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Video: ESF storming of the palace and demo

qwertz | 23.11.2004 14:59 | European Social Forum

Here's a link to a 7 minute video clip of the London ESF, the storming of the palace and the demo after, which I found on indymedia Germany. I do NOT post this here to spark off the polemic debate whether the grassroots at the ESF were racists (please don't start again). It's just that I thought the video was quite inspirational...

 http://germany.indymedia.org/2004/11/99797.shtml

Above is the link. If the video does not play, save it on your desktop, change suffix from .ra to .rm and open in real player.

qwertz

Comments

Hide the following 13 comments

Corporate Watch article - another link

23.11.2004 20:14

An interesting article on the Corporate Watch site.

 http://www.corporatewatch.org.uk/news/esf.htm

ditto


What's inspirational about breaking up an anti-fascist meeting?

23.11.2004 21:39

I don't see what is inspirational about breaking up this meeting. I think what the WOMBLES did shows that they have lost their way.

True, back in early 2000, when the WOMBLES first broke into the wider public consciousness, the group WAS inspirational: young, full of energy and humour. They were portrayed as samurai-sword wielding terrorists by papers like the Daily Mail, yet it was clear even from the Daily Mail's coverage that this was untrue. Like Italian activists Tute Bianca, the WOMBLES wore white overalls and padded up to protect other demonstrators from police violence. Their courage was respected even by activists who didn’t agree totally with their approach or politics.

But how things have changed over four years. Rather than work with other activists, the WOMBLES have purposely cut themselves off from the mass of the anti-war and anti-capitalist movement. They’ve shed their overalls and padding and their sense of humour has gone too. And instead of protecting them from police violence, the WOMBLES have started attacking other activists themselves.

The recent events at the ESF were a graphic demonstration on an international stage of how much things have changed. A masked group stormed into a meeting and broke it up. This was an incredibly naïve move politically. To have a gang in hoods break up an anti-fascist meeting and assault black and Jewish people was a gift for people like Lee Jasper. He used his national profile to paint the WOMBLES as a bunch of racists.

The reasons for storming the meeting were confused. A stated aim was to prevent Ken Livingstone from speaking - but he wasn't even at the meeting! And to try and portray Livingstone as pro-war was ridiculous. He has condemned the Iraq war, he refused to meet George Bush when he visited the UK and organised another event for anti-war activists instead.

The WOMBLES also claimed that they broke up the meeting to protest at being excluded from the London ESF. However, they had announced months before that they were boycotting the event, and in fact set up their own event to run in competition. The ESF didn't exclude the WOMBLES - they excluded themselves.

The WOMBLES even claimed to be upholding the principles of the WSF even though on their website they reject the WSF as reformist and capitalist.

They invaded the meeting like it was the annual conference of BP or Shell, and treated other activists with contempt – as if we were all fat cat shareholders, enemies. Even the Babels group distanced themselves from the invasion, and write on Indymedia that the reading of the Babels statement and the storming of the meeting was 'a coincidence.'

The WOMBLES accuse others of being authoritarian and hierarchical, yet they acted in the most authoritarian way in breaking up the meeting and imposed their views in a hierarchical way on other activists in the room. They claim that others hijacked the ESF, when in fact it was they who did the hijacking.

The WOMBLES seem to be incapable of working with anyone who doesn't wholeheartedly share their views. They claim to agree things by consensus, yet this only seems to be if you agree with them in the first place.

I expect I will be denounced as ‘SWP’ or a ‘trot’ simply for stating my view. However, the people who make up the anti-war and anti-capitalist movement hold all sorts of views. The way to change views held by fellow activists is by reasoned argument, not by violence.

No violence against fellow activists


Assault accusation

23.11.2004 22:59

The accusation that black and jewish delegates (or in fact anyone) were assaulted is ridiculous. I'm not sure how this has become accepted as some kind of fact, but its entirely false. I was there - no one was assaulted in any way. Regardless of what you may think about the basis for the Wombles action, using blatant lies to attack them (especially suggesting some kind of racial motive) is completely unwarranted.

Boo Boo


Groundhog Fucking Day, again!

24.11.2004 00:53

The above posts must have been made by the same person. They have been trying to perfect the argument against the "Stormin" for over a month, and above is the latest iteration for which they have supplied the feed article. Why the fact-fucking-itiosness would someone still want to go on about this blob, again, and again, ...?

The only new material is: "Even the Babels group distanced themselves from the invasion, and write on Indy Media that the reading of the Babels statement and the storming of the meeting was 'a coincidence' .

It wasn't the Babels group who distanced themselves from the invasion, but a dribbley liberal called Stuart Hodgkinson, erstwhile contributor to Red Peppar, now signing himself off on this site as, I am sure quite legitimately, a member of Babels.

H


Excellent

24.11.2004 09:41

To the 'non-violence against activists' poster - Excellent post. I agree 100%. It was my first ESF, and I enjoyed mixing with a wide range of people from all political backgrounds. However, instead of winning people over to their side, the people involved in this, and the alternative spaces, were simply a laughing stock. I couldn't believe they keep calling it 'their movement', yet they are such a tiny minority who refuse to participate! They hinder the anti-capitalist movement, not help it!

LDT


bigger picture?

24.11.2004 11:14

I can't believe you're still banging on about this. A couple of hundred anarchists shouting at a couple of thousand students and trade unionists at a relatively obscure conference still occupies your attention more than the flattening of a major city in Iraq. If you really want to fight power mightn't you need some sense of scale?

aghast


The decaying Wombels

24.11.2004 12:28

The Wombels have become a disgrace!
Wombels got funding from far-right groups in Italy and Spain prio-ESF.

Tim


Tim: I Pissed my trousers at your bunch of wankers.

24.11.2004 12:58

Tim: you may be right sometime soon - chance being what it is, your time is coming. But in these pages we talk about a group called the WOMBLES. Your "Wombels" are a society of "Real Men" in the Italian Carabinieri who legend has it, masturbate on their boots to make them soft and shiney.


Mit


more questions than answers: a critique of critiques of the ESF

24.11.2004 14:51

[hi folks! cameo comment written with reference in particular to the widely-posted Paul Kingsnorth article, but hopefully with wider relevance]

There's been a flurry of articles and postings on various websites critiquing the 2004 European Social Forum in London, in particular the role of the 'verticals' ie. the Greater London Authority, the Socialist Workers Party, and the Trade Unions. In essence this incongruous triumverate* are accused of acting together to take over the ESF and dictate the wrong agenda.

My first thought is that there are more important thing to focus on, like, y'know, the war in Iraq or the growing attack on civil liberties.
[Stop the War:  http://www.stopwar.org.uk]

But since the ESF critiques insist on the importance of a debate, here's my bit. The more of these critiques I read the more it strikes me that they too are underpinned with unacknowledged and unchallenged assumptions, and it's valid to ask some serious questions about those. I'm going to set out a few briefly here:

1. Anti-war / anti-imperialism was pushed to the top of the agenda across the ESF. Clearly this is true. But hang on, why was this wrong? Can anyone actually argue that with Iraq on fire, Fallujah about to be besieged and Bush running for re-election on the War On Terror ticket, the ESF should have prioritised (say) trade justice or global warming above the war?

2. Trade Union involvement, good or bad? 'Anti-authoritarians' have contradictory attitudes to the unions, they enthuse about the need to broaden the movement and involve the millions of workers organised in unions, but too often when trade unionists turn up they denounce them for funding Labour and being hierarchical, sometimes even for being tools of the state! Union involvement in the ESF offers the prospect of involving way more people, and even some of us already involved are members of unions, y'know.

3. Opposing anti-Muslim racism. Some critiques have suggested it was a weakness of the ESF that all agreed that the headscarf ban in France and other manifestations of anti-Muslim racism are wrong, that there was no 'opposing view' put. Are we really saying we want to provide a platform for anti-Muslim arguments, like there aren't already enough in the mainstream media? This sounds too much like the sort of confused notion of 'balance' and 'inclusion' which has paralysed elements of the French left and paradoxically cut them off from most Muslims there.

4. Speeches that set out the case against war and capitalism: should we have moved on? Paul Kingsnorth says "five years ago this was useful, now it's unecessary". Well, maybe for you Paul. But the whole movement are not at the same stage. There are new people joining in all the time, and even us who've been around for years need firing up sometimes. There's always value in speaking truth about the world.

5. Diversity only if we say so. Paul Kingsnorth, again, insists on the need for a variety of speakers, but then goes on to suggest George Galloway should've been given a miss.. apparently because he was too loud, old-fashioned, made demands Kingsnorth finds unrealistic, and said nice things about Cuba! We really have to get a grip, if we claim to be for diversity and debate but exclude groups and people that annoy us, we'll be rightly accused of hypocrisy.

6. Old is bad, new/young is good and must be right. This one really irritates me. Why is an idea wrong just because it's old? Gravity, evolution, the wheel? Equally silly and perhaps even more dangerous to assume all new ideas are good, or even truly new. All principles and tactics need testing against reality, we can't just assume.

Hey ho, there ya go. Hope I haven't caused offence, not my intent. But I think we do too often challenge the ideology and assumptions of others while insisting we ourselves have no fixed ideas to challenge. Let's be honest, we do, and they are worthy of debate.


(*I can only imagine the reaction of Labour-loyal union leaders like Dave Prentis to the
suggestion that they're conspiring with the SWP!)


kurious oranj


A critique of "a critique of critiques of the ESF"

24.11.2004 15:54

1) was balls
2) - 6) were brilliant, maybe, although I didn't have a stable enough bum to read them.


I conclude that this site should ban any more articles/comment on ESF 2004, and the SWP's - the Trot Sect who claim 10,0000 members but actually only have 600 - part in it's downfall.


Hatty Herumbumley


What alternative?

24.11.2004 17:13

Oh, dear..dear!
I visited one of the so called autonomous spaces...what was that? The space was full of skunk dealers, stolen households, dirt, losers and day-dreamers,repackaged coffee in zapatista packs, sick dogs, and ofcourse more Solidarity....Solidarity chanting! I wouldn't wish to smoke what they smoke or inject!

Sandra


Baffled

24.11.2004 18:33



Sandra:

I am intrigued at the "stolen households". Do you mean whole families and their servants were taken hostage and kept in the autonomous spaces for the duration. I just cant get my head around it at all, or were you on those strong Moroccan Marlborough’s.

I saw green jelloid monsters when I once ate two sherbet fountains as a kid - I must have accidentally inhaled some sherbet through the edible liquorice straw, and went dizzy with it.

Sherbet Fountain


It all goes to show

25.11.2004 11:54

IT all goes to show how pissed off the verticals who fucked up the ESF are!

The fact that their mates in Europe won't touch them with a bargepole, and there are articles left, right and centre criticising their confuct all over the internet. They're acting like the school bullies who got rumbled...they're still jealous that the autonomous spaces managed to keep on track, further debate and strengthen links despite the best efforts of the SWP and their friends in the town hall and police force.

Athens will be the sign of this. The marginalised old-left of Britain and stengthened autonomous networks. The irony of it.

Comedian


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