body As a Weapon for Civil Disobedience
>
> Originally published in Spanish by La Jornada
> _______________________
> Translated by irlandesa
>
>
> Masiosare
> La Jornada
> Sunday, October 15, 2000.
>
>
> The Body As a Weapon for Civil Disobedience
>
>
> *Jess Ramrez Cuevas*
>
> ...The Tutte Bianche (white monkeys) went to Prague in order to
> participate in the protests against the International Monetary Fund (IMF)
> and the World Bank.  Hundreds of young Italian activists from the Social
> Centers and from the Ya Basta Association, parliamentarians and even
> religious persons, carried out ingenious civil disobedience tactics in the
> face of the Czech police, who threw gas at them and beat them with their
> billy clubs.
>
> The political imagination and clothing - or lack thereof - of these
> globalphobes caught the attention of journalists and surprised demonstrators
> from other countries who were accompanying them...
>
> Two forces found themselves body to body on the Nusle bridge in Prague,
> each of them defending an idea of a different world.  On one side, a
> contingent of men and women dressed in white suits, protected with foam
> rubber, helmets, gas masks, shields made from garbage cans and an entire
> repertoire of the most incredible instruments, from nets of colored
> balloons to barriers of tires.  On the other side, a fence of police in
> Robocop uniforms, protected by tanks, tear gas launchers, shields and
> truncheons.  An impassable wall blocking their way.
>
> The police were there in order to protect representatives of the
> planet's financial and economic powers.  The demonstrators were questioning
> globalization in the name of millions of persons who are suffering its
> consequences:  hunger, poverty and death.  In the middle of the two forces,
> a nude young men passed by, his body tattooed with denuncias against savage
> capitalism, in between each confrontation.
>
> In the midst of the battle, Don Vitaliano, a parish priest from
> Avellino, was helping the demonstrators in their attempts to break the
> circle which was protecting the thousands of IMF and World Bank delegates.
> "With our bodies, with what we are, we came to defend the rights of
> millions, dignity and justice.  Even with our lives.  In the face of the
> total control of the world which the owners of money are exercising, we have
> only our bodies for protesting and rebelling against injustice," he said.
>
> Luca, spokesperson for the Tutte Bianche, said to the journalists who
> had come to Prague:  "We are not armed, we are acting as citizens, putting
> our persons at risk, in order to demonstrate that the democracy of the IMF
> and the World Bank is tanks and armed police.  We are not criminals, they
> are suppressing citizens exercising their rights.  We want to show that it
> is possible to rebel against the order using our bodies as weapons."
>
> If, as Foucault wrote, the body is the object of the power's micro- physics,
> if all social and political control exercises its mastery of the body, if
> the market economy has converted the body into merchandise, the 'white
> monkeys' have called for a "rebellion of bodies" against world power,
> reflects Sergio Zulin, one of the organizers.
>
> In the midst of the transformations produced by globalization and
> technological changes, in the face of the crisis of alternatives to the
> reigning model, in response to the weakening of the State, traditional
> parties and the ways of doing classic politicsthe 'white monkeys' have
> appeared, who call themselves Italian zapatistas.  This movement is made
> up of old autonomous activists (tied to Toni Negri), members of the Ya
> Basta Association, young persons from the Social Centers of the main cities
> in Italy, ecology groups, campesinos and civil associations.  They are all
> promoting a creative form of protest, active civil disobedience.
>
> But where did these activists come from, with their ideas which shatter
> traditional political schemes and who show up dressed as if for a
> carnival?
>
>
> The Search For a New Language
>
> "Since Chiapas and Seattle, civil disobedience has become an
> international referent, a way of telling millions of people that we want to
> live within the new conditions of society, but fighting," said Frederico
> Mariani, president of the Ya Basta Association, one of the principal
> organizers of the action in Prague.
>
> Although civil disobedience has its history with Gandhi, the civil
> rights struggle in the United States in the sixties and in peaceful
> statements of protests throughout the world, Frederico Mariani explains
> that "after 1994 there was a change.  The zapatistas made a great
> contribution with their proposals for building a new politics, without
> fighting for power.  We are trying to translate the message and the forms
> they are proposing."
>
> "For us," said Mariani - who was one of the 140 Italian observers
> expelled from Chiapas in 1998 - "it was a very strong symbol to see an army
> of indigenous with empty rifles.  To know an army that was waiting for the
> moment it could stop being an army.  People who are fighting for the rights
> of their people.  Zapatista women protesting who, under different
> conditions, could be compared with the white suits, helmets and shields in
> order to protect themselves from police blows and gas.  That is our
> referent."
>
> "At the beginning, we discussed previous experiences of direct action,
> of sabotage, of revolutionary violence.  We concluded that under the new
> conditions of civil disobedience, using our bodies as weapons, we could
> unleash the force of those citizens who had not responded to the old
> schemes," he emphasized.
>
> "It's an imaginative way," Mariani said, "of involving the other in a
> problem.  With peaceful methods of direct action, the language of
> violence stays on the side of the police, of governments.  Classic
> demonstrations no longer bother them.  On the other hand, now we are
> disobeying as citizens, and they suppress, but we are defending ourselves.
> That attracts society's attention, which echoes our protest."
>
> Frederico Mariani relates how they began practicing civil disobedience
> actions more than a year ago.  "We trained ourselves to resist the
> police.  We built shields, we collected old masks, tires to use as barriers,
> and we designed protection for the body.  We use the body as a weapon of
> political struggle."
>
> "Seattle came, and with it the confirmation of a new movement which had
> regained civil society's participation, even though it didn't have a
> program yet.  In Italy, until a few years ago, the street fight was a
> monopoly of a few ultras who practiced exclusionary methods, groups who
> burned cars and broke shop windows.  The majority of the people were
> scared to reach that level," he added.
>
> "We added a new factor, a form of radical confrontation which went
> beyond classic demonstrations, and which presents us with the possibility of
> mass participation with secure methods," summarized Frederico Mariani.
>
> Another of the great successes, Mariani concluded, "is the participation
> of young people, who are aware that their intervention with their own
> bodies, protected from violence by the police, has clear effects.  The
> movement is growing.  This is a great achievement, which the entire world
> recognizes, to the point that we were able to take a train to Prague.  Great
> spaces are opening up to us.  It's not a political group, it's a horizontal
> movement where each person contributes to the debate and to the organization
> in a particular way.  Everything is interwoven, there are people of all
> ages, everyone is able to share equally.  Old schemes of vanguards and
> leaders have fallen."
>
>
> "When the World is For Sale, Rebelling is Natural"
>
> The 'Prague Spring' of the 'white monkeys' of Rome, Naples, Bologna,
> Padua, Milan and other cities, put thousands of bodies and minds in the path
> of the illegitimate and unacceptable structures of international powers.  No
> one controls them, they answer to no one.  "We made Prague the capital of
> alternatives to the prevailing model, of the demands for a different future,
> for a new world," wrote the young pierced ones, greudos and punks of the
> Social Centers of Milan in a manifesto distributed in Prague.
>
> "The 'white monkeys,' inspired by the uprising of the indigenous of
> Chiapas, have set themselves a new challenge in order to emerge from the
> subsoil, and in that way to become involved in society, in order to
> promote the self-management and self-organization which has been being built
> over these last few years.  In order to move from resistance to a new
> offensive in the arena of dreams, of rights, of liberty, for the conquest of
> the future, which is being denied to new generations today," they state.
>
> Max, a youth from the Social Center of Padua, reports on the actions
> against MacDonald's in Venice, Padua, Rome and Milan, which they took in
> order to be in solidarity with Jos Bov, leader of French campesinos
> opposed to globalization.
>
> Massimo, a singer for the rock group 99 Posse, which emerged from the
> Social Center of Naples, was in Prague with the Tutte Bianche in order
> to bring "our music and our presence to their music."  99 Posse has
> participated in many actions in support of Chiapas, for the legalization
> of drugs, against fascism and against the repression of immigrants.
>
> Orlando, from the group Milk Warriors, a group of ecologists from Milan,
> recounted how they put on a peaceful performance in Prague in front of
> the MacDonald's, with corncobs and a flag with the emblem of a cow, in order
> to protest against the transgenetic foods being sold by that transnational
> company.
>
> "We want to build a humanity in which we are all included, where no one
> dies from hunger, where no one suffers injustices," commented Don
> Vitaliano, who participates himself in active disobedience, organizing
> rock concerts and meetings in the San Miguel convent in Avellino, in support
> of immigrant rights, for decriminalization of drugs and against war and
> repression.
>
> Vilma Mazza, of Radio Sherwood - an independent radio station
> headquartered in Padua which broadcasts in northern Italy - said that the
> radio broadcast live from Prague during the days of the protests.  "It's our
> way of reporting what was happening to all those who were not able to come,
> but who were supporting us."
>
> Vilma, a veteran activist of social struggles in Italy over the last few
> decades, explains that the 'white monkeys' movement takes in many
> sectors who share these issues of globalization and its effects in Italy.
>
> After more than 20 years of organizing traditional demonstrations,
> including some very large ones, she pointed out that these actions had
> become stale.  "That's why we went out with the white monkeys, first in
> a march for immigrant rights in 1999.  We all confronted the police.  More
> than 10,000 demonstrators stayed back, supporting without moving.
> Everyone participated from their position.  We confronted in defensive ways,
> not offensive ones.  That civil disobedience opened the space for people to
> participate who didn't want to confront the police, but everyone defied the
> police from their position," Vilma said.
>
> "From that point on," she explained, "we have been carrying out actions
> to fight the effects of neoliberalism in our country, from closing the
> camps for undocumented migrants in Trieste, Milan and Bologna (to the shout
> of 'we are all illegal immigrants'), to protests against transgenetic crops
> in Genoa and Venice, opposing the destruction of the environment and the
> exploitation of women and men with work flexibility and unstable jobs."
>
> "We have also opened social centers as solidarity spaces for young
> people.  We have occupied factories and old buildings in order to provide
> shelter there for migrant workers who have no housing.  We have also
> supported Albanian war refugees, and we took a boat to the Albanian coast in
> order to demand an end to borders and respect for the rights of everyone."
>
> Another struggle which has been being fought of late is against
> privatization of public transportation and for its being a free service
> for students, the unemployed and pensioners.  And a card for young persons
> under the age of 30 which guarantees access to specified services, to
> culture and to entertainment.
>
> "In the same way that unemployed French persons assaulted the Paris
> Stock Exchange, we have been able to consolidate a new method of the more
> traditional political-social struggle, speaking to all of society,
> widening the conflict, invading communication channels, restoring a
> guarantee to all the excluded of all colors who are today sensing the
> fragility of their own future," wrote the 'white monkeys' in their opening
> manifesto last year.
>
> The Radio Sherwood presenter explained that thousands of persons in
> Europe live excluded, without rights or a dignified life.  That is why they
> are now promoting "the right to a universal citizens' salary."  This is
> described in a document as "the weapon with which to attack the new
> millennium, the ideal demand to move into the battle for the reduction of
> work hours, for the right to services and quality of life, for the
> redistribution of wealth, in order to give birth to a great liberation
> movement of our being.  We are talking about a salary and about free access
> to basic services and to culture, for everyone."
>
> "We are next to those who are continuing the struggle begun in San
> Cristbal de Las Casas and Seattle, and which has now reached Prague.
> We are talking about the rights of the people as being above the laws of
> the market, of the rejection of the myths of public security, and we are
> talking about a real society, about horizontal participation, in order
> to decide our destiny," was one of the messages they left at the IMF
> meeting.
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