Fwd (GLW): `This is what democracy looks like'

["Alan Bradley" <alanb@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

The following article appears in the current issue of Green Left Weekly
(http://www.greenleft.org.au):

`This is what democracy looks like'
BY SEAN HEALY

MELBOURNE ? At the end, those blockading the World Economic Forum were
exhausted and euphoric, in equal measure, but with only a taste for the
magnitude of what they'd achieved. At S11, the veil which separates the
people from the sense of their own power was torn down; it may get nailed
back up again, but it won't ever be the impenetrable wall it appeared to be
before.

It wasn't easy. It was a struggle. The movement could quite easily have
failed. But it didn't ? it triumphed.

Everything was thrown at the protesters. Politicians, both Labor and
Liberal, accused them of being ?fascists? who opposed free speech. Business
analysts said they were working against the world's poor, by denying them
the bounties of free trade. Newspaper editors condemned them as a ?violent
mob?, even when their own pictures proved the opposite.

Constant attempts were made to split one section from another. <Picture:
Picture>

When words failed to stop the protesters, hundreds of riot police
baton-charged them with a viciousness with few parallels in modern
Australian history. More than 50 protesters were hospitalised.

But the protesters would not intimidated. Each time the protesters were
baton-charged, they came back, not with violence of their own but with a
new affirmation that the slogan is true: the people united will never be
defeated.

Day One

It looked like it would turn out very differently at 6.45am on Monday
morning, September 11. It was still very dark and very cold when the
torrential downpour began, soaking everyone to the bone and forcing them to
find cover anywhere they could, under banners, under the stage, under the
nearby bridge across the Yarra.

The next hour was pure chaos. Attempts by the S11 Alliance's marshals to
get the blockades organised and coordinated were being undone by the
weather, a waterlogged PA system which prevented the stage from getting up
and running until 11am, protesters' lack of familiarity with the venue and
ultraleft groups on megaphones trying to direct everyone every which way.
<Picture: Picture>

By 8am, however, the blockades were established and solid. The Green Bloc
of Friends of the Earth and other environmental groups had sealed off the
car park entrances on Whiteman Street, and S11 Alliance marshals were
getting people to link arms and settle in at more than a dozen blockade
points.

The early birds were reinforced by a constant stream of reinforcements and,
at noon, by a march of 500 high school students who'd walked out of class.

The numbers, which had swelled to 15-20,000 by lunchtime, put police on the
back foot. Stunned by the turnout, they stayed within their concrete and
wire barricades, with worried looks on their faces.

The only major police operations on the first day were a brief push through
a blockade of hundreds on Clarendon Street, from which they were soon
forced to withdraw, and a mission to rescue WA Premier Richard Court, who
had driven his car straight into a blockade line on Clarendon Street and
was stuck inside for an hour.

By midday, Community Radio 3CR was able to report that no member of staff
had been able to get into the complex since 7.45am and that at least a
third of WEF delegates had also been prevented from entering. Victorian
Liberal leader Denis Napthine admitted to delegates that the ?protesters
have unfortunately won the first round?.

The atmosphere for the rest of the day was determined and militant, but it
also hummed with enthusiasm. The blockade lines became a ?festival of the
oppressed?, with speeches and songs, drummers and dancing, rap artists,
impromptu raves, giant puppets, people decked out as the ?World Economic
Fairies? or as ?Clowns Against Capitalism?.

At the end of the day, S11 Alliance spokespeople were able to claim
victory.

?These people have made history here today?, said one spokesperson, Jorge
Jorquera. ?They've cut through the tissue of lies that this protest was
going to become a riot. They've been totally committed to non-violent
blockading but also just as committed to doing it properly, in an organised
and effective fashion. They've been diverse and united and strong.?

?As for the World Economic Forum?, he added, ?well, its credibility has
been shot to pieces by today's massive mobilisation. Now, it has no
credibility; the people have spoken.?

Day Two

Victorian Trades Hall Council secretary Leigh Hubbard revealed at a media
conference on September 14 that, during the evening of September 11, WEF
conference organisers threatened to ?pack up and go home? if police could
not get more delegates in the next day.

Humiliated by the protesters, bolstered by orders from Labor Premier Steve
Bracks and incited by media hysteria about protester ?violence? which never
occurred, hundreds of riot police attacked the blockade lines the following
morning, in an attempt to regain the initiative.

With batons drawn, police set upon a seated blockade line on Queensbridge
and Power streets, trampling, beating and kicking them before police on
horses were unleashed on the crowd. The blockade lines were cleared,
allowing delegates' buses into the complex. Twelve protesters were
hospitalised.

Police kept the initiative for only a few hours before protesters wrested
it back. Weeks of tortuous negotiations between the S11 Alliance and Trades
Hall had led to a final agreement that, while Trades Hall would not back
the blockade itself, the mass union rally for labour rights, scheduled for
Tuesday, would at least march to the blockade site at Crown Towers.

Up to 20,000 unionists filled the city streets with sound, colour and
people, chanting ?Stop global sweatshops? and ?The workers united will
never be defeated?, before filling not only Queensbridge Road but also most
of the nearby bridge across the Yarra River.

Hubbard held to the position that the Labour Council would support only the
protests and not the blockade. But many more militant unionists ignored
Trades Hall's injunction, and several thousand marched around the casino
before joining the blockaders at different entrances. Many were members of
the Australian Manufacturing Workers Union, whose militant Victorian
leaders had backed the blockade all along.

The most brutal incident of police violence occurred that night, when
delegates' buses sought to leave. Five hundred riot police set upon a
blockade line of 200, viciously clubbing not only protesters but even
establishment journalists. This time, 30 protesters were hospitalised and
treated for head and neck injuries.

This is the incident which will most come back to haunt police. A
spokesperson for the legal observers' team at the protests, Damien Lawson,
said police created a ?potentially lethal situation?, while prominent
lawyers and civil libertarians have not only called for a full ombudsman's
inquiry but are also planning civil action.

Day Three

The third day of blockading followed a similar pattern. Hundreds of riot
police attacked an understaffed blockade line in the early morning to get
delegates' buses in, hospitalising at least one demonstrator, then were
forced to retreat back inside their barricades by the force of protesters'
numbers.

The blockaders' piece de resistance came at noon: a joyful ?victory march?
through the city streets. An estimated 10,000 marchers made their way
through the city, stopping at Nike's superstore and then at the Australian
Stock Exchange before looping back to the blockade site.

The streets rang with cries of ?Whose streets? Our streets!? and ?This is
what democracy looks like?. The air was full of red and black flags and
thousands of mainly hand-drawn placards.

On returning to Crown Towers, protesters linked hands in a spectacular
human chain which reached all the way around the casino.

The three-day blockade then finished as it began: with people standing
together against police violence. At 5.45pm, as people were dispersing to
post-blockade celebrations, an unmarked police car drove straight through a
blockade line, running over one woman, before speeding off.

New movement

In the words of S11 Alliance spokesperson Anne O'Casey, at the alliance's
final media conference on September 13, ?We can say, without any doubts,
that this action, these three days of protest, have been an unqualified
success?.

The success belongs first and foremost to the estimated 50,000 people who
took part in the three wild, joyous and chaotic days of protest. Under
extreme provocation from police, they maintained their commitment to a
mass, non-violent blockade, they kept their unity and never backed off.

But S11 also took months of organising and conferencing, of honing the
message and getting it out, of painstaking alliance-building and sometimes
sharp argument.

Its success belongs most of all to the alliance of forces which kept S11
together ? environmentalists like those in Friends of the Earth, socialists
like those in the Democratic Socialist Party, militant unionists like those
in the AMWU and many other committed activists of different political
complexions, whether anarchist or feminist or independent. Without them, it
would have failed.

The S11 Alliance was not able to achieve its stated goal: to shut down the
Asia-Pacific Economic Summit of the World Economic Forum.

The alliance did, however, deliver on its promise: that the blockade of the
Crown Towers conference site would be massive, peaceful, disciplined,
militant and joyful.

More importantly, the protesters won the political battle, for legitimacy.

The World Economic Forum, aided by a compliant and servile mainstream
media, had pumped out the message that its mission was to improve the state
of the world, by ?bringing the fruits of globalisation to the people?.

By the end of the three days, such claims looked like exactly what they
were: the pathetic PR attempts of a tiny, well-fed corporate elite, who
needed the full brute force of the Victoria Police just so it could meet.

Holed up inside the casino complex or stuck in buses for hours trying to
get in, not able to get out except by boat, helicopter or baton charge, the
assembled CEOs seemed glum, confused and somewhat fearful whenever caught
on camera. Accustomed to toadies who wait on every word, they didn't
appreciate a confrontation with people who just didn't believe them.

The corporate executives had been dragged out into the sunlight and didn't
like it. The new movement, however, revelled in it.

Melbourne has now added its name to the growing list of insurgent cities:
Seattle, Washington, Quito, Jakarta. Another city, Prague, will join within
weeks, when it rises up against the International Monetary Fund and World
Bank.

This rising global movement has blown its trumpets once again. It has
declared war not on a particular injustice, but on a world of them. It has
named its enemy: capitalism. And out of its first major battle in this
country, it has emerged victorious.