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Possibilities for protest using "small, clued-up & largely autonomous groups"

j | 15.02.2005 15:06 | Anti-militarism | Social Struggles | London

SATURDAY 19 FEBRUARY: EXPLORING THE SAN FRANCISCO MODEL
NVDA workshop with the Seeds for Change training co-op in the run-up to George Bush's European tour. 11am – 5pm, London School of Economics, Clement House (NOT the Student Union as previously advertised), Room D202.

This event is organised by Voices UK: 0845 458 2564 or  voices@voicesuk.org. Web: www.voicesuk.org

The day the current Iraq war began, thousands of anti-war protesters poured into San Francisco using multiple, small, largely autonomous affinity groups to occupy intersections, block buildings and try to shut down the Bay Bridge. By early evening at least 1,025 people had been arrested (see  http://www.voices.netuxo.co.uk/Bush%20and%20Rice.htm) Last Summer, during the Republican National Convention in New York, nearly 1800 people were arrested, during direct action protests of considerable sophistication – three times more than during the (in)famous 1968 Democratic National Convention (see  http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=04/09/01/1424236 and  http://www.democracynow.org/static/ny_model.shtml).

On 22 Feb George Bush will fly to Brussels for NATO and EU summit talks and, according to some press reports, he will then fly to Britain to meet Tony Blair and Jacques Chirac. If you or your group are interested in exploring how peace and social justice movements can use this "San Francisco Model" - using multiple, small, clued-up & largely autonomous affinity groups, simultaneously and with no pre-arranged meeting point - here in the UK (possibly around Bush's visit or maybe at a later event), please join us on the 19th. Anti-war, climate change, anti-nuclear, Israel-Palestine & global justice activists all welcome!

j
- Homepage: http://www.voicesuk.org

Comments

Hide the following 3 comments

but

15.02.2005 20:04

why the fuck are numbers arrested a guide to the efficacy of the action? you quote those numbers like they're wonderful things...

hm


Not a long term strategy

15.02.2005 21:36

I am not against these kind of actions but you can't really expect to remain effective for a long period.
After the first round the cops would have all your voices on a digital ID plus phone numbers addresses
ect and any time there was a whiff of another action YOUR NICKED before hand.
You don't need to break the law to be treated like a criminal in this country .
There's no need to break the law to get a result the mac libel proves that , investigating corporate crime
is interesting and can be quite an amuser .. stay free

nicked


Diversity of tactics is strength

16.02.2005 10:40

I think this is definitely worth pursuing to see if this would be a useful tactic - for example look at the last two DSEi protests - one a single mass of people was easy to contain by police - the other was lots of smaller groups which proved to be more effective at disrupting the conference. (Of course both demos suffered from a lack of overall numbers, but thats another issue).

But we do need to have an intelligent debate about tactics for protest in this country with the police becoming ever more repressive. Personally i believe that a broad range of tactics is the best way to achieve a political goal. There is a dead end of just writing letters, just having big marches, just doing sabotage or just having street actions - none on their own will really achieve much and do not appeal to everyone - all these tactics (and more) should be embraced to further progressive causes.

Ideas


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