the [true] path: liberate yourself [genoa memories]
A strange sensation washes over your body when you realise you are about to be baton charged by a phalanx of padded riot cops, charged with testosterone and adrenaline. Time starts to slow down, quite perceptibly... You run around trying to warn others, themselves in a haze of their own, oblivious to their surroundings, only intent on shouting and charging their own way... You turn around and suddenly the police aren't where they were a second ago, they're much closer. Things start happening with a stickiness, like a lucid dream where you can't lift your legs. Perhaps there's an inverse relationship between the perception of the passing of time and your heartbeat; as your pulse quickens, your surroundings become lethargic. Its hard to describe but before I could think of any more metaphors, the five helmets in front had broken from the glue and were upon the crowd, putting the boot in, and as I fell on the ground at the edge of the crowd, time seemed to grind to a halt.
But of course I'm jumping too far ahead into the future here. Its always easy to jump into the fray of the action without building up the background information. So lets drop back in time about a week or so. Myself, Wilma and The Boss had left for Stanstead on a Ryanair cheapo deal on the Thursday night, and crashed down into Soho to meet up with our piercer mate, her body fresh and scabby with newly formed tattoos, including, bizarrely enough, the exact same one as mine, just slightly higher on her arm. We stayed in Wandsworth for four nights on floors, sofas and stolen beds, for which we were very grateful. During our time there we attended the two day Essential Festival in Hackney Marshes. The first day was mostly slanted towards the dance end of the spectrum, while the second was mostly dub and reggae. Don't particularly remember all of the lineup now off the top of my head, but including in amongst the drunken haze were Jurassic 5, Ice T (still a fucking knacker), Red Snapper, Silicone Soul, Gil Scott Heron, St Germain, among others. Stuck the head into the two-step tent a couple of times on the Saturday, loads of white girls in hotpants and black yardies selling dodgy pills, sound. One regret was arriving late on the Saturday due to a combination of queues, tube and lethargy. This meant missing Alpha, Luke Vibert and Richie Hawtin, which I was kicking myself for, but I think at this stage I've seen the Dex Efx 909 thing about ten times and each time its gotten dog rougher so maybe it was best avoided. Still living in the hope of hearing some Maurizio-style minimalism in a club/festival environment, dream on.
Anyway the point of all this meandering is that after our Lahndan excursion, we were heading to Genoa for the counter G8 protests. Our flight was leaving at 7am, which meant we had to be there at 6am, which meant we had to be on the Stanstead Express at 5am. So we stayed up all night on Sunday after the Festival which was quite a feat with no yokes run-off buzzing around my skull. By the time we got on the plane I was wrecked, and I don't think I even saw the plane take off. So the next thing we're confronted with is the plane descending onto the Genoa tarmac. As I wiped the sleep from my eyes and blew my ears out, I saw the sides of the runway lined with surface to air missiles.
We disembarked at Brignole Railway Station with some vague directions of how to reach the Convergence Centre. The Centre was erected by the GSF (Genoa Social Forum), an umbrella group representing all the different organisations who were attending the protests. I wont go into this because I presume at this stage you've read about it in the mainstream (spit) media. We were allocated a spot in a camping site in Albaro, approximately 15 or 20 minutes walk from the Centre. At the same time two heads from Globalise Resistance, a group from Ireland, walked in front of us so I grabbed them and they informed us that their bus had been allocated the same spot as us. They took their bus up there while we walked in the heat.
More than an hour and a half later, physically and mentally fucked from lack of sleep, we crawled back into the Convergence Centre. We had walked around the Albaro in vain with our backpacks biting into our shoulders. The directions we had been given were, plain and simple, shite. Coincidentally, the GR bus with all the Irish heads pulled in at the same time as us again, in the exact same situation. Their bus drivers got them to empty all their stuff out of the bus and they sat around in a circle for a meeting. Several heads we knew informed us of the bus breakdown on the way over, and how although the journey had been reasonably OK, people were now tired and narky. Their meeting was a taster of what was to come over the next few days. Meetings in theory are a good idea, because they give people a chance to say what they have to say. The problem is, with a crowd of politically charged heads, every single person feels what they have to say is important (and I am no more or less guilty than anyone for this), so deciding on what to do becomes a minefield, a linguistic and semantic nightmare, a drawn out process as painful as removing teeth.
A scout was sent off with Italians in a car, back in the direction of the Albaro to see if the campsite actually existed or was a figment of the GSF's imagination. They returned with good news; that yes there was a site, there was loads of space, and it was open for protesters to camp in. So after some feeding, and building up the courage to go back the exact same way we went, we joined the GR heads and found the site. It had literally been in front of our eyes yet we never saw it; imagine walking around the square of Stephens Green and not being able to see the park. It wasn't that bad, but you're getting the idea of how stupid we felt when we saw the place. The group split in factions (green, red, black) and camped in slightly different parts of the site but all close to each other. Not knowing what way to swing having only just joined the posse (and also the three of us being of differing political persuasion [yet all fiercely independent and non-aligned to any group or party]) we jumped in with the greens, mostly from a group called Gluaiseacht, which as far as I know is a college-based environmentalist group. We pitched our tent in the shade and passed out.
Tuesday was met with a sore back from sleeping on hard ground, oh for the comforts of the Blanch bed... we rose with the sun splitting the rocks around us and the sweat was already pouring off my face and out of any conceivable crevasse. Some informed punters were wandering around with wet hair and towels. Miracle of miracles, there were showers at the top end of the park under a tennis court. The only way to start the day really. Later on we sauntered down to the convergence centre, and then up to the public Forum which was only a short walk away. The purpose of this forum was to act as a counter platform to the G8; different groups from all over the world came to give speeches about the harmful effects of capitalism and neoliberal policies in their area.
In theory this was a very good idea. Before heading over to Genoa I had printed off the full lineup of the talks and was very excited by the concept. A decent panel of speakers intelligently debating issues that were felt by everyone, and the panel were usually a good mix of opinions, so this meant the flow wouldn't be dominated by all socialists or commies or whatever. What a shame then that the meetings were as boring as hell, thanks to their structure. A person would speak a couple of sentences in English, and then a translator would put them into Italian. Or vice versa. And then the speaker would talk again briefly, and then break for the translator. So basically only half of what was going on was of interest. Or if you were bilingual, then you got to hear everything twice. The fact that there were usually about six speakers meant that it seemed to take forever to get through the speeches. I don't think we made it through more than three speakers in a row at any one meeting. Of course I would like to hear from people from other parts of the world but the language barrier here is a huge one, and I think in future if there are forums like this at counter-summits, then they should be split into one language only, to encourage dialogue between the speakers themselves and with the crowd.
Wednesday. We got up early and went up to the Independent Media Centre on the hill. There was a direct action workshop being put on by two American women of polar opposite body sizes. This was easily the most constructive and informative meeting that we attended during our time there. They started off with a bit of role playing, which initially seemed a bit ridiculous, more in the way of a group therapy session than training for an urban riot. We played out a couple of different situations that weren't related to what we were expecting, but they taught us a bit about diffusing a tense situation. They also taught us about body language and the use of volume in your voice. We then moved on to more relevant situations, where myself and several others volunteered to be police officers (complete with rolled up newspapers as batons) and the two women instructed the crowd in different techniques of passive resistance.
I learned quite a lot from these situations, mainly how cops would react in tense moments. Any time any person made a noise or started shouting to others, I would instantly find myself getting ready to smack them with the newspaper. It was also made clear that its very easy to sway a group opinion, simply by shouting at them loudly or directing them in a certain way. When we (the cops) blocked the crowds route, they all sat down and linked arms. A protest veteran from Bristol started shouting "Come on, there's only six of them!! We can take them! Just get up and run around them!!" And everyone did. And all hell broke loose, we started hitting them with the paper as they ran around us. After the protests themselves it was obvious that the crowd would never get up like that from a sit down protest if they were faced with real cops, because you're obviously going to be much more afraid of a guy with a gun, a steel baton and riot gear, rather than six lads in runners and t-shirts with rolled up copies of La Stampa.
During this workshop, a small camera crew of three were buzzing around the whole time like an irksome fly in the tent, sticking their fucking boom mike into the crowd for maximum interference. I usually hate being filmed but this occasion I was more riled than ever as a) they didn't ask first this time, and b) they looked like a serious news crew, and nobody in my authoritarian circles (i.e. work) knew that I was over there. The last thing I wanted was for a manager to be tucking into their chardonnay during the 9pm news and see my head preparing for combat. During my brief but illustrious period as a cop, in the middle of the workshop, they approached me and asked me if I would like to do an interview for the BBC.
By Wednesday evening we had organised ourselves into "Affinity Groups". These groups of up to 12 people acted as a buddy system for the protests closer to the weekend. Each person was assigned different duties to cater for the group. So for example I was the facilitator and was in charge of the navigation (i.e. holding the map and finding out where the fuck we were). Others were in charge of medical supplies, organising our route with other groups, collecting vital statistics such as passport and phone numbers from the group, etc. Coming up to the day itself we were slightly all over the shop and seemingly uncoordinated which worried me, but we stuck together like glue and all looked out for each other all the time.
Thursday and things began to heat up. The previous evening during an informal campsite drinking session, two of our posse returned from seven hours of police captivity. They had been lifted buying gas masks in a hardware shop and had been detained and questioned, strip searched and then one of them was charged with carrying a weapon (a swiss army knife that she had been using earlier in the day to butter her bread). So needless to say this all put us that bit more on edge. This was the first day of demonstrations. This march was in support of immigrants.
We headed up to a large square on the hill of Genoa on the south side of the Red Zone 'pier' (Via XX Septembre). There was an enormous crowd converging here. The GSF had appealed this evening for the march to be calm as there were going to be lots of immigrants marching, and they would be the first to be lifted if there was any trouble. Their call was heeded and the march was entirely peaceful. My fears earlier on in the week of nobody turning up to the protests were laid to rest this evening. The media and GSF were expecting in the region of ten thousand to show up for the march, and in the end anywhere between three and five times that showed up.
There was a festive atmosphere on the march and everyone was in good form. Even the presence of the Carbineri watching from the sidelines didnt stop people chanting and singing. The crowd wound its way around the narrow streets and people were cheering us from their balconies. This is such a psychological boost when you are walking through the city. All the time you are led to believe that you're just a bunch of blow-ins, invading the locals territory. Seeing local people supporting you makes it that bit easier. A load of them were also hanging out their underwear out in protest at Berlusconi's remarks that their washing was making the city unsightly. Of course the probable truth was a lot of people who didnt support our protests had probably left the city for a few days, fearing the worst.
Friday was always going to be the messy one. The GSF had not called a single march that day. This was to be a day of 'civil disobedience' and was always going to be a potential for conflict because of the different groups and their actions at different points around the red zone. The differing political strands attached colours to their actions so affinity groups could join in with them conscious of what level of 'disobedience' they could expect. So at the start of the day, there were a multitude of colours converging on the fences. Whites, Blacks, Greens, Pink + Silver, Reds, and of course not forgetting the Blues on the other side. I decided to go with the Reds. I wanted to go with the Blacks because I would consider their political persuasion close to mine, but in the end I chickened out. I had never been to something like this before and wasnt really sure of what violence would be meted out. I didn't want to take any chances first time around.
Reds gathered in the campsite to go to the convergence centre. The German Autonomists and Insurrectionists were heading out the gate, tooled up to the max carrying blocks of wood with steel wrapped around the top. Others had motorbike helmets and sleeping mats cut up and sellotaped to their arms. We went down to the centre, met up with heads from the UK and other affiliated Red groups, and marched two hours ahead of schedule to the red zone fence at midday. On our way up the wide plaza towards Brignole Station, I glanced down to the right and saw a car ablaze. The shit had already started.
We walked up in a block to the red zone fence. Chanting and shouting, spirits were high. We reached the fence with a couple of large vans and a fair number of cops on the other side. The front line of the march started kicking and thumping the fence, and a couple of people started to scale it. A couple of people had ropes and started to try to pull off the top corner part of the fence with minimal success. This went on for a few minutes before the engine of the water cannon was switched on. We bunched up tight and donned our masks but the water cannon was ineffectual: spraying it through the fence meant that any force was weakened. Reportedly there was pepper spray in the water but I didnt seem to notice. The crowd didnt disperse and they turned the water off. And we surged forward again to the fence. People made attempts again to climb it or take it down, and that's when out of the corner of my eye I saw the advancing police on the right hand side down the side street. And then time slowed down.
For a second I was lying on the ground and I couldnt hear anything. Then I picked myself up and with an enormous rush the sound of the crowd flowed back into my head. The cops were hammering into the crowd with their batons. I was almost at the edge of the crowd and an English girl was freaking out, she was petrified, and I had to shout in her ear to link arms and hauled her into the mass of people. The police backed off quickly and the crowd regrouped a couple of hundred metres back. Wilma had been given a few whacks across the back which came up baton-shaped later on. Our medic Terry had caught one across the head and was bleeding and disorientated. He had to be brought away so I was now the medic for our Affinity Group.
We turned and went up the hill to a different red zone gate. We reached the gate, but this time the cops were on the near side of the fence. No way were we going through that. We stopped for a while so the ringleaders could discuss tactics. We decided to head back when all of a sudden behind us, a line of riot cops closed off our exit. We were now hemmed in on both sides with the police at the back slowly advancing. The tension was obviously incredible as people started to panic at the prospect of the cops attacking at both ends. We stood our ground as the leaders of the Red groups approached the cops and negotiated a group release.
They came back to us after talking to the cops in charge and told us we were going to be allowed leave. A huge collective sigh of relief. But we had to bunch up tightly and leave via a path which was about eight people wide. We formed a rectangle and those on the side of the crowd had to face sideways, i.e. right at the cops, while the others walked out. I was roped into it and we edged our way past them, our masks taken off. Passing by a line of smirking cops, thumping their batons against their shields, three metres from them is a hair raising experience. One in particular with a plaster across his nose was going beserk, primed for violence. People from both sides were trying to calm him down but he was shouting and squaring up as we passed. But we got out safe and unharmed, and walked down the hill to another fenced area where ATTAC France & Italy were symbolically invading the red zone with balloons.
There was a good atmosphere in this square. We met up with the people who arrived on the second Irish bus (their coach dropped them off next to the Convergence Centre as the police were firing tear gas on a Black Bloc). People were banging on the fence, a bloke with dreadlocks scaled the fence and flew a Jamaican flag. People hurled water bombs over the fence, along with flowers and various other bits and pieces. Attac came down with their long colourful balloons and over they went. We stayed here for about an hour, just to relax and regroup.
We then decided to push on again. People were getting into their groups to leave the square. Our Affinity group checked in with each other and we were striking off in good spirits. All of a sudden I heard this noise, like a firecracker going off. I looked up and the 'firecracker' had bounced off the traffic lights and split open... and was emitting a cloud of gas. INSTANT chaos. People ran every way they could, donning their masks. Me and Wilma ran one way and were then shepherded back another. People were shouting, stampeding, coughing, crying out for help.
At this stage it was about 5pm so after a break away from the gas, we decided to regroup back at the Convergence Centre. It was a long walk back and we were tired and hungry from the days exertions. Being baton charged and tear gassed was enough of a protest baptism for me, I was clean ready to go home. We strolled down at the Centre to see an adjacent bank ablaze and the area in a state of post-mayhem. Rocks strewn all over the road, burnt out dumpsters, smashed windows, people running around everywhere, smoke billowing from distant corners of the city, police sirens constantly wailing, and the helicopters constantly circling over head.
One incredible thing about this whole excursion was the rumour mill. The majority of us not having a word of Italian, we were constantly hungry for news about what was happening around the city. The rumour starts off like a small snowball at the top of a hill, with maybe a small grain of truth embedded in the middle somewhere. By the time it reaches the bottom of the hill, its out of control, nobody can stop it, and the truth is obscured. Some people thrived on it, and only made tense situations worse. Earlier on in the week I was actually woken up at 4am in my tent by a particularly edgy and nervous young girl from the Irish contingent who said she had heard a rumour that the police were going to raid the campsite, in about four hours time. Total bollocks of course. But I heard her running around to other tents, saying the same thing to others. Rumours get out of hand, people start believing anything and everything; the worst example was on the Saturday march when we all believed we had shut down the G8 conference. People were cheering and hugging and dancing and going beserk.
Saturday morning. Woke up and the population of the campsite had halved. All the German Black Bloc heads had upped and left. Some French and Italian people had a morning paper spread out on the bonnet of their car. In full colour, in graphic detail, they showed the sequence of events where Giuliani had been rioting, then shot, then rolled over. The GSF were also appealing for calm on today's march. Christian groups such as Drop The Debt had decided to drop out of todays march because of the violence. The mood among us was upbeat though despite the shit that had happened yesterday. The people at the convergence centre returned to the campsite and there was a meeting at midday so we could all walk to the march together.
We joined in near enough to the front of the march. It had started much earlier than planned because there were so many people assembling. The crowd was enormous and any time you looked back there was a huge river of people behind, with banners and flags, cheering and waving. I foolishly didnt bring my goggles or facemask to combat tear gas because I thought it would be all peaceful. We marched past a police station and it was a bit tense, people were screaming at the cops up on the hill just looking down on us. We marched down by the waterfront and then turned north, a fair bit away from the closest red zone entrance. At the top of the Piazza Kennedy where the cops had been training, a solid wall of blue were lined up with shields and guns. We turned the corner and away from the convergence centre.
It was a long march north in the sunshine, and my scalp was reddening from the sun. I smeared sun cream all over my head and the back of my neck. We were halfway up the road to the main square where the rally was taking place, when we had to stop from sheer volume of people. While we were stopped, a huge roar spread up throw the crowd, and people raised their arms like a Mexican wave. Everyone was wondering what was going on, and then some Italian guy next to us who spoke English told us that the G8 had closed down. Everyone started hugging each other and cheering and chanting and singing. I said to Wilma that I didnt believe it, although I really wanted to. It was still good though, for a brief moment we thought that people power could have achieved a shut down of the worlds power.
Down on the waterfront a riot was taking place... During the march about 2000 people had broken off and ran at the police lines. The police responded by firing tear gas. The crowd responded by overturning cars and setting them on fire, breaking up the concrete paving to use as missiles, and gutting out a bank. We were a good deal away from this, but the tear gas was still being fired to disperse the end of the march. We linked arms and turned to go back the way we came. All the time the gas was advancing and I was getting a bit freaked out because it felt much worse than yesterday's effects.
We walked away from the gas en masse, coughing and choking. My head still seared and ached, and we bumped into a load more Irish people. The crowd surged further north, and eventually we got into clear air and the congestion of people spread out a bit. After a long, long march away from the trouble, we headed back to the centre via a longer route. By this stage my legs were killing me and I wanted to sit down. The area around the convergence centre was a complete mess. Fires were still burning around town.
People arrived back in dribs and drabs, having been separated at the rally. Everyone seemed tired, both physically and mentally. We tucked into some food and bought a few bottles of red wine for back at the campsite. Everyone headed up to the site later on, and got locked. The atmosphere was strange in the campsite... people were trying to wind down after a stressful few days, but the drinking just fuelled people's tensions. People were rowing, shouting, running around. It didnt really make for a good last night. And at the height of the drunkenness, people were receiving phone calls from others who had seen the night raid on the Independent Media Centre.
Sunday morning was incredibly tense. News of the horrific IMC raid had spread and people were really freaked out by it. People were still being arrested around town. We were afraid that the police were going to raid our campsite. We just wanted to get our shit together and get the fuck out of Genoa. At one point a van screeched up to the gate, and we all ran to the side of the site, thinking this was it. My heart was at bursting point. People were still unaccounted for and took forever to come back to the site. The buses transporting people home arrived.
Back to the grindstone was tough. Work of course hadnt changed a bit. I was back doing the same shit again. I hadnt told anybody in there where I had gone, so all this shit was buzzing around my head and I didnt really have much of an outlet to vent it. It made me stressed and after a week of intense physical and mental exertion, I was never more bored being back in the same routine. I didnt feel like calling anyone for the first few days home, and the first weekend back I disappeared down the country, couldnt really hack being in a fucking crowded pub getting locked on a Saturday night.
Was it worth it? I'd like to think it was. At the start of the week a Socialist Worker head told me that it would change my life. I wouldnt go that far, but it was certainly an experience I'll never forget, and after being baton charged and tear gassed my sense of fear seems to have been dulled considerably. Its a strange sensation not being afraid any more... the following weekend I came within an inch of a very serious car crash in Cork and afterwards got back in the car and drove again, as if nothing had happened. This feeling both worries and excites me.
Would I do it again? Without hesitation. At the end of the day, above all the violence and fear, there was a true sense of friendship and solidarity built with strangers. I met amazing people and I had a new found respect for those who I wouldnt have given the time of day to before. Before the trip I would have dismissed out of hand the likes of Gluaiseacht as pacifist hippie wasters. Seeing them protest their own way with music and paint was really imaginative and their strong belief in non violence is commendable. As environmentalists they acted within their immediate sphere and cleaned the campsite regularly, separating out recyclable materials. Small things like this opened my mind a bit and I learned to respect other forms of resistance. I hope that other people there also gained what I did from the trip.
communicate: the.path