The Magical Mystery Tour of the Black Bloc

[Guest guest]

taken from http://www.indymedia.org

" The Magical Mystery Tour of the Black Bloc "

Von: Wu Ming 1 -- 23.07.2001 05:00

After Genoa we should not criminalize the Black Bloc

or accuse anarchists, for what happened in Genoa has

very little to do with their tactics, and there is

ever more evidence that the top trashers were cops in

disguise.

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

regarde 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.

eMail: roberto.bui@...

Homepage: http://www.wumingfoundation.com

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