By Beth Trigg
Dear Friends and Loved Ones,
I'm writing to tell you about my experience in Washington, DC at the Mobilization for Global Justice actions. I was part of the A16 action, a massive gathering bringing together people from many movements to protest corporate globalization and to call for an end to the IMF and World Bank and their policies, which destroy our environment, oppress the peoples of the third world, and concentrate power in the hands of multinational corporations.
I have only seen a bit of the mainstream media coverage, but what I have seen makes me feel compelled to tell my own story. All of the television coverage I have seen, and most of the print media stories have focused on violent confrontations between police and protestors. My own experience was very different from what I have seen in the press: what I witnessed was testament to the power of nonviolence and of democratic, consensus-based decision making, and the beauty of people coming together to create change. I felt that we were part of some truly revolutionary moments in history.
Arriving on the first day at the Convergence Space, I was overwhelmed by the spirit of friendliness and solidarity between all different sorts of people who had never met before, and also by the incredible level of organization that somehow managed to co-exist with an atmosphere of fun. The Convergence Space was a combination carnival and school for social change. Dozens of beautiful, giant puppets leaned against the walls. A 20-foot long paper-mache monkey wrench and a huge, silver horse stood in the entryway. There were communal bikes, marked with gold spray paint, that anyone could use to get from place to place. People were sharing food, discussing strategy, and organizing workshops. There was a schedule of ongoing trainings posted, on subjects like nonviolent action, street medicine, and the legal aspects of civil disobedience. Art was happening everywhere.
Small affinity groups were meeting in every nook and cranny, discussing their strategies and expectations for the action. The rallying cry was "We have no leaders," and it truly felt that every person had a voice in the decision-making through a truly empowering process. Here's how it worked: each affinity group would send a spokesperson to the Spokescouncil meetings where the overall strategy was being planned. Affinity groups, which originated in anti-facist Spain in the 1930s, are an extremely effective tool in organizing direct action, and work well with the de-centralized, democratizing process of consensus, which draws from many sources: Quakerism, feminism, and anarchy, to name a few. I went to my first "Spokes" meeting on Friday night. I was near tears watching such a huge and diverse group of people -- union members, anarchist punks, environmentalists, witches, college students, grandmothers, peace activists, lawyers, artists, teachers, and so many others -- working together to build a common strategy for making change in our world. The process was respectful, inclusive, and efficient. Instead of there being "no leaders," it felt like there were many, many leaders -- leadership and power were being shared among all of us.
All day Friday while small groups were training and strategizing, we were also educating ourselves with a day-long teach-in on globalization, featuring 37 speakers from around the world. Jerry Mander emceed, and many amazing men and women spoke about the "unholy trinity" of the World Bank, the IMF, and the WTO, and the destruction they have wrought. We were gathered in a huge Methodist church. Vandana Shiva was there. Ralph Nader spoke, sounding nothing at all like a politician. Anuradha Mittal of Food First started the day by thanking us for coming to "kick ass." We heard about the link between militarization and globalization, as Jerry Mander put it, "The hidden hand of globalization cannot function without the hidden fist. McDonald's needs McDonnell Douglas."
A highlight for me was hearing Njoki Njehu of 50 Years Is Enough speak -- she started with a call to action: "the oppression is global, so the resistance must be global." She reminded those of us in the labor movement in the U.S. that "it is not workers in maquiladoras who are the enemies of workers in the U.S. who are losing their jobs. The enemies are not fellow workers -- they are the owners of capital." Njoki also quoted Howard Zinn: "What a difference it would make in our lives if instead of hearing how the Dow is doing every day, we hear about the 34,000 children who died that day from preventable diseases." Njoki closed with these words, her powerful voice filling the huge church with emotion: "Fighting for justice is not a choice. It is a moral imperative."
Later in the day, Kevin Danaher responded to those who ask, "But what would you put in the place of the World Bank/IMF/WTO?" He said, "That question is like asking, 'what would you put in the place of cancer?' The answer is: the absence of cancer." Being present for the A16 days of action gave us another answer to that question. We witnessed the alternative: power in the hands of people rather than corporations. We witnessed people working together, motivated by compassion and solidarity, to make change in our shared world. Vandana Shiva's vision of power in the hands of communities rather than of states or corporations, and Starhawk's vision of consensus as a means to exercise this power were being actualized all around us throughout the weekend.
There was a whole language to learn in this process: affinity groups could be either stationary or mobile. Mobile groups were called "flying squads." Groups were organized into clusters, and clusters could be joined into mega-clusters. Stationary groups committed themselves to a "slice." The area around the IMF and the World Bank was divided into pie slices, so each "slice" covered a certain geographic area. My group was made up of 9 people and one beautiful puppet, Esperanza, an indigenous woman in flowing robes with a gag reading "IMF" tied across her mouth. We were part of the Asheville cluster, along with a few other affinity groups and a flying squad, and as a cluster, we were part of "B-Slice," which covered the area directly south of the World Bank.
On the night before the action, we met with the Asheville cluster and outlined our plans. We practiced our nonviolent action techniques, discussed support logistics, and wrote the Midnight Special Legal Collective's phone number in permanent marker on our arms. We were prepared to risk arrest, and to practice "jail solidarity," -- not to "cite out" with a fine, but to stay in jail and overwhelm the system if arrested.
Our Slice gathered at Logan Circle at 5:00 am on Sunday. We processed in waves to our area, and fanned out to block all of the strategic intersections. Our group ended up at the intersection of 16th and K Streets, along with lots of other Asheville folks. When we got there, we worked with other groups to form lines in front of the police barricades to prevent anyone from getting to the meetings through our intersection. A small group locked down in front of the police lines, and the rest of us formed human blockades.
At first, many of us from Asheville felt very concerned about the unfocused, shrill and panicked feeling that seemed to characterize the atmosphere at our intersection. There was drumming with a distinctly military feel to it, there were a few macho, loud men leading chants, and a chaotic energy which verged on violence. We had begun to talk among ourselves about how we could alter this energy when the first few delegates tried to get through. They were surrounded by screaming, riled-up crowds, given no exit route, and terrified. This approach caused the police get nervous, to get out their clubs and begin trying to extricate the trapped delegates, hitting demonstrators and getting out their gas masks. After a couple of incidents like that, including one involving a very angry Wackenhut security guard (the Wackenhuts are a private army that guards U.S. nuclear sites -- who knows what they were doing at the World Bank), the feeling in the crowd was extremely tense and edgy. Many of us were afraid that continuing in this vein was likely to lead to escalation, and possibly to violence from the cops.
At this point, my affinity group recognized that what was missing was a group of people whose purpose was to center the larger group in nonviolence, and that we needed to fill the gap and become peace keepers. We began to circulate the crowd, talking with people about nonviolence and reminding them of specific tactics that had been agreed upon ahead of time. We demonstrated techniques to people from the legal trainings the day before-how to drop to a sitting position if the cops are moving toward you, how to pull someone who is being singled out back into the crowd with a technique called absorption, how to draw attention to violence by toning "Om," and pointing at the person who is being hurt. We talked about not letting the police dictate our tactics or attitudes, about maintaining an attitude of peace and loving kindness, about not using the master's tools to dismantle the master's house. We reminded everyone to block, not to surround, to leave the person an way to get out, and keep hatred and hostility out of our approach toward individual people. We talked with many people about the efficacy of disciplined nonviolence in the tradition of Gandhi and the U.S. Civil Rights Movement. Everyone I spoke with thanked us for helping ground the larger group in these tactics, and many talked about never having been part of direct action before, and said that their inexperience had made them fearful and uncertain.
Just as we were beginning this peace keeping work, an affinity group of grey-haired women, including Starhawk, arrived at our intersection. We knew that these were powerful women with a long history of action for social change and a deep understanding of revolutionary means and ends. We talked to them, and expressed our concerns about the panicked energy that we felt from the larger group, and asked for their help in grounding and centering the group. They drummed, led songs and chants, and wove a web of protection around the intersection with multi-colored pieces of yarn. Together, we sang the words, "We'll fill the streets with justice." Our affinity group continued the work of on-the-spot nonviolence training. Others began to pick up our reminders on strategy, yelling "leave them a way out," "hate the action, not the person," and "block, don't surround," when a delegate would try to get past, and together, we changed the energy from edgy and panicked to focused and strong.
We prevented several more people from getting though to the World Bank meetings. If ever there was a moment of potential violence, or a delegate tried to break through, the whole crowd would go quiet and begin intoning, "Om," pointing at the confrontation. I felt a overwhelmed with emotion, remembering one of my personal heroes, Allen Ginsberg, and the story of his meditative vigil in the face of police brutality in Chicago in 1968, but I also saw the plain, hard effectiveness of this tactic. In contrast to yelling "Shame," or focusing on the perpetrator in some other way, this tactic did not allow the police the power of controlling our actions by theirs, but instead focused our energy and attention on our brave brother and sister activists who were putting themselves in the path of confrontation. The delegates didn't know how to react to these tactics, and each time would eventually realize that they were not going to get through, and would turn around and walk back in the direction from which they had come.
Throughout the day, as we responded to changes in circumstances, we had to make spur-of-the-moment decisions as a group. Rather than the loudest or most insistent voices overpowering others in the crowd, we used the Spokescouncil model to make sure all voices were heard. Would we allow people with press passes through our lines? Would we continue holding our intersection even when other areas had been broken through? Would we allow some of our group to erect a make-shift barricade out of a dumpster and scrap metal? What would we do if confronted by cops in riot gear? We made all of these decisions using consensus. Our affinity group rotated spokes. I facilitated a tense meeting about the barricade -- it was a truly affirming moment when Starhawk spoke up, "The amazing thing is that we are standing here having this meeting. That we are all committed to the process and that we are making decisions this way, even under such pressure." And it was true; people had a chance to make their voices heard, and were willing to leave behind their personal attachment to positions and respect the decision of the group. Both individuality and community were celebrated and honored. I came away with the feeling that nonviolence and consensus were much harder than the easy ways out (violence and power-over) and much, much more revolutionary.
As the day went on, there were many deeply emotional moments -- the one that stands out most to me was when a group of American Indian Movement activists came to the center of our intersection and stood with a huge drum, drumming and singing. The whole crowd was silent, and even the cops were riveted. Many of us cried. It was as if we were bearing witness to the beauty and dignity of the indigenous cultures and people that have been obliterated by imperialism and capitalism in the history of the world. We burned sage and stood in vigil around the A.I.M. drum, mourning the decimation of indigenous peoples and strengthening our resolve to stand in the way of further destruction of indigenous people in our country and around the world. Throughout the day, roving groups of clowns or musicians came through to uplift our spirits and bolster our resolve. A group of teenagers and older women dressed in foam tree outfits paid us a visit. A banjo player treated us to a string of Woody Guthrie tunes. Some young butch riot grrrl cheerleaders led us in anti-corporate cheers. We held our intersection successfully and nonviolently all day.
In the afternoon, after it was clear that the police had broken through enough other spots that they had a clear passage, we joined the massive victory parade through the streets, chanting, "Who are we? We're the people!" In the face of these institutions which operate in secrecy without the voices of the people whose lives are affected by their policies, we were calling out our demand for democracy, for people power, for human rights, for a safe and healthy environment, for economic justice. In the streets and in our internal process, we were demanding, and enacting, a radical new vision for our communities and our world. I felt that the revolution was happening -- that it was an ongoing, daily process from here on out -- and that I was part of it!
Peace.
--Beth Trigg
Copyright (c) 2000 by Starhawk. All rights reserved. This copyright protects Starhawk's right to future publication of her work. Nonprofit, activist, and educational groups may circulate this essay (forward it, reprint it, translate it, post it, or reproduce it) for nonprofit uses. Please do not change any part of it without permission. Readers are invited to visit the web site: www.starhawk.org.